Magic Academy's Bastard Instructor - Chapter 250

Capítulo 250: No Such Thing as Salvation [2]

Vanitas pondered deeply.

Truth be told, it was a very tempting offer.

Fyodor Dragunov was not some forgettable mid-game obstacle. Depending on the route, he was the main villain, an entity capable of ending a player’s progress in a single moment.

Vanitas remembered it clearly. There were certain runs where Fyodor had appeared out of nowhere and crushed the entire route in an instant. The devastation that he left in his wake always marked the end.

The Black Dragon, Araxys, was supposed to be the final boss, the ultimate threat.

But Vanitas had never reached him.

Because standing in his way every single time, blocking his path long before Araxys ever appeared, was Fyodor Dragunov himself.

But this was a route never imaginable. The main villain, the one who ended countless playthroughs, was now extending a hand to him. An invitation to stand beside him rather than oppose him. And it didn’t take long for Vanitas to understand why this route even existed.

Because he was no longer a player.

He was… a mid-game boss.

Vanitas Astrea.

‘To still think of this place as a game is quite laughable.’

Even so, the memories did not lie. He remembered the screens, the dialogue choices, and the routes. He remembered most of his failures and most of his endings. He remembered everything this world used to be.

And for all his pride, he refused to dismiss those memories as illusions. As long as they remained inside his head, he would never forget the life he once lived.

The life of Chae Eunwoo.

“I understand your hesitation,” Fyodor said, taking a step forward. “Should I just show you?”

———!

The next moment, a streak of golden light cut through the air, followed by the sharp crack of metal fracturing.

“….”

Standing there, as if he had appeared from thin air, was the Sword Saint himself, Aston Nietszche. His blade, renowned across the continent, shattered the moment it made contact with Fyodor.

Before Aston could even register the failure of his strike, Fyodor snapped his fingers. The force that followed sent the Sword Saint flying backward.

Fyodor didn’t even spare him a single glance, attention fully on Vanitas.

“Do you see now? The moment I took this body, the Sword Saint became irrelevant. His oath forbids him from harming what is holy. And this vessel, once the Saintess’s, is revered as the holiest of all.”

Aston struggled to rise, gripping the broken hilt of his sword. Vanitas could see the metaphorical chains binding him by oath.

Because of the vow he took in his youth, Aston’s fate had been sealed. He was not just cursed to obey the Pope. But his blade, his strength, and even his will could never bring harm to anything tied to the clergy. That was the burden placed upon the naive young man who had accepted the title of Sword Saint without understanding the full price.

“For the Archmage,” Fyodor went on. “I heard she was once your mentor. I admit she’s impressive in her own way. However, did you know? She is the weakest Archmage in the entire history of those who held the same title. Shall I make an example out of that fact?”

Vanitas didn’t respond, maintaining a neutral expression.

Fyodor scoffed and tilted his head upward. Through the multiple layers of broken ceiling created when he sent Soliette flying, she hovered high above them. Her staff was pointed down, and countless magic circles layered over one another.

“I can teach you magic far stronger than hers, far more efficient,” Fyodor said, returning his gaze to Vanitas. “Magic that bends the world without resistance—”

A prismatic arrow shot across the room, cutting him off mid-sentence. It struck with enough force to send Fyodor sliding back across the ground. Hughes Bolton stood at the base of the stairs with his bow drawn and another spirit arrow ready to fire.

At the same moment, Iridelle burst into the chamber. She had finished dealing with the remaining paladins outside and now hurled churning explosions toward Fyodor.

“I don’t know what the situation is,” Iridelle said as she stepped forward. “But this… has turned out for the worse.”

Elsa, bruised and battered from being thrown around earlier, pushed herself upright. Despite her condition, she gathered her mana and unleashed spell after spell at Fyodor, refusing to give him a moment’s breath. The chamber shook as magic rained down on him from every direction.

The Great Powers moved as one, with Bolton’s arrows, Iridelle’s blasts, Soliette’s layered spells from above, Elsa’s piercing magic, each attack striking with enough force to level armies.

“….”

