My F-Rank Sagea is Secretly an EX-Rank Calamity

Chapter 30: Execution II

The grand arena erupted into a chaotic sea of terrified screams.

High up in the VIP lounge, the high council of the Order of Veil sat in grim, suffocating silence. Though their personal ward barriers protected them from the ambient gravity, their expressions were pale and unnerved. The arrival of Soren Dax was an absolute catastrophe.

Soren didn’t give anyone time to process the invasion.

The obsidian relic gripped in his right hand flared with a blinding, catastrophic beam of void energy aimed dead at Asher’s chest. It moved far faster than the speed of sound, tearing through the atmosphere and instantly disintegrating the reinforced stone floor in its path.

BOOM!

A colossal shockwave blasted outward, throwing up a blinding curtain of pulverized rock and ash. But as the debris cleared, Asher remained untouched.

Standing directly in front of him, Nova’s physical form flared with translucent, golden mana runes that seared themselves into the air.

She held the catastrophic beam back with a single, unyielding palm, her golden eyes blazing with primordial rage.

"You dare lay a finger on my Host?"

Soren slowly descended from the sky, hovering just a few feet above the shattered ground, his dark cloak fluttering in the hot draft.

"And who might you be, pretty one?" Soren’s voice dropped, rich with venom and mocking amusement.

On the arena floor, Rowan felt a cold knot twist viciously in his stomach. Some impossibly powerful, insane entity was targeting his little brother for immediate execution.

Without a second thought, Rowan flashed across the sand, positioning himself squarely between Soren and the two of them. Rowan’s purple-black mana flared to its absolute limit, desperately fighting to match Soren’s crushing aura.

Soren let out a low, mocking chuckle. "Nice try, kid. But you’re just a beginner, Death Weaver."

Out of nowhere, the ground groaned. Grotesque, skull-like constructs slowly erupted from the stone floor, their hollow sockets glowing with malice as they surrounded the trio.

Rowan gritted his teeth, not taking his eyes off Soren. "Asher! You and the girl get the others to safety! I’ll hold him off!"

"Affirmed," Nova replied flatly.

Nova raised her left hand into the air, her golden runes pulsing. In a single, effortless spell, she shattered the crushing gravitational aura suffocating the arena. "Disintegrate."

The pressure lifted, but the students in the stands remained rooted to their seats, paralyzed by pure, unadulterated shock.

Nova snapped her fingers, summoning a massive, humming spatial doorway that led straight into the academy’s reinforced underground safety bunkers.

"Attention all personnel," Nova’s voice resonated through the entire academy grounds like an iron command. "Please proceed through the spatial doorway immediately."

Seraphina dropped down beside Rowan, her usual fierce rivalry instantly forgotten in the face of absolute extinction.

Panic broke out in full force. The screaming intensified as hundreds of students scrambled down the bleachers, rushing blindly toward the glowing spatial rift.

Soren’s eyes narrowed with mild irritation.

He raised a pale hand and casually snapped his fingers.

THWACK. THWACK. THWACK.

In a horrifying fraction of a second, the heads of a dozen fleeing students slid cleanly off their shoulders. Fountains of crimson blood splattered violently across the white stone steps and onto the trembling crowds behind them.

"You run, you die," Soren stated simply, his voice echoing in the dead silence that followed. "It’s quite simple."

Asher’s breath hitched. His eyes widened into circles of pure horror as the red fluid pooled across the arena floor.

Blood.

The smell hit his nose—metallic and thick. It was the one thing he had viscerally loathed and feared since childhood.

The fleeing students froze as if turned to stone. Some crumbled onto their knees right where they stood, vomiting or weeping softly, completely broken by fear.

"Now," Soren chuckled, his voice carrying a dark, hypnotic weight that compelled obedience. "All of you sit down and watch how I terminate this anomaly of yours."

"SOREN DAX!" Lord Malovik’s roar thundered from the VIP lounge, the other House Lords stepping up beside him, their weapons half-drawn.

Soren tilted his head, completely unfazed. "Shut your mouth, old geezer, and don’t try interfering—unless you want The Grim Prodigy to march out of the Maw."

The Lords flinched, their steps instantly faltering. The threat was absolute. If the full force of the Grim Prodigy was drawn from the Bleakstone Maw, the entire realm of Ravenwood would be erased from the map.

