WEE-WOO! WEE-WOO! WEE-WOO!
Magical sirens howled deafeningly, tearing through the silence of the Aethelgard night. Beneath the spinning red emergency lights sweeping across the roof of the South Dormitory, the fight had mutated into absolute terror.
The Assassin from the Black Tower no longer possessed a human form. He had melted into a dense shadow moving at an illogical speed. His attacks came from all directions, elongating like tentacles and slashing like invisible swords.
I dropped to the ground, rolling over the bed of gravel to dodge a shadowy slash that nearly decapitated me. Slash! The tip of the shadow grazed my shoulder, tearing both my uniform and my skin. Fresh blood seeped out.
Every time I maneuvered, my cracked ribs screamed a harsh protest. My breath came in ragged gasps. This eighteen-year-old physique would not be able to hold out for the five minutes it would take for the knights to break down the roof door. The glass cup inside my body would shatter to pieces if I kept pushing myself.
I parried an upward shadow thrust with my dagger, then leaped three meters backward. I could not afford to play to the enemy's rhythm. I had to transform this arena into my own execution zone.
In the corner of the roof, Virelith stood frozen. Her wooden staff shone incredibly bright, trembling violently as she continued to hold the mid-tier magic at its tip, the very magic that had triggered this academy alarm in the first place. Cold sweat drenched her forehead.
I dodged another deadly slash, letting my cloak be torn, then roared over the wailing sirens.
"Engineer! This gravel is not enough!" I bellowed with a commander's baritone that brooked no argument. "Destroy it all! Turn those rocks into fine dust particles and fill the air on this roof right now!"
Virelith's eyes widened behind her glasses, but her instincts obeyed my command without hesitation. Maintaining the mid-tier magic in her right hand, the girl extended her free left hand and unleashed her basic earth magic.
The gravel stones covering the roof floor instantly ground violently. They rubbed against each other at high speed, shattering into pieces until they became incredibly fine gray dust. With her mana manipulation, Virelith lifted those millions of dust particles, suspending them floating in the air.
In two breaths, the dormitory roof was enveloped in an exceptionally dense miniature dust storm. Visibility dropped drastically.
My tactic yielded instant results.
First, the dust particles dancing in the air physically stuck to the enemy's Shadow Aura. Shadow manipulation magic could only hide light, not physical matter. The dark silhouette of the Assassin was now printed clearly by the dust, stripping away his invisibility.
Second, and most deadly, the Assassin was breathing heavily. The barrage of brutal attacks and the pain from his previously sliced calf forced his lungs to work overtime.
As the dust storm enveloped him, he inhaled the fine stone particles straight into his throat.
"Cough! HACK! KKH!"
A loud, agonizing coughing fit sounded from the center of the fog. His lungs rejected the foreign matter. The Assassin's concentration shattered completely. His shadow aura flickered before finally extinguishing entirely, forcibly canceling his shadow form and returning him to the vulnerable physical state of human flesh.
His disguise was ruined. His leg bled. His lungs were clogged. And in his ears, the rumbling footsteps of hundreds of Academy Knights began to sound closer, climbing the dormitory stairs from the floor below.
The hired killer realized the one thing his profession avoided most.
He had failed.
His survival instinct took over. He decided to abort the mission and escape. The man spun his coughing body, focusing all his remaining mana into his intact right leg. He prepared to jump off the edge of the dormitory roof fence, intending to disappear into the darkness of the Outskirts Forest.
"You think you can come and go as you please?!"
My voice echoed coldly from within the dust. Ignoring the pain tearing at my chest, I darted forward to cut off his escape route. I would not let an enemy who had seen my capabilities leave this roof breathing.
The panicking Assassin found his path blocked. Desperately, he swung his curved knife at my neck, a blind and uncalculated attack.
That was a fatal mistake. In the dirty and brutal close-quarters arena, my ten years of experience in the bloody trenches was unmatched by anyone.
I did not retreat. I stepped right into the range of his knife. With a highly precise twisting motion, I used my armored arm to parry his wrist. I utilized the momentum of his wild slash to twist his arm.
CRACK!
