Magic Academy's Bastard Instructor - Chapter 248

Capítulo 248: Youthful Beautiful [3]

Vanitas felt a bad premonition.

Inside the cathedral, several dead clergy littered the floors with their bodies torn apart not by blades but by dark magic.

When he lowered his gaze, he saw a priest’s body. The soul seemed to have already departed, leaving behind an empty vessel. Yet even in death, the remnants of dark mana remained around the corpse, telling a story that needed no words.

“….”

Whatever had transpired here, Vanitas could only make guesses. It clearly wasn’t the result of internal conflict among the clergy, especially when most of them were likely cultists to begin with.

Someone else had been here.

Soliette opened her mouth. “Vanitas, the Saintess—”

“Is alive,” Vanitas said, cutting her off. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

Through her magic, Selena had created a link between her and Vanitas, a connection that functioned much like a heartbeat monitor. As long as it existed, Vanitas could feel the rhythm of her heart, and she could sense his in return. The link also allowed them to know each other’s location.

Before them, the white pillar of blinding light continued to rise. The vibrations shook outward in steady waves, yet the surroundings remained untouched.

There were no shattered stones or scorched marks, only the aftereffects of the pillar’s constant shaking. It was clear that the phenomenon was mostly visual.

The group descended the spiral stairs, following closely behind Vanitas. The pressure rising from the depths grew stronger with every level they descended. Even Hughes Bolton, who was usually the most irritated and outspoken among them, fell silent.

Without realizing it, he was behind the group, as if some instinct urged him to stay farther away from whatever waited below.

When they crossed the threshold, the sight that met them was nothing any of them had been prepared for. The air felt colder, as if the scene itself had sucked the life out of the room.

“Friedrich!”

“….”

“….”

“….”

Slumped on the ground, with his body cleaved in half, was the Great Power, Friedrich Glade. The Wolf of the North, the ruler of those icy lands, and a celebrated war hero, lay lifelessly in a pool of his own blood, while the Sword Saint was left either dead, or unconscious.

Vanitas reacted before the others could gather their thoughts. His eyes swept around the area, searching for someone he cared about more than anyone else.

“Selena!”

She was there. Her back was turned to them while her shoulders trembled, as though she was struggling to hold herself together.

When she heard his voice, she cried out, “M-Marquess, d-don’t come!”

———!

At that moment, just as Vanitas stepped forward, a wave of darkness surged toward them. It wrapped around the group, but Soliette moved instantly. Her magic cut through the shadow, forcing it to move aside before it dissolved into nothing.

Vanitas turned toward the source with a cold stare.

“Astrea!”

The figure standing there was the Pope, Telos Alexander IX. Or, as Selena had already told him, someone wearing the Pope’s face.

“Astrea, Astrea, Astrea! You, all because of you…!”

The hatred in his tone was so strong that Vanitas couldn’t understand it. The anger felt was personally inexplicable.

“You ruined my life!”

“I don’t even know who you are,” Vanitas said.

“Of course, you don’t. Why would you remember someone you trampled over? A fellow professor you crushed without a second thought!”

The sight was jarring. The Pope’s refined appearance was in complete contrast to the rage on his face.

“Vanitas,” Elsa called from beside him.

“Go secure Selena and the Sword Saint,” he said. “I’ll deal with him.”

“Astrea!”

“Shut up. I ruined your life?” Vanitas scowled. “You must have been some third-rate idiot pretending to be a professor if that’s what you believe. I don’t know you. I probably won’t even if you tell me your name.”

It was most likely someone Vanitas had crossed paths with during the part of his life he no longer remembered. The gaps in his past held many questionable stories, and this outburst only made it more obvious.

Even so, it was almost amusing. There was a certain curiosity in seeing what sort of trouble Vanitas had caused back when he was climbing his way up as a professor.

Clearly, he had left more than a few bodies buried along the way.

“Arthur Doyle of the Viridian Tower!” the man shouted. His voice cracked with rage as the shadows around him throbbed with every word. “You stole my research, you blackmailed me, you ruined my career, you destroyed everything I built and left me with nothing!”

“Never heard of you.”

“….!”

The Pope raised his staff. Shadows swirled as he prepared to strike. But before the attack could form, a single arrow cut through the air in a blinding burst of prism light.

Hughes Bolton stood at the base of the stairs. The sight of Friedrich Glade, his closest ally, reduced to a mutilated corpse, had shaken him beyond reason. Rage poured off him in waves as his magic gathered around the arrowhead.

Xiu! Xiu! Xiu!

Several arrows shot across the chamber in rapid succession. Each one carried so much force that even when the Pope managed to block them with his shadows, the aftershocks around them were devastating.

Craters formed along the walls, the ceiling rumbled under the impact, and the stone floor split where the energy struck.

But in that brief opening created by Hughes’s barrage, Vanitas moved like the wind.

“Astrea—”

The Pope barely managed to turn his head.

Vanitas seized him by the skull. With a single pull, enhanced by the wind, he pulled the Pope’s head clean from his neck. The body staggered, then dropped to its knees before collapsing onto the stone floor.

The severed head rolled across the cracked ground before coming to a stop. Dark mana leaked from the corpse as it writhed weakly before fading into nothing.

It was anticlimactic. So much so that Hughes Bolton could only stare at Vanitas in disbelief. After all the rage and pressure, the fight had concluded with a single motion.

