A man sat on the rooftop, the moonlight illuminating his onyx hair that seemed to be dancing in the air even though there was no wind. He sat down on a magic circle that he was using to bolster his own capabilities and make the usage of the spell easier. Both of his mitch-matched eyes were open and staring straight ahead, but they weren’t looking at anything visible to the majority of those who lived on this planet.

What he saw instead was lights, formed in the shape of people glowing brightly, some had more brilliance than others while others gave off repulsive feelings and had a darkness to them as if a miasma had coated over the once pure soul.

The mist that Erebus normally saw in the air when he was using the Eye of Void was gone, he could see with absolute clarity. He was using a magic special to only him and his eye,「All Seeing」, it gave him the ability to focus the information that he received and filter it to what he wanted to see, which was the soul.

For a ten mile radius, he was able to see all of the souls that existed in that area. His ability could go even farther than that, if he wanted to, it could encompass the entire world, but that was not what he needed at the moment.

“There are quite a few of them,” Erebus said to himself, referencing the disgusting souls. He focused his 「All Seeing」 so that only those souls were visible now.

The mana flow with those souls was strange. Typically, what happened was that the mana would go in and out of the body normally, for humans, there was barely anything, but it was still there. But these souls would gather a lot of mana until their bodies reached its peak amount and then expel it all immediately, essentially, they “died” every time they released the mana.

Erebus furrowed his brows. Such a tumultuous existence. Theoretically, once their soul exploded, they shouldn’t be able to come back, but the hosts of these oddball souls seemed to be perfectly fine. Still, at the very least, they should incur memory loss and disorientation.

Erebus zoomed in on a single soul, isolating it from the rest. The dark red and black mottled soul was currently facing Erebus, making his job somewhat easier. He watched the dispersion occur multiple times, analyzing the maximum capacity of the soul, the rate of speed that the mana was reabsorbed... anything that would help him.

After five minutes of just staring, Erebus finally noticed something where the brain would be located. The amount of mana it had was so minuscule it had been basically invisible within the cloud of dense mana.

“So that’s how it is, huh? So disgusting, the humans really made something nasty this time, I’m getting sick by just looking at it. To think that this is what they had been using our mana stones for.” Erebus smiled bitterly to himself, he, no, the entire Dragon Council and Continent had overlooked something.

They had thought the humans wanted the mana stones simply because of their high storage capacities, but as it turned out, they were using it for something like this.

「 Magma Heart」, a mana stone only found in the Dragon Continent.

“For them to use it in such a sacrilegious way... what is this emotion I’m experiencing? Anger? No, something more akin to fury.” A murderous smile formed on Erebus’ face and his killing intent had started to leak out. “It’s been awhile since I’ve been so enraged.” Erebus’ voice remained even, but there was a fierceness to it that would strike fear into the hearts of even the most courageous warriors.

Erebus terminated his 「All Seeing」, his hair stopped dancing in the wind and fell over his face. He pulled out a stone imbued with magic that would allow him to communicate with Weryn and Magnus.

Lord Erebus? Magnus responded the moment he felt the connection. We were going to contact you shortly, but you ended up calling us first.

Have you found her?

Yeah, it’s more like she found us. We’re headed back to the castle now at our maximum speed. For an alchemist, she’s keeping up pretty well.

Erebus sighed. All right. When I gather more information, I will contact you again. Without another word, he canceled the connection.

Since they had found her, they could get this out of the way faster. Erebus’ blood was boiling, he seriously needed to teach those idiotic humans a lesson about things they should never tamper with.

The Dragon Council would strike the humans mercilessly and put them in their place. An existence like that would have nothing but harmful effects on the world’s mana, that’s why Erebus couldn’t forgive them for what they had done. The humans probably couldn’t see anything past their ambition, but Erebus certainly could.

“When I find out more from her about how it operates, I’ll report to the Council. I will personally wipe those atrocious creations out of existence, perhaps I should take a human kingdom or two along with them so that they understand properly this time.”

He couldn't care less about the lives of the innocent who would be caught in this. In order for the guilty to learn, people were going to have to suffer. The Dragon Council would never compromise, they didn’t rule the world fairly, they ruled it through fear. “It’s a shame, but they brought this upon themselves.”

Erebus knew that those who would inevitably lose their lives would have had nothing to do with the issue, but this was how problems were solved in this world.

Without forgiveness, without pity, without mercy, a cold-blooded decree would be issued for their deaths.

“I’ll head back now, Tear and Vyne are probably wondering where I went.” Erebus’ figure blurred and the spot where he had been standing was now empty, but his words seemed to linger in that space.

...

The next morning, the school was cloaked in an aura of seriousness. Today, the annual competition would be held. First up would be the freshman then in order up to the seniors. Each grade only had one hour to determine a winner, it sounded like a long time, but it was incredibly short once the action began.

Most of the times, the Myth class would win, but that never remained a constant. The winning class would get bonus points and their chances of graduating and getting a job increased dramatically, even the first runner-up got some good rewards from it.

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That’s why no one was able to take this day as a joke. Well, except for the three who couldn't care less about graduating and succeeding. They were sitting leisurely on the grass and eating their breakfast and having a light-hearted conversation.

