Chapter 212: Silverleaf Academy (LX)

“She’s not stable,” Helena muttered, barely able to hold her barrier up as she saw Vivian’s actions.

“She’s past control…”

Vivian wasn’t acting normal, and it seemed that her transformation had made her whole personality change, which could be extremely bad.

But Helena’s gaze suddenly turned as she noticed Ruby approaching her.

Ruby, slumped behind a broken archway, turned her bloodied face up, forcing her eyes to stay open.

Her left arm hung at her side, completely limp, her shoulder coated in dried blood. Her right eye was swollen shut. She was still alive, but not by much.

“Vivian… she’s… burning too hot.”

Helene gritted her teeth.

“I know!”

Then—

Regulus rose at last, staggering slightly. He looked toward the flames that wreathed Vivian’s silhouette, and, with a hoarse voice, shouted:

“My Saintess!”

Far across the battlefield, past ruined pillars and cracked walls, the Saintess of Ashes turned her head. Her expression hadn’t changed once.

But her eyes lit with soft fire as she responded to the call.

Vivian’s eyes twitched as she saw her approaching. “Oh? Finally stepping in, are you, choir girl?”

Regulus didn’t wait.

He stepped back, behind the Saintess, allowing her form to take the front line.

“Protect me,” he said simply.

The Saintess stopped in front of him and raised one hand, her fingers glowing softly with ethereal flame.

Without a word, a veil of white fire spread from her palm, shielding Regulus in a delicate sphere of protective radiance.

“Wow. And here I thought you were the monster. Guess even false gods need a babysitter.” Vivian snorted.

Regulus didn’t reply.

His staff, though broken, still hummed with what remained of his divine authority. And now, beside the Saintess, his expression steadied.

“This world cannot afford to let you awaken fully,” he said coldly. “If your seal completely breaks, nothing will survive. Not even the church.”

The Saintess remained silent, her body glowing gently with the holy power of someone born for nothing but sacrifice.

Vivian’s grin grew wider.

“Cute. Two against one now? Should I call that fair… or desperate?”

Behind them, Helene made her decision.

She turned, rushing through the smoking rubble toward Ruby’s side, her body moving on instinct, even as pain flared in her ribs.

Ruby’s breathing was shallow, her lips cracked and red.

“Don’t… don’t waste time on me,” she coughed.

“She needs you.”

“Needs me?” Helene almost chuckled. “My measly strength wouldn’t change anything. Besides, you can’t even lift your arm. If you pass out now, you’ll bleed out in minutes.”

She knelt beside the headmistress and placed her hand gently over Ruby’s chest.

Pheww~

A soft thread of energy connected them, making Ruby’s pain dulled, her eyes fluttering softly as if relieved.

“Just rest for now.”

Back at the center of the battlefield—

Vivian stood alone now, facing two of the most terrifying figures in the Empire’s Church: the Saintess of Ashes and the Pope himself.

And yet, she laughed.

Flames spun around her body, tighter and hotter than ever, pulsing like a second heartbeat.

“I don’t know what’s more pathetic,” she said with a crooked smile, “that you need backup to kill one ‘abomination’…”

She raised her hand, and fire bled from her palm.

“Or that you still think you can.”

The Saintess moved first.

Without a word, she pointed her finger, and a stream of divine fire shot forward, faster than arrows, forming wings of incinerating light.

Vivian snapped her wings shut.

『 Void Flame: Embershell Cloak! (✯ 8th-Level Spell ✯) 』

CRRRRRSHHHH!!!

The flames struck, and the explosion that followed ruptured the ground.

A fresh space crack tore open behind Vivian, horizontal this time, like a mouth splitting the air, blinking open.

She emerged from the inferno, panting slightly, one shoulder scorched but already healing. Her grin never left.

“Alright, let’s turn this place into a graveyard.”

The flames had barely cleared when Vivian surged forward like a phantom.

Her cloak whipped behind her like a banner of fire. Her eyes instantly locked onto the Saintess of Ashes.

“You’re first.”

