Jax watched her transform right in front of his eyes.
Her features shifted like clay being reshaped by invisible hands. Her hair changed color, texture, length. Blonde strands replacing what had been there before.
Her eyes turned blue. Her bone structure rearranged itself beneath the skin until the face staring back at him was soone else entirely.
An hourglass body. Naked. Standing where Cleenah used to be.
Her appearance had gone from slapable to sothing completely different.
Cleenah couldn’t believe it herself. She was scanning her new features with trembling hands. Touching her face. Her hair. Her body.
A disguise spell of this caliber was forbidden magic. Lost in ancient tis. Even the records that survived claid such sorcery lasted only a limited duration and required imnse preparation.
But this felt different and was lasting for longer than that. And this was flawless. Whatever he had used was on an entirely different level.
"This is your new body," Jax said. "You will live with it."
She looked at him.
"You cannot revert back to your previous appearance. From this mont, consider it gone. Live with this from now on."
She shook her head in disbelief after knowing he really ant it had permanent effect. "Impossible. How did you do that?"
His voice was cold. Already walking away. "That’s none of your business."
"But why?" She pressed. "Why did you use sothing that would be beyond any price? An item far beyond any treasury in existence."
Jax knew it too. The item was absurdly costly. Not in gold or silver but in his own currency. Fifteen hundred devotion points was a hole in his reserves that would take significant ti to recover.
But it was the only possible way to let her live without being hunted.
He answered without turning. "I did it just so I don’t have to see your face in front of ."
Cleenah stood there processing him. Connecting dots from the very beginning. His words had been contradicting each other throughout this entire ordeal.
As if two sides of him were speaking simultaneously. One controlled by his ego, sharp and rciless and hateful. And the other, sothing she couldn’t fully understand yet.
A cloth ca flying her way.
A dark black coat wrapping around her body from a distance. She caught it and looked toward the source.
Jax was standing beside the body of the dark mage woman. He had undressed the dead and used her clothes.
"Wear it. And take this as well."
He rolled the teleportation shard across the ground toward her feet. The escape route.
Then he spoke without looking at her.
"Don’t wear your runic gear back. From here, I’ll return to the tournant using my gear. The monitoring division will detect my connection and pull back to the academy when the match is over. You, on the other hand, won’t be a part of the tournant if you don’t have the gear."
He paused.
"No eyes on you. No way back to the academy tracked. And most importantly it will make the death of Cleenah of the Holy Order confird."
His tone shifted to instruction.
"The stone will take you back to the forest. From there, move west. You’ll find a dwarf settlent. From that point it should be easy to find your way back to the academy where Lilith will be waiting for you. Then your so-called stupid restart to life becos possible."
His back was still turned.
"Make sure you never do anything stupid to get yourself revealed. And don’t you dare tell Lilith what happened here."
His voice dropped. "If you do, I will be coming for you again."
The teleportation shard activated in his hand. Light consud him. And he vanished from her sight.
Cleenah stood alone in the dungeon.
Her mind was processing his plans. Plans that he had calculated from the very start. Every move. Every word. Every seemingly impulsive act of violence had been threaded into a design she was only now beginning to see.
But she still didn’t have the real answer.
Why was he going this far for a student?
She scanned the dead bodies around her. The dark mage professor , her student. Amael. All of them killed by Jax’s hands. But honestly, they had been killed by her own scheming. Her plan had set the stage. He had simply responded.
But going to this length? Killing without caring about the consequences? Just for a student?
He was either totally insane.
Or soone with a completely different way of seeing the world. Soone who was empathizing with Lilith’s situation as if he had gone through the sa thing himself.
But after everything, one thing was certain. His egoistic side hated her. And the other side, the one he buried under layers of cruelty and anger, probably thought she would be useful to Lilith.
Or maybe a part of him wanted her to live.
Otherwise it made no sense. He ca up with this solution when everyone in the dungeon had accepted there was no way out.
