After splitting off from Celi and rushing into her class dormitory out of worry, Claire found Rena and Tesslon already there, helping evacuate the rest of their classmates.
Several walls had collapsed. Dust hung thick in the air, mixed with smoke from the fire spreading somewhere deeper in.
Claire joined them, falling into the work without a word.
"Is that everyone?" she asked.
"Should be." Rena answered.
"Wait. Where are Sai and Anna?!"
"Not good. You two, get to the alchemy room together, now!"
Claire was already running, deeper into the smoke and the climbing flames.
"Wait, Claire! Damn it, why is she always like this?"
"Tesslon, move it!"
"But Claire—"
"Trust her. She can handle herself."
Rena remembered the duel against Leon. 'I knew Claire was strong, but I did not expect her to grow this fast.' Sweat beaded at her temple as she forced a smile.
"Go!" Rena shouted.
Tesslon went, grudgingly, with visible irritation.
"I will take point and clear the way! Everyone follow me! If you can fight, protect the ones who cannot, or move to the edges of the group! Cover the people weaker than you!"
Luna, somewhere in the line, blinked in surprise, then a flicker of something like pride crossed her face. She shifted to the outer edge of the formation.
"Muscle brain over there," Luna muttered. "I did not expect that from him."
"Honestly, I am a little shocked too. Turns out Tesslon has a side we never saw," Viona said, falling into position beside her.
"Yeah. Thanks to him, the rest of the class does not look as scared anymore. If anything they look braver," said a beastman girl named Kegira Hilduness.
"Maybe we should give him half our meal rations later, so he stays like this."
"No way he keeps it up!" A few students laughed.
The laughter spread. Whatever tension had been sitting in everyone's chest eased, just slightly, just enough.
"Hey! What is so funny?! This is exactly why you are all still weak! Laughing in a situation like this! This is why I keep telling you to train your bodies. Trust me, if you train properly, within a year you could lift an entire elephant. If you want to start, I recommend lower body first because—"
The students went quiet again, sweat at their temples, listening to Tesslon ramble. There was a collective wish for him to stop. But underneath that, something had settled. They felt steadier than they had a minute ago.
"No matter what, Tesslon is still Tesslon."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Tesslon asked, frowning at Luna's comment.
"Nothing, muscle brain! Lead the way already!"
"I was not finished talking."
"Move!" Luna smacked him on the head. Tesslon finally led the group out of the dormitory.
They moved as a unit, running into a few attackers along the way, all of whom Tesslon dealt with easily from the front. They made it out without serious injury.
Outside, they found Celi and Tristan, who had come running at the sound of the explosion.
"Professor!"
"Everyone alright? No one left behind?" Tristan asked.
"Everyone is accounted for. Minor injuries, nothing serious."
"Good. Get to the alchemy room for treatment."
"Wait. Where is Claire?" Celi's voice had sweat behind it.
"She went off on her own to find Sai and Anna."
"...What?!" Her pupils contracted. The sweat at her temples doubled.
---
Elsewhere, Claire was running, throwing open every door in the dormitory, cutting through smoke and fallen debris. She crossed paths with a few attackers along the way, none of whom were any real trouble.
With her innate ability, she could neutralize the heat around her enough to move through it. She briefly considered putting out the fire entirely, but Sai and Anna came first.
'These attackers are not weak. If I let my guard down even once, or if I am already injured, I am not confident I could win against however many of them there actually are.'
She reached a fork in the corridor and took the right path first.
'Damn it. If she is not here, that means the other direction.'
She turned and sprinted back the way she had not gone, certain Sai and Anna had to be there.
She ran hard, past collapsed beams and burning fences, nearly reaching the next junction.
Right in the middle of the path, she was ambushed.
"Fifth-Circle magic. Fire Beam!"
BOOM!
A spell that resembled a dragon's breath, but smoother, refined, fire that burned without the usual violent flare. This was the explosion Celi and Tristan had heard.
The blast tore through the wall blocking its path. Claire managed to hold it back, though not without cost. Her left arm took a burn before a thick wall of ice finished forming around her.
"The students of Aetherion really are something. You are a fine seed for us."
"You attack out of nowhere and then start talking to yourself about seeds? Do you think I am a plant?"
The ice shielding her was already melting fast. She drew her sword.
"You are going to fight me with that ugly little sword?"
"It is more than enough to take your head off."
"...I will put an end to that arrogance." The man drew two daggers from behind his back.
"Sooner is better."
"You asked for it." Before Claire fully registered it, he was already above her, dagger coming down.
'He is fast!'
No time to dodge. She blocked instead, the impact ringing out in a harsh clash of steel.
Holding the strike with one hand was a struggle. Not just speed. Weight behind it too.
"Impressive." He drove his dagger down hard, knocking her blade upward and creating an opening.
He used it immediately, spinning his body and driving his heel into her stomach.
Cough!
