The first drop fell.
It didn’t glow.
Didn’t burn.
Didn’t sparkle with magic.
It was just...
Black.
So black it almost looked like a hole punched through the world, a sar of absence that my eyes kept trying, and failing, to focus on. It wobbled slightly as it fell, as if the air around it didn’t quite know what to do with it, like reality itself was reluctant to touch it.
It struck the rooftop of a nearby building.
fup!
There wasn’t an explosion.
No shower of stone.
No burst of fla.
The slate tiles simply... folded inward, as if soone had pressed a fingertip into the world and dimpled it. The matter twisted into the drop, compressing into a smooth, dark sphere that pulsed once, then went poof.
A perfectly round pocket in the structure remained, like a bite taken out of the rooftop—edges smooth, almost polished, the missing stone now sealed inside a floating bead of black hanging just above the impact point.
"...What...?" soone whispered, voice thin and disbelieving.
Then another drop ford.
And another.
And then—
The sky ca down.
Not rain.
Not really.
It was more like the world itself was being pinned from above, just in the form of a very intense storm.
Thick pillars of blackness descended without rhythm or warning, each one lancing from the clouds like missiles.
They didn’t explode on impact; they simply t whatever they touched and turned it into more of those suspended, ink-dark orbs.
Chunks of walls, entire balconies, sections of road, each contact carved precise pieces out of the city, the stolen matter swallowed into hovering spheres that hung in the air like artificial black moons.
Buildings didn’t crumble.
They didn’t collapse.
They were... edited for a lack of a better term.
Whole sections vanished from where they should have been, replaced by clean, circular cavities and a slow drift of captured debris frozen in the air. It looked like sothing thodical and patient was taking careful bites out of reality, but storing every scrap.
Screaming started.
Barrier spells flared to life everywhere, overlapping in panicked layers of color across windows, doors, even open streets.
"Get away, now!"
"Don’t try to defend!"
"Retreat!"
Teleportation circles flickered desperately to life on every available surface. So misfired under the pressure, dumping people only a few ters away, but even that was enough to pull them out of an impact zone.
Students tripped over each other trying to get out of the falling columns’ paths. So weren’t fast enough; observers swooping them from their feet, inches away from the point of no return.
One mont, there was solid ground.
The next—
It was gone.
Just empty space and captured matter, locked away.
My shoulders sagged a little.
"...This has to warrant a cancellation, right?" I laughed again.
[Endless Fang] dragged behind , the tip left a glowing violet trail across the ruined street. Wherever the blade touched stone, the ground didn’t crack; it shaved away, turning thin and see-through, peeling up in curling layers like glass sheets.
A professor appeared behind in a flash of light.
I didn’t expect soone to really be dumb enough to try attacking at this point...
I didn’t bother turning.
Didn’t feel like it.
The more I moved, the more I rembered how sexually frustrated my body was.
Instead... I just let my hand do its thing, swiping blindly behind.
One lazy swing.
Violet energy rolled out in a half-circle. It didn’t cut flesh. Instead, the arc passed through him with a ripple, and everything it touched went numb for a heartbeat—then locked.
Echo triggered.
The sound of the swing repeated.
Each echo layered more force into the effect, deepening it.
By the ti I actually glanced back, the space itself was torn through... well, visually it looked torn through.
More like it was just dense magic that compressed the surrounding air.
I wasn’t that strong yet.
As for the professor? Obviously saved.
But... even after all this damage...
"Are they seriously not cancelling anything yet!?"
One wrong move and soone could literally die...
Are they really that confident in their rescue skills!?
I bit down on my nail, my frustration rising even more.
’After the examination.’
Evelina’s words echoed through my mind.
"Should I actually start killing instead...? Maybe that’ll actually make them cancel everything..."
I tilted my head, losing all reason.
I was desperate.
REALLY desperate.
Not horror.
Not hesitation.
Just... practicality. A cold, flat sort of arithtic clicking into place where panic should’ve been.
If soone actually died, they’d have to stop, right? There were lines even maniacs in academic robes couldn’t cross.
There were rules, regulations, committees that would hold endless etings about "liability" and "optics" and "student safety."
Even these lunatics wouldn’t keep pretending this was an "exam" if there was a body. A real, unambiguously dead body, not a fainted kid ferried off to the nurse.
Right...?
Another black pillar slamd down a street over with casual, uncaring precision.
fup!
Another entire intersection was erased.
"...This is already attempted murder,"
I muttered, more to hear sothing grounding in the air than because I thought anyone was listening.
So what exactly was the difference? Between attempted and successful? Between an exam and an execution? Was it just a matter of ti and body count? Did intent even matter when the result looked like this?
More teleportation flashes sparked in my peripheral vision, white and dark afterimages streaking across my retinas.
Professors.
They weren’t attacking anymore.
They were herding.
Grabbing students by the back of their uniforms. Dragging them out of blast zones. Shoving them bodily across the cobblestones. Throwing up barriers and blinking away in a rush of light before another drop erased the spot they’d been standing on.
I probably should’ve been more creative instead of just casting another rain-like spell, like Evelina did...
But it was definitely the most efficient one I had in my arsenal.
My grip tightened around Endless Fang.
The blade humd, vibrating faintly in my hand, a sound balanced halfway between a purr and a growl.
It wasn’t even sentient or a living weapon, but the sheer magic it had been passively absorbing made it feel like it was alive.
Another spell flashed behind .
Different this ti.
Not the frantic, scattered blinking of panicked staff.
It was powerful and evidently magic coming from a very tired professor.
I sighed. I guess I could kill this one to try ending the examination.
"I’ve gotta warn you—"
...
C-Corvus...!?
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