Chapter 209: Holy Eyes and the Soul of the Abyss
Chapter 209: Holy Eyes and the Soul of the Abyss
Time had seemingly come to a standstill for Saintess Alicia, the pride of the Holy Church, right outside the heavy, carved wooden door of Class 1B.
She had actually been standing in front of that door for minutes. The students rushing through the corridors, the freshmen laughing with each other as they scattered to their classrooms—none of them even noticed her frozen state.
Alicia’s feet felt nailed to the floor; she couldn’t take a single step forward. Freezing drops of cold sweat trickled from the roots of her golden-blonde hair down to her porcelain-white nape.
Her heart pounded as if it would shatter her ribcage, and she was clenching her hands so hard her knuckles had turned completely white.
The problem wasn’t the door. The problem was the incomprehensible, suffocating presence waiting *inside* Class 1B, right behind that door.
It felt like a massive, bottomless, and lightless ocean... As if pure darkness and death itself was sitting right in the middle of that classroom, breathing, waiting for her. Alicia’s holy mana had withdrawn into itself because of the pressure radiating from inside, practically cowering in fear.
With trembling hands, she looked at the gold-leafed plaque right next to the door one more time: *Class 1B*.
"Yes..." she muttered to herself, her voice like a leaf trembling in the wind. "This is my class. I’m in the right place. But... Then why is a being like that inside? It’s impossible. The Academy has massive holy barriers. How could something like this slip past the defense lines personally blessed by the Archbishop and enter the Academy?"
Her mind overflowed with horrific scenarios. What had happened to the students in the class? Had that entity slaughtered them, devoured their souls? Was the classroom a bloodbath right now?
But right after, she heard the cheerful voices of students, laughter, and the scraping of chairs from behind the door. The youths inside were chatting and introducing themselves perfectly normally.
*What in the world...?* Alicia thought, utterly bewildered. *If the students are safe and can’t feel a thing... Then what is this sensation? What am I sensing?*
Her fear overpowered her curiosity. She just couldn’t find the courage to push the door handle down. That was until the deep, heavy chime of the school bell echoed through the academy corridors, followed immediately by the voice of a professor approaching with calm steps.
"Student Alicia?"
The middle-aged, wise-looking professor, holding a thick spellbook, frowned slightly at the Saintess standing by the door. "The bell rang. Why haven’t you entered your class yet? Is there a problem?"
Alicia jumped. The professor’s voice had pulled her out of that dark trance. Panicking, she stammered, "Ah! N-no, Professor!" trying to force a smile onto her face. "I just... I just found my class. I got lost, yes, I got a little lost. I apologize."
The professor didn’t look entirely convinced by this excuse, but he nodded. "Very well. Come inside with me, then."
As the professor pushed the door handle and stepped inside, Alicia slipped into the classroom right behind him with her head bowed, looking as though she were walking in front of a firing squad.
She was afraid to lift her gaze from the floor. She didn’t want to look at the center of that dark aura. She could hear the whispers of the other students in the class, could feel those admiration-filled gazes directed at her, but she didn’t care about any of it.
Finally, pushing her willpower to the limit, she held her breath and slowly raised her eyes toward the center of that terrifying darkness, toward the back corner of the classroom.
And she saw him.
A boy with white hair and blood-red eyes, sitting alone and isolated by the window. From the outside, he just looked like an ordinary but eerie student with a dangerous charm.
But that wasn’t what Saintess Alicia’s pure, holy eyes—eyes that could see beyond the soul, into true nature—saw. What she saw was the horrific, inconceivable sight lurking behind the physical body.
Alicia’s world suddenly lost its color, replaced by the terrifying ’Soul Vision’.
The space around where the boy sat was a literal depiction of hell. Millions of suffering souls... Countless ghosts with their flesh melted from their bones, their faces twisted in eternal agony, were bound to a single point—to that boy’s soul—with thick, rusty, cursed chains.
The souls wept endlessly, letting out horrific, silent screams that would deafen the ears and drive a person to madness. In unending torment, they writhed around, chained to their own murderer, to that boy. All of them burned with the fire of vengeance, lunging to tear the boy apart, devour him, and drag him into their own darkness.
But it was in vain.
Right at the center of that massive dark ocean formed by millions of souls lay the boy’s own soul. It was a tiny crumb of a soul, so small it was hard to see, so weak its presence could barely be felt.