『 Void Flame: Raven’s Maw! (✯ 8th-Level Spell ✯) 』

A massive claw of black fire, shaped like a raven’s beak, erupted from her hand and lunged forward, its edges rippling reality, tearing open small space fractures in its wake like cracks crawling along a mirror.

The Saintess lifted both arms calmly.

『 Divine Veil: Sevenfold Halo (✯ 8th-Level Holy Spell ✯) 』

Seven luminous rings spun around her, forming a perfect geometric barrier.

CRAAASHHH!!!

Vivian’s spell collided.

The scream of twisting flame against sacred light was unbearable, like steel screeching across bone.

Sparks and holy embers burst out like a firework of divine judgment, each one falling to the earth and opening hairline space rifts.

The Saintess’s robes fluttered as she stood unmoved.

“Your flames burn with hatred,” she said calmly, as if stating a fact.

“But mine burns in the name of salvation.”

Vivian hissed.

“Shut up.”

She vanished.

BOOM—!!

Vivian reappeared mid-air behind the Saintess, spinning.

『 Inferno Art: Lotus Kick! (✯ 7th-Level Spell ✯) 』

Her heel, wrapped in hellfire, slammed down. The Saintess turned and caught it barehanded.

Their power collided.

The sky shattered, literally. A wide fracture of space opened above them, and black static leaked out of the heavens like a divine wound left open to rot.

Regulus finally acted.

『 Divine Pillar: Heavenfall Judgement! (✯ 9th-Level Spell ✯) 』

An enormous spear of golden scripture fell from the sky, spinning like a drill of light, aimed directly for Vivian’s heart.

Vivian’s pupils constricted.

She didn’t block.

She raised her arms—

『 Void Flame: Absorption Maw! (✯ 9th-Level Spell ✯) 』

From her chest, a gnashing, flaming mouth opened, one of fire and shadows, its teeth made of runes, its throat glowing like a supernova.

It bit the pillar.

And ate it.

BOOOOOM!!!

The backlash rocked the battlefield.

The mouth vanished, Vivian’s chest was scorched, but the spell was gone, devoured.

She spat blood.

“Didn’t like that…”

Then she grinned wider.

“Do it again.”

“Monster.” the Pope’s eyes narrowed.

Beside him, the Saintess flung out her arms. A hymn without sound echoed through the broken air.

『 Silent Hymn: Ash Crown Lament! (✯ 9th-Level Holy Spell ✯) 』

Pale gray fire surged around her, forming a halo of burning ash, each ember pulsing like a dying heartbeat. It swept across the field, burning Vivian’s flames out of the air.

Vivian coughed.

She stumbled, and her wings faltered for a moment.

The Saintess stepped forward, slowly, each movement crushing the ashes beneath her like snow.

“You cannot win this.”

But Vivian… only smiled.

A wide, sharp, malicious smile.

She spread her wings again.

“No… I haven’t even started.”

Her flames collapsed inward—

Her aura pulsed once, and the ground around her died.

A spiral of black and crimson bloomed beneath her feet. The surrounding air warped, like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to be hot or cold.

Then she raised both arms, forming an enormous sigil above her—one that did not belong to this world.

『 Void Flame: Crown of the End-Sun! (✯ 10th-Level Devil Spell ✯) 』

The sky howled.

A sun began to form above them, not yellow or orange.

But a black color, an utterly black one.

It’s core pulsed like a heart.

Its outer layers spun like a devouring galaxy, dragging space itself into it. Stars bled around its edges. The heat made Regulus step back unconsciously.

“That…” he whispered.

“That’s not magic. That’s blasphemy…!”

The Saintess didn’t wait.

She flashed forward, spears of ash in both hands.

Vivian blinked.

She took one step forward to meet her—

And the battlefield became a slaughter.

Spear and claw, flame and hymn, angel and devil, collided in a blur that shattered the earth.

Each blow opened space.

Each spell ripped sound apart.

Regulus, trying to keep up, flung his staff high.

『 Divine Decree: Judgment Gate! (✯ 10th-Level Holy Spell ✯) 』

A giant arch of light fell from the heavens, nearly the size of the ruined temple, covered in verses written in a lost divine tongue.