I drove the hilt of my dagger squarely into his right shoulder joint, dislocating his arm instantly. His curved knife clattered to the floor. Without giving him time to scream, I delivered a brutal kick to his left knee.
The sound of breaking bone rang loud. The Assassin let out a stifled shriek and fell to his knees on the roof, both of his legs now totally paralyzed. He was trapped in place, no longer able to dodge, jump, or run. His position was deadlocked.
This was the end of the General's stage, and time for the Engineer's closing curtain.
I leaped backward swiftly, distancing myself from the kneeling Assassin. My eyes stared straight at Virelith, whose face was deathly pale holding back the magical pressure.
"Now, Virelith!" I roared. "Unleash your mid-tier magic right at him! Crush the stones!"
Virelith screamed, releasing all the tension in her hand. She swung her staff and unleashed the Mid-Tier Earth Magic she had been holding back.
Earth Grinder.
The magic did not shoot out like a fireball; rather, it manipulated the environment. The remaining rocks and dust around the kneeling Assassin suddenly came alive. The material lifted, condensed extremely, and formed a spinning vortex of stone surrounding the Assassin.
Sharp rocks began to grind my enemy's body as if he were inside a shredding machine. The Assassin howled in agony as his skin was torn apart.
However, the magic was not finished yet. The vortex of dust and stone created an exceptionally dense, high-pressure space around the enemy. It needed a trigger.
I drew my last spare dagger from my belt. Utilizing my remaining physical strength while hovering on the verge of fainting, I darted to the edge of the spinning dust vortex. My eyes locked onto the thick iron pipe supporting the chimney located directly behind the Assassin.
I swung my steel dagger with all my might, smashing the blade against the iron pipe.
CLANG!
The high-speed steel friction created an incredibly bright burst of sparks.
In science and magic, this was an absolute law. The hot sparks thrown into the air ignited the dense dust cloud suspended within the high-pressure space of Virelith's magic. The air filled with fine carbon acted like highly reactive gunpowder. A deadly chain reaction occurred in a matter of milliseconds. Thermobaric Explosion.
KABOOOOM!
The air itself seemed to catch fire. A giant thermobaric dust explosion erupted from the center of the vortex.
A bright orange fireball detonated ferociously, creating a wave of heat and shock that swept the central area of the dormitory roof clean, tearing through the night like the sun rising a second early.
The massive shockwave threw my body backward. I crashed hard against the floor, my head throbbing violently. From the corner of my eye, I saw Virelith survive because her instinct had immediately conjured a thick earth wall in front of her moments after releasing the magic.
Thick smoke and the smell of burnt flesh wafted into the air. The corpse of the elite Black Tower Assassin was thrown until it slammed into the iron roof fence, his body completely charred beyond recognition.
CRASH!
The wooden roof access door was finally kicked open until it shattered into pieces.
Dozens of fully armed elite Academy Knights poured onto the dormitory roof, their swords drawn, led directly by a beet-red Instructor Alric Stormvale.
The knights' footsteps came to an abrupt halt. They stared in horror, frozen in place seeing the absolute chaos welcoming them. The charred corpse of a hired killer with a Black Tower tattoo on his neck, half of the dormitory roof scorched by a bizarre explosion, and two cadets situated right in the center of the destruction.
Alric Stormvale stared at me, his eyes radiating extraordinary disbelief. To him, this outcast cadet should have been dead. Yet Kael Draven was not only alive, he had just destroyed an elite assassin within the academy boundaries.
The breath in my throat felt like fire. My muscles screamed for rest, and my vision began to cloud with dark shadows.
With a trembling hand, I wiped the stream of warm blood from the corner of my lips. I turned my face, looking toward Virelith Ashryn. The girl sat limply behind her earth wall, her legs no longer able to support her body weight, staring at the explosion of her own making with an expression somewhere between horror and awe.
My lips curled slowly, forming a blood-filled smirk that validated my first recruit.
"Incredible dirty magic... Engineer," I whispered with the last of my voice. "Tomorrow... we start digging for real."
My pillar of consciousness finally collapsed. I closed my eyes, letting the soothing darkness take over, along with the sound of shouting knights running towards me. Tonight, the Tracking Hound had carved his fangs deeper into the heart of Aethelgard.