Yet, this tiny soul was surrounded by incredibly powerful entities, forming an impenetrable wall that protected this minuscule soul from millions of enraged ghosts. Looking at those entities for even a second was enough to freeze Alicia’s own holy soul, pushing her mind to the brink of madness.
But the worst part about the boy wasn’t this sea of suffering souls. The true horror was ’Death’ itself radiating from him.
Alicia’s eyes could normally tell how much evil a person had committed, how many lives they had taken, from the color of their mana. A murderer’s aura would be gray. A mass murderer’s would verge on black.
But this boy’s aura... It was colorless. It was a Void. It was a density of death that defied all reason and logic, something that could only be carried by a being who had caused the death of millions, perhaps an entire world, swimming in oceans of blood.
*How... How can this boy possess such a presence, such a burden of sin?* Alicia’s mind cried out. *He’s just a young boy! When did he end so many lives? How did he take so many souls?!*
Normally, when a living being died, their soul would leave this world, taken by the angels of death to where they belonged—heaven or hell—to be judged. This was the absolute rule set by the gods. But these souls... These countless suffering souls couldn’t enter the cycle of death; they were eternally chained to this boy’s existence, to his curse. No heaven or hell waiting for him could be more terrifying than the dark abyss this boy carried within himself.
"Alicia?"
The professor’s voice echoed in the classroom, but the Saintess’s ears were ringing. Tears had begun to stream from her eyes.
"Student Alicia!"
Alicia jolted, gasping for air as if waking from a deep, nightmarish sleep, and quickly turned her head toward the professor. The soul vision in her eyes vanished, and the world returned to its physical colors.
"Why are you still standing? Please take your seat. We need to begin the lesson," the professor said, a hint of impatience in his voice.
"Huh...?"
Coming to her senses, Alicia wiped her sweating palms on her skirt and slowly looked across the classroom, at the desks. And in that moment, her heart skipped a beat.
Full desks. Full desks. Full desks.
There was only one empty seat left in the classroom.
The only empty seat in the class was the one next to Cassian.
*Oh God...* Alicia wailed inwardly. Her legs were about to give out. *Please... I beg you, let this be a dream.*
But she knew every eye in the classroom was on her. The prince of Pelagorn, the other nobles, the common students... All of them were watching the Saintess with admiration and a few odd, curious looks, wondering where she would sit.
The pressure mounted with every passing second. She couldn’t run. She couldn’t turn back. The Saintess of the Holy Church couldn’t destroy her entire reputation on the first day by running screaming from the classroom.
Left with no choice, she drew a deep, trembling breath into her lungs. Endlessly reciting prayers in her head to the Archbishop, the God of Light, and every holy name she knew, she dragged her feet toward that desk. Every step was as heavy as the steps of a condemned prisoner walking to the gallows.
When she reached the boy, she squeezed her eyes shut, pulled out the chair, and slowly sat down in the empty spot.
Cassian didn’t even turn to look at the girl sitting next to him. He didn’t even turn his head. Those soulless, blood-red eyes were fixed out the window, watching the trees in the academy courtyard sway in the wind.
Alicia, on the other hand, gripped her skirt so tightly with her hands that the fabric was about to tear. She forced herself not to pass out, not to lose consciousness under that pressure.
The faint, ice-cold air radiating from the boy’s jacket made all the hairs on Alicia’s body stand on end.
The professor turned to the board, cleared his throat, and began the lesson. "Alright, youths. Welcome to the Luminara Academy. Today, our first topic will be the formation theories of the Mana Core and Elemental Balance. As you know, the nature of mana is not only genetic, but also linked to the capacity of the soul..."
To Alicia, the professor’s voice sounded muffled and meaningless, as if coming from underwater. The forty-five-minute class felt like forty-five years. She couldn’t process a single formula written on the board, nor a single word spoken. Her mind was entirely consumed by the fact that the entity next to her was right there. She could do nothing but pray, *Please don’t look at me... Please don’t talk to me...*
Finally, after what felt like centuries, the bell rang.
The professor gathered his books. "Read the first Chapter before tomorrow’s class," he said, and left the room.
With the professor out the door, the veil of silence and formality over the class lifted.
Dozens of students, who had been dying to talk to the Saintess and meet her for minutes, gathered their courage despite the terrifying aura Cassian emitted and suddenly swarmed around Alicia’s desk.
