Chapter 61: Clarice's Anger (1)
"I'm fucked," he admitted internally, the simplicity of the phrase an acknowledgment of the catastrophic danger he was in.
Clarice smiled, a terrifying, beautiful smile of pure, murderous intent.
"I hope you are ready to die, Blackstar."
The three crimson circles roared to life, ready to unleash a destructive torrent that would not just kill Lucian, but level the entire west wing of the academy. Lucian raised his mana-saber, bracing for the inevitable collision.
---
BOOOOM!
The sound of the detonation was deafening. It wasn't just a simple explosion; it was the violent, instantaneous release of powerful, concentrated magical fire. The academy's sturdy, granite stone walls shuddered, and the nearby ground seemed to jump from the sheer force of the 7th-tier Destruction Spell.
The whole area around the music room's former location was instantly engulfed in crimson flames and thick, choking black smoke. Debris—shattered wood, melted metal, and pulverized plaster—rained down across the cobblestone path. The heat was so intense it felt like standing next to a volcano.
Clarice, her chest heaving with exertion and fury, held her position. She was a master mage, and she knew the power she had just unleashed. A single 7th-tier spell of that magnitude should have completely vaporized a person, especially a student who was only a 5th-tier class. Yet, despite the immense power, a thread of deep, consuming anxiety was tightening in her stomach.
She looked into the smoke-filled area, searching for any sign of Lucian. Her anger had blinded her, but now the cold rationality of a high-level mage was creeping back in.
'He blocked my 5th-tier spell earlier with a simple mana-saber construct,' she reasoned, biting down hard on her lip. 'He must have survived. But how? That was enough power to kill a seasoned Knight Commander!'
She couldn't control the sheer, white-hot anger that boiled inside her. She had been tricked, humiliated, and defied in front of her sister. Her sister, the one person she was sworn to protect above all else, had just been stolen by a 'musclehead' and a cold, arrogant boy.
'I can't let it slide! How dare those two brats steal my little sister! How dare they humiliate me, Clarice Weldenbud, the Deputy Head of the Department of Arcane Arts! I swear, after I kill that brat Blackstar, I will go find Christopher next, and I will make sure he never looks at Marice again!'
Clarice was about to turn and begin walking away from the ruin, assuming Lucian was defeated and focusing on hunting down the fleeing couple, when the immense magical residue in the air began to churn and violently swirl.
VROOOOM!
A massive, invisible wave of pure, concentrated energy—not raw mana, but something far older, far more terrifying—rolled out from the center of the smoking crater. The very air grew thick and heavy, and the ground seemed to hum beneath her feet.
Clarice stumbled back a step, her eyes widening in pure disbelief. It was an aura so impossibly powerful, so vast and cold, that she instinctively thought she felt a Demon King unsealed from the depths of Pandemonium. It was the crushing weight of absolute cosmic authority, the aura of a being who didn't just use magic but was magic.
She was suddenly drenched in cold sweat, her breath hitching in her throat. Her knees felt weak, and her magical core, the very source of her power, seemed to shrink and cower under the pressure.
Then she spoke, her voice thin and raspy. "What is this?! This… this is impossible!"
She forced herself to look back into the epicenter of the destruction, past the fading smoke and the lingering fire.
Her eyes snapped wide open, fixing on a figure standing precisely where the spell had impacted. Her terror reached its peak.
"How—how could you still be alive?!" she screamed, the question ragged with shock.
Lucian stood amidst the scorched earth. He was indeed bloody, but not from internal injury. The blood was mostly surface wounds—scrapes, minor cuts, and thin rivulets streaming from his nose and hairline, a result of the pressure wave and debris rather than the main magical impact. His uniform was ripped and smoking, but his posture was unnervingly straight, completely unfazed by the aftermath of the 7th-tier destruction spell Clarice had summoned.
He hadn't blocked the spell with mana; he had blocked it with the sheer, physical, defensive capability of his body—a body honed over his third life of intense combat as a Blade Demon Immortal.
Lucian finally spoke, his voice unnervingly calm, yet his every word was laced with a chilling, palpable killing intent that Clarice felt like an ice pick hitting her spine. This aura, this raw, elemental malice, was what caused her intense sweating and paralyzing fear.
