White stared at the purple-eyed student, his red eyes gleaming with an intensity that made the air crackle between them. The purple-eyed student raised his hand, trembling slightly with barely contained rage.
"You think you can bully me?" he spat, his voice rising with each word. "You think that just because you're a normal demon, you have the right to push someone like me around?" His chest heaved as years of suppressed humiliation bubbled to the surface. "I'm going to show you what real pain feels like."
Black flames coursed up and down his fingertips, spreading like wildfire across his hands. The heat distorted the air around him, yet he seemed immune to the searing temperature.
White simply stared, his white hair shimmering in the flickering darkness cast by the flames. A faint smile played at the corners of his mouth. "Oh, that's it? Black flames?" His tone carried an almost bored amusement. "Dude, you're just mimicking my ability. Just like you missed me earlier."
The purple-eyed student's face flushed with anger. "I only mocked you once. Are you really that offended? So hurt that you have to unleash your full power just to take me down because I wounded your precious feelings?" He laughed bitterly. "I've barely even spoken to you this entire day."
"Does it matter?" The purple-eyed student's voice dropped to a dangerous whisper, his hands still wreathed in black fire. "The fact that you bullied me, that you mocked me—that's enough. More than enough for me to go all out."
The professor stood frozen, caught between duty and self-preservation. He had been about to intervene, to shield the students from the purple-eyed student's wrath, but something strange stopped him in his tracks.
Black flames suddenly surrounded White like a living cloak, licking harmlessly at his skin as though greeting an old friend. His expression shifted, becoming darker, more serious. The playful glint in his red eyes vanished, replaced by something ancient and dangerous.
"I don't think fighting me is a good idea," White said, his voice carrying a weight that made several students in the front row lean back instinctively.
Late sat in a seat at the back of the class, observing the scene with his characteristic emotionlessness. Yet behind that blank expression, his mind raced. *Wait a minute. How did he go from just breaking through his cultivation less than twenty seconds ago to manifesting black flames across his entire body like it's nothing?* He studied White more carefully, searching for answers in the way the flames moved, in the casual confidence of his stance. *Is this guy hiding some power I don't know about? What else is he capable of?*
White stood there calmly, the flames dancing around him without burning a single thread of his clothing. "Fight me. You won't do it."
The purple-eyed student—Ford—stared harder, though uncertainty now flickered in his gaze. Still, pride wouldn't let him back down. "You think this is going to stop me? Just because you can copy my ability?"
White's smile turned cold. "More like you have mine." He let the words hang in the air for a moment, watching Ford's confidence waver. "I've been cultivating long before I entered this academy. I've been training my whole life to master the black fire element." His flames intensified, casting dancing shadows across the classroom walls. "The only way you could have obtained this element is through an elemental stone—which is far rarer than even a demon stone—or someone gave it to you."
He took a step forward, and Ford instinctively stepped back. "Either someone passed the power down to you through hereditary means, or someone handed you an elemental stone," White continued. "Because I know you couldn't find one yourself, even if you searched the entire demon city four times over."
Ford's flames grew more intense, but White merely clasped his hands together. Between his palms, a black sphere began to form—a fireball, yet different. More solid. More devastating.
"Black Nova," White announced, hurling the sphere toward Ford.
The solid-like fireball struck with explosive force, detonating on impact and launching Ford through the classroom wall. He crashed down outside the academy, nearly half his body scorched, the other half damaged from the brutal fall. Ford tried to move, but pain paralyzed him.
White appeared before him, staring down with cold satisfaction. "I told you not to mess with me."
But someone walked up behind him and grabbed him by the neck.
"You do know I don't let people get hurt here, even if he was the attacker," Ray said, his red hair and crimson armor gleaming in the sunlight streaming through the shattered wall.
"Ray, I don't want to fight you," White replied, his voice steady despite the grip on his neck.
"I don't want to fight you either," Ray said, his tone dropping to something colder, more lethal. "But if it's in the name of justice, I'll be glad to kill you. Don't make me do it."
White's black flames erupted around both of them, forcing Ray to release his grip. The two powerhouses faced each other, energy crackling between them as students scrambled back in terror.
Ray's armor began to glow with an inner fire, and his eyes blazed with righteous fury. White's flames condensed around his fists, darker and more menacing than before.
The professor finally found his voice. "Stop! Both of you—"
But neither moved. Neither blinked.
Then, from the shadows at the edge of the destroyed wall, a figure stepped forward—someone none of them had expected to see.
Late's eyes widened, his emotionless mask cracking for the first time.
Ray turned, his expression shifting from fury to grim recognition. "Well, well, well. We meet again, Freddy," he said, his voice hardening. "This time I will make sure to uphold justice. You will be defeated."
Freddy smiled, emerging from the bushes where he had been hiding. "Well, Ray, if that's going to be the case, I'll fight you and your friend here," he said, gesturing toward White. "I don't mind it at all."
Freddy's ancient and powerful voice boomed throughout the academy grounds. The sheer weight of his aura pressed down on everyone present—White nearly buckled under the overwhelming pressure, his black flames flickering and struggling to maintain their form. Ray, however, stood still, not budging, not flinching, not showing even a hint of pain on his face.
A fight between Titans had begun.
But as the three prepared to clash, the ground beneath them trembled. Cracks spider-webbed across the courtyard, and from the depths below, something stirred—something that had been sleeping for centuries.
Late rose from his seat, his eyes fixed on the fracturing earth. For the first time, genuine fear crossed his features.
The temperature plummeted. The sky darkened.
And from the widening chasm, a voice older than the academy itself whispered a single word that froze the blood of everyone who heard it:
"Finally."