Back at the academy,
Aether once again disguised himself as Victor...
anwhile, Dora had wasted no ti in getting the female students from the children's facility, acting swiftly in case sothing unexpected happened.
"What? Why are we leaving?"
"But we were just having fun!"
The female students whined, confused and frustrated by the sudden orders. However, the professors were firm, strictly instructing them to evacuate imdiately without any argunts.
Once everyone had moved out, including the professors, only the children remained inside. They stood eerily still, their expressions blank, as if they had lost all awareness of their surroundings.
Not a single word escaped their lips.
Dora and Victor stepped into the facility room. The mont Victor's foot crossed the room, the children flinched. Their heads snapped toward him in unison, their gazes locking onto him with unnatural intensity.
Victor frowned, an unsettling feeling crawling up his spine. His danger sense scread at him, a primal instinct urging him to kill them all—as if they posed a serious threat to him.
But why? He couldn't understand it.
"What's going on?" Dora muttered under her breath, her eyes narrowing as she observed the eerie shift in the children's behaviour. Just monts ago, they had been motionless, almost lifeless, but now, every single one of them was staring at Victor as if he had just triggered sothing within them.
Victor shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. "Hell if I know," he muttered. "I just walked in, and they reacted like this. What do you expect to do? Apologize?"
Dora shot him a look, her lips pressing into a thin line as if she were resisting the urge to scold him.
Victor sighed and took a step closer. The children imdiately flinched again, their bodies tensing as they instinctively stepped back. And yet, their eyes never wavered—they kept staring at him, unblinking, unmoving, their expressions unreadable.
Dora exhaled through her nose, clearly irritated. "You really are a pain sotis."
Victor threw his hands up. "What the hell did I do now? I didn't even touch them! They're the ones acting like this, not !"
Dora didn't argue. Instead, she reached into her bag and pulled out sothing—sothing grotesque yet oddly significant. The mont she held it up, the entire room shifted.
It was a roasted hand.
In an instant, the children's attention snapped toward it. Their dull, vacant expressions vanished, replaced by sothing far more primal—hunger.
Their lips parted, saliva dripping down their chins as they stared at the severed hand with ravenous desperation. Their bodies trembled, not out of fear, but out of longing, as if they had been starving for days, maybe even weeks.
A heavy silence settled between Dora and Victor.
There was no need for words. They both understood now.
Victor's expression darkened as he muttered, "So Alaric and Master really did have sothing planned for the tribe..." His gaze lingered on the children.
What exactly were they trying to achieve?
The stone had already been lifted from the ground, so what else were they hoping to gain?
His fingers curled slightly. 'Does their plan have sothing to do with creating monsters?' The thought sent an unpleasant shiver down his spine. If that were the case, there was a high chance that both Alaric and Master would return for them.
Victor clicked his tongue in annoyance before saying, "Throw it."
Dora nodded without hesitation. The second she tossed the hand into the air—
"Arrgh!"
Munch!
Munch!
Crack!
Munch!!
The children pounced like wild beasts, tearing at the flesh with unrestrained hunger. They fought for it, biting, chewing, and swallowing everything—bones and all—until not a single trace remained.
The sight was disturbing!
Even after devouring the hand, their hunger hadn't been satisfied. Hundreds of them still remained, their stomachs empty, their eyes filled with an insatiable craving.
Victor ran a hand down his face, exhaling heavily. "Great. Now what the hell are we supposed to do? They obviously only eat at, and not just any at—the kind that was injected with whatever the hell was in that hand. How the hell are we gonna feed them?" He groaned, rubbing his temples, 'Should we kill them?' he thought before looking at those children...
'Fuck!'
'Maybe I shouldn't have killed those monsters earlier,' he thought briefly but then shook his head.
What was done was done. There was no point in regretting it now.
Just as he was racking his brain for a solution, "Here," she said, holding sothing up for him to see.
Victor frowned. "What now?" He stepped closer, narrowing his eyes at the object in her hand.
It was a Rainbow Arcane Card.
A one-star card, glowing faintly in the dim light.
Victor stared at it, his expression unreadable. "Huh..." He let out a slow hum, though internally, he was anything but calm. The implications of this card were massive.
How in the hell had Master and Alaric managed to create sothing like this?
Dora's grip on the card tightened. "It's exactly like ours... isn't it?" she said in a low voice. "The structure, the details... everything is the sa. It's almost an exact replica of the cards given to us—the chosen ones, the ones blessed by the gods. How did they manage to copy sothing so intricate? How did they even figure this out?" Her voice carried an edge of dread.
Victor didn't respond imdiately.
If they were capable of reproducing this, then what else had they managed to create?
For now, though, one thing was clear—they had no idea what to do with these children.
Victor exhaled, shaking his head. "Well... anyway," he muttered awkwardly, turning away. "Let's get out of here."
The children were still staring at him... but now, Drooling?
Eyes fixed on him with unsettling hunger.
Yeah, he definitely wasn't sticking around to find out what would happen if their hunger reached its limit!
Dora nodded, just about to step out of the room when sothing caught their attention—an assortnt of toys scattered across the floor, so neatly arranged, while others were tossed around haphazardly.
Her gaze swept over the various stuffed animals, dolls, and wooden blocks... those were brought by the old nurse working in the academy, hoping they would provide them with so comfort or at least a small distraction.
But judging by how they had been completely ignored, it was clear that the children had no interest in them.
