Chapter 95: Beginning of the tide - 2
"All disciples are to return to their designated dormitory sectors immediately!" a senior enforcer roared through a mana-amplified megaphone, his voice shaking slightly despite his high rank. "The outer gates are being sealed! No one is permitted to leave the campus perimeter until the Grand Council finishes their investigation!"
Kenji stood perfectly still at the edge of the shouting crowd. His standard-issue iron sword was resting loosely in his right hand, the leather wrapping of the hilt feeling familiar and cold against his palm.
He watched the chaotic movements of the disciples with a calm, clinical gaze.
To his trained mind this entire scene was just a predictable sequence of data points playing out exactly as the simulation intended.
Beneath his uniform pants, he felt a soft, rhythmic pulsing against his thighs. Ayla’s translucent blue mass was completely relaxed, shifting her weight slightly as she finished swallowing the last piece of dried berry she had pulled from his pocket.
Her light blue soul core was humming with a dense, quiet resonance that only Kenji could perceive through their shared Death Looper trait.
"The elders are setting up a defensive barrier," Ayla’s voice vibrated directly into his mind, using the private mental channel she had perfected during her long year of solo hunting in the inner rings.
"I can feel the invisible threads of their protective formations stretching over the campus walls. It is very weak."
"They think they are locking a monster out," Kenji replied mentally, his hazel eyes tracking a small group of high-ranked second-year students who were pale with fear. "They do not understand that the executioners are already inside the walls, counting the hours."
"Should I eat them now?" Ayla asked, her mental tone dropping into a casual, predatory purr. "The senior disciples have very thick soul cores. If I devour them before the timeline cracks, my light blue core will saturate even faster. I can help you clean the plaza."
"No," Kenji commanded silently, his face remaining a perfect, vacant mask as a panicked student stumbled past him.
"If you start devouring the students in the open, the system parameters will register a premature deviation from the script. We need to let the Enders reveal their hands first.
They have spent an entire year hiding in the shadows, harvesting the background assets of the simulation. They are about to make their final move to claim the Event core."
As if responding directly to his calculations, the heavy stone ground beneath their feet suddenly gave a violent, sickening lurch.
A loud, grinding explosion echoed from the northern sector of the campus, followed immediately by the sharp, terrifying sound of breaking glass.
The massive protective barrier that the elders had just activated—a grand dome of translucent golden light that was supposed to protect the academy from external threats—suddenly violently rippled and shattered into a million glittering pieces.
The frantic shouting in the plaza instantly died down into an absolute, suffocating silence.
Thousands of disciples looked up at the sky in pure horror as the golden fragments of their primary defense melted into thin air, leaving the campus completely exposed.
Before anyone could utter a single word of confusion, a dense, heavy layer of dark gray mist began to rapidly pour out from the ventilation grates and drainage channels surrounding the central plaza.
The mist did not smell like natural water or smoke; it carried the distinct, suffocating stench of decayed iron and stagnant swamp water.
Within seconds, the mist blanketed the entire stone floor, rising up to the knees of the standing students.
"What is this?!" a second-year ranker screamed, trying to summon his contracted earth hound to clear the vapor.
But the moment his soul line flared, his face violently twisted in agony. He collapsed onto his knees, clutching his chest as thick black smoke began to pour out from beneath his uniform collar.
"My... my soul power! It’s burning!"
Throughout the plaza, the same terrifying phenomenon began to repeat itself in rapid succession. Hundreds of students who attempted to use their internal energy or call upon their beast companions were instantly struck down by the gray mist.
The vapor was a highly corrosive, soul-targeting poison designed to systematically freeze the internal channels of lower-ranked lifeforms.
"Do not use your internal energy!" a senior instructor screamed from the main steps of the administration building, his silver robes already stained with black fluid as he coughed up a mouthful of dark blood. "The air is poisoned! It’s an internal betrayal! Secure the—"
He never finished his sentence. A long, slender spike of solid black shadow suddenly erupted from his shadow, piercing directly through his throat from bottom to top.
The instructor’s eyes rolled back into his head, his physical body instantly stiffening before dissolving into a thick pool of black sludge that merged with the gray mist.
From the dark entrance of the main administration building, a small group of figures walked out calmly into the panicked plaza.
