Carter stood in an empty clearing not far away from team Holy Dawn’s residence. His brows furrowed when he watched the bewitching rays of light flashing nonstop in the sky, a rarely seen grave expression on his face.

He fell something all of a sudden. He turned around sharply.

"Senior Plum?"

He sighed in relief when he saw the old man clothed in black coming his way in quick strides. "Why are you also here?"

"What about Ayrin?"

Professor Plum looked at him and immediately said, using a voice only he and Carter could hear, "Because he’s more important than all those scrolls I’m safeguarding."

"What?" Carter blinked, confused as to what Professor Plum meant.

"He is born in darkness, baptized by the moon spring. The tree of life blesses him and sings his praises, the hallowed and immortal one." Professor Plum’s eyes glinted with light in the dark. He looked at Carter, his voice soft like the chant of an epic saga.

Carter’s expression suddenly froze, shocked to the core. "What you mean is, could his bloodline be…"

"He comes from the darkness, yet stands in harmony with the light, finally bringing freedom."

Professor Plum spoke a few more words in a quiet voice. Only, he didn’t say these words in Doraster’s common language, but rather in an ancient and cryptic tongue.

"Realm of the Dark Red Lament."

"World of Crystal Scars."

"Hell King’s Mourning."

"Magus Ancestor."

After speaking his words in the ancient and cryptic tongue, he looked at the faraway sky and spat out the names of four skills in quick succession. Only then did he quietly say, "The fight’s already escalated to this level. It seems we’re far away from a small-scale plan this time."

When he’d suddenly spoken in the ancient languages, the arcane particles inside Carter were already rushing to his hands. He stood tense, but he didn’t expose any outward sign of being on guard.

When the words "far away from a small-scale plan this time" left Professor Plum’s mouth, countless buzzes suddenly appeared around them. The usually calm primordial energy seemed to have suddenly transformed into countless small irascible spirits flying hysterically in the air.

"Oh no! … Ah!"

A shocked scream suddenly rose in the air.

In the originally empty darkness in front of Carter and Professor Plum, countless things shaped like crystals suddenly shattered, exposing the figures of four men.

All four of them wore the black clothes of patrollers, complete with a black iron badge symbolizing the Law-Keeping Office on their chests.

One of them, clearly the arcane master who’d screamed just a moment ago, was continuously bleeding from his nose and ears. He looked at Professor Plum as though he were looking at the devil.

"Draconic master!"

"He’s an arcane master from the school of ancient Draconic scholars! We can’t mix arcane skills with chants no matter what, or else he’ll borrow our power!"

"Swish!"

Just then, a dark blue light enveloped the four of them inside and continuously assaulted Carter and Professor Plum.

At the same time, several strips of dark-red light appeared in the air around Carter and Professor Plum, like four giant tongues.

Professor Plum didn’t move in the slightest.

He merely chanted deep, cryptic words.

"Whoosh!"

The four huge dark-red tongues were entirely cut apart, as though an incomparably gigantic, invisible blade had slashed through the air. They even, for some strange reason, caught fire.

A tide-like dark-blue light was also cut apart and caught fire.

"Ah!" Two even more miserable shrieks rose in the air.

Two figures burning from head to toe snapped backward and flew away, continuously crashing into and breaking through the trees behind them. Not even the wooden fragment they touched caught fire, yet their bodies burned without cease. Even the arcane particles gushing out of them immediately caught fire. It seemed it was impossible for these two burning arcane masters to survive.

"It can even burn arcane particles!"

"What on earth is this taboo skill?!"

"Who the hell is he!"

Shocked shouts that couldn’t be held back rose inside the darkness.

Professor Plum raised his head. He seemed to have locked onto the exact position where the voice came from.

The arcane master who shouted felt as if he made a lethal mistake, one he couldn’t fix. Along with an even more appalled shout, dazzling lightning shields appeared nonstop in the dark, so glaring one couldn’t look straight at them.

"Whoosh!"

But just then, a huge dragon eye appeared in the air above that figure surrounded by a full sixteen lightning shields.

An eyeball, faint yellow, and a black pupil, long and narrow.

A terrifying dragon breath suddenly descended when this huge dragon eye vanished, totally wrecking the sixteen lightning shields.

The arcane master surrounded by the lightning shield was also directly annihilated into countless gray ashes fluttering in the air.

"Don’t bother with these two."

"We’ll handle them!"

