Lightning escaped Superbia's barrel and formed a sort of web that covered everything around Arima. Within the cylindric barrier, the upper part was occupied by the dark press while the lower half was filled with purple lightning. Arima’s mind was entirely focused on the plasma and particularly the bullet spinning inside the chamber.
As he was charging the gun, the bizarre energy inside the magazine slowly left and gathered at the tip of the bullet. At some point, the ground crumbled and turned into a charred crater.
"[Gun Metuunt Blasphemantes] (Rail Gun)."
"[Ultimum Quantum Magicae] (Ultimate Quantum Magic)."
Arima chanted and a dark light invaded the area along with the lightning.
"[Prod Materia] (Anti Matter)."
He pressed the trigger and a black-purple beam shot out from the barrel. The bullet at the core of that ray of energy was surrounded by a dark aura.
When it touched the huge press falling down, it felt like time stopped. The dark aura around the bullet spread across its surface and pierced it. And as the plasma following the bullet was pushing it, the press suddenly disappeared without any warning as if it had never existed.
The entire object had disappeared. At the same time, a small cyclone was created because of the difference in atmospheric pressure and absconded soon after.
Arima exhaled and put Superbia away when he noticed that the barrier erected by the Lawless Tome had vanished. In the next instant, a white sphere suddenly formed above Arima. He looked at it and frowned.
The light exploded and blinded him momentarily. He could only sense an aura approaching him from behind. He conjured a katana and whirled the blade over his shoulder. He recovered his sight afterward and swiftly looked behind him before counter-attacking. The owner of that aura was obviously Lanya. Arima had to continuously reinforce his eyes to resist the light produced by her every slash.
"Hey, shouldn't you be almost out of mana, Lanya?"
"It should be okay," Lanya responded and smiled. Arima scowled and his weapon became a literal lightning bolt in his hands. The purple lightning gradually darkened until it was pitch black.
"[Aeterna] (Eternal Night)," he intoned and struck Lanya with a wave of lightning. She instantly cast a defensive magic that made appear countless layers of small hexagonal light shields. Thunder roared and the explosion shattered all of them. Lanya groaned and was sent flying away.
While Arima was facing her, he was trying to find out their plan. But it was hard to deduce everything from scratch. He, at least, knew that the Third Art wasn't supposed to defeat him. The proof was that Lanya attacked him instantly after, without any worry on her face.
‘Did she wish something else from the book?’ He wondered and looked around very quickly.
He couldn't spot his students. And coincidentally, he suddenly reacted and moved away from where he was standing. A sort of cyclone suddenly fell from the sky and pierced the ground like a drilling machine.
Arima looked up at the figure flying around and his eyes widened. "A harpy?" He muttered.
The figure was Lena. Her appearance now was the result of her resonance with her soul beast. She grew a pair of wings from her arms and her legs became strong claws.
Just after, a beam of light was shot at Arima, which he evaded by cocking his head to the side. This time, it was Ofia. Unexpectedly, her appearance was almost the same as her sister. Her soul contract with the cockatrice made her transmute into a harpy as well.
"You certainly are sisters," Arima chuckled.
Following his words, every other student started launching magics at him from everywhere. Arima countered with a matching number of lightning bolts, slowly taking out the casters. As he was doing that, he thought that something was odd. He couldn't sense the auras of his students.
When Arima started wondering where Balan, Melody, and Irian were, Lanya spotted an opening as his thoughts made him slow down.
She lifted her rapier and expended the rest of her mana. Her weapon produced a sort of semi-physical light and became a giant lance. Arima’s eyes narrowed. He felt the very air trembling and the ground shaking at it was getting closer to him. He hurriedly condensed a shield of lighting by converting his weapon and several lightning bolts then struck it to strengthen it.
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The clash between light and lightning resulted in a huge pillar that pierced the clouds. The attack nearly broke through Arima's defense. He had to admit it, Lanya's affinity with light was better than his, even in the Absolute Domination level.
“Now!” Lanya shouted and the two princesses nodded.
“What?” Arima glanced at the two harpies. They were inhaling strongly and mana was wrapping their throats. When they opened their mouth, a high-pitched sound penetrated his ears.
‘Ultrasounds?! I never taught them that. Did they realize that frequencies could also be used for sound waves alone?’
Arima gritted his teeth as he felt a bit dizzy because of his eardrums being shaken. He wasn’t able to protect his ears in time because he was defending against Lanya and the simple nature of the attack was unexpected.
When Lanya’s mana ran out, the pillar vanished and the lance dispersed. Arima covered one of his ears then looked at her who was out of breath. For some reason, she was smiling at him.
His instincts kicked in and he abruptly felt a presence behind him. From the corner of his eyes, he spotted Irian in his bear form with bloodshot eyes, clenching his paw.
Before Arima could react, he suddenly felt an immense pressure crushing him and combined with his lingering dizziness, he almost lost his balance. He was pushed down and the ground below him was crushed by his own body and he himself fell on one knee. His eyes flashed with surprise. Melody was once again using gravity. Balan was beside her and every other student was sharing their mana with her.
Arima snickered and turned around the fastest he could. But in the end, the pressure really hindered him and Irian managed to land a hit. He could only cross his arms to guard himself. He was easily hurled away and fought the momentum for a few tens of meters before spinning in mid-air and landing on his feet.
Arima squinted his eyes and saw Irian fall on the ground. The latter’s body was weak and his arm was broken. He had used 125% of his strength on this strike, the recoil was evident.
