Transmigrated as the Villain: I Will Destroy Fate

Chapter 159: Attack! [2]

A massive explosion erupted somewhere to the north, a boom that shook the ground and rattled her teeth.

The shimmering boundary of the exam zone flashed a violent, angry red.

Grace stopped. For one impossible second, she could not process what she was seeing. The ward shattered. It cracked like glass, then dissolved into glittering dust.

What’s happening?! Thought Grace frantically. Is this a part of the exam? No, the Academy wouldn’t destroy the barrier, no matter what.

This was not part of the exam. Not in the scrapped version. Not in any version.

A red burst of energy tore through the air above her head. Grace ducked instinctively. The attack passed close enough that a wave of heat and a foul, cloying wrongness scraped across her senses.

Demonic energy. Her blood turned cold.

The forest erupted into motion. Creatures flooded through the broken barrier. They were not true demons, not fully. Their bodies were human-shaped but twisted, mutated, and swollen with corrupt demonic force. Limbs jerked at unnatural angles, making them look broken and non-functional. Mouths split far too wide.

Their mana pulsed in unstable, red-black surges, sending waves of unease through the body of Grace.

She stared, her mind racing.

This was too early.

The demon attack was supposed to happen at the Academy ball, much later in the year.

Not here.

Not now.

Ronan’s reaction was genuine shock. That mattered. For once, his expression did not feel performed. He looked toward Grace, and she saw the same calculation collapsing behind his eyes.

"What is happening?" He did not bother to hide that he expected her to know.

"I don’t know," Grace answered, and it was the truth.

A mutated creature lunged at her. Grace’s holy magic went off like a flashbang, a nova of pure light that detonated through the demon and reduced it to burning fragments and corrupted ash.

Ronan’s voice cut through the chaos.

"Grace!"

She turned.

He did something that made Iris go still. Even Grace froze at what Ronan did.

He reached down, gripped his ’broken’ leg, and with a sickening crunch, snapped it back into place.

The motion was brutal.

The pain should have been unbearable.

He barely reacted beyond a sharp tightening of his jaw.

The helpless mask vanished, and Ronan was looking at her with dead serious eyes.

He held his leg in place. "Heal it."

It was not a request. It was an order.

Grace did it without hesitation.

Holy light wrapped around the injury. Bone, muscle, and torn pathways knitted together just enough for him to move.

Iris stared between them, her face a mask of disbelief.

Ronan’s feigned weakness, Grace’s immediate cooperation, the demonic invasion – it all collided too quickly.

Ronan tried to summon a spell, a flicker of dark energy, but his expression twisted in pain and the attack failed before it could form.

Grace noticed.

Soul damage. He must have pushed himself too far in the ritual.

Did he use a rank 3 skill or higher? He should know that it causes soul damage from what I wrote in the novel. Grace paused. But then again, he didn’t know there would be a demon invasion. Not even I knew that.

Ronan slapped his leg, checking if it was fine. It was.

A demon lunged at him.

He twisted his body elegantly, turned, and drove a fireball into its stomach at point-blank range. The creature staggered, the fireball burning through its flesh. Grace finished it with a spear of light.

"Can you heal my soul?" he asked, his voice strained.

She wasn’t surprised that he knew the problem with his soul.

"No."

Iris looked even more lost, but neither of them had room to care. They both understood what this attack meant.

Bruce was here.

And if Bruce was here, he was going for Luca.

"We need to find Luca," Grace said, more to Ronan than to Iris.

However, Ronan was already gone.

—

Ronan was already moving before she finished the sentence.

[Main Quest: Unlikely Outcome]

Status: Ongoing

Description: Through the changes you have made, Mesmer has decided the attack on the Academy must commence faster than planned. You are now stuck in the crossfire.

Goal: Save Luca.

Penalty: Death

Reward: Assimilation timer +14 days.

Of course there was a quest. Of course he had to save Luca.

Ronan had learned his lesson. He’d ignored the System’s quest last time, and now he had a ticking time bomb inside him that wanted to take over his body.

And of course the penalty is "death."

It was far worse than it looked. In the original story, Bruce and Luca’s first battle was not something Luca won alone. He survived because the original Grace and Irene had helped him. That fight had been contained. Staged. Narratively timed, due to the author’s planning. But this... the barrier was enormous. The battlefield was scattered, and there was no way to tell if Luca would get the help he needed before Bruce killed him.

And the Academy is not intervening.

That last realization hit Ronan as he ran. If the Academy was not responding, the attack was not limited to the selection zone.

Mesmer must have struck Luminara itself.

Mutated demons swarmed between the trees.

Ronan moved through them as efficiently as possible, dodging more than fighting.

Every second wasted was a second Luca might not have.

Then something slammed into his ribs. The impact was sickening, percussive crack. Ronan was launched sideways, crashing through trees and hitting the ground hard enough to tear the breath from his lungs. Mana flared instinctively around his body, and his powerful bones absorbed most of the impact.

He rolled, forced himself upright, and looked at his attacker.

Mira.

For a moment, the sight made no sense.

She stood there, her expression unreadable.

Then she smiled.

It was not Mira’s smile.

A male voice, smooth and laced with sadistic amusement, came from her mouth.

The recognition Ronan felt was like ice water.

Mesmer.

The possessed body of the quiet water-mage studied him with manic delight, a flicker of genuine shock in her – his – eyes.

The smile twisted wider – sick and fascinated – as Mesmer realized the impossible.

"Well now," the voice from Mira’s lips purred. "I could have sworn I crushed your heart."