Discipline 18. The Disciplinary Committee Leader Foils the School Villain's Plan (5)
There was no freedom in this city.
The peace and beauty were nothing more than a facade.
What must it feel like to be livestock running loose in a pasture? The animals never knew they would be consumed by humans in the end. They simply galloped across the green grass, deluding themselves into believing they were free.
Han Seo-jin knew the truth beneath the city's surface — the Head Principal. From a young age, she had grasped the fact that she was nothing more than cattle grazing in that pasture. Failure to obey the Head Principal's will meant disposal. It was the natural order of things.
And yet, Seo-jin had already seen it — the beautiful ocean on a movie theater screen.
A primal desire, wanting to see something simply because it was beautiful. She had found the very reason to live she had never meant to find.
That was why Seo-jin could go on living.
Even in a city like this.
Crackle!!!
The Disciplinary Committee Leader Ahn Woo-jin's full power came pouring down.
Shockwaves of teal lightning erupted without pause, while the Steel Dragon Staff moved with measured rhythm, hunting for Seo-jin. Its trajectory flashed like a streak of light, leaving afterimages again and again. It was a threatening barrage.
Seo-jin fell back and summoned her minions. From the ground, skeletal monsters wreathed in violet mana rose up, hauling themselves into being.
The monsters leaped at Woo-jin all at once. A mass of skulls trailed haze-like mana, flooding his vision. That mana had already calcified into bone-flesh, hardened like steel armor.
But it was useless.
Woo-jin drew a new baton from his belt.
Twang!
As he swung the baton, the iron rod within sprang free.
The Wall-Breaking Staff.
Its mana circuits had already recovered enough stability to be used again.
Woo-jin swept the Wall-Breaking Staff through the air, detonating an explosion of lightning.
KWAAAAM!!
A ferocious shockwave shattered the skeletal monsters, and the lightning's wake swept every last one of them away.
"...!"
Seo-jin's astonished face vanished behind her skull mask. The sheer volume of mana being discharged from the Wall-Breaking Staff was at an absurd level.
How refined could one's mana possibly be, to produce power like that?
...Now was no time for admiration.
Pwah!
Woo-jin kicked off the ground. He shot forward like an arrow, punching through the lightning's detonation with a sonic boom — the fruit of superior mana control, which had amplified his momentum enormously. In an instant, his reach crashed down upon Seo-jin.
But her reaction speed was no slower than his.
Vmmm! A formation unfurled in the empty air, and a colossal skeletal arm soaked in necromantic mana stretched out. A partial summoning.
As though he had already anticipated it, Woo-jin swung the Steel Dragon Staff without the slightest hint of panic.
KWAGAGAGAGAK!!!
The Steel Dragon Staff carved a beautiful arc, splitting the instant apart and crashing through. In the blink of an eye, the skeletal arm collapsed in a heap. Woo-jin's attack speed and reflexes were already on an entirely different plane from those of ordinary students.
In one motion, he closed the distance to Seo-jin.
"What exactly are you trying to wake up?"
"I have no obligation to tell you."
FWOOSH!!
A large-framed skeletal monster, summoned behind her in the next instant, lunged at Woo-jin. A elite summon in skeletal armor, walking on two legs. It swung a heavy fist like a shell fired from a cannon.
FWOOOM!!
The fist carved nothing but empty air — yet that alone whipped up a violent rush of wind and set the atmosphere trembling.
Woo-jin had already slipped to the side, evading the blow. PWAHK! He and the elite summon traded attacks.
Seo-jin called up skeletal monsters one after another. Every minion howled like a beast and charged at Woo-jin as their prey.
KWAAM!
The collision of mana split the ground open, and the bone-flesh of the skeleton monsters began to shatter.
But even Woo-jin had his limits.
KWAK!
"Ugh!"
The monsters' coordination was frighteningly practiced — like circus performers who had worked together for years.
Of course they were.
