Midterm Exams (5)
Sunlight poured down through the cracks of the warped ceiling.
By that light, a stretch of nature in full bloom had erupted.
Lush green thickets and trees soaring toward the sky. Judged on scenery alone, you might have believed it a natural masterpiece carved by an architect named Nature over thousands of years.
But Eva, face to face with that vista, didn't gasp in awe — she shivered, teeth chattering over and over.
"Uuuugh…."
"Save me…."
Thin, ragged breathing. Trembling moans.
People clung to every stalk of every plant — as natural as branches growing from an ancient tree, and all the more grotesque for it.
The ones bound to the thickets writhed with twisted, contorted faces, shriveling up like deflated balloons. Some couldn't even muster a proper scream, only pleading in broken whispers to be spared.
The students of Purity Academy were no exception.
Aside from Eva and Arlan, everyone else was bound tight and unable to move so much as a finger, and that made it hurt all the more.
"Please… save…."
Hands reached out toward her, the only one still standing unharmed. Eva staggered back in terror, then quickly shook her head and fought to keep her composure.
"O-okay, everyone, just hold on. I'll…!"
She moved to grasp their outstretched hands — but Arlan slipped in between them and spoke with firm resolve.
"You mustn't go over there."
"Ha-ha, but…."
"I know you want to save them. But right now, we have to watch what's in front of us."
Eva nodded at Arlan's words and shifted her gaze as she was told.
There stood the culprit — the man who had strung up human beings as his personal decorations.
"Do you know the story of a certain famous artist?"
The man who had barged into the arena wore loose white silk garments, the kind ancient people might have worn.
His footsteps brimmed with leisure, his expression utterly serene.
"He tried to paint, but inspiration would not come. Even after agonizing for weeks, he couldn't lay a single brushstroke on the canvas."
"Eventually he couldn't contain his frustration and flung the brush away. It splattered across the canvas all on its own."
"And yet that scribble — the venting of his emotions — was later recognized as a masterpiece. Distinguished collectors from around the world clamored to get their hands on it."
"What exactly is the point of telling us that story?"
Arlan cut in, asking the purpose behind an explanation grating enough to hurt the ears.
At her question, the man's lips curled at the corners.
"I'm saying that the expression of emotion can become art. So let me ask you — what do you make of this piece?"
Pointing at the people embedded in the trees, wasting away until their bones showed, he demanded an appraisal.
"It isn't worth evaluating. This isn't art — it's nothing more than your twisted perversion, tormenting other people."
Arlan made no effort to hide her revulsion at the pitiful figures, their vitality drained until even breathing seemed a struggle.
"Ha. The most boring reaction in the world."
The man's face went lukewarm with disinterest. As if nothing she said could possibly have mattered to him, he simply carried on.
"Truthfully, I have no interest in art. I only wished to teach you that even a careless scribble can become a great work, depending on whose hand made it."
Kill a man in everyday life and you're a murderer; do it on the battlefield and you become a hero. The very same act is judged a thousand different ways depending on circumstance and station.
"In your eyes, this may be cruelty. But because *I* performed it, it is elevated into righteous execution."
An arrogant declaration. Arlan glared at him with an icy gaze as he spread his arms wide while speaking.
"You're delightfully funny, taking forever to dance around the fact that you're garbage."
"You're the one who understands nothing. For it is I who will become the rightful master of this world — or can those filthy little eyes of yours not see it?"
The man laid a hand over his chest.
A single jewel glowing green pulsed there like a second heart, beating out the rhythm of life itself.
Blood vessels spread from it like tree roots sunk deep into the earth, throbbing with a primal resonance — a pulse like the earth itself exhaling. Arlan swallowed without meaning to.
"A Divine Artifact…?"
"The Primal Cradle — my mother's legacy, entrusted only to me, her chosen. Proof that I am her rightful successor."
The rightful inheritor of a Divine Artifact. The sheer pressure radiating from him made Arlan shrink back.
Even pulling her feet free of the ground was difficult.
"And yet a failed experiment like you dares bare its teeth at me. Such poor manners."
THWACK!
"Kugh!"
"A-Arlan!"
The man swept his hand, and a tree trunk erupted from the ground, slamming into Arlan's stomach.
Flung backward into the wall, she coughed up blood while Eva watched the scene, frozen solid.
"I stayed my hand and listened, thinking it might represent your will. But to think a mere manufactured failure would presume to lecture me."
"Uuu…!"
Eva bit her lip. Her heart pounded madly and gooseflesh crawled up her shoulders.
"Th-this is outrageous! Apologize this instant!"
Yet she forced down her fear and shouted with defiance.
