CHAPTER 344: CLAPBACK

Author’s Note: Do Not Unlock Yet. Chapter Is Still Under Construction.

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He snorted.

"Cute."

Victor inhaled slowly, then activated his Void Emperor Bloodline.

At once, his body reacted—hair rising weightlessly, skin glowing faintly as arrow-like markings illuminated his form. Space trembled around him like stretched cloth, and the entire chamber suddenly... changed.

Not physically.

But in perception.

The whirring sound was no longer sound. It was displacement.

Temporal displacement.

Small shoals of symbols—translucent markings drifting through the air like swimming fish—shifted and phased in and out of reality. Whenever one of these touched a person, it reset their position to a "checkpoint," making them repeat the same path endlessly.

To someone without spatial sensitivity, it was perfect.

To Victor?

It was like walking into a room full of people waving neon signs.

"Oh, you guys are really outdated," he said with a grin. "Did no one update your trapping system in the last few thousand years?"

He slid forward. Shadow Blink activated. He phased around the temporal symbols with graceful flickers—stepping between slivers of warped space like navigating a crowded street.

Every loop marker he avoided caused the chamber to shift subtly, until finally...

He reached a massive set of double doors.

They stood nearly fifty meters tall, made of a frozen material that glowed faintly with an inner blue light. Two towering statues flanked them—one shaped like a humanoid with three eyes and six hands, the other a beast with curling horns and layered icy scales.

Victor exhaled.

"Well... nothing horrifying about this at all."

He pushed.

The doors groaned as they opened, their weight echoing through the vast chamber behind him.

And then—

Victor’s jaw nearly detached itself from his face.

Because beyond those doors was not a room.

Not a cave.

Not another chamber.

But an entire city.

An ancient underground civilization, sprawled across an icy hollow the size of a mountain range.

Buildings carved from translucent ice rose like crystalline spires. Bridges of frozen light connected towers that twisted upward like spirals. Streets wound in elegant looping arcs. Glowing runes floated in the air, illuminating everything in shimmering blue.

And the inhabitants—

Victor’s brain momentarily shut down from overload.

Dozens—no, hundreds—of beings moved across the icy streets.

Some tall, slender figures with luminous skin like polished opal. Some short, furry creatures with crystalline horns. Others had four arms and glowing veins. Some walked, some floated, some crawled.

Not a single creature resembled anything Victor had ever read about.

"...Okay," he whispered. "What in the frozen hells is all this?"

Before he could recover his wits, two of the nearest beings turned in his direction. They had elongated faces, icy-blue skin, and their eyes glowed like azure lanterns. They stiffened as they noticed him.

Victor instinctively raised a hand.

"Uh... hi. I swear I’m friendly and not here to steal anything... except maybe one gem—but that was an accident."

The beings froze.

Then dozens more turned.

Then hundreds.

Silence spread like frost.

Victor swallowed.

"...You guys don’t happen to have visitor passes, do you?"

One of the taller beings stepped forward, the ground cracking lightly under its weight as its crystalline claws touched the surface.

Its voice echoed like cracking ice:

"A surface-dweller...?"

Another whispered:

"For the first time in millennia..."

A third hissed:

"Impossible... unless the seal above has weakened."

Victor forced a nervous smile.

"Okay, okay, time-out. Before anyone decides to stab me, can we all appreciate that I’m just as confused as you are?"

The crowd murmured.

And then—the air shifted.

At the far end of the ice city, something stirred.

A massive presence.

Heavy enough to make Victor’s bones vibrate.

He tensed.

"Oh come on... don’t tell me I just unlocked the final boss area by walking in."

Lights flickered across the city.

Whispers spread like wind.

And Victor realized one thing:

Whatever he had stumbled into...

It wasn’t abandoned.

It wasn’t forgotten.

It was waiting.

And now, it had noticed him.

---sss

"Victor! Elyra! You guys handle those two monsters... leave the rest to us!" Felix yelled in determination as he charged alongside the other students into the midst of the Drakenar army.

Victor smiled and nodded as his hair floated higher and the markings on his skin glowed brighter.

"Elyra. On my mark," he voiced while raising his sword high.

