Amon stood on the sprawling, vibrant grass of the Mirror World's plateau, his posture relaxed and indifferent, his wand held loosely in his right hand. Opposite him stood Sophia, her newly transformed SS-Rank aura radiating outward in suffocating waves that caused the simulated atmosphere to visibly warp.
While the Academy mandated Mirror Worlds for standard student duels to prevent collateral damage, this specific battle carried extraordinary weight. The Student Council President—the absolute ruler of the student body whose authority was surpassed only by the faculty—was taking the field. And her challenger was her own younger brother, a first-year prodigy who had already shattered the academy's expectations by utterly dismantling the Crimson Tyrant, Zephyra Valkaress.
"You remember the conditions of this match, don't you, Amon?~" Sophia purred, her voice dripping with an intoxicating, perverse excitement as her crystal-cyan eyes locked onto him. "If I win... I get to pop your cherry!~"
A prominent vein bulged on Amon's forehead beneath his blindfold. "Bold of you to assume you possess the capability to defeat me."
Without a moment's hesitation, Amon raised his wand straight toward the sky, his voice dropping into a razor-cold command.
"70% Gravitas."
The space behind Amon distorted violently as seventy shimmering blades composed of hyper-compressed gravitational force manifested in perfect formation. Each blade carried raw destructive potential equivalent to a high-tier S-Rank offensive spell. With a sharp flick of his wrist, Amon aimed his wand directly at Sophia.
The seventy gravitational blades detonated forward in a blinding flash, their sheer velocity accelerating so rapidly that they began to tear at the temporal boundaries of the Mirror World itself.
Sophia didn't even flinch. A mad, ecstatic smile broke across her face as she slammed the base of her wand into the earth.
"Frozen World."
An enormous, intricate magic circle expanded across the heavens, engulfing the entire plateau in an instant. The vibrant green landscape was instantly flash-frozen into a desolate wasteland of jagged ice and absolute zero frost.
Frozen World was not merely an elemental ice attack; its true conceptual mechanism was absolute deceleration. The spell stripped all kinetic momentum from incoming attacks, physical matter, and spatial motion, trapping them in an absolute deadlock until their energy dissipated into frozen nothingness.
Amon was intimately familiar with the spell, but as his gravitational blades slammed into the frozen domain, something unprecedented occurred. The blades didn't just decelerate—the moment they made contact with the icy spell, their compressed gravitational structures collapsed and vanished entirely. Amon immediately attempted to channel a secondary layer of Gravity Magic to manipulate the atmospheric pressure and force a breach, but the mana dissolved before the spell could fully manifest.
"Tch... Magic nullification," Amon analysed internally, his sharp mind immediately breaking down the phenomenon. "The potency of her frost magic has been amplified to an absurd degree thanks to Glaive's heart. It's no longer just decelerating energy—it's actively freezing and extinguishing the magium signatures of incoming spells."
A dark, amused smirk tugged at the corner of Amon's lips, his blindfolded gaze fixed on the glowing, cyan-eyed beast standing before him.
"Fine. If you want to play with... I'll bring out the big guns as well."
"Aw~ Don't tell me that's all you amount to, my beloved?~" Sophia cooed, her sultry voice laced with playful provocation as the sky above the frozen plateau burst into a blinding brilliance of overlapping, intricate magic circles.
"Frozen Guardian."
A massive, pristine white draconic claw pierced through the centre of the primary matrix, tearing open a tear in space as a titanic dragon emerged into the Mirror World. The sheer, suffocating pressure radiating off the summoned beast was nothing short of monstrous—nearly matching Sophia's own SS-Rank aura.
Jagged, crystalline ice was etched directly into its sweeping horns, and its scaled hide glinted with a perpetual layer of absolute-zero frost. Slit-pupiled, dark blue eyes locked instantly onto Amon. Without a moment's hesitation, the Ice Dragon opened its jaw, charging a swirling vortex of condensed arctic mana before unleashing a concentrated, blinding beam of pure frost straight at him.
The catastrophic blast detonated upon the ground where Amon stood, instantly flash-freezing the area into a jagged forest of towering ice spires. The thermal impact was absolute—leaving behind no trace of life, motion, or presence.
"How thoroughly impudent, Sophia," Amon's voice drifted calmly from the centre of the glacial destruction.
