Chapter 136: 136
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"Huh. I don’t feel a single thing," Zeke murmured, turning his hands over as he watched a nearby scullery maid casually decapitate a charging beast with a kitchen cleaver. The Emperor’s buff was a masterpiece of systemic engineering.
Analyzing the flow of mana, Zeke quickly deduced its structural logic: the higher your baseline strength, the less pronounced the enhancement; conversely, the weaker you were—even if completely unawakened—the more massive the scaling. Right now, the lowest denominator of humanity in this stadium had been artificially dragged up to B-rank, while the weakest monsters emerging were merely D-rank.
Zeke had to give credit where it was due: Impressive.
But why hadn’t a single drop of that radiant buff touched him? Was he too strong? No, that didn’t track—he hadn’t officially crossed into sainthood yet, and he could clearly see several SS-rank fighters receiving a noticeable boost.
Then he recalled locking eyes with the Emperor right in the middle of that grand speech. Ah. It must have been Nox. That old pervert definitely told the Emperor to leave me out of the loop.
Zeke let out a small huff of annoyance and scanned the faculty stands. To be perfectly fair, this specific zone boasted the lowest concentration of threats—or rather, it contained the highest density of absolute monsters disguised as professors. Elio was currently reaping his way through the ranks like a hurricane through dry grass.
"Hmph. Stop standing around gawking and actually make yourself useful. I can’t believe you haven’t even drawn your weapon," Aldric snorted, clean-cutting a beast in two with a refined wave of his staff.
"Why should I? You seem to have the situation entirely under control," Zeke replied smoothly, completely immune to Aldric’s blatant attempts to bait him.
"Cut the useless banter and start moving, you absolute clowns," Elio snapped, his figure already turning into a blurred streak of motion. "The perimeter portals are widening across the secondary grounds. Go reinforce the civilian sectors. Now."
With a soft pop of displaced air, Elio vanished.
"You heard the man," Beckett offered with a lazy grin, exchanging a brief look with Camille before the pair blurred out of sight right behind him.
"Perhaps you should try fighting your internal fears for once," Aldric sneered, preparing to teleport.
"Your mom," Zeke deadpanned, vanishing from the spot before Aldric could even register the insult.
A microsecond later, Zeke materialized directly alongside a very familiar group of students.
"Oh. You’re here," Michael noted, his posture completely relaxed despite the chaos swirling a few dozen yards away.
The core trio, the kings, and the class of weirdos were currently containing the monster outbreak in their designated quadrant. Frankly, they were treating it like a glorified recess—the highest-ranked creatures appearing in this specific sector were barely touching S-rank.
Zeke offered a brief nod of acknowledgment.
Sensing his sudden arrival, Anton and Yeon cut away from the fray, walking over toward him. Zeke flashed Yeon a reassuring smile and promptly rolled his eyes at Anton’s smug expression before turning a stern gaze onto the collective student body.
"Alright, wrap it up! This isn’t a playground! Terminate these targets immediately. You have actual civilians out there who need extracting."
Kenshin paused, his head snapping toward the source of that painfully familiar, authoritative voice. His eyes widened slightly as he spotted his professor. Within seconds, the rest of the class noticed Zeke’s presence.
"Yes, sir!" they roared in unison, their focus instantly sharpening.
"Look at you, actually taking your educator role seriously for once," Anton taunted, a hand resting lightly on his hilt.
Zeke leveled a flat look at him. "We haven’t actually stood on a proper battlefield together yet, have we?"
"The only individuals you’ve formally fought alongside are the trio," Yeon intervened, stepping up beside them.
Zeke nodded slowly, his mind drifting back. "Right. Back when we had to put down that Minotaur."
"So? How about we officially fight as a unit?"
"That’s incredibly inefficient," Michael cut in, his voice practical. "From a tactical standpoint, our operational capacity increases exponentially if we split up to cover more ground."
"I am well aware of that, you absolute killjoy. It’s about the sentiment," Zeke sighed, rolling his eyes. "Facing a common threat together, even if that threat is a scattered horde rather than a single boss."
"Oh."
"Then it’s settled."
"You are technically the designated party leader, after all," Anton remarked, a lazy smirk returning to his face.
Zeke’s expression instantly brightened. The idiots had actually gone ahead and elected him leader of their little circle back during their first appearance on this world. He hadn’t even had a chance to utilize the official party name yet.
"Hold on, I never signed up to be part of your little squad," Yeon interjected, crossing her arms. "Seriously."
"And who exactly said we wanted you in the first place?" Anton sneered back instantly.
Zeke let out a loud, theatrical cough to break up the bickering. "Yo, trio! Get over here!" he shouted, seamlessly pivoting the conversation.
The core three looked back from the frontline, let out a collective, synchronized sigh, and abandoned their current targets to sprint over, leaving the remaining fodder to the rest of the vanguard.
"What’s the play?" Kai asked as they slid to a halt.
"We are officially deploying as a synchronized party. Purely to satisfy the emotional development of our ’leader’ here," Anton explained, gesturing toward Zeke with a theatrical tilt of his head.
"Oh." / "OH!" The trio blinked as memory lane hit them. They had actually formed a legitimate system party contract back in the day.
"Oh, sweet mercy, no." Aaron stared at Zeke, his face instantly contorting into a mask of pure grimacing despair as the forgotten party registration details flashed in his mind.
