Smoke still curled from the wounds of the earth, trailing behind Albedo as he sprinted through the ruined rainforest with Morgana in his arms. Her blood had soaked into his shirt, but she was alive, breathing, barely conscious, but alive.

Behind him, Zeus lumbered forward, his entire body a patchwork of bruises, gashes, and dried blood. He didn't speak. Didn't joke.

His breaths came like thunderclaps, each one heavier than the last. His legs trembled, but he refused to collapse. Not yet.

They emerged through a curtain of vines, stumbling onto the muddy edge of the corrupted lake biome. A sudden gust of damp wind hit their faces.

Unlike the rainforest, this place was eerily quiet, the ground waterlogged, the air tinged with rot and stagnant mana.

Dozens of students had gathered here.

The survivors.

Some sat or knelt in the muck, gasping for breath, their armor scorched and cracked. Others stood in uneasy circles, weapons drawn, watching for more attacks. They came from every class, every background, all drawn by the same need:

Survival.

Miranda and Elara were both there. They walked around the wounded, using whatever magic they could to mend fractured bones and heal injuries the best they could.

Veronica stood beside them, directing new arrivals to defensive positions, her voice calm even as her hands trembled.

Lucian paced the lake's perimeter like a caged beast, his sword never once sheathed, his eyes scanning the dark waters for any sign of movement.

Dorian sat near her, one arm in a sling, flipping his golden coin like a ritual as he stared out in a daze, wondering when the Professors were gonna come and save them from death.

When Albedo appeared carrying Morgana, all eyes turned.

Elara was the first to react.

"She's still alive?" she asked, running forward, already forming the circle of healing spells in her palm.

"Barely," Albedo muttered, lowering her gently beside Elara "She used everything. Blood, shadows, dark mana. I don't know how she didn't burn out."

Elara opened her eyes and reached out.,"I'll stabilize her mana channels. She'll need rest. No more combat."

Zeus stumbled beside them, groaning, "Good. Because I'm about two seconds away from kissing the dirt."

"You look like a walking corpse," Dorian said dryly.

"Flattered," Zeus muttered, collapsing onto a stone and sighing, stretching his arms out as he stared into the sky, exhausted.

The gathered students took a breath of collective relief. For now, they had distance. The lake's corrupted waters and twisted ley lines would make it harder for abyssal tracking. They'd bought themselves time.

Even if the Abyss were too attack, they'd be able to use the water as a natural temporary barrier while they thinned out the monsters.

Albedo meanwhile, was checking the System's current time. The Abyssal attack had already gone on for hours, and yet the Professors hadn't undid the seal yet.

In the Novel, the Professors had already saved them once they defeated the Cullers, but now, even after the Cullers were defeated and they were re-grouping, nothing had changed, they were still stuck here.

The only explanation was the Abyss had not only brought a harsher attack squad, but had also improved the quality of the seal keeping the Professor's out, which worried him.

He took a seat and closed his eyes, using that time to channel his mana through his body and heal the minor injuries he sustained.

He relaxed and finally took that moment to breathe, but when he reopened his eyes, he saw them.

Figures in robes who had just stepped through the mist.

There were five of them in total, each one cloaked in tattered abyssal vestments, faces obscured, their mana signatures radiating sickness and rot. Each one stepped lightly over the swamp as if the filth welcomed them, parting the water beneath their feet.

"What the hell…" Albedo whispered, already raising Havoc and Ruin.

Veronica's head snapped around, "Everyone, formation!"

The students scrambled, taking up defensive positions again, though their limbs were leaden and minds fraying from exhaustion.

One of the robed figures stopped near the water's edge. He raised a single dagger, obsidian black and inscribed with runes that moved on their own.

He began to chant and wrong, yet it made them shiver with an instinctive fear, they didn't know what he was doing, but they knew it couldn't possibly be something good, and that scared them.

Elara's eyes widened as she instinctively activated Battle Map, looking for any potential leads but not finding anything.

"…They're not targeting us," she whispered.

"Then what the hell are they doing?" Lucian growled, his hand on his hilt.

Finally, it began, the five robed cultists sliced their palms, blood dripping into the stagnant lake. With each drop, the water bubbled, black steam rising in coils.

They continued their chants.

"Everyone fall back further," Veronica said and the group moved as far away from the cultists as they could while in an organized formation, keeping their eyes locked on the cultists for any potential attack.

During that, the water turned darker and began to swirl. A vortex formed, and from its center, the corrupted mana twisted into something primal, ancient, and utterly monstrous.

"What the fuck is that?" Dorian said, his eyes widening.

From the depths of the lake, a titanic shape surged upward. A ferocious, primal roar split the skies.

A six-headed abyssal hydra erupted from the black waters.