Seo-jin was focusing everything on him, wielding her masterful control skills without restraint.
In the end, the elite summon's fist landed squarely on Woo-jin. That blow carried enough destructive force to crack the ground with ease.
Woo-jin caught the attack on the Steel Dragon Staff, but he was driven back all the same, a heavy shock slamming into his chest.
FWHOOOM!!!
His body tore through the air at tremendous speed, splitting the wind behind him.
KWAAM!
He slammed into a structure, leaving a crater in his wake.
The elite summon leapt in without giving him a moment's breath, swinging its fist down. It possessed a physical prowess that the vast majority of Tier 5 practitioners couldn't hope to match.
"Haa...!"
Woo-jin gasped and gathered himself. He had dumped mana into his chest at the moment of impact, barely sparing himself a fatal wound. But something was broken in there.
There was no time to spare for it. He swiftly reset his stance.
Wheee!
KWAGAK!!
Woo-jin swung the Steel Dragon Staff in answer.
The two beings fought on.
Then—
"...!"
Shhhhhhhh...
Like an unexpected winter wind brushing past skin, a chill swept through his entire body.
Woo-jin's eyes flew wide open.
Seo-jin had begun dragging up a massive quantity of ominous mana.
Staff clutched in both hands, she was chanting an incantation no one could understand. Woo-jin knew that pattern all too well.
Danger.
KUOOOOO!!
A violet summoning circle, four meters across, unfolded behind Seo-jin. A long, sinuous radiance poured out along its rim.
THUD!
A giant skeletal hand stretched out from the circle, planted itself against the ground, and its owner slowly rose to its feet. A skeletal monster, its necromantic mana carved with immaculate precision, gradually revealed its massive bulk.
Roughly five meters tall.
Above the neck — nothing at all.
It was a frame rivaling that of a dinosaur: thick arms paired with a frail waist, and a dress-like cascade of mana flowing down from there. At the center of its body, like the other summons, a feminine skeleton supped on violet mana for bone-flesh.
Alien. Grotesque. Uncanny in its beauty. A bizarre, unsettling form.
Carmen.
The monstrosity released a beautiful voice into the air.
Why is that thing already out—?
The unique ability, Necromancy.
Spell Form the Fifth: Requiem.
The Necromancer's final pattern — a technique that might as well have been her ultimate secret art.
Carmen began to sing a beautiful song in a language no one knew. A romantic, mystical rhythm. A lyrical, vivid melody that stirred even a pang of sorrow flowed out like a wave.
At the same time, radiant violet mana rose all around, building a monochrome stage and carving a domain into the area — a domain that stretched far beyond the battlefield where Woo-jin and Seo-jin fought, boasting a wide radius.
It looked for all the world like an opera house.
And anyone standing in this theater at the moment the Requiem ended would have every function of their body cease.
That was it.
Death was coming.
The song lasted precisely one minute and thirty seconds.
The only counters were to flee beyond earshot of the song, to bring down Carmen, or to render Seo-jin incapable of combat.
Fleeing from here was impossible. Carmen possessed monstrous strength to match her massive frame; she couldn't be cut down easily. And defeating Seo-jin within the next minute and thirty seconds was, frankly, out of the question.
The Requiem was, for all practical purposes, a death sentence with a timer attached.
"..."
Seo-jin lowered her head.
She hadn't burned through her mana and pulled out her final trump card because Woo-jin's attacks threatened her.
She simply wanted this fight to end a moment sooner.
Fighting the Disciplinary Committee Leader — the one who had looked out for her, who had thought well of her — was painful.
"You."
A blade-cold voice bored into Seo-jin's ears. Teal eyes, chilled to the point of cruelty, turned toward her.
"You intend to kill everyone. All of them... even now."
An emotion so sharply refined it sent shivers down even Seo-jin's spine was distilled in Woo-jin's gaze.
Seo-jin closed her eyes and drew up her remaining mana, summoning more minions. All of them, too, threw themselves at Woo-jin.