But Vanitas simply watched.

Because not once, not even for a second, had he seen Fyodor struggle.

Amid the barrage, Fyodor stood upright with a grin on his face.

“Yes. That’s the perfect choice,” he said, as if praising a child. “I’m glad you’re not foolish enough. So, I must reward you… with a show.”

———!

Fyodor leapt upward in a blur of motion as the Saintess’s pure white dress swept behind him like a ghostly trail. In an instant he closed the distance to the Archmage above, rising through the shattered layers of the ceiling.

Soliette reacted immediately. The countless magic circles she had prepared ignited at once. A storm of spellcraft erupted around her. Lightning speared downward, flames torrented, ice spiraled in sharp arcs, and binding circles conjured into place, all aimed at Fyodor as he climbed toward her.

But Fyodor barely spared it a glance.

Bolts of lightning bent around his body. Flames curled harmlessly to the side. Ice shattered before it could reach him. Every spell Soliette hurled was dismissed with a sweep of his hand, dispelled as if they had never been there at all.

Below, Hughes Bolton fired a barrage of spirit arrows through the air like compressed stars, flashing upward toward Fyodor.

Iridelle followed, launching detonation after detonation. Explosions bloomed like suns along the cathedral’s broken architecture.

Elsa’s magic lanced upward from the ground, moving between the arrows and explosions.

All three Great Powers unleashed everything at once.

Up above, Soliette screamed her chant, tightening her control as hundreds—no, thousands of layered circles condensed into a single point of cataclysmic mana above Fyodor’s head.

The sky within the cathedral darkened. A pillar of pure destructive magic fell.

And still, Fyodor advanced.

He flicked his wrist.

Crackle——!

The pillar shattered.

The shockwave blasted outward, sending Soliette spiraling back as the roof above her cracked further. The explosion almost threw Hughes off his feet. Iridelle stumbled. Elsa was forced to grab onto a column to keep from being thrown.

Fyodor reached Soliette before she recovered. He grasped the edge of her staff mid-swing, his face inches from hers.

“Archmage,” he said, “allow me to show you the difference between borrowed power… and true power.”

He slammed his palm against the nearest magic circle.

The sky above ruptured.

The entire spell sequence she had prepared broke apart at once, scattering into fading fragments of light. Soliette gasped as the feedback broke her mana pathways. She dropped from the air, screaming, only barely caught by Iridelle’s magic before she hit the ground.

Bolton, roaring in fury, fired again. Fyodor snapped his fingers. The arrow turned to dust. Elsa cast binding magic. Fyodor stepped through it as if it were wind. Iridelle detonated the floor beneath him. Fyodor flew upward, unscathed.

The three Great Powers, together, couldn’t even slow him.

But Soliette, for all her pride as the Archmage, refused to yield. Light erupted around her as she positioned herself mid-air. One spell after another burst from her fingertips, convulsing together in rapid succession.

Each impact struck Fyodor more intensely than the last, forcing him to shift, block, or parry rather than simply glide through the onslaught.

For the first time since the battle began, Fyodor paused.

“Indeed… impressive,” he said, brushing aside a blast of condensed mana that detonated against his forearm. “But tell me, Archmage, do you know who it was that killed the Archmage before you?”

Soliette’s eyes widened, but she did not answer. She pushed forward again.

“Your predecessor thought as you do,” Fyodor continued. “That pride and talent alone were enough. That being bestowed the title of Archmage meant he could stand above the world.”

Soliette launched a chain of elemental strikes. Each one merged into the next. Fire into ice, ice into wind, wind into lightning. The combined spell crashed into Fyodor, swallowing him momentarily in a blinding explosion.

Bolton, Iridelle, and Elsa braced themselves, shielding their eyes. Even Vanitas couldn’t hide his astonishment.

“Continental-level magic…”

Sovereign spells.

Even with all his brilliance, Vanitas had never once reached the point where he could cast something of that scale. Watching Soliette and Fyodor tear apart the heavens themselves only drove the reminder deeper.

