Discipline 18. The Disciplinary Committee Leader Thwarts the School Villain's Plan (6)
The practical evaluation grounds of Ahseong High.
From the moment the Necromancer's barrier, the Spirit Domain, unfurled, a full-scale assault had been raining down from within it.
A storm raged, and thunder roared across the sky.
Mana-laced sword strikes came hurtling without pause, fast as machine-gun fire.
Pabababat!
Cloud Master, her Unique Ability. Second form of the magical formula — the Butterfly Effect.
Dozens of razor-sharp currents of mana rose along each slash, tearing at the barrier — but it was useless. With a soft fwash, every attack was simply absorbed.
It was like trying to cut water with a blade.
Not as a figure of speech — literally.
But Oh Baek-seo did not give up.
Blue wings spread wide, drinking in the storm, she flew like a butterfly and hammered the barrier with relentless blows. Even as she repeated her analysis, hunting for a weakness in the domain, her attacks never ceased.
Her usual tender smile had vanished from her face without a trace. It was an expression far removed from composure.
Woo-jin was trapped inside that barrier, and from the instant it had deployed, Baek-seo herself could feel a mana so overwhelming it raised the hairs on her arms.
A sense of dread was only natural.
That was why she threw herself into the offensive so desperately.
Just the same, the academy's forces poured their firepower into the barrier. They struck it from every angle at once, concentrated their fire on single points — and the results were sluggish at best.
Still, they did not give up.
And then, at some moment—
"……!"
Goooooh.
An enormous mana howled from inside the barrier. It was something of an entirely different order from anything felt before.
Baek-seo's eyes flew wide open.
Inside the barrier and out, everyone in the area felt it.
Something overwhelming had awoken.
Ssssrrr.
About ten seconds later, the Spirit Domain began to slowly unravel, starting from its center.
"Hahk, hahk…."
I stumbled out, clutching my broken ribs.
My breathing refused to settle. The fractured bone was digging into my organs, pain flaring with every motion — even walking was an ordeal.
I had no presence of mind to savor victory. Not even the joy of finally awakening my Unique Ability registered.
All I wanted was to rest.
I'd lost too much blood. Drowsiness was creeping in.
But I had to hold on. If I let myself drift off here without thinking, I might not wake up.
I'd realized long ago what was happening to me during the fight with Han Seo-jin. Everyone who reaches Tier 5 says the same thing: right before a Unique Ability blossoms, you feel some premonitory sign, like something about to stir awake deep in your chest.
I'd felt it too.
So fighting myself half to death was what finally made it bloom, huh.
Laughable. That's a hell of a price for an awakening condition.
Well — considering I could already wield Tier 6 technique, syncing a Unique Ability with elemental conversion, I suppose I had no choice but to look on the bright side…
…Enough. I'd think about the Unique Ability later.
With this much blood gone, complicated thought was hard to come by.
Sssrrr.
The disabled skeleton monsters were gradually being un-summoned. At the same time, the barrier, masterless now, dissolved as well, and the cloud-choked night sky began to show through.
Rain came down without warning, soaking me through — because the thunderclouds formed by Baek-seo's Unique Ability were still hanging overhead.
Then again, they'd probably been pulling all kinds of stunts outside the barrier too.
"Ugh…."
My legs gave out and I crumpled to the ground. Truly couldn't move a muscle.
Seo-jin was still a fair distance away.
At some point she'd come back to herself, eyes open and dim, breathing quietly — apart from coughing up a mouthful of backed-up blood, she looked almost peaceful.
"I lost…."
Seo-jin's voice threaded through the falling rain and reached my ear, faint and thin.
Then—
Krak.
Without warning, violet mana rose around Seo-jin's feet, and she began to crystallize. The crystallization did not stop. It climbed her ankles, then her calves, her calves into her thighs — steadily, relentlessly, taking her over.
"My body…? What's wrong with you?"
"Separation from the flesh — the Undying Procession. It's the… penalty of my ability. I overextended… a little. Khh!"
She was becoming the very same thing as the skeleton monsters she'd wielded like limbs.
The game never explained what usage conditions or penalties the Six Sinners' Unique Abilities carried. Naturally, I hadn't known the Necromancy penalty either.