The Wall-Breaking Staff clutched in Woo-jin's hand still couldn't be reused yet. He sealed its finished mana charge back into baton form, locked it to his belt, and drew out another black baton.
Twang! As he swung it, the iron rod within sprang out — the basic three-section staff. And so Woo-jin gripped the Steel Dragon Staff in one hand and the staff in the other.
Teal mana roared out with a ferocity that could threaten even a Tier 5 master. Sharp, relentless strikes crashed down on Seo-jin's minion horde.
PWAHK!
KWAAM!
Crackle!!
Woo-jin fought on ferociously.
The monsters wormed into the gaps of his movements, leaving wounds all across his body; his frame was gradually sliced and pierced, collecting injury upon injury.
But Woo-jin did not let his focus waver.
He concentrated on his mana control. He tracked the enemies' movements. He answered their attacks with efficiency and never stopped swinging his weapons. He sent out shockwaves and beat them down.
Forty seconds until the Requiem ends.
The elite summon hurled a vicious punch.
At that moment, the Steel Dragon Staff and the three-section staff were both busy fending off other monsters. Woo-jin clenched his teeth, poured mana into his head, and whipped his skull forward.
KWAAM!
A sound closer to detonation than impact rang out — Woo-jin had answered the summon's fist with his own forehead. His brain rattled inside his skull. He paid it no mind.
He didn't budge backward, because he had driven his feet hard into the ground. Blood gushed down and soaked his face — and yet, from that bloodstained face, only the pair of teal eyes burned with savage tenacity.
PWHOOOM!!
As Woo-jin swung the Steel Dragon Staff with all his fury, violent shockwaves detonated one after another and blasted the elite summon's body away. A full-power strike — force enough to crumple steel like paper.
He weaved through the rapid assaults of the monsters surging in one after another, repelling them one by one.
Twenty-five seconds until the Requiem ends.
"...?"
A question stirred in Seo-jin's mind. Why are his movements... getting better?
Woo-jin's body was already a wreck. Blood seeped from everywhere, stab wounds and lacerations covered him head to toe — a body soaked in crimson that could collapse at any moment. His movements had slowed. He was clearly exhausted.
And yet, somehow, the longer the battle raged, the more precise his movements became. It was as though he had entered a state of no-mind.
Nothing but a single, unbroken thought.
With nothing but tenacity in his eyes and no change in his expression, Woo-jin cut down his enemies — and through that desperate battle, he was growing, second by second.
Seo-jin shook her head. She didn't want to be impressed anymore.
Twenty-two seconds until the Requiem ends.
KWAAM...
The roar of clashing mana finally burst Woo-jin's eardrum. An unpleasant ringing filled his ears. But he paid it no heed, never once taking his eyes off the enemies' movements.
Soon the lightning trailing off the Steel Dragon Staff was visibly weakening; even the three-section staff carried only a faint remnant of lightning mana, lingering like an afterglow. Bleeding freely, Woo-jin looked down at his own weapon. His mana had all but hit its limit. Even wringing out every last drop, he could manage maybe one or two more shockwaves.
But Seo-jin's minions were still countless.
Twenty seconds until the Requiem ends.
The song, which had flowed along on a gentle melody, was now on the verge of its epilogue.
The battle continued. Hoarding his mana, he could no longer unleash blows as powerful as before. Slowly, Woo-jin was being pushed back.
"..."
With only the ringing in his ears, wishing for the enemy's destruction and swinging the three-section staff over and over — suddenly, Woo-jin felt a dizzying sensation, as though he were climbing a steep flight of stairs.
One careful step at a time, wary of losing his footing and falling, he kept dragging his weary legs upward.
Because at the top of the stairs, someone seemed to be calling for him.
Eighteen seconds until the Requiem ends.
Slip.
He lost his balance.
A monster's blow had knocked his consciousness clean out of him for an instant. But just before he could fall — like catching the edge of a cliff — he snatched his fading awareness back, and his blacking-out vision snapped wide open again.
