07.08 cycle eight, Ca’thir, of calendar Moonrachia

  A yellow tower that stretched far into the sky filled our entire vision

  The strongest mages and knights around the world were now gathered here

  Despite all of that, we were unable to reach the tower itself, no matter how fast we leaped, flew, or even teleported

  We bounced back to the previous position, as if nothing could bypass it, like a barrier that was capable of existing in a different dimension

  It's been somewhere around 30 cycles since the first time we tried to enter the tower

  A yellow tower that grows out of nowhere in one night on one of the main continent islands and turns the whole island’s climate to autumn

  When I lift my head, trying to see the end of the tower beyond the faraway sky, I can’t help but think to myself

  In the end, it still happened, despite trying to change the future with everything I could

  Then a loud heavenly bell rings in the sky—no, rather on top of the exact point of the tower

  -Boong… Booongg…

  It started… Eisya, it seems we will soon be carrying out our last duties…

  I could feel an ominous mana suddenly emerge out of nowhere, from the shadow of the tower, and in each of the places where the light was absent, something was crawling out

  From the yellow tower shadow

  Something enormous crawls out from the thin shadow of the tower's body, a huge giant, flat as paper, with skin and a body that seem to distort reality itself

  A white, pristine skin that seems to be moving in a parallax effect, as if it's telling us that it was something that is beyond our understanding

  That even my Eyes of the Truth were incapable of seeing through them

  And in each place where the shadow presents something, crawl out with the same thing, as the entity shared the same race

  In the shadow of a leaf

  In the shadow of the grass

  A white, pristine entity that doesn’t belong in our world appears slowly

  Everyone present here, the mages and the knights, was in a fighting stance, but all of them shared the same thing

  A confused and shocked face

  Then, like a rain cloud that was pushed by the wind

  A spear of light appears from far behind us

  Before it slowly reached our area and hits every single one of those out-of-this-world creatures

  When I opened my palm, I could feel a familiar mana from the spear of light

  I couldn’t help but wear a slightly bittersweet smile. “Soon, we will meet each other again, dear.”

  Then inhaled deeply, “There’s no turning back now.” Slowly, a halo appeared above my head, a twisted halo that was cracked like it could be broken with a slight physical touch

  And a lot of white pristine magic circles appear behind me, a magic that doesn’t belong to any elemental

  And then it shoots out a lot of needle-like magic at the entity. “I should focus on my own battle for now.”

  *****

  07.51 cycle eight, Ca’thir, of calendar Moonrachia

  It's been around half an hour since the first spear of light fell from the sky

  The academy was too loud

  An explosive sound and sounds of air being cut filled the entirety of my sense of hearing.

  I could feel a lot of mana and aura scattering and gathering in every direction

  And the sounds of crying

  The spears of light were gradually fading one by one. The spears managed to rain down on the entire kingdom before, but now there were barely a hundred drops remaining

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  People have no choice but to fight for their lives

  While I'm right here, still completely stunned by my own thoughts

  With Alias, who was crying uncontrollably in my arms while clutching my shirt with her little hand as hard as she could

  I could see in the corner of my eyes that Maya was the one now who was taking the lead in the battle

  She was levitating around the academy grounds while multi-casting a bunch of different magic circles simultaneously to kill each of the entities with her magic

  No matter how many times they kill them, the entity still crawls back again and again

  I know sooner or later, we could be pushed back

  No, you could almost see it already now

  Some have already exhausted their mana and aura to the point that they couldn’t stand properly

  But… I couldn’t bring myself to cast magic again

  No, could I even make the situation different?

  My entire thought was filled with that specific magic circle only, and I can’t seem to remember any other magic circle now

  I’m afraid that it will once again lose control

  But at this point, a lot of other people will keep dying

  In my eyes, the kingdom that was once filled with red string before has lost at least 30% of its strings

  How many people have already died? And how many will?

  In each second, my thoughts running, I could see one or more red strings pulled back away into the sky

  And then another teacher just died

  His head was rolling over in front of me and staring back into my eyes

  As if he knew I was the one who was behind all of this

  Then, out of nowhere, I could feel anger slowly rise from inside me, and I hit the head with a wind cannon before the head could explode in front of me and dirty myself with its blood and things

  When I could sense the ominous mana from behind me, “F**k all of this.”

  Then I turn around and look behind me, 3 or more entities are crawling from the pillar's shadow

  “Can't you at least stay back?” Before they could crawl fully into the academy, all of them exploded instantly through my instant casting

  The magic was precisely calculated and yet caused the explosion to be bigger than it should have been

  Their blood was scattered around the ground, but one thing I realized was that all of their blood contained the same mana

  No, it feels familiar

  That means they shared the same sources

  Then, slowly, I carried Alias while covering both of us in a wind barrier to erase the surrounding battle voices and sounds

  What was Eisya trying to tell me before?

  I couldn’t hear her properly... because of the people screaming. Shaking my head slowly to regain my focus

  There’s not much time to think, for now I should act rather than thinking useless things

  I could blame myself after all of this ended

  Then, a lot of purple magic circles manifested around me while I walked into the front of the battlefield

  Lightning lances shot toward the entities before bouncing to others in a chained attack entity in a connected targeting attack pattern

  The mana and magic circles that I created seem much denser than they should be, with higher damage output despite my precise calculations

  As I kept shooting my magic, I could see Millenia glance at me

  --END---