He had the choice to simply let her die. That way he would have gotten his revenge without lifting a finger. Without breaking his promise to Lilith.
But he didn’t choose that path.
There were so many things she needed answers to. But those would have to wait until she could see his real self with her own eyes.
She started to rise. Pain shooting through every nerve.
One thing was certain though. The havoc he had caused in this dungeon was just the appetizer. There would be far more chaos waiting at the academy.
On the other side, Jax was teleported to the forest.
He materialized at the sa riverside where he had been fishing. The campsite. The logs. The mories. All still there.
But before he could take a single step, the monitoring division’s forced teleportation gripped his body and ripped him out of the battlefield entirely.
He appeared in the arena at the academy.
The faces surrounding him told the story before anyone spoke. Horror. Confusion. Fear. Thousands of eyes carrying the weight of what they had witnessed through the runic broadcast before the signal was lost.
At one end of the arena stood Seris and the rest of his group. Roxana. Astrid. Elira. Seraphina.
Everyone except Lilith.
Seris was in the middle of explaining things to the others when their gazes fell on Jax standing alone in the arena.
They hurried toward him. Running. Their faces painted with a dozen questions each.
Before any of them could speak, a voice ca from behind.
"I didn’t expect you to go this dirty. Using a demon just to win a bet."
Zharina. Smug face. Arms crossed. Walking toward the group with the confidence of soone who had been waiting for this mont.
"Even awakening her true form knowing what might follow. A demon tricked by another demon’s orchestration. Oh god, the irony."
The girls who had rushed to Jax saw his eyes. The sa eyes that terrified them even when they were on his side. The eyes that said soone was about to lose sothing important. Like a limb. Or a life.
But Jax ignored Zharina completely.
Turned to Seris. "What happened?"
Her voice was soaked in apology. "I’m sorry, Professor. We lost. As soon as we were teleported back to the forest, we were ambushed at our weakest. Professor Zharina’s duo defeated us instantly. We were the first to get eliminated. Even before the Holy Order girls ca back. But I... I tried—"
Jax’s voice cut through the entire arena.
"DID I ASK FOR THIS BULLSHIT?!"
Every conversation in the arena died. Every head turned. Every eye locked onto the man standing at the center with fists clenched and fury radiating from his body like heat from a furnace.
"I said what happened. Where is Lilith? What happened to her?"
Seris twitched from his tone. Her voice broke further.
"They took her away. As soon as we ca back here, the holy knights took her."
"Where?"
"Professor, please calm down. We should first think about how to act here. We all know Lilith was innocent and we can prove—"
"I said where?"
The other girls were stunned. Seris. The only person he had ever spoken to nicely. The only one he consistently treated with gentleness. Was being torn apart by his voice in front of the entire academy.
Roxana stepped in. Reading the situation faster than anyone else.
"She would be in the VIP box right now. Being interrogated. If I’m not wrong."
Jax started walking. Toward the VIP section. Each step carrying a weight that made people instinctively move out of his path.
He spoke without looking back. His voice carrying across the distance to his team.
"I think they want to show my demonic side. The whole world wants to bring my arrogance back. My rude era. Because these pests have been taking my nice era way too much for granted."
None of the girls had the will to stop him. If what they had experienced until now was his nice era, then whatever ca next was sothing none of them wanted to witness.
But Roxana moved. Caught up to him. Put her hand on his shoulder.
"Don’t let your anger consu you." Her voice was steady but urgent. "You know what you’ve done in there. You killed important figures. What will you even say?"
Jax turned his gaze to her. His eyes held sothing that went beyond anger. Beyond rage. Sothing ancient and final.
"When war knocks on your door, counting the heads of the enemy is cowardice."
He turned back toward the VIP box.
"Taking their heads becos the only religion."
-x-X-x-
[A/N: Thanks Mario_1359 and Tony_adams_4787 for the golden tickets (づ*ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)づ♡]
Also Guys do check out my new work, I have pinned it in whatever block its called below.
User Comments
0 comments from readers