"If-if you don't release Arlan right now, I'm — I'm going to get angry!"
"Oh? The same girl who couldn't even meet my eyes while trembling in her boots a moment ago is now raising her voice over her little friend getting hurt. I suppose that's what it means to be one of his brood?"
"B-brood? Are you talking about the Amethyst family?"
"I was surprised you carried the blood of the heavens, but such things hardly matter. What matters is that you're the daughter of the Archmage."
FWOOSH!
The instant the words left his mouth, the man swept his arm.
The ground split apart, and from the fissure countless wooden spikes shot toward Eva like bared fangs.
She hurriedly channeled mana into her staff, and a transparent barrier unfurled like a sphere, deflecting the malice aimed at her.
"So you block something of this level easily enough. Then how about this?"
The man drew mana from his heart down into his legs and stomped the ground.
KU-BOOM!
Pale-green mana seeped into the earth, and from that moment the trees exploded outward at a staggering rate.
A green tide of grass and timber swept the area ahead at his command.
'No — oh no!'
Eva realized it in her gut. If this attack wasn't stopped, it wouldn't just sweep her away — everyone else would be swallowed up along with her.
"Stop!"
Eva squeezed her eyes shut and cried out with everything she had — praying that the tragic scene playing out in her imagination would never come to pass.
CLICK!
A pattern of interlocking gears flared to life on the nape of her neck.
DONG!
The sound of a winding spring grinding to a halt. A clear, crystalline bell toll followed, and time itself froze over.
The trees crashing down upon her stopped — miracle of miracles — inches from her face.
In a world suspended within the flow of time, the man burst into deranged laughter.
"A Divine Artifact — the Interlocking Gears of Causality. So you really did have it!"
His eyes glistened with hideous greed, the corners of his mouth lifting as though he didn't know how to contain his joy.
"When I heard Kairos had passed a Divine Artifact down to his spawn, I hardly believed it. But he actually went and did it, that man."
"Ka-Kairos? Who are you talking about?"
"Your father. Kairos the Archmage — don't tell me you don't know?"
"O-our papa's name is Tylone… not Kairos."
"Ha! So he buried himself among humans and even threw away the noble name my mother bestowed upon him, that wretch."
At Eva's words, the man's face twisted with fury and contempt.
That hideous visage — every negative emotion in the world blended into one — cast a terrifying pall over the room, but Eva did not back down.
"D-don't you dare insult our papa! Someone like you — a monster who torments people — has no right to speak his name!"
"What a hilarious child. A man who betrayed his own duty to humanity for the sake of power — and you play the devoted daughter?"
"Huh? Devoted daughter…?"
"No matter. Just die and hand over the Divine Artifact!"
KWAAANG!
The man slammed his foot down again, even harder than before. The same motion as before — but this time, the blue jewel over his heart flared in resonance.
SHATTER!
With a noise like breaking glass, the frozen time was forced back into motion.
The surging forest — a disaster like an avalanche — crashed over Eva.
'Ugh!'
She desperately stretched her hands toward the sky, but like someone drowning in dark water, she was dragged down and down.
The terror of a blade pressed against the nape of her neck squeezed the breath from her lungs — and in that instant—
"Eva!"
The ceiling burst open, and a figure came plummeting through.
Chloe took her stance in midair and swung her sword.
SHRIEK!
A blade steeped in pitch-black night carved through the air, slicing the oncoming wall of green to pieces in a single stroke.
Exquisite and lethal sword-aura, moving like the dance of a graceful ballerina, wreathed the surroundings and turned the entire situation on its head.
"Eva, are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?"
"C-Chloe!"
"You're the one from the night… How did you even get in here?"
"Can't you tell just by looking? Through the ceiling, obviously."
Chloe flicked the splinters from her blade and leveled its tip at the man.
"You dare lay a hand on Eva? I'll carve you limb from limb and feed you to the dogs."
"Insolent whelp. You haven't even—"
KUGUGUGU!
The very air trembled. Overflowing vitality flooded in, soaking the parched ground.
"The fact that vermin like you breached my barrier means Diana must be tangled up with someone else. I suppose I'll have to deal with you all myself."
SHUWOOO!
The trees stretched up toward the heavens. Vines climbed the pillars, and moss swallowed the arena's collapsed wreckage.
In mere seconds — barely a breath of time — everything was drowned in green.
A primeval forest spread across the heart of the colosseum.
"My name is Vital Sentry! Of the Celestial Clan — bloodline of the almighty God King!"
The man standing at the very center of it roared with a voice steeped in madness.
"O my mother! Forgive my sins, and grant me the Divine Artifact — the birthright those loathsome insects carry!"
The will of the great forest bared its fangs at the two women.