“Blasting!”

“Roger!”

Another explosion resounded throughout the amphitheater. This was the fifth abomination Alec and his friends had been fighting against, and probably the strongest one.

“Tentacle from the right!” Evan shouted. As the half-a-meter-thick column of flesh whipped through the air, all the CQC mages dodged to the best of their capabilities. While Alec depended on his high agility to do so, the others had to improvise.

The one having the most trouble so far seemed to be Evan. His breath was becoming rough, and he was starting to lose his edge. As another volley of artillery magic hit the monster, Alec released two knives from his belt and threw them toward it.

The knives whizzed and split the air before they lodged themselves into the stems of the tentacles protruding from the monster’s body.

“Fuck!” Alec cursed. He was hoping the knives would have cut off the tentacles.

“These- Tentacles-” Evan did his best to speak. However, each of his words was cut short by his rapid breathing. Swallowing a mouthful of saliva, he took another deep breath and continued. “We can’t get near unless we do something about it.”

“If I could use second circle telekinetic magic…” Alec muttered defeatedly. There was a second circle telekinetic spell called force wave which acted as a ranged cutting attack. If he were to use that, he could have probably cut off the tentacles at once.

“Then leave it to me!” Douglas bellowed with a wide grin on his face. He left his spot in the artillery formation and dashed forward. He jumped up after releasing two magic missiles and hitting his feet with them. His calculations were precise, and the force from the missiles was beautifully distributed. “I learned that from you, Alec!”

As he found himself about two meters above the abomination, he suddenly unleashed four variant magic missiles.

These were crescent-shaped, cutter magic missiles. In an instant, they hit the monster’s tentacles and severed them in one go.

“Beautifully executed!” Alec shouted as he rushed forward. Disregarding the rot smell infiltrating his nose, He slammed the monster with a punch. The punch itself was so strong that it was followed by a banging noise, similar to that of a gunshot.

That, however, wasn’t all.

“Take this!”

A purple magic circle appeared around his arm and caused another shockwave to spread throughout the monster’s body.

“Alec! Get out of there!” Edward shouted. Then, knowing that Alec was fast enough, he gave the orders. “Volley! Fire!”

The fireballs rained from the skies like heavenly punishment, and the monster was incinerated into ashes.

“We should rest for a while,” Edward shouted. He knew that Evan wasn’t the only person getting tired on the team. With a quick calculation, he counted about a hundred more abominations other than Professor Isabel. Fortunately, there didn’t seem to be more students who were being tainted. And those that had been tainted were already being dealt with by swathes of students.

As they formed a circle to be aware of their surroundings, Alec sat next to Evan. He put his hand in his pocket and took out a stamina and mana recovery potion.

“Take these. Tell no one,” Alec said. Evan looked at the vials with a bitter expression before grabbing and downing them in one go.

“What the fuck…” Evan muttered. He looked at the empty vials in his hand momentarily as energy started flowing through his veins. “These are… These are incredibly effective. What grade are these?”

“It’s beginner level,“ Alec said. That was the orthodox equivalent of a very low grade potion.

“How did…” Evan muttered. Then, he handed the empty vials back to Alec and hugged his knees. “You know what? Never mind. Thanks for the help.”

Alec smiled at Evan's resignation. He found Evan to be a really good friend and trusted him enough to at least reveal the potions made by The Author’s Pen.

‘Eventually, you too will come to understand the potion supremacy,’ Alec mentally muttered. His thoughts were disturbed by Edward getting up to speak.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

“Let’s continue friends. There is much to do,” he said. After their short break, the so-called task force of theirs cleansed demon after demon.

The worst part about these monsters was the fact that they carried countless potent diseases in their bodies. Whenever someone was wounded, the wound would immediately start festering and the disease spreading. For that reason, everyone had to cauterize their wounds with fireballs as soon as they got them.

Fortunately, no one was mortally wounded. Their team coordination was solid. Although Alec occasionally made mistakes, he was covered by them from every corner. With such backup, he was able to abuse his incredibly high body stats as much as he wanted.

The demons had a hard time wounding him. And even if they did, because of his high health stat, his body would fight off the diseases very effectively.

As fight after fight passed, Alec got used to fighting up close with the demons. At the start, he was disgusted by the thought. Now, however, he got a perverse satisfaction from ripping through the demons barehanded.