She nodded while channeling everything into her next strike.

Victor channeled a storm of wind and spat Skyfire Spiral into it.

The storm and blazing wheel of flame spun forward, disrupting the battlefield.

Maro and Garo tried to resist but their figures were pulled into it, spinning them across the air continuously as the spiraling blades of flames hacked into their bodies.

As the attack got extinguished, Victor once more activated Shadow Cresent strike, sending a powerful attack surging forward.

At that exact instant, Elyra’s blade fell as she activated one of her most powerful warrior skills as well.

"World Split: Exploding Silver!"

Her strike slashed forward like a silver crescent of annihilation.

For an instant, qi and Mana accepted each other...

The two attacks merged midair, creating an inferno wrapped in silver light that crashed into the Drakenar brothers.

The explosion rocked the world, creating a blast that disintegrated everything within a 100 meter radius, generating a multicolored mushroom cloud.

Numerous Drakenars in the surroundings were blasted across the air from the residual impact and even students had to activate mana shields to protect themselves.

When the smoke cleared, both Maro and Garo were sprawled at the bottom of a crater with their monstrous forms mangled, scales cracked and magma leaking like blood.

They were both missing one or two limbs and were on the verge of death.

It was surprising that they didn’t instantly meet their end from that powerful attack but nevertheless, the battle had ended.

Victor staggered beside Elyra with his glowing skin dimming as his bloodline receded.

He rolled his shoulders with a wince. "Well," he rasped while wiping blood from his lips, "guess teamwork makes the dream work."

...

...

~ Sector K-22 ~

The massive red circle was still glowing ominously in the sky. Its throbbing runes emitted a deep, rhythmic ting that seemed to gnaw at the very mind of anyone who stared too long.

Dozens of mana defense officers were scattered around with grim faces.

Instructors, tactical mages, and field engineers worked frantically to contain the area. Instructor Rukia who looked disheveled with her uniform ripped in several places, stood at the front of the barricade, facing a group of newly arrived reinforcements.

A deafening roar tore through the sound of chaos as hundreds of awakened reinforcements arrived via teleportation platforms.

At their head was a mountain of a man: Commander Draegon Vask, a Level 72 Berserker-class awakened, easily identifiable by the scarlet aura flickering around his body like fire contained in human flesh.

He was a walking engine of destruction, having over two meters of pure muscle and menace. His crimson eyes scanned the field with cold fury before locking onto instructor Rukia.

"Report. Now." His voice rumbled like thunder.

Rukia took a sharp breath. "Sir, the anomaly—codename Red Circle—manifested without any detectable mana surge. It activated approximately five minutes after the students got on the transport pods."

A lean woman with an eyepatch in green scaled armor who happened to be Draegon’s lieutenant, interrupted her harshly. "And you’re saying this thing—" she pointed toward the glowing red circle "—just appeared out of nowhere and conveniently targeted only the students?!"

Rukia nodded. "Yes. It locked onto the transport pods—specifically those with students onboard. It bypassed our mana defenses like they weren’t even there."

Murmurs broke out among the reinforcements. Someone swore under his breath. Another whispered, "Targeted teleportation? That’s not random magic. That’s precision sorcery."

Rukia continued with a tone of frustration and clenched fists. "Out of over six hundred students, we managed to pull back about a hundred. The rest..." she looked up, "...were consumed... and two of our S ranked students went in after them against my command."

The lieutenant slammed a gauntleted fist into her palm. "Consumed?! You mean you lost them!" She stepped closer, shouting directly in Rukia’s face. "How could you lose two S-ranked students among them? TWO!"

A heavy silence fell briefly.

Rukia didn’t flinch but her tired eyes remained resolute as she met the lieutenant’s fury head-on. "We’d have lost more if it wasn’t for the those two S ranked students. We did everything possible with the resources we had but it just wasn’t enough. They both chose to jump into that circle to rescue their friends. I take full responsibility for the failure."

Draegon studied her quietly, before finally asking, "How many are trapped?"

"Estimated five hundred and thirteen students, sir," Rukia said softly.

The lieutenant scoffed. "Five hundred students, two S-ranks, and possibly who knows how many future elites of the academy—gone because you ’did everything possible.’ Ridiculous!"