A pulse of purple gravitational energy flared beneath the frozen monument, shattering the massive ice spires into fine, glittering dust with a single, deafening echo. Amon stepped casually out of the debris, brushing a non-existent speck of dust from his pristine academy uniform, his blindfolded expression completely unbothered.
Sophia's smile broadened into a confident, predatory grin. In a fluid motion, she manifested an exquisite, heavy-calibre firearm in her left hand while maintaining her grip on her wand with her right, radiating a deadly, icy grace.
The weapon was a masterpiece of lethal artistry, crafted from polished ivory-white metal that shone like carved glacial bone. Its elongated, boxy upper barrel and sweeping under-rail were etched with intricate, sapphire-blue leaf-and-vine filigree, exposing brass and bronze mechanical gears operating at its core.
Atop the smooth white cylinder swept a pair of cresting, wing-like fins that curled backwards over the hammer like pristine feathers. The handle, sculpted with an ergonomic texture and flowing scrollwork, tapered into an aggressive spur beneath the trigger guard—balancing pristine, aristocratic elegance with terrifying, heavy-calibre authority.
"Impressive~" Sophia hummed, her sultry voice rising over the howling wind as her crystal-cyan eyes gleamed with escalating excitement. "You managed to bypass the anti-magic countermeasures of my Frozen World while effortlessly deflecting my little pet's frost breath~ Anyone else would have been turned into a frozen statue in an instant~"
"Are you certain that what your eyes are perceiving is reality, Sophia?" Amon asked softly.
He raised his right hand to his face, his slender fingers catching the edge of the crimson fabric covering his vision. With a slow, deliberate motion, he pulled off his blindfold, revealing a pair of glowing crimson eyes filled with intricate skull patterns.
"What...?" Sophia's brows knitted together in sudden confusion before the chilling implication behind his words fully registered. "Frozen Guardian—!"
She snapped her head up toward her summoned beast, only for her breath to hitch in her throat.
The massive Ice Dragon wasn't preparing another attack. It was pinned helplessly to the frozen earth, impaled through its chest by a colossal, pitch-black longsword that hummed with a terrifying, crushing gravitational pressure. The beast was already dissolving into fading particles of light, its core completely shattered.
"None of what you experienced just now was real, Sophia," Amon's smooth voice drifted from right beside her ear.
Startled, Sophia's instincts flared as she instinctively leapt backwards, putting distance between them as her heart hammered against her ribs.
Amon stood casually where she had been standing a second prior, holding his blindfold in one hand while his striking crimson eyes remained fixed on her with cold, terrifying clarity. "So long as my opponent lacks an absurd regeneration factor... I am, quite literally, their worst possible matchup."
"Fascinating... So you caught me in a perceptual spatial loop the moment I stepped into the ring~" Sophia let out a low, ominous laugh, her voice dipping into a tone of pure, unadulterated madness. "Do you truly believe I came here without preparing for your Personal Magic, my beloved?~"
Before Amon could respond, Sophia raised the heavy ivory firearm in her left hand, swung the barrel around, and pressed the cold, ornate muzzle directly against her own head. She pressed the trigger the next moment, and the gun fired.
. . .
Amon and Sophia stepped out of the Mirror World simulation, returning to the silent, cordoned-off expanse of the main Duelling Hall.
Sophia had lost the match spectacularly the moment she made the extreme decision to take her own life within the virtual duel—operating under the frantic belief that the lethal act would force her mind awake from the illusory maze ensnaring her.
What her instincts had failed to comprehend was that Amon's Personal Magic was far more terrifying and insidious than a collection of mere perceptual illusions. It was a conceptual atrocity—a power that weaponised the very idea and concept of its user, projecting a suffocating, cognitive madness that systematically sabotaged all logic, reason, and strategic deduction. It forced his opponents into a state of utter mental degradation, driving them to destroy themselves under the weight of their own compromised sanity.
The entire brutal exchange Sophia had just experienced—the colossal summoned dragon, the ivory firearm, the absolute zero frost—had been nothing more than a fever dream spawned by the maddening influence of Amon's presence.
"I... I don't get it," Sophia whispered, staring blankly down at her trembling hands as her vibrant, crystal-cyan eyes lost their confident lustre. Her expression was a painful mix of profound shock and total, uncomprehending confusion. "I consumed Glaive's heart... I reached true SS-Rank... I felt my magium refinement skyrocket... So why? Why did I still lose so effortlessly?"
