[All bounty points earned will also count toward professors as a special tric for promotion.]
[Thank you and good luck.]
Well...
Shit...
[Soul Sense]
I could already see silhouettes approaching the dormitory district; they were fast, like sports cars going top speed on an empty highway.
Most of them were professors, so were students, hoping to pick off anyone who was too distracted by the bounty to check their backs.
[!]
To make things worse, a literal hovering exclamation mark appeared in front of , ford from compressed air by multiple observers as an improvised signal so anyone, even those without strong magic sensitivity, could find and claim the bounty for themselves.
[Profane-CRACK
W-What?
That’s odd... why was the spell formula so complex?
I don’t even know why I asked. Of course, it would be the observers, using annoying artifacts specifically designed to target teleportation spells.
They wouldn’t let teleport freely around the map and render the bounty useless.
And unfortunately for ...
[Dark Step]
[Dark Step]
[Light Displacent]
[Earth Platform]
[Lightning Speed]
[Speed Boost]
The rest were free to use their own mobility spells. In an instant, several professors closed in around , their spells already prid and ready to fire.
"Shi—"
[Profaned Guardian]
[Profaned Serpent]
"Fire!"
The world turned white.
Not bright.
Not flashy.
Just... white.
Like soone erased the concept of color for a second.
BOOM!
My ears rang as half a dozen spells collided with my barrier at once.
Lightning speared down.
A compressed lance of wind drilled into my chest.
Ice detonated across my shoulders.
Sothing gravitational tried to fold my ribs inward like paper.
[Profaned Guardian]
CRACK—
The barrier spider-webbed instantly.
Right.
These weren’t normal professors.
These were the greedy ones.
The promotion-hungry ones.
The kind that saw 100 points and decided their careers were worth gambling their lives for.
Not even my profaned guardian would be able to intercept what I could only estimate as a thousand spells raining down on all at once!
[Profaned Recovery]
The cover was gone. Everywhere I moved, buildings caved in around . If I fought back, more sprang up to replace them. And if I wiped everyone out now, it would only make the nights ahead even worse.
I had to get through this without using up too much good fodder for the final night. My only option now was to hope I could get out without taking down too many people.
And well...
That was easier said than done!
BOOM!
ZIP!
CRACKLE!
I sprinted for my life, unable to use any mobility spell to save .
I vaulted through the rubble, shrugging off blows that would have killed any normal human. Even the observers hesitated, unsure whether to rush in and save or just stand back and let my regeneration handle it.
It was a shit show.
Not the organized kind either, not the tactical kind where both sides knew what they were doing.
This was pure, unfiltered greed.
Spells weren’t even aid anymore.
They were just thrown.
The sky above the dormitory district looked less like a battlefield and more like soone had kicked over an entire warehouse of magic and let it spill.
Lightning spears, wind cannons, shards of ice the size of carriages, compressed gravity wells, firestorms — everything overlapping, colliding, detonating without any regard for friendly fire.
BOOM!
The street behind simply ceased to exist.
Not destroyed.
Not cracked.
Fucking gone!
A clean crater swallowed it whole like the ground had been scooped out with a spoon.
I didn’t even bother looking back.
If I started checking every explosion, I’d break my neck before soone else did it for .
"Are you all insane!?" I barked, ducking as sothing the size of a small teor scread overhead and smashed straight into three other professors instead.
Nobody cared.
Not even a little.
If anything, that just ant fewer competitors for the bounty.
Which was honestly way more terrifying than if they had been coordinated.
At least coordinated people hesitate before nuking their coworkers.
These guys?
They saw a hundred points and collectively lost their minds.
ZIP!
A blade of compressed air skimd across my ribs.
ZIP!
Two more spikes of darkness punched through my thigh.
Cold.
Sharp.
Annoying.
[Profaned Recovery]
The wounds sealed before my next step even landed.
Echo stacked the effect automatically, multiplying every bit of regeneration until it felt borderline unfair.
If this had happened yesterday, before I fused the artifacts?
Yeah. I’d most likely be dead.
No debate. No heroic coback.
Just paste on the sidewalk after the five hundredth spell hit dead on.
CRACK!
A gravity spell suddenly slamd down on my shoulders mid-stride.
My knees buckled, and the asphalt beneath shattered like glass, the weight forcing halfway into the ground.
"Tch—!"
I drove my fist downward.
BOOM!
Echo repeated it twice more.
The street detonated under , and the gravity anchor collapsed instantly, giving just enough freedom to launch myself forward again like a cannonball.
Running wasn’t exactly my preferred thod of transportation after learning magic.
But considering they completely cut off that thod, well... guess it’s ti to let my legs finally do their job again!
"Sighting confird!"
"Don’t let him get away!"
"Box him in! North side!"
So weren’t even chasing blindly either. Others actually had brains.
They were funneling . Cutting off routes.
Forcing toward tighter streets where I’d have fewer angles to dodge from.
With how ssy the entire situation was, most spells weren’t even hitting anymore, even the huge marker on top of my head was no longer visible through the oversaturation of spells.
Too many attacks, and such a small target, they didn’t know where they were aiming anymore.
Who knew being surrounded by hundreds of mages all at once would be the reason why I’m actually surviving!?
[Soul Sense]
I expanded it as far as I could.
Dozens of signatures.
Then more.
And even more.
Students too. Hiding behind buildings, waiting like vultures for to get weakened so they could swoop in and steal the last hit.
Unbelievable.
A hundred points really did turn people feral.
"Greedy basta—" I muttered, but even then, they didn’t allow to complete my sentence as a huge piece of rubble completely obliterated my right cheek.
[Profaned Recovery]
I knew I could handle pain.
But this...
I clenched my teeth so hard I tasted blood.
If I don’t get out of here now, this pain will grind down. Sooner or later, I’ll snap and lose what’s left of my sanity.
"Don’t worry."
A voice, more refined than the others, one that sohow managed to pierce through the sheer volu of the spells around .
Evelina...?
[Cry of Hellfire]
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