Rukia ignored her and continued. "Sir, I request authorization to form an infiltration team. We can still—"

But Draegon raised his hand, silencing her instantly. "Enough." He turned his gaze toward the swirling crimson formation. "If that circle truly rejects anyone not recognized as a student, you know what that means."

The officers behind him muttered nervously.

Rukia frowned. "You think... it’s a selective dimensional gate?"

Draegon nodded grimly. "Somehow... someway... someone wants to weaken the future of humanity. If we try to force our way in, it might trigger a complete collapse—or an explosion that could erase half this sector."

"Then what do we do?" one of the defense officers asked desperately. "Wait for it to—what, finish its course?"

The Berserker commander’s eyes narrowed. "If it cannot be breached safely, then we revisit the option of sealing it."

Rukia’s eyes widened. "Sir, that could trap the students permanently! If they’re alive in there, you’d be condemning them!"

His lieutenant spoke up coldly. "Better to lose five hundred than risk the lives of thousands. That circle’s energy output is already beyond the containment limits of this sector and it continues to sap the mana in the atmosphere. There’s no telling what else it might do if allowed to run its full course."

Rukia took a step forward and begged with a defiant tone. "Please! At least try! Don’t just give up on them. Those are our students—our responsibility! Let me go in—"

"No," Draegon interrupted. "You’re injured, your mana reserves are unstable, and even if you weren’t... that circle doesn’t permit outsiders. Didn’t you already try to breach it yourself?"

Instructor Rukia next words got caught in her throat as he turned away from her. "But..." He glanced back with a flicker of respect flashing in his eyes. "I’ll give it one attempt."

Rukia’s lips parted in shock. "You—?"

"I’ll test its threshold myself," he stated. "If the circle rejects me and remains unbreachable even with brute force, we seal it immediately. If it doesn’t—" He cracked his knuckles, and an ominous grin curved across his scarred face. "Then I’ll drag every one of them back by force."

Rukia lowered her head with a thankful gaze. "Thank you, Commander."

He nodded once, then motioned to his subordinates. "Everyone, fall back one hundred meters! Mana shields at full capacity. If this thing blows, you run."

The officers scrambled into formation as the defensive barriers flared to life in multiple concentric circles of glowing blue.

Then Draegon exhaled as the ground trembled beneath his feet.

His muscles expanded and his veins glowed like liquid magma. The crimson aura around him erupted into violent arcs of energy like a living flame devouring the air.

The sheer pressure forced weaker officers to their knees.

"Berserker Skill: Titan’s Wrath—Unbound Form!"

His roar cracked the sky like thunder, sending shockwaves that rippled through the entire sector.

Draegon grinned savagely while looking up. "Let’s see what you’ve got."

He crouched low, then launched himself into the air causing the earth to shatter beneath the force of his leap.

His aura burned bright enough to rival the sun as he shot straight toward the heart of the red circle.

...

...

~ Beyond The Circle ~

The crimson glow in the sky vibrated violently, spreading over the battlefield like a living wound in the heavens.

Flames burned across shattered plains where the last remnants of the Drakenar legions clashed with the students from the Awakened Academy.

Charred corpses littered the field from both human and Drakenar alike while the blood-red circle in the sky throbbed with ominous energy.

Victor’s chest heaved as he exhaled sharply. The fight against Garo and Maro had already drained much of his qi, but the moment Elyra turned her gaze toward the west, he knew it wasn’t over yet.

Her violet eyes glowed faintly, reflecting the waves of mana surging in that direction.

"From the moment I got here, I could feel it," Elyra voiced with a serious tone.

"Massive mana concentrations. Whoever’s behind this... they’re over there. And it’s not just one person."

Victor followed her gaze, narrowing his eyes. Even though he couldn’t sense mana like she could, he could see what lay ahead.

Strange geometric lines of energy floated through the air.

A bunch of magical matrixes, connected by crimson streams that stretched like veins through the battlefield.

Each one led back to a single point... the tall, reptilian feminine figure in black and crimson robes with her hands dancing through the air as her lips murmured incantations.