Raising his foot, Alec grabbed the disgusting tentacle in front of him with both his hands and brought his foot down. He ripped the tentacle out and threw it away before distancing himself. The monster was hit with another volley of fireballs before it disappeared.

“That was the last one!” Edward shouted. He flicked his hand around to utilize his mana eye. After confirming the last one remaining was Professor Isabel, they finally changed their focus toward her minions.

Fortunately, they had thousands of students by their side. No matter how low level, they were all mages.

At this point, there was no need to try and coordinate their attacks. Everyone started launching whatever artillery magic they had toward the tainted Isabel. The hardest job belonged to the CQC mages. Although the professors were doing their best to snipe the minions with their magic, they weren’t doing a very good job multi-tasking between the two.

As his hair stood on its end, Alec twisted his body at an inhuman speed. A meter-tall blight spider brushed past his face. Unfortunately for the wretched critter, it was facing Alec. Bringing his fist up with all the force he could muster up in that position, he punched the thing square in its abdomen.

*CRACK

With a sickening crunch, the thing released a gooey, green substance while getting launched ten meters into the air.

On the other side, Alec lost his balance and stumbled down to the ground. Noticing another spider on the edge of his vision, he took out a small dagger from the inside of his sleeve and threw it toward it. Unfortunately, this was a hasty action, and his throw missed the target. He had to adjust the knife’s route mid-air with telekinetic magic to hit the monster.

With a few quick motions, Alec got up and kept weaving through the swathes of spiders around him. The other CQC mages were closer to each other and working in tandem.

Evan had recovered with the help of Alec’s potions. And he also seemed to be adjusting to the fight. Although he wasn’t faster or stronger than before, his movements were much more calculated. Every dodge he made was purposeful and used the smallest amount of movement he could. His attacks were the same. They always hit the spiders’ weak spots and comboed into another attack.

‘Just how much did he increase his mind stat?’ Alec thought absentmindedly as he dodged another attack.

However, the next moment, he felt his heart stop in horror. Cold sweat poured from his back. Every cell in his body urged him to dodge, and his mana churned in anxiety. The mana brain started pinging him like crazy, to move, to wake him up from his daze. However, the only thing Alec could manage in time was to turn his head slightly to see the demonized Isabel rushing toward him at breakneck speed.

“Come here filthy bastard!” she shouted. Her strangled and coarse voice aside, every time she opened and closed her mouth, blood, pus, and goo would spurt out.

However, Alec suddenly felt an incredible amount of force throw him off his feet. He had been launched off of the tainted Isabel’s path.

“Stupid bastard! Focus on the fight instead of worrying about others!” A voice shouted next to his head. This was Professor Andrew. He had utilized a high-level telekinetic spell to launch Alec toward himself.

Placing Alec aside, he slapped the ground. A huge magic circle appeared, and both of them flew up into the air. Although Alec was disoriented at first, he quickly adjusted to the sensation of flying.

Just as Alec opened his mouth to speak, Professor Andrew cast another spell to launch them in another direction.

The crazed Isabel was disregarding everything and chasing after Alec as fast as she could.

While escaping, Alec noticed blue sparks around Professor Andrew’s head. Then, when he looked around, he noticed that the blue sparks had appeared for everyone. As far as he knew, this was a sign of their memories being edited.

“Alec! You came here for the library, right?” Professor Andrew shouted. “I can feel my memories dissipating! Something is utilizing both memory magic and anti-memetic magic to play with us. You have to get to the library!”

Alec was baffled at the Professor’s words. He had never seen a professor be so aware of the situation.

“The second level of the library contains an incredible amount of written knowledge. It will mess with anti-memetic magic,” he continued. Every now and then, he would have to change his direction mid-air to dodge the tainted Isabel’s attacks. The situation had escalated into an outright aerial dogfight. “This thing, it has too much effect over the professors! And its energy seems to be coming back. In a short while, no one here will remember a thing about the fact that we are being manipulated.”

Slapping the back of Alec’s head, the man released some mana.

“I gave you the entrance privilege. You will be safe once inside the second level! Go! Figure out what you have to!”

Casting another spell, he launched Alec off toward the grand library. The landing was going to really hurt, but Alec at least had the telekinetic accomplishment necessary to soften it down.

While getting thrown, Alec turned around to see Professor Andrew engaging in close combat with the tainted Isabel to tie her down. Or else, she would have come after him without stopping.

Gritting his teeth, Alec shifted his gaze back to the library.

“Let’s go!”