The stronger a Unique Ability, the more demanding its activation conditions or the nastier its penalty — that was simply the rule.
Necromancy was unquestionably a superb power. Perhaps because its conditions of use weren't strict, the penalty seemed correspondingly brutal.
Come to think of it, I had no idea whether my own Unique Ability had a penalty. I felt fine for now, so that was a later problem too.
First, I had to stop the crystallization.
I had no idea how — but I couldn't just lie here and let her slip away.
"Nnngh…!"
But no matter how hard I strained, not a spark of strength would come.
"Leader. You asked me why… I joined the Disciplinary Committee."
By then, half of Seo-jin's body had hardened to violet.
Her reason for enrolling at Ahseong High had to be connected to what she'd done today. But what had driven her into the Disciplinary Committee?
"Oh Baek-seo…."
An unexpected name passed Seo-jin's lips.
My eyes went wide.
"Baek-seo?"
"I was told… to keep watch on her."
And at that moment—
Kuuuung!
"!"
An ominous sound rumbled up from beneath the ground.
Kugugugung!!
The earth shuddered in waves.
Kwaaaaak!!
A monster burst up through the ground. Its gaping maw swallowed Seo-jin whole.
A colossal worm-like creature wreathed in deep violet mana.
What the—!?
Nothing had prepared me for this.
The worm surged upward, then curled its body into a circle. The violet mana that made up its flesh kneaded itself like clay, shifting form this way and that, until at last the thing transformed into a hulking humanoid monster.
The figure of a giant greater even than Carmen, which the Necromancy had summoned before.
Strange mana circulated through the giant's body, flickering. At the center of its translucent bulk, Seo-jin's fully crystallized form was visible — as though she had become its core.
What stood out most was the enormous skull set where its head should be.
Light gleamed from within it.
Heavy mana washed over my skin.
That mana — the one I'd been sensing since earlier. I didn't know what this monster was, but it was without a doubt the thing that had been aiding Seo-jin from underground.
You've got to be kidding me….
I was certain. That thing was at least Tier 7.
A monster on a whole different plane from Seo-jin.
And now that I looked, it wasn't even a living creature. Some unfathomable will seemed lodged in that mysterious, skull-like thing.
That… is what she was trying to wake?
Had Seo-jin been prepared to pay the price in blood to raise that giant from below the earth? If her plan had succeeded, would it have become something even worse? And now it had simply borrowed her power as a stopgap?
I couldn't tell.
One thing was clear: unmistakable malice radiated from the thing — as if it intended to finish what Seo-jin had failed to do.
Keiiiik!
The giant let out a warped cry and summoned skeleton monsters wreathed in dense violet mana. They carried more mana than any of the minions Seo-jin had called.
All I could do was watch with open eyes.
I couldn't move anymore. I had nothing left to fight with.
But I didn't feel the gnaw of panic.
With the Spirit Domain dissolved, our forces would be arriving any moment.
Shff.
Suddenly I saw an illusion of countless luminous blue butterflies spreading down from the sky—
Kwarurung!!
In an instant, blue lightning came crashing down, carving a dozen sword-paths across the violet giant's body. Blade-strokes that could shear through steel like paper.
The blue butterflies rode the downpour and the thunder to earth, and appeared before me.
Oh Baek-seo.
Her back came into view, Baekryundo in hand.
I knew she'd come.
"Baek-seo…."
My voice had no strength behind it. Just holding onto consciousness was an effort.
"It's all right now. I'm sorry I'm late…."
Baek-seo's voice trembled. For some reason, she wouldn't show me her face.
Then arrows and mana shells came flying in from every direction, raining down on the giant. Support fire from the Disciplinary Committee.
Kwagagagang!!
The giant was swallowed by the explosions, shrieking "Keiiiiiik!!" in a monstrous roar.
"The members… and Do-ha too, huh."
"Yes. I issued an emergency summons. Do-ha is providing long-range fire support along with the committee members and teachers here; Ye-song is rallying the rest of the committee; Min-hyuk is tending the wounded. The remainder will be here soon."
Baek-seo answered without taking her eyes off the enemy, her tone level and calm.
"What about the student evacuation?"
"In progress. We'll need to hold that thing off and buy time until it's done…."