The location of the simulation was off campus and in the nearby mountains, mostly so the students could go buck wild without destroying the school. So, Erebus, Vyne, and Tear were sitting in the shade underneath a tree.

“Those three,” Wolf grumbled, he already got a basic grasp of their personalities. They were all frivolous and clearly weren’t putting in effort, he wasn’t sure why they had enrolled in this school. Nonetheless, he stormed over to them. “Are you aware that we will be starting in five minutes?”

Erebus looked up at Wolf, his eyes widening. “Wow, Wolf, you look so scary~ I’m scared now~ I don’t know if I can fight anymore.”

Wolf, like everyone else, was dressed in a faux-military uniform, but on him, it looked as if he was the general, giving him an imposing aura. “You... Quit playing around! You look like a teenager playing around in his father’s old clothing.”

“I’m going to end up spitting blood, Wolf is actually so mean,” Erebus muttered, rubbing his heart as if it was hurting him.

Wolf sighed. “We need to start moving into positions. Here are some school-issued communication stones. As you already know, Rune and I will act as the vanguard and try to obliterate everyone in record-breaking time! If there are any unforeseen problems, your team will have to deal with it, Erebus.”

“I know, I know.” Erebus waved away Wolf’s words. “Don’t underestimate us, we’re in Myth class for a reason.”

Wolf scowled. “How could I underestimate you? I heard that you three were dubbed the ‘Monstrous Transfers’, I just don’t know about your actual battle capabilities. I’m placing a lot of tru--”

“I said we know. Get moving, Wolf. We can handle ourselves,” Erebus said lightly, but his irritation shone clearly in his eyes. For this brat to be questioning him so much, Erebus would only be able to take so much before he snapped.

Wolf backed up. “All right. Be sure to keep in contact, this is very important to us.” Wolf went back to his squad of five and they started heading off in one direction while Rune and his group went off in the other.

Erebus stood up and stretched. “Since there’s a bunch of brats here, you guys already know to withhold your strength substantially. Attacks that can be fixed with healing magic are fine, but still, don’t be too extreme.”

“Understood.” Vyne and Tear bowed to Erebus, their faces completely serious. The two actually looked like members of the military, Tear had her normally free-flowing hair pulled into a tight bun while her mouth was pressed into a thin line. For Vyne, something about the dark blue uniform complimented his appearance and he looked like a young, high-ranking officer.

“Well, let’s have some fun. Don’t be such stiffs~” Erebus rubbed their heads. “It’s been awhile since you two have had the opportunity to use your strength.”

A small smile graced Tear’s face. “We’ll certainly be able to enjoy ourselves.”

Just as she said that, a horn blared loudly in the air, signaling the start of the simulation.

“Let’s go.”

The three started running at what they considered to be a relaxed pace, but would be insanely fast for most of the students here who were still only trainees incapable of this skill level.

Vyne had told Wolf that they would stay back, but they had lied. The three planned on wreaking havoc upon the battlefield, with Erebus’ eye, they were able to instantly determine the location of a group of six students moving stealthily towards the Myth class’ base. Getting a base in this simulation didn’t hold much meaning, but, it did give a minor point reward. Since they probably belonged to a low-ranked class, they were trying to acquire points by taking all of the bases!

It was a bad choice for them. They weren’t aware of the monsters heading towards them.

A girl with springy red curls was in the lead of the group. “Heh, those arrogant Myth kids underestimated the importance of a base, theirs is worth the most amount of points out of all the bases but they left it defenseless. We’ll show them how the Common class does it! Don’t underestimate us!” she roared, throwing her fist into the air.

The other five students also cheered loudly.

“This is like stealing candy from a baby,” she told her group members as they kept walking. “We were already able to get the Lord class’ base after we do Myth, we’ll move onto King~”

She took another step forward, but her body was suddenly hurtling through the woods, the tree branches whipped against her face and tore her clothes, leaving red cuts on her skin.

The leader hit the ground and rolled a few times, but she had lost her consciousness.

“We’re under attack!” a boy with glasses shouted. A fist connected with his face, shattering his glasses and sending his thin body through a tree. He was still conscious, but his vision kept fading in and out, his nose was broken and bleeding profusely. He had never felt pain like this before, so he started to scream in agony.

The sound of his shrieks resounded throughout the entire forest, birds that had been resting in their nests flew away.

A blonde girl who couldn’t be older than sixteen started to scream at the sight of glasses boy’s bloody face. Her eyes turned to the two men that had arrived.

The black-haired man smiled at them. “Hello, fellow students.”

“W-who’re you?” she stammered, she readied her sword, but her hand was shaking uncontrollably. She then saw the crest on Erebus’ breast, signifying he belonged to the Myth class. “Goddammit! I won’t go down without a fight.” She steeled herself and charged at Erebus, much to the surprise of everyone there.

Her heart pounding, she gnashed her teeth together and began to swing her sword at Erebus.

Suddenly, a volley of arrows came from the sky and pierced the girl’s body, avoiding all her vital spots. Still, two arrows shot straight through her knee caps so she fell to the ground.

The black-haired man’s grin grew broader. “Myth class’ auxiliary squad is here to massacre you.”