At the same time, everyone stared intensively at Arima. He shook his head and sighed. He rolled his left arm's sleeve and everyone saw a drop of blood falling on the ground. There was actually a small cut on his arm.
When they realized what they accomplished, the whole class cheered. They had successfully injured Arima. He allowed them to rejoice for a few minutes before clapping to get their attention. Arister also came back in the meantime.
When everyone looked back at Arima, they noticed that his injury had already closed and even his clothes were now spotless. They suddenly felt despondent. The result of their hard work was that small cut which was healed in just a few seconds. What’s worse was that Arima obviously held back against them, even after the suppression at the tenth level.
Since the students knew that they couldn't kill him, they could use their full power without hesitation. In contrast, Arima had to be careful to not kill them.
"Well, it was a good plan. Arister gained time to let Lanya use the Lawless Tome. The wish was most likely ‘hiding the auras of everyone except the caster’. And the giant press was probably just a bonus. That damn book actually decided to attack me on its own accord…” Arima cursed and Lanya giggled.
“Anyhow, after that, you just kept storming me, waiting for the right opportunity to pin me down and strike me physically since you realized it would be almost impossible to go through my magic defense. Not bad."
Everyone felt even more depressed when Arima explained their strategy so candidly. "Now," Arima cracked his knuckles and sat down on the ground.
"Time to point out your biggest errors," he declared and started giving a lecture to every single one of them.
***
An explosion occurred.
"…Not that bad, but you didn't put enough mana and you lost control halfway through."
The earth collapsed.
"......Good one, but it wasn't destructive enough, and the target wasn't well defined."
Water fell down from the sky and ravaged the ground
"...……The mana capacity was correct but the theory behind has to be revised."
Just like that, Night continued on experiencing the magics and commenting on it.
"It was the last one," Karma smiled and said when all of the students had tried out their magic.
Night glared at her with a darkened expression. His clothes were wet because of the water, dirty because the mud, lightly torn, and completely creased. He sighed to calm himself and calmly restored and washed his clothes.
At least, in this session, they had orderly arranged roles. Karma took care of the physical lectures while Night took care of the magic lessons. Karma, as Arima's 100-year-old weapon, was the best when it came to martial arts.
When those two finished their class, Arima reappeared with his own group. When the two of them saw his students, they made a silent prayer.
They all were mentally tired because of Arima's lecture added to their physical strain. Even Arister and Lanya weren't very energetic.
"Well, you guys can go home for today. Rest and come back in two days. I'll conclude the general lectures then," Arima announced. When he said that, everyone’s expression brightened as if they had been given a second life.
Arima smiled and teleported everyone back to the PA. Following that, he let his elite class leave and decided to accept 80 students for the next period. Of course, he didn't repeat the 'large-scale spar' between him and the class. It was just a special case for his ‘unique’ group.
Then, for two days, Arima sustained the training with Night's sole help since Karma accompanied Lanya who had been granted some rest. Arister, on the other hand, left because he said he was going to meet his family.
***
Lilis patiently watched Arima’s past but still couldn’t see any trace of Karaskan. She interacted with the Time Garden’s pond and the images went by very fast.
After Arimane's integration in the squad, for two years, Moria personally educated him about everything. Martial arts, sharpshooting, strategy, and the ways of an assassin's thinking process.
Arimane already had a natural disposition to control his emotions and he was really clever, making of him a talented soldier was exceptionally easy.
One day, Moria suddenly called his squad and gathered the members. "We have a notice. In a week, we will fly out of the country," he stated and everyone frowned without any other comment. But it was without saying that they were confused.
Of course, Moria was aware of that and resumed. "We've been selected for a mission," he said and shrugged. "Direct order from the higher-ups."
"What is the mission?" Erin asked.
"Destroying and dismantling a terrorist organization," He replied and the squad fell into a daze. "Well, it's just a small group; around fifty people. But we were asked to take care of it. Maybe they want to test us, who knows," he shrugged and looked at his squad of fifteen people.
"We leave in one week, prepare for it. You have permission to leave the orphanage to relax until then. That's all I wanted to say. Also, Arimane, you are not exempt of this mission," Moria added before exiting the room.
"Aah…" One of the members sighed loudly when Moria left. He sat down on a chair and rested his whole upper body on the table. "Taking out a terrorist group? By ourselves? They're serious?"
"Don't act like that, Jin. Technically, based on our current disposition, we easily should be able to take care of a small terrorist group," the one who said that was Gano, an 18-year-old man with a really large build which didn’t match his age at all.
"Yeah, yeah," Jin waved his hand dismissively. That guy was also around 17-18 years old, like almost everyone in the squad except Arimane. His eyes and attitude explicitly described him; a lazy type of guy.
"Well, if we're careful, nothing bad should happen," Farro, the man who was the oldest here with 20 years of age, spoke and sat down next to Jin. Everyone soon followed and sat down on the seats spread out in the room.
Arimane quietly sat down on a chair but he was soon picked up by someone and hugged uncomfortably tight.
"Tiria... put me down," he weakly said.
The one who had lifted him up was one of the three women of the squad. A girl who treated Arimane like the little kid of the group.
"Come on guys, the real problem is that Arimane is supposed to come with us," Tiria completely ignored Arimane's opinion as she sat down and put him on her lap. "Sir Moria said that but what if he can't do it?"
Erin raised his head and turned toward Arimane with a serious look. "Tell me, do you think you can kill someone?"
"Huh?" Arimane was caught off-guard by such a blunt question.