"Here is the fundamental flaw in your logic, Sophia," Amon said calmly, slinging his dark blindfold back over his striking crimson eyes as he walked alongside her with unhurried, measured steps. "Madness does not care about rank, capacity, or brute strength. It only cares about mangling the sanity of anything unfortunate enough to cross its path."
With those words, he walked past Sophia without looking back, his steps echoing cleanly off the polished marble as he exited the Duelling Hall, leaving her standing alone in stunned silence before the watchful eyes of her Student Council.
"What I told her holds entirely true," Amon thought, a quiet, cold smile tugging at his lips as he made his way back toward the central library through the quiet, moonlit corridors. "So long as my opponent lacks an absurd regeneration factor, or unless my magium is being actively nullified, my victory is absolute. My base capacity sits at SS-Rank, but the synergy between my Personal Magic, skills, and sword effectively elevates my combat threshold to SSS-Rank. And once I factor in my familiars, my true capabilities sit far beyond the conventional boundaries of an SSS-Rank."
He rounded a turn in the grand hallway, the cool night breeze filtering through the arched stained-glass windows.
"I have been holding back an immense portion of my capabilities," Amon continued his silent analysis. "And even if I showboat to keep up appearances, I know the golden rules of every works-of-fiction dynamic. If I carelessly parade the full extent of my power out in the open, my enemies will simply build a tailored countermeasure and fry me before I can adjust."
His thoughts drifted toward the shadowy, insidious threats operating outside the academy's walls.
"Even with my suppressed performance, those bastards in the Aimus faction have already managed to piece together a theoretical combination to restrain my active output. They may be debauched and depraved enough to make Satan shudder, but they are exceptionally intelligent, pragmatic, and adaptable. Neither they nor I have revealed our true aces, locking us into a tactical stalemate."
He paused just a few paces short of the massive, dark-oak double doors leading into the Academy Library, resting his hand against the cold metal ring of the latch.
"And given the sheer magnitude of the paradoxes and butterfly effects currently cascading across the domain... the difficulty of the upcoming arcs is going to skyrocket far beyond the original narrative's script."
. . .
Somewhere in the depths of the vast cosmos, Amou and Tiamat walked side-by-side through the void.
Their path led toward a monumental castle suspended over nothingness. The structure was colossally huge, forged from dark, light-devouring stone, and encircled by multiple active singularities whose gravitational whirlpools swallowed all cosmic light before it could ever touch the ramparts.
"Why have you brought me to the Nightmare Palace?" Tiamat asked, her expression unreadable and her tone cold, measured, and even.
"To show you something infinitely interesting, of course!~" Amou replied playfully, a wide, mischievous grin curving her lips.
"The only entity remotely worthy of interest in this desolate place would be the Thrones of Chaos," Tiamat deadpanned, staring straight ahead. "And even they have long since lost whatever charm they once possessed. Those three are nothing more than hopeless, fanatic fools clinging to the pathetic delusion that their Creator will one day return to sow ruin across Creation."
"Oh, you'll see what I mean shortly, my dear sister-wife~" Amou chuckled softly, sauntering along with an airy, effortless stride.
Passing through the atmospheric threshold of the fortress, Amou offered a light snap of her slender fingers.
In a fraction of a millisecond, reality folded around them, teleporting the duo directly into the grand central throne room. Framed against the endless, shimmering void of the star-dusted cosmos, the cavernous chamber exuded a monumental scale and an aura of cold, terrifying majesty. Towering, angular galactic pillars flanked the central promenade like silent obsidian sentinels. At the far end, a grand flight of star-filled stairs ascended toward an elevated dais, where three colossal thrones rested before a massive, sunburst array of golden spires and metallic beams that fanned outward like a blinding stellar crown. Set against an open cosmic backdrop revealing billions of swirling, distant galaxies, the hall balanced brutalist architectural geometry with breathtaking galactic grandeur.
Amou and Tiamat came to a halt at the foot of the star-filled stairs.
A rare flicker of subtle confusion crossed Tiamat's features. The three imposing thrones sat before them, topped only by three distinct, radiant crowns—yet the chamber was completely devoid of presence. Tiamat spread her sensory perception across the entirety of the Nightmare Palace, but could not detect a single trace of the Three Thrones anywhere within its conceptual boundaries.