Zeke’s grin stretched from ear to ear. He shifted his gaze toward the active rifts still violently spitting out beasts across the distant plazas.
"DUDES! ASSEMBLE!"
The entire group instantly facepalmed in perfect, agonizing unison.
Yeon’s brain stalled for a second before the realization hit her. "Please tell me... please tell me the official registered name of your party isn’t actually ’Dudes’?" she asked, her shoulders trembling as she fought a massive urge to burst into hysterical laughter.
The group responded with a collective, miserable groan, instantly blurring into motion toward the various flashpoints of the arena to escape the sheer second-hand embarrassment.
"What?" Zeke looked genuinely offended, staring at their retreating backs. "It’s a fantastic name! It’s timeless! Don’t worry, it’ll grow on you!" he roared after them, kicking off the ground to follow.
Yeon watched him sprint away, a soft, genuine smile gracing her lips.
"Oh, and for the record, you are definitely not a member of the Dudes," Zeke’s voice drifted back to her through the wind. "And we absolutely fought side-by-side against Zeldris back then. How could you possibly forget?"
"I have zero desire to be a ’Dude,’ and that absolute circus against Zeldris didn’t even qualify as a proper fight," she murmured to herself, shaking her head as her figure blurred. She simply didn’t possess the mental stamina required to process Zeke’s brand of nonsense today.
Zeke scratched his chin thoughtfully as he watched her streak across the battlefield.
By this point, the combined might of the class of weirdos and the kings had completely sanitized their immediate sector, leaving nothing but dissolving mana particles and carcasses.
"Excellent," Zeke clapped his hands together loudly, drawing their attention. "Class of Weirdos!"
The students collectively winced at the deeply shameful moniker.
"What? I personally coined that title; it’s a mark of distinction," Zeke shrugged casually. "Now, given the highly irregular circumstances of today’s event, I am here to formally inform you all that you have officially graduated. Even if the front office hasn’t processed the paperwork yet, it’s the only logical conclusion. And let’s be real, half of you have already pushed into the SS-rank bracket anyway, so you would have been kicked out of the student dorms by next semester regardless."
He paused, deliberately adopting a solemn, dramatic stance he had painstakingly lifted from a legendary ninja anime. "Therefore, you will now undergo your final graduation examination. A test entirely separate from the academy’s curriculum—one designed exclusively by me, to determine if your capabilities are truly worthy of announcing to the wider world that you were educated under the tutelage of Zeke Vaughn."
The kings stood slightly apart, staring at him like he had entirely lost his mind. What is this lunatic rambling about in the middle of an invasion?
"Your objective is simple: harvest the heads of the invaders currently breaching the arena. The only acceptable submissions for grading are S-rank entities and above. Furthermore, you are to prioritize the extraction and preservation of civilian lives. Bonus points will be calculated for every citizen successfully secured." Another classic anime trope successfully deployed. Zeke smiled warmly in the privacy of his own mind. "Go forth. This is the burden of the strong."
"YES, SIR!" the class bellowed, the dramatic speech successfully igniting their competitive drives.
"Wait, does this mean... you won’t be teaching us anymore?" Sam asked, his voice dropping slightly as he lingered behind.
"We don’t talk about the future during a live operation. Just go cut something down. And look, I know we still haven’t had our scheduled sit-down, but for now, just go bring me some high-ranked trophies," Zeke said, shooing them off with a flick of his wrist.
The kings watched the interaction in quiet astonishment. This eccentric, seemingly chaotic class possessed a profound, deep-seated reverence for their instructor—this absolute joke of a professor, who was just an SS-ranked powerhouse?
Zeke turned his focus toward the remaining kings, his eyes lingering heavily on Khan. The main storyline had officially breached its containment.
Based on the hidden status metrics Nox had slipped him earlier, there were probably fewer than five entities on this entire floor who could even bypass Khan’s passive defenses at this point. The activation of the ’War Phase’ had granted the boy a staggering 300% multiplier to his global attributes. He had forcefully smashed through the ceiling of first-tier sainthood—sitting comfortably at an early second-tier saint capability at bare minimum. A literal system cheat code, permitted to roam a world zone where the natural ambient limit was strictly capped at the peak of the first tier.
If a juvenile, newly awakened Chosen One was already pushing these kinds of absurd numbers... just how terrifyingly broken were the Demon Emperor and The Human Emperor?
"You," Zeke pointed a finger directly at Khan. "Go report straight to Elio. The rest of you, disperse and make yourselves useful across the civilian sectors."
The kings blinked, exchanging uncertain glances.
"Understood, Professor," Eden spoke up smoothly, turning a firm look toward Khan and Kya. "Let’s move."
"Go on ahead without me. I have a quick matter to clarify with the professor," Khan instructed, his voice low and even.
Elijah let out a mocking snort and instantly flickered away toward the noise of combat. Eden studied Khan’s expression for a tense second before offering a silent nod and retreating. Khan had been acting deeply unsettled ever since that golden-eyed entity had manifested in the sky.
The lingering members of the class of weirdos cast one final look at their instructor. Zeke simply waved them off with a lazy, dismissive hand.
Once the clearing settled into absolute quiet, Zeke locked his gaze onto the young protagonist.
"Alright, kid. What’s on your mind, Chosen One?"
...