It opened midair and began to drain all demonic energy into it.

If one saw this fight, they would start to think that tenth-level spells were just an ordinary thing, but no, it really wasn’t.

“HAAAAR!” Vivian screamed in fury.

She exploded forward again, no longer just casting spells but fighting like a beast.

She grabbed the Saintess by the face and slammed her into the dirt, dragging her through solid marble.

Then she twisted, just in time to meet Regulus’s staff mid-swing.

CLANG!!!

The sound rang out like a bell, followed by an implosion of gold and crimson.

Both were flung back.

The Saintess rose slowly, blood now trickling from her temple.

Vivian knelt.

One leg snapped, healing visibly.

She spat, half-laughing, half-wheezing.

“This… is the end, you fuckers.”

Behind her, the Crown of the End-Sun completed its formation.

Space twisted into ribbons around it.

Even Regulus faltered.

“No… no, you’ll destroy everything—!”

Vivian stood, raising one hand toward her creation.

“Let it all burn.”

FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

CRACCCCCKLLLEEEE!

The moment the Crown of the End-Sun completed its bloom, the entire sky turned black.

The sun itself was devoured, eaten by that accursed sphere, its edges dripping with stardust and voidfire.

The battlefield quaked, trees cracked.

The temple’s ruins crumbled into dust. Reality wept, split open by spiraling space fractures, each one twisting deeper, deeper, into something that should not exist.

And at the center of it all…

Vivian stood.

Her arm was broken again, her legs scorched, wings torn, and regenerating slowly. Her tail dragged on the floor like the blade of a fallen god.

She raised her hand.

“Burn.”

The sun obeyed her words.

FWOOOOOOOOOM!!

A blast erupted, an orbital strike of black-red hellfire. It wasn’t light, not anymore. It was pure incineration. The beam tore through the world like a divine punishment in reverse.

It slammed down where Regulus and the Saintess stood.

They had no time to run.

Regulus screamed, flinging every last barrier he had—

『 Radiant Ward: Eternal Crown Shield!!! (✯ 9th-Level Spell ✯) 』

But it didn’t matter, as The Crown of the End-Sun was not meant to be stopped.

KRAAAAAAAAAAAASH!!!

A wave of annihilation swallowed the holy barriers, the ground, the church, even the air. Heat didn’t just scorch; it erased. Light didn’t just blind; it unwrote.

The earth split open.

The sky cracked again, longer this time, a vertical fissure stretching from horizon to horizon, bleeding stars.

And when the light finally faded…

Only silence remained.

A moment passed.

Then another.

Vivian stumbled forward, coughing smoke, her cloak in tatters.

Her flames dimmed slightly, just enough to reveal—

Regulus lay far to the side.

His body was half-crushed, one leg twisted unnaturally.

And his right arm was missing, gone completely.

His staff broke in two beside him.

He was still alive, barely, but breathing like a dying animal. His mouth opened, but no words came out. Only blood.

And the Saintess of Ashes…

She no longer stood.

Her body lay skewered against the remains of a shattered statue. Half of her had been vaporized. Her right shoulder, torso, and face, gone.

Only charred bone and robes remained.

One eye still glowed faintly, and then dimmer.

Forever.

Vivian didn’t smile.

She didn’t laugh.

She just stood still, surrounded by fire and silence.

Her breath was ragged.

Her body was shaking, not from pain.

But something else.

An ache she couldn’t name.

Then—

She felt it.

A shift in the air.

No wind.

No sound.

Just—

A disappearance, like something had left the world for a moment.

Her eyes widened as she felt a presence behind her, making her turn around.

And there, behind her, stood a boy.

Beautiful silver hair… touched with faint strands of black, his eyes were half-lidded, and his expression was unreadable.

Blood stained his boots, though none seemed to be his.

And yet, the moment Vivian’s gaze met his—

Her heart dropped.

Her flames flickered.

And for the first time…

She looked afraid.

“…A-Aestrea…”

Vivian is too badass.