The Blind SSS-Class Final Boss Is Obsessed With Me

Chapter 16: The Great Hall

"The rifts... they’re gone. The monsters outside the door... they just turned to dust..."

Lyra slumped slightly against the doorframe, her legs barely able to support her weight. She had gone out there to see the brutal reality of the world, and it had completely broken her spirit.

But as she looked at me standing there, completely untouched and perfectly calm beside Seraphina, I saw a flicker of something new in her eyes. It wasn’t just fear anymore. It was irritation—a deep, bitter resentment that a "worthless failure" like Cian von Heist was the one pulling the strings while her entire world crumbled.

"The wards... they’re black," she muttered, staring blankly at the ground. "The monsters... they’re all dead. They’re just... gone."

"Report," I commanded, completely ignoring her attitude.

Lyra swallowed hard. Her gaze darted to Seraphina, who was still leaning against my shoulder, and then back to me. She looked like she wanted to scream, to run, to do anything but stay in this suffocating room. But she knew she had no choice.

"The East Wing is a graveyard," she began. "I found a few survivors hiding in the alchemy labs, but they’re in total shock. The instructors... most of them are dead. I saw Instructor Kael getting torn apart by a demon right before the black barrier went up."

She suddenly went quiet, her jaw clenching as if she was holding back the rest of the news.

"And Kaelen?" I asked as an amused smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.

Lyra flinched at the mention of the Hero’s name. "I... I found him. He was pinned under a collapsed stone pillar in the main courtyard. His legs... they’re completely crushed, Cian. He was screaming for help, but I couldn’t reach him before the barrier formed. The black ice cut the courtyard in half. He is stuck outside the barrier now."

"Is he alive?"

"I think so," Lyra said, her voice trembling slightly. "But he’s... he’s mentally broken. He was babbling about destiny, crying about how this wasn’t supposed to happen."

"Good," I muttered. "Let him babble. He needs to learn that destiny is just a story told by the winners."

Before she could respond, Valerius walked back over to us, his face grim. I turned toward him and asked. "Did you send the broadcast?"

"Yes," the Principal said, his voice completely hollow. "They’re coming. The survivors. Every student and staff member left alive is heading to the Great Hall right now."

"Excellent."

I turned my attention back to Lyra.

"You. Go to the infirmary right now and get yourself patched up. And then, I want you in the Great Hall. You’re going to be my voice, Lyra. You’re going to stand up there and tell everyone everything."

Lyra glared at me, her knuckles turning white as she gripped her shredded uniform. She looked like she wanted to spit in my face and argue, but then she caught Seraphina’s blindfolded face subtly tilting toward her. The freezing pressure in the room spiked for a fraction of a second.

Lyra bit her lip, swallowed her pride, and simply nodded. She turned on her heel and hurried out of the room.

The apocalypse was just beginning, and I was going to make sure it was the most beautiful disaster Aetheria had ever seen.

A few minutes later, we began our walk to the Great Hall.

As we moved through the wide corridors of the Administrative Building, the staff members we passed instantly fell to their knees.

The air around us was so freezing that their breaths came out in thick white clouds of frost. They didn’t look at us. They couldn’t. The dark aura Seraphina was radiating was so thick and heavy that it felt like a physical weight crushing their very souls.

Soon, we reached the heavy double doors of the Great Hall.

The doors were wide open. Inside, hundreds of students and younger staff members were huddled together on the stone floor. The vast room was thick with the suffocating smell of sweat, blood, and medicinal herbs.

And the sound of crying and terrified, hushed whispers filled the space.

The moment they saw us enter, the entire room went dead silent.

I walked slowly to the center of the raised dais at the front of the hall, my mangled leg dragging slightly against the polished stone floor. Every single eye followed me as I led myself in front of them.

Seraphina walked right behind me like a silent shadow. Her long crimson hair glowed faintly in the dim light, highlighting the sharp black horns cutting through her hair.

I looked out at the massive crowd. I saw the absolute terror in their eyes. I saw the hopelessness. And beneath all that, I saw a tiny, desperate flicker of hope—the exact kind of hope I was going to exploit.

"Listen to me!" I shouted, my voice echoing sharply off the high ceilings.

The silence deepened. Even the injured students stopped crying.

"The world you knew outside these walls is completely dead!" I began, my voice clear and cold. "The academy you loved is nothing but a ruin. The proud ’Instructors’ you worshipped are currently bleeding out in the dirt, unable to save themselves, let alone any of you."

A loud murmur of shock, disbelief, and denial rippled through the crowd, but I didn’t give them a chance to speak over me.

"But you are still breathing!" I continued, slowly raising my voice so it boomed across the hall. "You are alive right now because I chose to save you. You are alive because the entity standing right behind me decided that this place was worth protecting."

I gestured broadly to Seraphina.

"She is the sole reason the rifts on this campus are closed! She is the reason the monsters outside cannot touch you! She is the new heart and core of Aetheria Grand Academy!"

The fear in the room became palpable. Students shrunk back, looking at Seraphina as if she were a god of death. Which, in a way, she was.

"I am Cian von Heist," I said, lowering my head slightly and gesturing to myself. "And from this exact moment on, I am the only authority left in this academy. You will follow my orders. You will work to rebuild. You will contribute daily to our survival. And in return for your absolute obedience, you will be protected."

I paused for a long moment, letting the heavy weight of my words sink into their terrified minds.

"If you refuse... if you think you are too noble for this, or that you can survive out there on your own... the main doors are wide open. You are free to walk out. But know this: once you step outside that black ice barrier, you are no longer under our protection. And the monsters out there are very, very hungry."

No one moved. No one spoke a single word. They just stared up at me with pale faces.

I looked down at the front row, where Lyra was now standing. Her arm and shoulder were freshly bandaged, but her eyes still held that deep, broken look.

"Lyra," I called out.

She flinched slightly, stepped forward, and stammered. "Y-yes... Cian?"

"Tell them," I commanded, looking down at her from the stage. "Tell them exactly what you saw out there in the courtyard. Tell them what happened to the legendary teachers."

Lyra swallowed hard, her throat moving dryly as she turned around to face her peers. Her voice was barely a whisper at first, but it gained strength as she forced the words out.

She told the entire hall about the horrific slaughter in the East Wing. She told them about the unstoppable High Demon. And she told them about their powerful instructors, getting easily torn to pieces while screaming for help.

The shock in the room was absolute. The teachers had been their ultimate symbol of safety, their absolute guarantee of survival. Hearing that even the strongest mentors had failed so miserably was the final, crushing blow to their old reality.

I looked out at the broken crowd, and a genuine, satisfied smile spread across my lips.

"The era of magicians is officially over," I said, my voice echoing in the dead silence of the hall. "The era of survivors has begun. And I am your leader."

I turned back toward Seraphina. She was watching me with that same intense, deeply possessive focus with her lips curved into a small, haunting smile. She didn’t care about the crowd. She only cared about me standing at the center of it.

I turned back to the survivors one last time, pointing a lazy finger toward the exit.

"If anyone disagrees with how I run things, the door is right there. You can leave right now."

"But, remember. The monsters out there are much less forgiving than I am."