Dora let out a quiet sigh, shaking her head in mild frustration. "So many toys... and not a single one was touched," she muttered. "I guess it was pointless to bring them here after all." She considered gathering them up and giving back to the old nurse and female students who few left them, but before she could—
"Wait," Victor spoke up, his voice carrying a thoughtful edge. "Maybe… just maybe, these toys could actually stimulate their brains in so way."
He bent down and picked up a snow globe from the pile. His fingers brushed off a thin layer of dust, revealing a beautifully crafted winter scene inside. A single evergreen tree stood at the centre, surrounded by tiny white flakes suspended in a liquid.
Curious, he gave the snow globe a gentle shake. The artificial snow swirled within, drifting gracefully through the liquid, creating a srizing effect. The way the flakes moved, the way they caught the light—it was strangely beautiful.
For a brief mont, Victor was silent, staring at it with an almost childlike fascination. A small, unguarded smile tugged at his lips, his usually sharp and guarded expression softening ever so slightly.
Dora, noticing this rare display of innocence, smirked in amusent. "Well, well... looks like soone's still a kid at heart~" she teased, winking playfully at him, "If you want it I can ask the nurse?"
Victor's expression imdiately stiffened. His grip on the snow globe tightened slightly as he turned his gaze toward her. "Hey, I was just looking at it—that's all," he said flatly.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say," Dora replied, clearly unconvinced. The grin on her face only widened, as if she found great enjoynt in his reaction.
Victor's lips twitched in irritation. He clenched his jaw before abruptly tossing the snow globe back among the pile of toys, this ti with deliberate carelessness. Without another word, he turned on his heel and followed Dora out of the room, his expression darkened with mild annoyance.
Behind them, the children remained eerily silent, their blank gazes following Victor's retreating back. Their expressions showed no emotion, no hint of life—just that sa, unsettling emptiness.
And then—
Crack…
A faint cracking sound echoed through the room.
None of the children moved. Not a single one reacted.
The sound hadn't co from the snow globe Victor had thrown—but rather from the one it had landed on...
There was another snow globe and it was different.
Inside it, instead of a peaceful winter landscape, a dark, foreboding scene was captured. The sky within was an ominous shade of grey, and the swirling flakes resembled falling ash rather than snow. At the centre of the globe was a rectangular-shaped building, its structure eerily similar to…
A ruin.
Scattered within were broken pieces of debris, floating aimlessly inside the globe!
anwhile, outside in the corridor, Dora continued walking at a steady pace as she exhaled sharply, deep in thought. "I've decided to recall all the Chosen Ones to handle this situation," she finally announced.
Victor nodded in understanding. It was the duty of the Chosen Ones to deal with these kinds of crises, after all. However—
"I don't think calling all of them is the right move," he said, his voice firm and unwavering. "The three Empires are already on the verge of collision. If we pull too many people away from their Empire, their focus will be divided, and that could cost countless lives back in their own territories."
Dora exhaled sharply, her expression tightening. "I know that... but still—"
Before she could finish her sentence, Victor suddenly stopped in his tracks. His eyes widened slightly, and then—
"Wait! I have an idea," he said, his lips curling into a mischievous grin.
Dora blinked. "What?"
Victor crossed his arms, smirking. "I've got two perfect lackeys for the job."
Dora frowned, puzzled by his sudden confidence. "Huh? Who?"
Victor ignored her confusion and, instead, reached out through his ntal connection, calling upon soone in the distance.
'A10? Are they still alive?'
...
...
Sowhere deep within the dense forests of the Naiadae Empire—
"Arghhh! Just die already, you bastard!"
"On your left!"
BOOOOM!!
A massive explosion shook the forest as a monstrous beast let out its final, agonized roar before collapsing into the ground. Dust and debris scattered in all directions as the battlefield finally fell silent. The stench of burned flesh and scorched earth lingered heavily in the air.
"Hahaha…" A voice broke through the stillness, filled with adrenaline-fueled laughter.
Kai, panting heavily, collapsed onto a large rock, his body drenched in sweat. "T-That was seriously dangerous, Leon," he muttered between breaths, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.
Leaning down beside him, Leon smirked in amusent, brushing so dirt off his shoulder. "We're getting the hang of it," he said confidently. His gaze shifted toward the massive creature they had just slain—a colossal, golden-crystalized beast with five stars embedded in its hide.
It had been a brutal fight, but they had won.
Still, their mission was far from over.
"Huff… Huff…" Kai struggled to steady his breathing before furrowing his brows. "We still haven't encountered a single Rainbow monster… The ones that Mother Goddess warned us about…" His frustration was evident in his voice, a mix of exhaustion and determination.
Leon, however, remained optimistic. "Don't worry," he said, placing a reassuring hand on Kai's shoulder. "Mother believes in us. We'll find those treacherous creatures… and when we do, we'll destroy them and bring peace to our Empire!" His voice was filled with unwavering resolve.
Kai's frustration eased slightly at Leon's words. Their gazes locked, and for a brief mont, sothing unspoken passed between them—sothing electric, sothing intense.
But little far—hidden in the shadows of the forest—
A hooded figure watched them in complete silence.
Then, slowly, the figure lifted their hand. In their palm rested a Rainbow Arcane Crystal,
"Yes, Master…" the figure whispered, their voice low, obedient and emotionless, "I will do it."
With that, they took a step forward, moving towards Kai and Leon—towards their next objective.
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