Claire was thrown backward into the wall. The impact rattled something loose. For half a second, the world went dark.
"You did not need to block that. If you had done nothing, this would already be over, which is what you wanted anyway."
Breathing hard, sweat running down her face, Claire forced an answer out.
"That is not the 'quick and over' I had in mind." She got back up, using her sword planted in the floor as a crutch. "By the way." She held up something small and dripping.
An ear, cut off in a single rough motion, still bleeding.
"Feel like you are missing something?" Her smile was forced, but it landed.
The man finally registered the pain, delayed but real, not enough to slow him down, just enough to show on his face.
"You really do need to be erased." His expression stayed flat, but the vein at his temple said otherwise.
'Got him'
She had baited him successfully.
With whatever strength remained, she raised her sword.
"Stop talking and come at me."
"Happy to grant a quick death, since that is what you are begging for!"
He charged. She charged back. Halfway between them, he released a volley of fireballs, small but numerous.
Claire answered with an equal number of ice spears, matched in size and count.
When fire met ice, the resulting shockwave was small, but the cloud of steam it threw up swallowed the corridor whole.
Smart and experienced, Claire did not run straight through it. She shifted her path slightly to the side as she ran, knowing the enemy's vision would be just as blind. If he was smart, he would not be charging forward blindly either.
She was right.
When they crossed paths inside the fog, he was already mid-attack, exactly as she had predicted.
Using the gap, the momentum, the angle, Claire put everything she had left into a single strike.
Her breath came out in visible bursts in the cold. She planted her left foot forward as her anchor.
She raised her sword to the right, drawing it back. The blade, wrapped in bright blue aura, dropped the surrounding temperature to something brutal.
The moment he entered range, fast, decisive—
"Ice Mountain Cutter."
A quick, razor-precise strike. The blade caught his neck cleanly. The force behind it was enough to punch a hole clean through five walls beyond him.
Watching his head hit the ground, Claire dropped to her knees, sword driven into the floor as the only thing keeping her upright.
Breathing ragged, vision starting to fade at the edges. The first two hits had taken more out of her than she wanted to admit.
"Incredible... Truly incredible! That was a real 'good seed' right there!!!"
Claire's eyes went wide. Her breath caught.
She turned to check, and what she saw should not have been possible.
The headless body was still standing. Veins had erupted from the severed neck and were stretching outward, searching, reaching for the head lying on the ground.
She tried to act. There was nothing left to act with. Standing alone was already costing her everything.
All she could do was watch the veins twist and pull the head back into place, sealing the wound shut.
"I wanted to test whether you were a good seed or just another same old seed. But after trading a few words with you... you are going to make an excellent offering to 'the Supreme One'!!!"
"Seed this, seed that, and now suddenly the Supreme One. I am sick of it. Listening to your nonsense is making my ears hurt, and your breath stinks too. I bet the supreme idiot would be embarrassed to have someone like you working for him."
"Insolent! You dare insult the supreme one and me both?!"
"Should I instead not dare insult the Supreme One and you...?
Still gasping for air, Claire kept pushing, kept baiting him, and it was working. He was leaking information without realizing it.
"Besides, I have no idea who you or your supreme idiot are. So yes, I dare."
"You...!!!" The vein at his temple deepened with fury. Claire, having successfully provoked him, could not quite suppress her smirk.
"I am one of the Seven Monarchs. The Monarch of Death!"
'Good. Keep going'
"Is that the name of some trendy children's game? And there is no way the neck of someone supposedly important could be cut off by a mere academy student, right?"
The man grabbed her by the throat and lifted her off the ground.
"You little bastard, you really do not know when to stop. I already told you, I am the Monarch of the Death, one of the Seven Monarchs, and we are The BloodPath."
His grip tightened. Claire's vision swam, her face twisting in pain. She had nothing left to fight back with.
"We will bring true peace to this empire. It will spread to the whole continent, and then to every other continent after that. Every race, human, beastfolk, elf, demon, all of them will know a peace that surpasses what Elisha ever brought to this world!"
"But before that peace, we Seven Monarchs must offer something to our Supreme One. A natural cost for something on that scale, do you not think? Hahaha." He laughed, loud and unhinged, then threw Claire into the wall hard enough to crack it.
Cough!
Blood mixed into the cough. Internal damage, broken bones, none of it good.
He approached again, dagger drawn, Claire unable to move.
He raised it over her, beginning the same chant.
"All of this for the Supreme One."
He drove it down. Claire closed her eyes, accepting whatever came next, though something in her refused it completely. There was still something she had not finished yet.
Ting!
A sharp, metallic ring cut through the air.
Claire's mind went blank for a second.'Where did he stab me? Is there something on my body that could make a sound like that? What did the blade actually hit? Did he miss?'
"My goodness. I am rather impressed you lasted this long."
A woman's voice. Claire forced her eyes open and found a maid standing over her, the dagger's tip caught and held by the heel of her shoe.
"...you..."
* * *