His strength was nearly spent. He could feel the flame of his life burning low — the Requiem was gnawing at his vitality like a hungry beast.
It didn't matter.
A will of iron, still lingering like a stubborn afterimage, finally moved Woo-jin's legs. With everything he had left, he pressed forward.
Sixteen seconds until the Requiem ends.
"It's... over now."
Seo-jin pulled off her skull mask and looked at Woo-jin with her bare face.
She wasn't expressionless. Her eyes were heavy with sorrow, her face carrying the weight of feelings too tangled to name.
Fourteen seconds until the Requiem ends.
"Thank you for looking after me. And... I'm sorry. Goodbye."
The moment that smile seared itself into his eyes, irritation boiled up from the depths of Woo-jin's chest.
It was unbearable. That attitude — drifting off into her own private story, her own private sentiments, and driving people to their deaths anyway. That attitude — offering her thanks and her apology so perfectly, right in the middle of it all.
He could not stand it. It made him sick.
Eleven seconds until the Requiem ends.
"...I'm not going anywhere."
With rage rising in his eyes, Woo-jin let a smile curl at the corner of his mouth.
"I still have to arrest you."
Eight seconds until the Requiem ends.
"...That won't happen."
"Watch me."
Six seconds until the Requiem ends.
Thump.
Thump.
Suddenly, the scenery flooding Woo-jin's vision began to drift past slowly, like a video played on low speed.
Thump!
Thump!
His heart pounded harder and harder. Not from excitement — his heartbeat was chasing the violent pulsing of something seated deep in the very core of his body. In its wake, a strange energy shot up along his spine like a geyser, sending a shiver through his whole frame.
Something was about to burst.
Each time the sensation of climbing stairs within himself continued, each time he drew one step closer to the summit, that pulse grew clearer, gathering force.
Only then did Woo-jin understand what the feeling of climbing stairs was.
Endless repetitions of mana cultivation. Hellish training under his master, over and over. Battle after relentless battle as a Disciplinary Committee member, swearing to protect the students.
A grueling journey walked solely to breach the wall of the next, higher stage. These were the footsteps he had left behind him all this way.
"Because I'm the Disciplinary Committee."
His teal eyes, already dripping with mana, took on a stain of red — the blood streaming down his forehead was so plentiful that it parted his lashes and soaked into them.
Seo-jin's summons were still charging toward him. Woo-jin stared at Seo-jin beyond them — then closed his eyes.
He lifted his head. He drank in the wind kicked up by the waves of mana, the chill of the air heavy with ominous power.
And then—
Woo-jin's fingertips touched the top of the stairs.
"...Huh?"
For a moment, Seo-jin lost her grip on reality.
The Requiem stopped dead in its tracks. Silence fell, as though time itself had frozen.
A sensation of floating in the sky. No — of drifting through the middle of the universe. Seo-jin felt an inexplicable weightlessness, an emptiness.
"!"
Then, she felt a gaze upon her. She looked up, and a mysterious presence etched itself into her eyes.
An enormous demon. Horned like a ram, draped in golden fleece.
The supreme being who had descended upon this world first when The Hole opened in the Pacific — the one who had sealed it and ascended into the heavens.
Seo-jin knew its name.
The Golden Ram.
The summit of all living things. A being ranked at the Ninth Tier — a creature worshipped as a god.
From somewhere impossibly far away, its many pairs of eyes were fixed on her. Instinctive, primal terror surged up and swallowed Seo-jin whole. This was the overwhelming pressure of a being whose very rank of existence was on another plane.
"Gahk! Haah!"
She clutched her chest and gasped for breath. Without her noticing, she was back in reality.
What... was that just now?
It was far too vivid to be a hallucination. But calling it anything else was impossible — what had just happened defied human understanding. Why the Golden Ram's image had flowed from Woo-jin himself into her vision, so vivid and so real... Seo-jin couldn't begin to explain it.