The blast's shockwave was swept away by the downpour — but the giant seemed unharmed. The vast majority of the attacks simply hadn't landed. All the wounds Baek-seo had carved into it had already healed. A monstrous regeneration.
"Looks like ordinary attacks won't cut it."
Baek-seo narrowed her eyes, then dove at the giant.
Throngs of skeleton monsters lunged at her, but for a single heartbeat a still current of mana flowed — and the skeletons were sheared away all at once.
Yet no matter how Baek-seo's strikes and the committee's support fire hammered the giant, our combined power couldn't keep pace with its regeneration.
If only I were in one piece — or failing that, if Ha Ye-song were here, it would've healed….
Even then, whether we could beat that giant was an open question.
Jjaak! The giant pressed its palms together, and its mana etched countless summoning circles into the empty air.
From each circle, enormous skeletal arms stretched forth. The giant wielded every one of them as if they were its own limbs — like a Buddhist asura.
And with those dazzling movements it counterattacked Baek-seo, sweeping its skeletal arms to deflect the support fire.
"……"
What was this thing's weakness?
I couldn't see it. To begin with, the moment I tried to hypothesize one, Baek-seo was already out there testing it. She was fighting while wrestling with the same question.
Keiik!
When the giant roared again, a storm of crushing mana surged forth, hurling Baek-seo back and flattening everything around it.
"Khh!"
My body went flying too, but Baek-seo snatched me into her arms and put distance between us and the giant in one fluid motion.
"Leader, you okay!?"
"I'm… fine…! We need… a plan…."
"Yeah. Our firepower's not even making it flinch."
The giant stood untouched, summoning skeleton monsters without pause, watching for any opening across the whole area.
It clearly meant to carry out the massacre Seo-jin had failed to achieve. If this kept up, it was only a matter of time.
Baek-seo and I reached terrain thick with trees, and the skull that housed the giant's gaze turned toward us.
…Wait.
A sudden, nagging doubt surged hard in my head.
"Hm?"
With what strength had recovered, I barely lifted my arm and caught Baek-seo's wrist. She looked down at me, puzzled.
"What is it?"
Whether Seo-jin had succeeded or failed in claiming her sacrifices in the game, that giant would have emerged regardless. And if that giant walked out of the exam grounds, it would be a catastrophe in itself.
And yet… in the game, this situation had ended — quietly, for some unexplained reason.
Even supposing Ahseong had scraped together everything it had and won against the giant, it would surely have taken considerable time. But there'd been no news of the giant spreading destruction unchecked, had there?
It didn't seem likely the thing would simply dissipate on its own, either.
Which meant—
There has to be something….
Something I didn't know about. Something more to this.
And then—
"!"
Baek-seo and I both flinched, our bodies jerking on pure reflex.
As if my guess had struck home, an immense mana began descending slowly from the sky.
The giant sensed the ominous presence too, and wrenched its head upward.
Like a meteor falling, something was plunging toward us. Looking closer, it was a human silhouette wreathed in flame from atmospheric friction.
He clenched his fist, and at last, upon reaching the giant—
He drove his fist down.
KWAAAAAANG!!!
A deafening thunderclap.
Along with the explosive blow, a monstrous gravity came down, and the giant's body caved in on itself. At last it burst apart, thick purple gore raining onto the ground.
The impact gouged a deep pit in the earth and pulverized every skeleton monster in the vicinity in a single stroke. Only Han Seo-jin's hard-crystallized body fell through it all, intact.
Paaaaaaah!!
The howling wind pressure and the shockwave swept away the surrounding structures and trees and crashed over me as well — but Baek-seo shielding me kept me safe.
Step, step. From out of the roiling dust, the man who had left that deep crater behind came walking out.
A grin baring enormous teeth, a face that wore its thirst for battle openly.
"……"
Baek-seo and I held our breath, staring at the man who had felled the giant in a single blow.
Long hair that recalled the Samson of scripture. A height of two hundred and thirty centimeters. Brutal, beast-like muscle screamed beneath a strained longcoat and combat fatigues.
"Baek-seo. Don't spit at me — just do as I say."
Cold sweat ran down my cheek.
"Run. Now."
The strongest in Neo Seoul.
My final task.
The Lawless One.
Known by the name — Goliath.
He had arrived.