Just at this moment, however, whooshes breaking through the air continuously appeared around them, along with the continuous emission of arcane particles. A dozen figures at least, trailing every sort of arcane undulations with them, shot toward Holy Dawn Academy’s residence.

…

"Here!"

"They’re far more than just a single person."

"No one’s intercepting us, that means they must be rushing to complete some task. We have to increase our pace!"

Inside the sewers, Ivan, Ayrin, and the others reached the wall with a broken opening in it, then increased their speed and hurled themselves through the opening.

There was another water tunnel behind this opening. At the end of the tunnel where a faint light leaked through, there seemed to be a huge strange edifice built underground.

The outside of this edifice looked like a circular arena, but at the center was a huge cylinder built from gigantic blocks of stone.

This huge cylinder seemed to be the underground part of some building above the ground.

There wasn’t any building between the surrounding walls and the huge cylinder at the center, with a wide space in between, like a small ring-shaped plaza.

That substitute who Ayrin had sensed something fishy from was presently standing somewhere in this "ring-shaped plaza," together with the other five wearing uniforms from Abel Academy, Silver Trout Academy, Three-Headed Dragon Academy, Wind Whisperer Academy, and Sea Gale Academy. Near them, two arcane masters lay motionless near the huge cylinder.

"So fast?"

One could still catch glimpses of light on the hands of the skinny boy wearing Abel Academy’s clothes. A fight had clearly taken place just moments ago. Their expressions sank when they heard the faint sound of the wind.

"Swish." "Swish." "Swish."

With several barely audible sounds, he and the other five around him spread apart, standing more than a dozen meters away from each other in a battle formation.

And just at this instant, several figures hurled themselves inside the plaza, filling their visions.

Apparently the leader of the group, the skinny boy from Abel Academy exclaimed in a low astounded voice, "Audrey?"

"Massay?"

Audrey also uttered a quiet astounded exclamation the moment she halted.

"Massay? Why’s that name so familiar?"

This thought immediately flashed across Ayrin’s mind, then he immediately understood when he saw the clothes the skinny boy wore. "One of the main fighters for last year’s vice-champions, Abel Academy. Dark Executioner Massay?"

"Joyce?"

"Is that Ayrin, the freshman from Holy Dawn Academy?"

"Also, this one is… I remember, Iron Forest Academy’s Ferguillo."

Seeing Ayrin and the others, Massay and the other five all seemed to relax.

Especially that Hawkmoon substitute. His face even exposed pleasure at an unexpected surprise.

Ayrin watched the six of them clearly standing in a battle formation. His eyes suddenly narrowed when he recognized someone familiar. "This one is… It’s that Silver Trout freshman, Shinro?!"

"There’s also Ivan and Charlotte, the two pillars of Divine Shield Academy," the extremely ferocious-looking boy said, the one with a sea monster tattoo wearing Sea Gale Academy’s uniform, one half of his head shaved.

"Sea Gale Academy’s Chirade, Silver Trout’s freshman Shinro. The rest are all substitutes, I don’t recognize them," Audrey told Ayrin and the others at the same time.

"I wonder what building this is in Eichemalar. The two arcane masters they knocked out must be guards here. A place with arcane masters guarding it must be an important edifice in the city," Ivan said.

He spoke openly without any worry about letting the other side hear him. Then he looked at Massay: "Now that things have come so far, you guys can tell us what you real identities are, what on earth you’re doing here, isn’t that so?"

"I have no idea how you guys gathered together and even chased us here. But since it’s only you and not an arcane team from the Office of Special Affairs, then I think there’s no need for us to explain anything to you," Massay coldly said, looking at Ivan.

That Hawkmoon substitute actually smiled. He suddenly said, "I can actually tell you what we’re here to do."

"They want to damage the building behind us!" Ferguillo shouted urgently the moment that Hawkmoon substitute spoke. Pink feathers suddenly appeared around him.

Some of them fired away at astounding speed.

"Puff!"

At the same time, a hunting goddess seemingly condensed from bright moonlight appeared above this Hawkmoon substitute, stabbing a dazzling white lance at the huge cylinder behind him.

Several pink feathers intercepted this white lance dead center, colliding against it.

"Boom!"

The white lance and the feathers crumbled in a muffled explosion, turning into countless soft strands of light.

"Mind Reading!"

"Ferguillo discerned in advance that this guy was going to attack the building behind them. What on earth is this building?"

Ayrins’ arcane particles gushed toward his hands and his feet on their own accord even while such a thought popped into his mind.

"Let’s go!" Massay bellowed, his face incomparably cold.

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