## CHAPTER 70: Unsealed
The results of the high-tier spell were instantaneous and apocalyptic. A sequence of wide-range explosions erupted upon impact, dead center of where Caspian, Lyra, and the rest of the helpless students lay. The concussive roar shook the bedrock of Althelgard, throwing up dark, churning clouds of pitch-black smoke that rapidly huddled around the courtyard, completely restricting clear sight.
Master Grey watched the destruction from mid-air, her single human eye flat and entirely devoid of sympathy. She floated down, landing with a light click of her heels.
"Perhaps I overdid it," she murmured, brushing a stray lock of hair from her face.
She let out a dry, dismissive breath. "I truly cannot believe he actually stood there to die alongside the nobility. Pathetic. Some fools might call it selfless, but in reality, it is nothing short of absolute foolishness."
Grey squinted her eyes, peering harder into the roiling, dark smog. She wanted to confirm the bodies, but the massive scorch mark from her spell also covered the perimeter where Alium Castamir lay. A flicker of genuine irritation crossed her face. Borne of her haste, the very boy she had initially planned to frame for the entire incident might have just been completely incinerated by the blast.
"Damn it," she muttered, raising her hand to aggressively scratch her head in utter frustration. "Messed up."
She paused for a moment, then simply shook the irritation off. What was done was done.
"Oh well. After an incident of this scale, I can't stay at Althelgard anyway," she reasoned aloud, her voice cold and analytical. "Four more commoners and the rest of the Castamir party left intact within the academy... that should be more than enough to satisfy the higher-ups. Time to disappear."
Master Grey shifted her gaze away from the burning crater, looking toward the four commoners standing not too far away. Their piercing, unblinking gazes remained fixed on her, yet they took absolutely no action. They didn't yell, they didn't weep, and they didn't draw their weapons. Meeting their cold, earth-like stare, an unexpected sensation of profound dread washed over her.
The absolute fact that they hadn't reacted—even after she had just apparently slaughtered one of their own—made her profoundly uncomfortable. Master Grey was highly intelligent, and her tactical instincts told her they were waiting.
But waiting for what?
The question loomed heavily in her mind, unanswered. And then, she noticed it. The ambient noise of the night had vanished. The crackle of the residual fires, the whistling of the wind against the barrier—everything died. The world around her went so terrifyingly silent that she could distinctively hear the rhythmic sound of her own breathing and the soft click of her boots on the concrete floor beneath her feet.
That wasn't all. The very air changed. The temperature in the courtyard plummeted violently, dropping dozens of degrees in a single fraction of a second. The sudden, biting cold caught her off guard, and each time she exhaled, a thick, white cloud of fog escaped her lips.
"What... what is this?" she asked, her voice cracking as a sudden shock gripped her chest.
Then came something her predictive artifact had never forecasted. The thick, black smoke didn't scatter; it began to rapidly fade, absorbed by a large, blue crystalline structure that suddenly loomed in the center of the crater. Grey's eyes went wide in utter disbelief as the smoke cleared completely, revealing a massive, towering wall of solid ice. It had grown directly out from beneath the shattered ground, standing completely unscratched against a Diamond-class spell. Its sheer size spanned entirely across the width of the courtyard, acting as an absolute fortress.
"How?" she whispered, her hands beginning to tremble. "How could this be possible?"
The mighty wall of ice suddenly began to fracture, crumbling down into a cascade of shimmering, specs of sparkling light as it finally dissolved. Master Grey's breathing hitched from behind the fading barrier. As the wall completely evaporated into mist, she felt it—an undoubtedly crushing, suffocating aura that pressed down on the entire zone.
There he stood.
Caspian stood like a sentient, immovable monument of stone. His face no longer held the pain-filled ache or the labored breathing of before. His facial expression was dark, hollow, and completely unreadable. The jagged, bleeding burns on his bare chest and arms were entirely erased, the flesh knitted back together smoothly as if the injuries had never existed in the first place. The only trace of blood left was the freezing, deep crimson streak drying on his forehead.
