Chapter 93: The Designated Protagonist
Just like Ayla and Kenji planned, she faked her death, and the hunting of a hidden monster ended without any casualties.
The image of the Supreme Beast Academy reached another level among the common populace.
Everyone in the lower city praised the grand power and swift response of the institution, completely unaware that the entire crisis had been orchestrated and subsequently erased by a single mimic slime and a zero-soul student.
Every first-year disciple was naturally excited and proud of this collective victory. They walked through the corridors with their heads held high, boasting about how they had successfully defended the perimeter against a high-tier threat.
Even the second-year seniors, who returned shortly after their long wasteland expedition, looked at the juniors with a hint of envy.
They had missed out on a major event that generated massive practical credits and public glory, leaving them to listen to the exaggerated tales of the first years.
Kenji’s life inside the academy returned to normal, except for one significant change: no seniors came to bully him anymore.
His reputation as a bizarre, unyielding anomaly who could casually survive the hostility of ranked students had solidified enough to make standard bullies think twice before approaching his corner.
Within a few days, the terrifying monster that had once frightened the whole academy was completely forgotten by everyone.
Well... not everyone.
"Amanda, where is that entity you said would come to our support?" a cold male voice sounded from the darkness, making Amanda shiver down to her spine.
She swallowed hard, her fingers fidgeting nervously with the fabric of her uniform as the invisible sound echoed through the small room again.
"If you hadn’t stopped us, we should have broken the city while the academy’s elites were outside on the expedition," the voice continued, dripping with absolute, lethal disappointment.
"I-..." Amanda had nothing to say. Her throat felt completely dry.
Her father had given her a highly restricted spiritual scroll before she entered this Spire Event. It was an ancient item that contained the sleeping consciousness of a parasitic entity.
According to her father’s notes, the parasite could effortlessly invade human minds, override their souls, and destroy the host vessel from the inside out to build a massive hive-mind network.
But the primary issue was that the entity would never consider any faction as allies; because of its primitive hunger, all living things were simply calculated as prey.
That was exactly why her father had strictly forbidden her from ever going anywhere near the parasitized person once the seal was broken.
And that was why she had aggressively asked the leaders of the Enders to wait patiently until that parasite finished devouring the city block and dissipated naturally before launching their full-scale assault on the central academy structures.
But she had never expected the scroll to fail to work at all. She had clearly and secretly planted the item onto that trash disciple, Amran, knowing his weak mind would be an easy entry point for the parasite.
It should have triggered a global catastrophe at the southern gatehouse. However, she never considered an anomaly like Ayla to appear. So instead of what she wanted, the timeline had reset, Amran was perfectly fine, and the parasite had completely vanished from the Spire.
It must be Kenji who did something anomalous to disrupt the seal. She gritted her teeth in pure anger at the thought.
How dare he fight her!
The cold voice came again from the shadows, cutting through her panic. "Whatever. It does not matter anymore. The world already has a designated protagonist. We cannot stretch this event out any longer. We have to end this entire event before the protagonist ever has the chance to grow up."
"Why can’t we just kill him directly?" Amanda’s voice suddenly turned incredibly sinister, her meek exterior completely vanishing. "The protagonist must be from the new group of challengers who entered the Spire with us. And among them, only three specific people had the chance to become the Protagonist."
Kenji, Austin, and that little bitch.
Austin had already been thoroughly taken care of by their hidden traps during the initial transition phase.
That left only Kenji and that little bitch as potential candidates. But that little bitch had completely disappeared from the entire simulation without leaving a single trace behind.
She wasn’t anywhere inside the central academy structures, nor was she registered within the civilian quarters of the city.
The challengers could only explore the Supreme City and the surrounding Supreme Forest, since the illusionary fabric of this specific Spire event only covered those designated geographical areas.
That meant the girl must have run deep into the forest to hide. But even after their best scouts searched the outer rings for days, they couldn’t find a single footprint or soul ripple belonging to her.
And so, the Enders had easily come to the final conclusion that the girl had died to a high-tier beast early on.
That was exactly how the Enders finally confirmed who the true Protagonist of this timeline was.
It was Kenji.
They had initially confirmed their theories by deliberately triggering various groups of disciples to bully and harass him in the open plazas.
Every single time they sent fodder to crush him, Kenji seemed completely able to defeat all of them with absurd ease, showcasing a level of combat conditioning that defied his zero-soul rating and cementing their belief that the system was anchoring the plot around him.
"Don’t send any more disciples to provoke him," the cold voice commanded, sounding with a deep, calculating thoughtfulness.
"Every time we attempt to suppress him using local variables, I feel like he becomes noticeably stronger. The world’s core consciousness must be actively helping him because he is the designated protagonist of the script. We cannot touch him directly without triggering a massive system backlash, so it is better to completely bypass his presence entirely..."
The voice paused for a brief moment, letting the darkness settle. "Let’s do it this way..."
The hidden leader slowly revealed a highly complex, alternative plan through the dark air, speaking in low whispers that made Amanda widen her eyes in pure surprise. A fraction of a second later, that surprise quickly morphed into a wave of intense, manic excitement.
After the detailed explanation finished, the cold voice completely disappeared from the room, leaving Amanda standing entirely alone in the quiet, dark space. A highly twisted, arrogant look appeared across her face as she looked toward the window.
"I want to see the absolute faces of those elders who looked down on me when I finally control this entire Spire..." she whispered to herself.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the campus, Kenji was sitting under a large tree near the library pavilion. His iron sword was resting flat across his lap, his fingers lightly tracing the worn leather wrapping of the hilt.
His hazel eyes were fixed on the distant tree line of the Supreme Forest, his clinical mind reviewing the hidden variables of their situation.
The system had remained remarkably quiet since Ayla triggered the time reset.
The periodic stings in his loop trait had completely stopped, indicating that she had successfully transitioned her hunting grounds from the outer perimeter to the deeper, more dangerous inner rings of the forest where the academy’s sensors couldn’t easily track her movements.
"Hey, look, it’s the zero-soul freak," a passing second year muttered to his friend, pointing a lazy finger toward the tree. "Don’t get too close. I heard he’s bad luck. Anyone who tries to pick a fight with him ends up getting suspended or breaking a bone."
Kenji didn’t even bother to glance up at the passing students. Their low-level thoughts were completely irrelevant to his current trajectory. He was busy analyzing the lack of external challengers.
Amanda’s behavior during the initial briefings had been highly suspicious, and the sudden disappearance of Austin from the ranking lists strongly pointed toward an internal purge conducted by the Enders.
He closed his eyes, his mind dropping back down to the tiny, ancient bone fragment resting silently beside his soul line.
A soft, almost imperceptible breeze brushed against the back of his neck, carrying the very faint, familiar scent of fresh berries. Kenji’s lips twitched into a very subtle, hidden smile.
He didn’t turn around, knowing that a certain translucent blue mass was likely sliding through the dark grass beneath the shadow of the pavilion, keeping her promise to visit him whenever she pleased.
He loosened his grip on the sword hilt, his internal heart rate remaining perfectly locked at sixty beats per minute.
The Enders were preparing a final move, the academy was oblivious, and the cosmic strings were tightening around the simulation. But as he looked out toward the horizon, the confident look in his hazel eyes only deepened.
Let them bring whatever complex script they wanted. As long as he grew strong enough to shatter the foundation of the simulation itself, the Event was his to finish.
