CHAPTER 231: FRACTAL VEIL [9]

Vice Principal Seris leaned back in her chair, her arms crossed as she studied the rows of floating screens before her.

Each one showed different groups of students scattered across the wide simulation.

The faint hum of the projection devices filled the quiet chamber, the only sound aside from the occasional shuffle of robes from the professors who stood behind them.

Principal Lucian watched with a steady gaze, his hands clasped behind his back.

His expression gave little away, but when he noticed more students beginning to cooperate, a small nod slipped from him.

"They’re learning," He murmured, half to himself.

"They don’t have a choice," Seris replied.

The test had been designed for that very purpose, not to measure how many monsters the students could cut down, but to force them to think, to lean on one another, to face the truth of the world outside the academy.

The calm walls of their classrooms and the steady rhythm of training exercises could never prepare them for the reality beyond the gates.

Monsters didn’t care for talent. Survival demanded unity, resourcefulness, and above all else... resilience.

Most students, by their second year, began to understand this truth naturally.

But these first years were being thrown into it now.

A necessary cruelty, Seris believed.

Better to break their illusions here than out in the wild, where hesitation meant death.

On the monitors, the beasts stirred with more aggression.

The creatures had been set to grow stronger the longer the midterms continued, their movements faster, their strikes sharper.

The students didn’t know this... at least, not yet.

But they would soon.

Lucian’s voice broke the silence, smooth and even, yet tinged with something like amusement.

"It’s going well so far. Still..." He tilted his head, eyes narrowing slightly.

"Let’s spice things up, shall we?"

Seris’s lips curved into a knowing smile.

"As expected of you."

She leaned forward, her eyes scanning the shifting displays until they paused on one screen.

Her finger rose, tapping against the glowing surface.

The image expanded, sharpening its view.

A boy with golden hair moved with practiced precision, his long sword flashing in the pale light as he cut down the creatures in his path.

Behind him, his group stayed close, letting him hold the line.

"Well, well..."

Seris murmured, her smile widening as her reflection glimmered faintly in the screen.

"...Our Rank One is holding up nicely."

The professors leaned in, curious, but Seris didn’t take her eyes off the boy.

With a slow, deliberate motion, she adjusted the control panel.

"Let’s give him a present, shall we?"

’Other high-ranked students are not far from his position.’

The monitor’s glow reflected in her golden eyes, the faintest trace of excitement flickering there as the exam shifted once again.

———————

"Ungh..."

Cedric groaned as he dragged himself up from the rubble.

Stone scraped against his arms, dust clinging to his shoulders when he rose.

Blood ran warm down the side of his face, and his skull throbbed with every second.

His back screamed from the fall, yet he forced his body upright.

This wasn’t the second floor anymore.

His eyes darted across the ruin.

Above him, the ceiling gaped open, jagged beams and shattered stone dangling like broken fangs.

They had fallen all the way through. The ground floor.

The academy’s courtyard, once polished and bright, had become unrecognizable.

Beyond the shattered walls, the sky burned red.

That light was bloody, unrelenting, bathed the ruins in a glow of red sky.

From the cracks in the ground, black roots writhed upward, pulsing with rotten crimson flesh that twitched as though it were alive.

"That... thing,"

He muttered, voice low.

The mammoth. One strike from that monster had ripped through two floors.

His jaw tightened.

Around him, the students he had saved lay strewn across the wreckage.

Some groaned as they tried to crawl free, blood streaking their torn

uniforms. Others didn’t move at all.

They wouldn’t have died from the fall, their awakened bodies had saved them. But the rest was unavoidable. Broken bones. Shattered ribs. Pain.

Cedric pressed a palm against his sword’s hilt, using it to steady himself as he stood up.

His breath came ragged, but his eyes swept the wreckage.

’Where is it? Where’s that thing?’

His instincts screamed.

He twisted, blade flashing down with the last of his strength.

Steel met stone.

The boulder split clean in two, collapsing on either side of him. Shards skittered across the courtyard, sparks dancing in the red light.

His heart pounded hard.

’That was too close.’

Behind him, cries of pain rose as other students were crushed under smaller pieces of debris.