Vanitas didn’t even spare Bolton a single glance as his gaze shifted to Elsa, who was keeping Selena in her arms, and to Soliette, who had finished freeing the Sword Saint from the last of the restraints.

That was it.

The Pope had fallen, and with his death, the Sanctis Theocracy was finally free from the cult’s grasp. The darkness that had consumed the cathedral dissipated like smoke.

Hughes lowered his bow. The anger he felt only a moment earlier drained from him, replaced by an emptiness he didn’t know what to do with. Friedrich was gone. The battle was over, yet none of it felt like a victory.

Vanitas walked past the fallen body without a single pause, approaching Selena, who was fighting to stay conscious. Elsa steadied her as he knelt beside them.

“We need to get them out of here,” Elsa said.

Vanitas nodded. “We’re done here.”

“Marquess,” Selena whispered as she reached out with a trembling hand.

“I’m here, Saintess—” Vanitas stopped mid-sentence.

Something was off. His eyes followed the faint trail of mana from her fingertips. When he traced the flow back to its source, he realized the dark magic radiating from the Pope’s beheaded corpse was siphoning into her as if she were a parasite.

“You…”

“Thank you, for gathering the pieces for me, Vanitas Astrea.”

The voice came from Selena’s lips, but it did not belong to her. The cadence was a mockery that was nothing like the Saintess he knew.

“Because of you, it’s complete.”

Selena smiled. It was an expression far removed from anything she would ever show him.

In the next instant, dark magic surged from her body. The air cracked as the pressure exploded through the chamber, forcing everyone around her to shield themselves from the sudden torrent of corrupted mana.

Crackle——!

Vanitas tried to reach her before the surge consumed her entirely. But the darkness swallowed the ground beneath her feet, wrapping itself around her.

Elsa was sent hurling toward the outer wall. Soliette raised her staff immediately, narrowing her eyes while the Sword Saint wrapped around her shoulder.

Selena’s eyes lifted to Vanitas, but they were no longer hers. A foreign entity stared back at him.

“Saintess…”

At that moment, a wave of realization crashed over Vanitas. For all his brilliance, he had overlooked the simplest truth. Friedrich… the man had antagonized the Saintess for a reason. He must have sensed something Vanitas failed to see.

Selena turned her head toward Soliette.

Soliette’s lips formed to muster the quickest chant she could.

“Bur—”

But she never finished it.

———!

A burst of dark magic flashed, so sudden that none of them could track it. Soliette was thrown upward like a rag doll. Her body smashed through layers of ceiling.

Soliette, the strongest mage of their generation, had not only been overwhelmed but outsped in spellcasting. She hadn’t even been able to raise a proper defense.

Then Selena turned her gaze toward Vanitas and Bolton. Bolton couldn’t even move.

“Join me, Astrea.”

“…Who are you?”

“My name is Fyodor. A prophet chosen by Araxys, a messiah sent to guide this world into its rightful age. To tear down the false gods that bind it. To rebuild it under the true faith.”

“….”

Selena’s hand lifted. Her fingers trailed with dark magic that dispersed like smoke.

“Araxys has acknowledged you, and so have I,” Fyodor said through her lips. “You were never meant to stand on that side. You belong here, with us, under the true faith. Hasn’t this world made you suffer enough? All the pain, all the betrayal, all the loss… it is because Araxys has been cast aside. It is because the world chose false gods.”

The darkness around her pulsed like veins.

“Araxys offers you something they never will. True salvation.” Fyodor’s smile widened through Selena’s face. “When Araxys returns, it will free you. From the chains this world has placed on you. From the sins this world has forced you to carry. From every burden you had endured alone.”

“….”

“You deserve more, Astrea. You deserve a world where your suffering is not ignored but redeemed. Stand with me. Accept Araxys’s blessing. Together, we can rebuild everything this world has tried to take from you. You do not have to fight it anymore.”

Selena’s hand extended toward him, palm open.

“I will show you the path beyond pain. Beyond betrayal. Beyond—”

A sudden burst of light split the air.

“Enough.”

Elsa had recovered, though her robes were still torn from when she had been blasted through the walls. Even so, she lifted her staff and unleashed a concentrated burst of magic. The spell shot forward like a spear of pure force, aimed straight at Selena’s back.

Fyodor didn’t even bother to turn.

A wave of dark mana expanded from Selena’s body, swallowing the spell in an instant. Elsa gasped as the recoil sent her stumbling backward, barely managing to keep herself upright.

From the stairs, Hughes Bolton’s shout resounded.

“Astrea! Don’t listen to that cursed bastard!”

Bolton’s spirit arrow flew across the space.

“Don’t you dare believe a word that thing says!”

But Fyodor didn’t even bother to look his way. With a sweep of Selena’s arm, the arrow dissolved into motes of light.

“See?” Fyodor said. “They fear what you could become. They’re terrified that you might actually choose my side. The very thought of you accepting my hand is enough to make them panic. Does that not tell you everything?”

“Tell me something,” Vanitas said. “Where is Selena?”

“The Saintess… she has already ceased.”

Vanitas’s brow twitched, but he did not let any reaction show. “Since when?”

“Long before she sought your help.”

“….”

For a moment, his thoughts stalled. An ache spread through his chest before he could push it down, a realization in a way he had not expected.

Selena, that young girl who reminded him so much of his little sister, Chae Eunah…

Perhaps everything he had shared with the Saintess had never been real.

“….”

That there had never been a Selena at all.