Then—
"...!"
GOOOOO!
An immense mana pressed down like gravity itself — a pressure with the weight of sheer physical force slammed into Seo-jin. Goosebumps raced across her entire body. It was a threatening mana that prodded at the deepest roots of fear. At this level, even those outside the barrier must have felt it.
Come to think of it — Woo-jin had vanished from sight.
KRAK!!
A strange thunderclap rang out of nowhere.
Above.
Seo-jin's head snapped up.
The air was splitting. What should never split was splitting. Like a shattering pane of glass, cracks spread across the sky.
Two seconds until the Requiem ends.
"That's...?"
An otherworldly light spilled through the cracks, like a gate connecting to another world.
"That's impossible—!"
Astonishment froze on Seo-jin's face.
A heartbeat later, a flash of brilliance burst through the fissures.
"...!"
KWARRRRRUM!!!
Teal lightning wreathed in black radiance poured straight down like a waterfall.
Space Thunderbolt.
A brilliant bolt of lightning devoured Carmen destructively — power beyond all reckoning, its mana density beyond imagination. Carmen's song, her screams, everything was swallowed by the roar. Without ever reaching the final lyric, Carmen was annihilated.
"Ugh!"
PWAAAA!!
The lightning's wake whipped up a storm of pressure and flung Seo-jin's body through the air.
A supreme unique ability — the power to wield a single law that governed the universe itself. And among them: space.
In this instant, an ability that commanded space had been granted to one man.
A seamless command of lightning mana. That was no level belonging to someone who had only just awakened a unique ability. There was no doubt: the extreme potential long suppressed behind the lofty wall of Tier 5 had finally erupted.
But even so — hadn't Woo-jin's mana reserves been on the verge of running dry? How could he unleash lightning on that scale? The moment Woo-jin reached the new realm, some of his blocked mana circuits must have burst open, granting him a dramatic recovery — like water gushing from a collapsed dam with its most violent fury.
...You were a monster all along. Nothing like someone like me.
Seo-jin thought it as she hurtled through the air, helpless against her own momentum.
Against a being like that, there was no chance of victory at all.
Just as she was about to give up, every memory she had flashed through her mind. Friends vanishing one by one under the Head Principal's management. The beautiful ocean she had seen in that movie.
"Guh...!"
She couldn't give up. She clenched her teeth, steeled her will, and dragged her mana up by force.
KRAK!!
The tearing sound rang out again.
"!"
The source of the noise was directly behind her — the very direction her body was flying. Seo-jin whipped her head around.
KWARUM!
Out of a gate that had opened in the empty air, a man shot forth wreathed in teal lightning and black radiance. Poisonous teal eyes reflected in Seo-jin's own.
And suddenly, a belated realization came to her.
The reason she had decided to keep living in this city, after seeing the ocean in that movie — was simply that she had wanted to live. Even if she had to become trash deserving of the whole world's condemnation. To avoid being disposed of by the Head Principal, to do nothing more than survive, Seo-jin had chosen to live at others' expense.
The ocean had merely been the trigger. The truth was, anything would have done. As long as she had a reason to survive, she could justify to herself trampling everyone else.
Perhaps the man before her was the price of that.
Crack!!
"GAHAK!!!"
The lightning-wreathed Steel Dragon Staff swung down and bored into her body. Even with her frame reinforced by mana, the force was too monstrous to withstand. Seo-jin's ribs shattered in a chorus of cracks, and savage lightning scorched her body everywhere.
A dozen strands of teal current, tangled together like chains, tore the air apart. It was the final strike Woo-jin had left in him to give.
PWHOOOM!!!
A thunderclap burst outward as Seo-jin's body tore through the air at vicious speed.
KWAAAAM!!!
An explosion of sound rang out across the land. And amid the billowing cloud of dust and earth, Seo-jin — leaving a crater in the ground where she landed — lost consciousness.