He stood entirely changed. The short hair on his head was no longer dull; it gave off a brilliant, luminous light blue glow, radiating a distinct, otherworldly aesthetic that nearly mirrored Silas's terrifying features.
Master Grey noticed the fundamental shift instantly, her face draining of color as an overwhelming terror seized her.
"What... What is this?!" she yelled, her predictive Engram Eye spinning erratically, unable to form a single cohesive image of his posture. "How?!"
She stumbled a step back, her knees trembling on the spot as Caspian took a single, gentle step toward her. At her level, Grey was exceptionally sensitive to the flow of mana, and the raw output currently bleeding from Caspian's body was beyond anything she had ever felt in her entire life.
Behind him, Lyra, Casel, and Elisa began to slowly raise themselves from the ground. The crushing gravitational pressure of the initial barrier had suddenly vanished, entirely nullified by Caspian's presence. Casel, coughing lightly, quickly went to help Elisa to her feet.
However, Lyra remained frozen on her knees, staring blankly at the change in Caspian and the overwhelming, endless pressure he was releasing. She remembered the panic from a few moments ago. They were about to die. As she had stared into the incoming inferno, her heart had leapt out of her chest, her entire life flashing before her eyes. All she remembered after that was a sudden flash of light from Caspian's body, a loud, thunderous boom, and then—this impossible wall of ice.
"Is this what you've been hiding all this time, Caspian?" she whispered to herself, her voice a mix of awe and profound fear.
The sudden, violent drop in temperature also awoke Alium Castamir from his forced slumber. He groaned heavily, his limbs stiff from the cold. He could barely feel his hands and legs as he struggled to raise his heavy head from the dirt. No sooner had his consciousness returned than his aristocratic arrogance flared back to life.
*"That commoner..."* he raged inwardly, his mind still trapped in the memory of his earlier defeat. He hadn't yet registered his altered surroundings. *"I will end you! I will tear you apart!"*
With a deep, furious frown, Alium forced himself up, only to look around and see the absolute destruction and carnage painted across the training grounds. The sheer scale of the craters caused his fury to evaporate into absolute shock in an instant. He turned his head sharply to the left, his eyes widening as he saw his noble friends unconscious and scattered like rags on the ground.
"What... what is going on here?" he muttered, a profound fright creeping into his throat.
He turned his head toward the center of the yard, only to find Master Grey—the prestigious Diamond-class professor—holding a look of pure distress, actively stepping backward in retreat. And walking toward her with soft, rhythmic steps was Caspian.
Alium's eyes locked onto the boy. Seeing the glowing, nearly white-blue hair and the bare, unblemished chest, every primitive instinct inside Alium screamed. He was instantly, thoroughly terrified. The sheer weight of the magical pressure radiating from Caspian was suffocating, leaving the noble completely confused.
*"What is going on? Why is Master Grey here? What is wrong with him?"* Alium thought frantically, his breath coming in short, shallow gasps. *"I don't understand... when I look at him, every single fiber of my being is telling me to run. What is this feeling?"*
His frightened, wide-eyed gaze remained locked onto Caspian's back. As if sensing the heavy stare, Caspian calmly turned his head, his brilliant, glowing eyes shifting until they met Alium's full gaze.
The moment their eyes locked, Alium's body reacted entirely on raw instinct. His head dropped violently to the ground, slamming back into the dirt out of pure, unadulterated fright. He couldn't look away fast enough.
*"Impossible..."* Alium whimpered inwardly, his forehead pressed against the cold stone, his body shaking uncontrollably. *"What sort of overwhelming, monstrous pressure is this? I thought... I thought the commoners couldn't use magic like this. What is he?!"*
Caspian casually turned his gaze back to Master Grey, his footsteps never losing their steady, terrifying rhythm.
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