The air filled with the sound of stone breaking, dust choking the ground.

More rubble rained down.

Cedric moved.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

His sword flashed again and again, deflecting shards before they could pierce him.

Sparks flew each time steel struck stone.

He shifted his stance, intercepting the ones that would have skewered the injured students behind him.

He couldn’t protect everyone. He knew that. But he would not stand still and watch more bodies fall.

Then he saw it.

Through the haze, the mammoth rose.

"PWWAAAARRRHHHH!"

The sound tore the air apart. Dust and stone slid from its body as it shook itself free, the courtyard trembling under its weight.

Steel-plated tusks gleamed beneath the red light, curved and massive, thick as tree trunks.

Its black and white fur rippled as the wounds from the fall closed before

Cedric’s eyes.

Flesh knit together. Cracks vanished.

The beast was healing.

"...Tch."

Cedric’s grip tightened around his sword.

The beast’s glowing eyes fixed on him, he moved before.

His boots cracked the stone beneath him as he surged forward, longsword bursting to life in golden flame.

The fire clung to his sword, wrapping the steel in a brilliance that shimmered like molten sunfire.

It blazed as he swung down, every muscle in his body straining behind the strike.

Steel met flesh.

Sparks scattered, golden flames hissing against fur as thick as armor.

His blade cut shallow, the heat leaving only a scorched mark along the beast’s shoulder. Barely a wound.

The mammoth roared.

Its trunk whipped forward, a blur of steel and flesh. Cedric raised his weapon, but the sheer weight of the blow hurled him like a ragdoll.

His body tore through a cracked pillar, stone exploding around him as pain ripped through his ribs.

His breath caught, almost broken. Still, he swallowed the scream.

He rolled to his knees. His hand drew a magic circle in the air, the lines of mana burning bright.

[Solar Burst]

A sphere of golden fire shot forward, striking the mammoth’s chest.

BOOM.

The courtyard shook.

Dust and smoke curled in the red light. For a moment, hope stirred in him.

But when the haze cleared, the Mammoth still stood. Its black-and-white fur was singed, nothing more.

It stepped closer, the earth trembling beneath its weight.

Cedric spat blood and forced himself upright.

His vision blurred, his legs screamed to give out, but he lifted the sword once more. Golden sparks crawled along the blade, growing into fire.

The mammoth lifted a tusk, and the air itself turned against him.

Wind gathered, howling like a storm. Rubble tore from the ground, broken stone and twisted steel, before the wind magic sent it hurtling toward him.

[Fire Shield]

Flames flared into a barrier before him.

The barrage crashed against it, shards sizzling as they struck the burning wall.

His teeth clenched, sweat dripping into his eyes. The shield buckled under the weight.

Crk-crk-crk

The sound of cracking flame sharp in his ears.

Then the beast charged.

The barrier shattered like glass.

Cedric barely rolled aside as the tusk slammed into the ground.

The floor erupted, a shockwave of stone and dust knocking him back.

His lungs burned as he coughed in the haze, ears ringing.

Mana poured into his sword until the flames burned white-gold. The weapon pulsed with heat, too bright to look at directly.

[Radiant Strike]

With a roar, Cedric leapt, his blade crashing down on the mammoth’s skull.

The courtyard lit up in searing light.

Flames engulfed the beast’s head, fur blackening, stone melting under the heat. For a heartbeat, Cedric saw it stagger.

Then the trunk came.

It struck him like a battering ram.

His body smashed into the far wall, stone caving beneath the impact. His sword clattered from his hand.

Blood rose in his throat as his chest heaved. His arms shook, but his limbs refused him. Pain crawled through every vein.

The mammoth’s shadow loomed, smoke rising from its scorched body.

Its tusk lifted high, glinting in the red glow. One strike, and he would be nothing more than blood on the wall.

Cedric’s eyes widened. He tried to move, but his body betrayed him. His arms trembled, useless.

And then...

The ground split.

From the broken stone, black tendrils of shadow erupted. They coiled upward, thick and alive, lashing tight around the mammoth’s legs and tusks.

Cedric froze.

His eyes widened as the courtyard twisted with living shadow, writhing and hissing like a nest of serpents.

"What... the..."

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