Each of its heads bore a different expression, some snarling, others smiling with rows of serrated teeth. All were hungry. All radiated Peak Amethyst Rank mana so dense that it warped the space around it.

Its scales were like obsidian plates. Its eyes burned with voidfire. Abyssal runes ran across its necks and chests, pulsing with dark intent. Each of its six maws dripped with poison and raw devouring essence.

The cultists fell to their knees as the summoning finished.

"We offer you this land, great Vora'Myrr," one of them croaked, blood gushing from his eyes and mouth, "Devour them all. Leave nothing."

The hydra screeched - a mind-melting sound that caused students to collapse, clutching their ears in agony.

Its first step shattered the shoreline.

Veronica stood frozen.

"No… No formation can stand against that."

"It's here to wipe us out," Miranda whispered. "To end us."

Lucian grit his teeth, stepping forward even as every instinct screamed to run.

"We stand, or we die," he said, "Everyone! Shields up! Distance attacks only! Don't let it isolate anyone!"

Zeus shouted, "We can't win this fight head-on!"

"You're still trying to win?" Dorian said, looking at Zeus like he was a moron, "We're out here trying to survive."

The hydra lowered its central head, maw opening wide, abyssal energy condensing like a neutron star.

Veronica swallowed, "We hold this line… or we vanish."

The beam fired.

The world became death. There was no sound. only light. And death. The blast carved a gouge through the corrupted lake, evaporating water into black mist.

The air shook. The students' defensive barriers shattered like glass. Screams filled the air, bodies were flung like dolls, and the world seemed to break.

Albedo's Mirage Body flickered just in time, absorbing the worst of the blast, but even then, the sheer concussive force sent him flinging backwards, crashing through multiple trees.

Morgana's unconscious body lay nearby, and the blast had sent it crashing into the lake, causing Albedo to hurriedly dive in and chase after her.

Meanwhile, Miranda's time wards had cracked, the elegant runes shivering from the raw impact, but they held enough to keep Elara and a few of the more fragile students alive. Barely.

Not everyone had survived however, dozens of students who panicked and ran had been directly vaporized, taking the brunt of the blast.

The students were all scattered, beaten and defeated, Zeus had collapsed, his body on the brink of death, Lucian also kneeling to the mud, the entire right side of his body was burnt to the bone.

Veronica was still standing. But only just. One of her arms hung limp, a shard of obsidian stuck through her thigh, blood soaking her uniform. Still, her gaze never left the Hydra. She was planning, calculating, looking for a miracle that didn't exist.

Dorian was crumpled beside Elara, his coin embedded into the earth from where he had tried to reflect the energy. He looked up, dazed, and whispered, "This… might be it."

The hydra let out another deafening bellow, its heads writhing, preparing a second attack. Each maw began charging different spells, plague breath, cursed flame, dimensional fracture.

Then, just as all hope seemed lost, the sky shattered.

A boom thundered across the horizon, not from the abyss, but from above.

Reality itself cracked.

A golden sigil, vast, celestial, and ancient, burned itself into the air above the biome. A line of radiant white light pierced the heavens and slammed into the heart of the corrupted zone.

The seal had been broken. And descending from the heavens like avenging angels, the Professors arrived.

A dozen lights flared across the sky. Silhouettes cloaked in mana, wings of energy unfurling, runes blooming around them like constellations. The air changed. The pressure shifted.

Hope returned.

At their center was a woman with hair like woven starlight and a crown of twelve rotating halos behind her head. She landed without sound, her heels kissing the shattered stone like a whisper.

Headmistress Raphaeline.

Her gaze swept the battlefield. Her eyes did not widen in shock. She did not scream or panic. She simply took it in, the ruined lake, the injured children, the looming hydra.

Then, she turned her head ever so slightly, and her voice rang out like the tolling of a divine bell.

"Kayle. Elias. Garreth. With me. The center line is collapsing. We retrieve the Myth Class first."

Professor Kayle descended beside her, her radiant armor flaring with light, eyes narrowed in fury. The Relic she wielded, the Radiant Sigil, blazed in her hand, ready to sever darkness itself.

Professor Elias, a man with storm-grey hair and eyes like a glacier, raised his hand and summoned hundreds of swords of lightning in a ring around him. He nodded.

Garreth, a bulky Star Rank conjurer with magma tattoos down his arms, slammed his fist into the earth, conjuring a fire serpent the size of a bus.

Raphaeline looked toward the horizon, where shadows still writhed and more students lay scattered.

"To the rest of you," she said, her voice calm but resonant, "Fan out across the biome. Prioritize the outskirts. Save who you can. Then report to the central ring."

She floated forward, rising above the ground.

"They've seen enough death for today."

And then she vanished in a blur of motion, a spear of divine light streaking across the battlefield, headed straight for the Hydra.

From that moment onward, the tide would begin to turn.

The war wasn't over.

But hope had arrived.