"Now... back to business," Soren purred.

Seraphina didn’t wait for him to finish.

"Lightning of Judgment! ULTRA!" she screamed in pure desperation.

The sky didn’t just darken—Wolveria vanished from the field, remanifesting high in the atmosphere, its body fusing directly into the heart of the storm cloud. A terrifying cascade of azure and golden lightning shards lined up in mid-air, raining down in a concentrated, supersonic barrage aimed directly at Soren.

Soren laughed. A dry, arrogant cackle.

He swatted at the falling storm with the back of his bare hand as if shooing away a swarm of flies. Explosions rocked the air, but he casually stepped through the smoke—until a single, hyper-dense lightning shard grazed his skin, leaving a fine crimson line across his cheek.

Up in the lounge, the Order of Veil watched with clenched jaws. They possessed immense power, yet the geopolitical stakes rendered them completely useless, forced to watch children fight a war criminal.

Down below, Asher stood shaking, his mind spiraling into a dark abyss.

’He’s strong... insanely, impossibly strong... but...’

Asher looked around at the traumatized students, at the tear-stained faces and trembling bodies huddled under the shadow of the warship.

’This... this is all my fault. I’m the target. I’m the reason they’re bleeding.’

His pulse began to stutter. His breath grew shallow.

Nova registered the anomaly instantly, appearing at his side in a flash of light. "Critical heart rate drop detected. Executing emergency stabilization: Kaito."

Kaito materialized in a burst of soft, golden light. The Sol-Aura Beast immediately activated its Radiant Nuzzle skill, wrapping Asher in a warm, soothing field of mana to forcibly stabilize his nervous system.

Asher’s panicked expression melted into an eerie, hollow calm. He slowly stood up to his full height.

"Nova Vesta... I need your help."

"What are your orders, Host Asher?" Nova asked, her golden eyes flashing as she realized she couldn’t parse his current mental state.

"Merge," Asher replied. His tone was chillingly flat.

A heavy silence fell between them.

"I need to get this monster away from Ravenwood," Asher almost whispered, his eyes fixed on Soren. "Far away from everyone."

"Nova Vesta cannot grant this request," she warned immediately. "A full spiritual fusion at your current soul integrity will cause immeasurable physical trauma."

Without warning, Asher reached out and gripped her bare forearm with a iron grip.

"Nova. Merge. NOW."

BOOM!

A blinding pillar of white-hot light erupted from Asher’s body, shooting straight through the dark sky and tearing through the clouds.

Asher threw his head back and let out an agonizing, blood-curdling scream that echoed across the entire domain. His flesh cracked with radiant energy as Nova’s physical body dissolved into raw, primordial particles, forcefully rushing into his veins and binding with his skeletal structure.

Soren paused mid-step, his dark eyes sparkling with sadistic glee. "Oh? Is the little anomaly finally getting serious?"

The pillar of light snapped out of existence, leaving behind a thick, swirling fog of dense white mana.

As the mist slowly drifted away, the figure standing in the center was no longer the Asher they knew.

"Impossible...!" Lady Kaelen gasped from the lounge, her hands slamming against the glass. The Order of Veil stared down in absolute, cold terror.

Rowan’s eyes widened to their absolute limit.

Asher’s ginger hair had transformed into a sweeping cascade of icy, pale blue—identical to Nova’s. His torn academy uniform was gone, replaced by a pristine, regal white garment adorned with glowing golden chains that hummed with ancient laws.

And resting upon his pale hair was a sharp, floating crown forged from pure, solid light.

When he spoke, his voice rang out with a dual harmony—Nova’s velvety tone layered beneath his own, yet carrying an ancient, terrifying authority that commanded the air itself.

"Soren Dax," he called out, his eyes flaring with a dangerous, translucent red light. "You came for me. Let us have our chat elsewhere. It’s a bit too cramped here, don’t you think?"

Soren’s grin broadened into a razor-sharp smile. "Very well then."

"Asher, what the hell are you doing?!" Rowan yelled, taking a step forward.

Asher raised a single, clad arm, slicing his fingers through the air to tear open a massive, stabilized spatial rift behind him.

"Get the survivors into the bunkers, Rowan," Asher commanded softly, stepping backward into the rift. "And tell the Order... the borders of Ravenwood are already falling."