"Did you really think that spell was enough to kill me?" Lucian asked, tilting his head slightly, his ashen white hair falling across his forehead.
He took a slow, deliberate step forward, and the pressure in the air intensified, driving Clarice back another step.
"If you think that you could kill me easily just because my formal class level is 5th, then you are fundamentally and utterly wrong, Professor. After all…"
Lucian slowly raised the gleaming, silvery mana-saber in his left hand. The broken ambient moonlight caught his eyes, and the deep black of his irises seemed to briefly show a silhouette of swirling, terrifying crimson red. This was the reflection of the suppressed power of the Demon God finally bleeding into the surface.
He looked down at her, not with hatred, but with the cold, detached judgment a master warrior reserves for a weak opponent.
"Because after all," he stated, his voice a low, final declaration that resonated with absolute cosmic arrogance.
"I am the strongest."
Clarice, a proud, powerful mage, was brought back to reality by the sheer, unbridled hubris of his statement. The fear was briefly overridden by white-hot rage that he, a mere student, dared to speak such a thing to a 7th-Class Level mage like herself.
"YOU DAMN ARROGANT BRAT!!!!" she shrieked, preparing to summon another spell, perhaps something even higher than the 7th tier.
BOOM!
Before Clarice could even form the first runic circle for her incantation, Lucian moved.
He didn't use a teleportation spell; he used pure, physical speed—the kind of speed that breaks the limits of mortal bodies and warps the air around him. He moved in a flash, covering the ten meters between them in less than an instant, and appeared directly in front of the enraged Professor.
Lucian didn't attack with his saber. He attacked with his foot. He delivered a devastating, lightning-fast kick directly to her guts.
CRACK!
The sound was sickeningly loud—the audible snap of multiple bones. The sheer, physical force of the kick, augmented by the Demon God's strength that Lucian could not fully suppress, shattered several of Clarice's ribs.
"AAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!" Clarice screamed, not from magic, but from the searing, paralyzing physical pain of broken cartilage and bone. The impact drove the air completely out of her lungs, and she doubled over.
Her mind, now reeling from the shock, could only cycle one terrified thought: 'How?! How could a student like him be this strong?! He's a damn greenhorn swordsman! His body should be weak! This is the power of a Legendary Warrior, not a Level 5 Saber user'
Lucian, expressionless, didn't stop. As Clarice buckled, he took another step and delivered a targeted, merciless kick to her already weakened knee.
CRACK!
Another bone snap, followed by a high-pitched cry of agony. Clarice's leg crumpled instantly, and she fell heavily to the smoking ground, struggling desperately to get up, to cast a spell, to do anything.
But before she could even try again, she looked up and saw Lucian standing over her, the moonlight glinting off his saber, his expression completely devoid of mercy or humanity.
He looked down at the Deputy Professor of Arcane Arts, the feared sister of the beautiful Marice, and said, with cold contempt:
"Your too noisy."
Then, in a final, humiliating display of overwhelming dominance, he raised his left foot high above his head, the position maximizing the force and angle of the strike, and brought it down with devastating power onto her back, aimed squarely at her spinal cord.
BAM! CRACK!
"AAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!"
Clarice screamed again, a high-pitched, desperate sound of pure, searing agony. The blow was so catastrophic that it caused immediate, systemic pain that would take more than mere healing potions to fix. Her broken ribs were further splintered, and her spinal cord was badly damaged, leaving her completely immobilized and incapable of fighting or even crawling away. Lucian had delivered the meanest axe kick in his vast arsenal, his version of the devastating Overhead Combo.
Lucian stared down at her ruined form, his breathing calm, his internal rage satisfied for a brief, cold moment.
Then he delivered the final, humiliating insult.
"Your nothing," he said, spitting onto the back of Clarice, a gesture of absolute contempt, just like the infamous bully and street fighter Johnny Vincent used to do to his opponents after delivering his devastating Overhead Combo to end a street fight.
Clarice lay broken, paralyzed, and utterly defeated, staring at the smoking, bloody debris of the music room. Her rage had cost her everything.