"Saintess Alicia! What an honor it is to be in the same class as you!"
"Can I watch you practice your holy spells?"
"Would you like to eat lunch with us?"
Alicia was dumbfounded by this suffocating attention and the crowd. She could already barely stand, and being surrounded like this stole her breath. She wanted to get up from the desk and get away from this stifling, horrific environment—especially away from Cassian—as quickly as possible, but the students had formed a wall of flesh around her. She couldn’t get up.
---
**Cassian POV**
Without turning his head from the window, Cassian simply ignored the noisy herd of students erupting on his right.
In truth, he knew perfectly well that Alicia had been standing outside the door for a while, hesitating to come in. His enhanced senses had easily picked up the girl’s erratic heartbeat and her freezing fear behind the door.
When the bell rang and she walked in with the professor, he had also felt how Alicia’s holy eyes locked onto him in terror, how the girl’s soul trembled with shattered fear. That was why, when the girl sat next to him, he had chosen not to look at her, avoiding eye contact.
Cassian wasn’t exactly sure ’what’ the Saintess’s eyes saw. But it was certain that his own soul didn’t present a very ’good’ view. He was sure that if he made eye contact or spoke to her, the girl would scream and faint, which would unnecessarily cause a massive problem on his first day at the academy and draw the attention of the professors and priests to himself.
That was why he had tried not to disturb the girl at all during the class, practically trying to be invisible.
But now it was recess, and this stupid, curious crowd of students was making the situation even more awkward and noisy. Having so many people buzzing around him like insects was starting to annoy Cassian.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Saintess desperately trying to get up from the desk, but unable to push the students away out of politeness.
*What a waste of time,* he thought.
Cassian stood up, calm and silent, but for a split second, he projected that freezing pressure around him. The moment he stood, the students surrounding Alicia flinched as if an invisible block of ice had touched their backs, and involuntarily took a step back. The crowd parted in two to make way for him.
Cassian didn’t spare a single glance for the stupid crowd, nor for Alicia, who took a deep breath of relief. Leaving his bag on the desk, he stepped out of the row with silent steps and headed for the classroom door.
His goal was clear: find the Child of Dawn, Felix, and observe him without letting anyone know. The boy’s growth was more important for Cassian’s survival than anything else.
---
The moment Cassian walked out of the classroom and disappeared from sight, that tense atmosphere inside Class 1B popped like a balloon, replaced by a collective deep breath, followed by heated whispers.
The students backed away from the Saintess a bit, grouping among themselves and looking toward the door.
"Hey... That’s the guy, isn’t it?" a boy with glasses whispered, nudging his friend’s arm.
"Yeah, that’s him!" the other replied, his voice trembling with excitement and fear. "The madman from the entrance exam! He butchered his own team in seconds while they were dizzy from the teleportation. In the forest, he even pulverized some guy’s legs with a sledgehammer just for fun. They say that’s why the exam committee disqualified him with an emergency code!"
"Uhh... Then how did he get into the academy?!" someone else chimed in with astonishment.
"I don’t know... Some people are saying he’s the heir to a top-secret, fallen noble family, or that he’s a hidden illegitimate prince of the empire or something. If he didn’t have solid backing, they wouldn’t keep a psychopath like him here for a single second."
A female student from the back rows twirled her hair around her finger and sighed. "Well... He actually doesn’t look bad at all from the outside. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a prince or a noble. He’s way too handsome, and the white hair is really cool, but... There’s something too creepy about him. He makes you feel like you’d freeze to death if you touched him."
As the whispers continued, a few students looked toward Saintess Alicia with pity and sympathy.
"Poor Saintess... She ended up as desk-mates with that monster."
"How is she going to sit next to him all year? May the God of Light grant her patience."
Alicia, however, didn’t much care about the gossip around her or the pitying looks directed her way. Her eyes were locked on the open door Cassian had just walked through.
She rubbed her face with trembling hands. Her body was still shaking with the aftershocks of the terror created by that soul vision. Her mind was stuck on what she was going to do when that entity came back to sit next to her in the next class. How was she going to get through her academy life without losing her mind, sitting side-by-side with that pitch-black abyss where millions of souls screamed?
"This academy..." she whispered to herself, utterly hopeless. "...is going to be my grave."
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