"Where have the three Kings gone?" Tiamat inquired, her gaze shifting to Amou, who was already casually strolling up the grand staircase.
Suppressing a swell of faint irritation at her companion's evasive theatre, Tiamat glided up the stairs after her.
Amou came to a stop directly before the three vacant seats of power, gazing down at the empty cushions with an intensely playful, satisfied smile. "Why, they're right here, Tiamat~" she cooed, her voice dripping with teasing amusement.
"Nonsense." Tiamat stepped onto the dais alongside her, inspecting the three silent seats before turning her cold eyes back to Amou. "All that remains here are the discarded crowns of the Red King, the Silver King, and the Purple King."
"Aw, my hopelessly naive sister~" Amou grinned wider, tilting her head with an exaggerated sigh. "Have you truly not pieced it together yet?~"
In an instant, the alignment shifted within Tiamat's mind.
The Red King, the Silver King, and the Purple King—entities of ancient, chaotic permanence—were gone. Their crowns resting silently on their seats signified a singular truth: they had been executed. And judging by Amou's utterly unbothered, delighted demeanour... the culprit stood directly beside her.
"You killed them?" Tiamat turned toward her, a genuine flicker of astonishment breaking through her composed facade.
"Bingo!~" Amou clapped her hands together in delight, letting out a cheerful chime of laughter. " You are absolutely correct~"
Tiamat remained silent for a long moment, the heavy cosmic quiet stretching between them. Amou casually reached out, picking up the radiant crown of the Red King from its velvet cushion, her slender fingers turning the ancient artefact in her hands.
"I killed these fools because one of them had the utter audacity to harm our beloved~" Amou purred, turning her gaze back to Tiamat. "The Red King's single, catastrophic mistake brought about the complete demise of the entire Thrones of Chaos~"
Her voice maintained its usual airy, playful lilt, but beneath the surface ran a vein of dark, suffocating possessiveness and pure, unadulterated murderous intent.
"Tiamat, you know, don't you?~" Amou continued, her eyes narrowing slightly. "How that pathetic insect tormented the one we love when he was only eight years old?~"
"I... am fully aware," Tiamat finally spoke. Her tone remained outwardly calm, yet a dense wave of killing intent flared through her voice, trembling the very space around them. "I searched for the Red King endlessly to rip his soul to shreds... but I could never track the lowlife down."
"I took care of him the same day he crossed paths with Master," Amou added, an ominous, sweet grin spreading across her face. "The moment he stepped through the spatial distortion to return to the Nightmare Palace, I ambushed him within the rift. I tore him apart quite easily and absorbed his entire authority."
"That explains why his essence vanished from the cosmos without a trace..." Tiamat let out a long, quiet sigh, her tension easing slightly as she processed the reveal. "And what of the other two? Why did you execute the Silver and Purple Kings?"
"My embodiment of wisdom was lacking a bit of conceptual fundamentality," Amou replied with a casual shrug, tossing the Red King's crown lightly in her hand like a worthless toy. "So, to reinforce and refine my foundation, I simply executed the remaining two and absorbed their power as well."
"That reminds me," Tiamat said, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully as she recalled a past event. "When I healed Master after he was assassinated in broad daylight, why did you deliberately inject Dark Magium into his core? You told me at the time that you wanted him to cultivate an immunity to it, but your explanation made little sense. Why would he ever need an immunity to Dark Magium when he has the two of us to protect him?"
"It is quite simple, really," Amou replied calmly, her gaze shifting toward the endless void outside the palace as her eyes gleamed with a quiet, mad devotion. "The Dark Magium was never meant to harm him. It was meant to subtly influence his cognitive development—integrating his shadow-side into his core personality far more effectively."
She placed the Red King's crown back onto its empty seat, her fingers lightly tracing the cold metallic spires.
"It is occasionally necessary to embrace evil to safeguard that which is precious to you," Amou added, her voice dropping into a soft, serene tone. "Goodness by itself lacks the teeth required to protect what you care about."
Amou tilted her head, a sweet, unbothered smile curving her lips as she looked back at Tiamat.
"Master does not need to walk as a villain every hour of the day," She murmured. "He simply needs to possess the capacity for evil during the moments he is forced to protect those who belong to him."