---
Meanwhile, Christopher and Marice, having fled the carnage, were running down a quieter academic pathway toward the student dorms, where they intended to hide until morning. They ran straight into Professor Randy, who was walking briskly toward the west wing, having just received a frantic, vague call from a junior staff member reporting "loud noises."
"What the hell happened to both of you?!" Professor Randy demanded, his face etched with worry as he took in the panicked, breathless state of the students. "And what the hell happened to the music room?! I heard a sound like an artillery shell went off!"
Marice, still breathing heavily from the flight and the terror of her sister's attack, managed to reply first. "It's because of my sister, Professor! She is fighting Lucian right now!"
Professor Randy's eyes widened in horror. "What?! Clarice is fighting Lucian?! Why would she be fighting Lucian right now? What started this madness?"
Christopher stepped forward, shame and regret mixing with the adrenaline rush of his successful proposal. "It—it's because of me, Professor. Because I tricked Professor Clarice."
"Tricked Clarice from what?" Randy asked, rubbing his temples, feeling an immediate, massive headache forming.
Christopher, holding Marice's hand tightly, quickly told Randy everything that happened, including the careful, detailed plan he and Lucian had orchestrated to trick Clarice into leaving her office so Christopher could propose to Marice under the guise of an emergency.
Randy listened, his face moving from confusion to disbelief, and finally to a heavy, resigned sigh. He looked at the two young lovers, so happy and so terrified, and just shook his head.
"Haah. So, you're saying you, Christopher, and Lucian planned this entire, elaborate, and frankly dangerous stunt to trick Clarice so you could have a date with Marice?"
Christopher just nodded, unable to meet the Professor's disappointed gaze.
Randy took a moment, his military training taking over the moral shock. He knew the level of threat Clarice posed.
"Call the Head Professor and the Headmaster immediately! Tell them the Deputy Professor is using a high-tier spell against a student! I will help Lucian to defeat Clarice, or at least buy time for those two to arrive!" Randy commanded, instantly turning toward the destruction.
But as Randy started walking, a wave of crippling anxiety hit him. He began rambling internally on his thoughts, his mind racing with possibilities.
'I knew how powerful Clarice is. She is a 7th-tier mage, capable of wiping out a platoon of soldiers. If she accidentally killed Lucian, she would be punished by none other than the Duke of West, Duke Draven Everblack Von Blackstar, Lucian's father. That man's retribution would be swift and apocalyptic! The entire academy could be shuttered!'
'Just what the hell would I do? I bet I would even be a hindrance to Lucian; I can't help him beat Professor Clarice. I know how powerful she is, and I'm just a PE Professor! What can I possibly do against a 7th-tier mage? I'll just get in the way and get us both killed!'
Randy knew that if he tried to help Lucian, he would just be a liability, and both of them would lose to the enraged Clarice. He was frozen in place, his trauma and his helplessness battling against his loyalty.
Then, from the direction of the music room, which was now silent, the ground shook violently once more.
BOOOM!
This sound was different. It wasn't the sound of fire or explosion. It was the sound of a physical impact—the sound of something incredibly dense and fast hitting something incredibly hard.
Randy felt another wave of energy hit him, but this one was far worse than the first. It wasn't just raw mana; it was the same ancient, terrifying aura he had felt decades ago during the great conflict—the War between the Lumina Empire and the 2nd Demon King, the Demon King of Pride.
It was the trauma he had felt when he was just a child, when the forces of the 2nd Demon King tried to conquer Lumina. If it weren't for the combined power of the Duke of North, Duke Le Ardenia, and the Duke of West, Duke Von Blackstar, the whole Lumina Empire would have been conquered or, worse, destroyed by the demons.
This aura—this cold, absolute, merciless power—was identical to the overwhelming presence of the Demon King's generals. It was the energy of a predator.
'Just what the hell was that?!' Randy thought, utterly terrified, his focus shifting completely from Clarice's fight to the terrifying new power that had just manifested itself. He didn't know it, but he had just felt the brief, unmasked power of the Demon God that lived inside Lucian Blackstar.
The fate of the academy, and perhaps the empire, had just taken a far darker and more dangerous turn.