They walked with slow, deliberate steps, their expressions completely relaxed as they looked down at the thousands of writhing, dying students covering the stone tiles.
Leading the group was Amanda.
Her previous meek and fragile appearance was completely gone. She wore a deep crimson robe that was intricately embroidered with the symbol of a broken crown, her long hair tied back with a thin wire of dark iron.
Her eyes were wide and bright with a manic, unyielding excitement that bordered on insanity. Walking directly behind her were a dozen high-ranking vanguard officers and several cloaked figures whose faces were entirely obscured by the shadows of their hoods.
These were the primary agents of the Enders.
"Disciples of the Supreme Beast Academy," Amanda’s voice boomed across the bloody plaza, her tone carrying an artificial, system-amplified resonance that cut through the screams of the dying.
"Do not struggle against the gray mist. The grand elders you trusted so blindly have already been systematically neutralized inside their private chambers. Their souls have been safely harvested to feed the primary ignition sequence."
She stepped down the grand stairs, her boots splashing lightly through the pools of black sludge. She looked around at the chaos with a look of profound superiority.
"This entire institution is nothing more than a temporary stepping stone, a fake simulation built upon outdated data," Amanda continued, her gaze scanning the crowd until it finally locked directly onto Kenji’s stationary form at the edge of the pavilion.
A deeply twisted, arrogant smile spread across her face. "The Event is reaching its natural terminal phase. The Enders have officially claimed the core architecture of this Spire sector.
Within three hours, the entire simulation will undergo a total structural harvest, and those who remain alive will become the baseline fuel for our ascension."
Kenji did not move an inch. He stood against the stone wall, his face remaining entirely expressionless as he met her gaze.
His internal heart rate remained perfectly locked at its steady, clinical sixty beats per minute. He could feel Amanda’s intense gaze piercing through the gray mist, trying to find a single trace of fear or desperation in his eyes.
"Look at him," Amanda mocked, pointing a finger toward Kenji as she turned her head toward the cloaked leader standing beside her.
"The world’s core consciousness chose this zero-soul freak to be its designated protagonist. Every time we pushed him, the system modified his stats to keep him alive.
But look at him now. He is completely helpless against a macro-level script modification. He can’t parry a soul poison with his basic sword."
The largest cloaked figure stepped forward, a cold, mechanical hum vibrating from beneath his dark hood.
"Do not waste time talking to the background assets, Amanda. The system backlash will trigger if we attempt to terminate his vessel directly before the core is fully compiled. Leave him to rot in the mist while we initiate the extraction ceremony at the central altar."
"Of course," Amanda chuckled darkly, her eyes lingering on Kenji for a brief moment before she turned her back on him.
"Let him watch his precious world turn to absolute ash. Let him see what happens to a protagonist when the stage itself is pulled out from under his feet."
With a sudden wave of her hand, Amanda and the cloaked Enders began walking toward the central ritual circle located at the exact geometric center of the plaza.
The vanguard officers drew their heavy broadswords, systematically executing any student who attempted to crawl away from the poison mist.
Beneath Kenji’s uniform, the blue mass of fluid gave a violent, aggressive twitch.
"She is very annoying," Ayla spat mentally, her golden pupils flaring with an absolute, predatory hatred inside their shared mental space.
"She called you a freak. She thinks she owns this timeline because some gray smoke. Kenji, let me out. I want to use my Steel Claw Transformation to slice her face into tiny pieces. I want to eat her brain and see what her memories taste like."
Kenji’s lips twitched into a very subtle, hidden smile as he slowly raised his iron sword, resting the flat blade against his shoulder.
The confident look in his hazel eyes completely returned, shattering the vacant mask he had maintained for the past ten minutes.
"Be patient, Ayla," Kenji replied mentally, his voice dropping into a cold, clinical tone of pure command.
"They are going to open the path to the real core of the Spire Event to begin their extraction. That is exactly what we have been waiting an entire year for.
Let them compile the data. The moment the altar connects to the primary architecture, we will step in and take everything they built."
He loosened his shoulders, his muscles flexing smoothly beneath his clothes.
The final phase of the simulation had finally begun, and the real master of the loops was ready to claim his prize.