He retrieved his cigarette, tapped it once against a piece of broken stone, and lit it with a flick of his fingers. Taking a slow drag, he sat onto a slab of rubble, elbows resting on his knees as the battlefield roared around him.

The sky was split open.

The ground had become a crater of molten stone.

Every building within sight was collapsing.

The cathedral, which was once a symbol of the Theocracy’s authority, was little more than dust and shattered pillars.

He exhaled a thin stream of smoke.

At this rate, the Theocracy’s capital wouldn’t just suffer damage. It might cease to exist entirely.

“….”

Vanitas turned to the side. Aston was standing there, staring at the chaos with a tortured expression. He was completely useless. The oath of Lumine had chained him to the point that even lifting a hand against the Saintess’s body was impossible.

“Are you frustrated?” Vanitas asked.

Aston’s fingers curled. “…I’ve failed her.”

“You did,” Vanitas replied. “Because of you, Selena has ceased to be.”

“…Don’t say her name so casually—”

Clang——

Vanitas kicked a sword from the rubble, letting it spin once before pointing the blade toward the Sword Saint.

“Do me a favor and kill yourself,” Vanitas said. “Your pathetic existence doesn’t deserve a place in this world.”

“…What did you just say…?”

“You heard me.” Vanitas held his gaze. “If you had been worth even half the fancy title you carry, she would still be alive. But in the end, you were powerless, you sorry excuse for a Great Power. And now you think grief is enough to justify your existence?”

Aston trembled. “You have no right—”

“I have every right,” Vanitas cut in. “Because I was there. Because I saw the end result of your incompetence. Selena is gone. And all because her so-called Sword Saint couldn’t protect the one person he was sworn to guard.”

A shockwave boomed above them as another clash of Sovereign spells lit up the sky, but neither man looked away.

“…Vanitas Astrea, I once respected you.”

“And I never did. Not for myself, and sure as hell never for you.”

“You don’t understand how much she meant to me…”

“I don’t want to,” Vanitas said. “So don’t start your pity speech with me. I don’t care.”

Fyodor’s ultimate goal was the revival of Araxys. He intended to summon the Black Dragon fully into the world, and for that ritual, he needed a vessel. Selena’s body had already been taken. All Fyodor needed to do now was sacrifice himself through her body, completing the descent of Araxys.

Once that happened, the Sword Saint’s existence would become meaningless. His oath to protect the Saintess and uphold what was deemed holy was the very thing preventing him from lifting a finger against Fyodor or the vessel he occupied.

Even if Araxys descended in front of him, even if the world burned, Aston wouldn’t be able to slay Araxys, which used Selena as a vessel.

In gacha terms, the Sword Saint had once been an SSR character, a high-tier, coveted unit capable of changing the course of a route. But from this moment onward, with Selena gone and Fyodor controlling her body, Aston Nietszche was effectively demoted to the lowest tier imaginable.

Unusable trash, a character with no purpose from here on out.

Moreover, the Sword Saint had always been destined to walk a path of righteousness. His power, even with all its limitations and the binding of his oath, was still one of the strongest in existence.

In a proper confrontation, Vanitas had no means to stop him. Aston’s strength was overwhelming.

But that was precisely the problem.

With the path Vanitas had carved for himself, it was inevitable that the Sword Saint would one day stand in his way. And when that happened, everything Vanitas had planned to build would be thrown into jeopardy.

There was no room for a righteous hero in the world Vanitas intended to shape.

Vanitas took another drag of his cigarette without even looking in Aston’s direction.

“This world doesn’t need you anymore,” he said. “It’s best you realize that early.”

Aston’s gaze dropped to the sword at his feet. His hand trembled as he reached toward it. In the back of his mind, Izza’s voice echoed, pleading with him, begging him not to do it, telling him he must not fall for Vanitas’s provocation.

But Aston’s fingers closed around the hilt before he lifted the sword.

Vanitas didn’t so much as even spare him a glance. The battle above roared while the cathedral shook.

Thud!

Vanitas exhaled smoke and flicked the ash away.

“Pathetic. If his mentality was that weak, he truly was better off dead from the start.”

He didn’t turn around.