Everyone in the auditorium was well aware of Vanitas Astrea’s reputation.
To put it nicely, he was a complicated ultimatum.
To put it harshly, he was a criminal operating under an immunity no one understood.
And to complicate matters even further, he was a man whose brilliance and achievents forced even the most traditional institutions to tolerate him. A man who broke rules, bent laws, and yet sohow remained indispensable.
The upper nobles despised him, the lower nobles disliked him, the common citizens feared him, and the devotees wished him dead. Yet none of it mattered.
Vanitas had long transcended their frustrations and was beyond their reach.
How?
Splatter——
Through absolute power.
Those who dared to oppose them would only end up writing their own epitaphs. Vanitas Astrea moved in that certainty, and everyone watching him knew it.
Their hatred, fear, and prayers for his downfall beca aningless the mont reality reminded them of the simple truth. That power decided who lived and who didn’t.
In that room, only one person possessed the strength to enforce that truth without consequences.
For anyone who dared to move, the result was the sa.
Splatter——
Vanitas Astrea erased them, acting only when certain, and that certainty ca from Cassandra and Silas. Vanitas would cast a single glance in their direction, and if they shook their heads, he refrained.
If they nodded, it ant the target was an enemy. That single gesture dictated life or death within the auditorium, creating an illusion of indiscriminate murder.
Splatter! Splatter! Splatter!
Those who tried to run were erased. Those who tripped over their own feet were erased. Those who flinched, even the slightest bit, were erased. In an instant, they were reduced to nothing more than blood bags.
Those who sought any explanation, those who desperately wanted even a sense of clarity, turned their gazes toward the strongest figures present. Their eyes moved to the Great Powers seated above the crowd, hoping for order, for direction, for anything that could put a stop to the rampaging scholar standing at the center of the podium.
"...."
"...."
But the three Great Powers, Elsa Hesse, Iridelle Vermillion, and Soliette Dominique, did not move, simply watching with an indifferent expression as if all of this had been expected.
And at that mont, the entire auditorium understood.
’During the Circuit, I’ll make my move. Don’t interfere.’
’Are you certain? The backlash will be imnse. Your reputation is already... difficult to recover.’
’And since when have I cared about my reputation? Soone has to do it. But it shouldn’t be you, Archmage. It shouldn’t be you, Headmaster. And it definitely shouldn’t be you, Vice-Admiral Vermillion.’
They were in on it.
Splatter! Splatter! Splatter!
More bodies burst into red mist. Panic finally erupted in full. Students scrambled from their seats. So stumbled over one another as they dashed for the exits. Others pressed into the walls as if trying to lt through them.
The auditorium descended into chaos. Chairs toppled over. Pages of notes were scattered across the floor. A chorus of terrified screams and cries filled the room as everyone struggled to flee from the podium, from each other, and especially from Vanitas Astrea.
The crowd rushed toward the doors, only for each handle to remain frozen in place. The exits were sealed shut. Vanitas glanced toward the corner of the room, where Ezra stood with his arms crossed.
Only Ezra and Elsa had full administrative access to the auditorium’s control functions.
There were other professors who technically had clearance, but they were not part of this. Vanitas never trusted a single one of them, not even for sothing as small as a sealed door.
The panic grew louder as more people realized the way out was gone. Screams echoed off the walls. The sound of footsteps and bodies pushing against each other filled the hall.
Splatter! Splatter! Splatter!
Among the panicked crowd desperately pushing toward the sealed exits, bodies burst one after another. Those who had hidden among the professors and students, those who had betrayed Aetherion for the cult, all combusted into pools of blood the mont Vanitas fixed his eyes on them.
The auditorium had beco a slaughterhouse.
Every attempt to escape only worsened the chaos. And in the midst of it, the cultists dropped like flies without any visible spell or chant.
"Professor, no—Lord Astrea, please!" a girl scread from sowhere in the stampede.
"S-Stop! Please stop!"
"W-Why are you doing this?! Professor—Ahhh! S-Senior!"
Splatter——
"Sobody do sothing!"
"Headmaster! Archmage! Why aren’t you stopping him?!"
No one dared draw close. The students huddled against the sealed doors, pounding at them even as they realized the barrier was absolute. They didn’t understand what was happening, nor who Vanitas was targeting. To them, it was a massacre without distinction.
"Why is he doing this... why?!"
Vanitas did not answer and simply continued walking.
One step at a ti.
Until he stopped.
"I don’t know what made you lose it," Maximilian said. "But I never liked you from the beginning."
Vanitas paused. His gaze turned toward Cassandra, who gave the smallest shake of her head, confirming either that Maximilian was not a cultist... or he was hiding it well.
Vanitas’s eyes returned to him, whose anger was evident under the wrinkles.
"Killing people in the middle of the summit. A summit! Do you have any idea... any idea at all... the consequences for your actions?!"
His outburst was enough to ignite a chain reaction. Several professors, so cultists, so rely terrified faculty staff, instinctively raised their hands. Mana ignited across the hall as spells began gathering at the tips of staff, wands, and bare palms.
"Restrain him!"
"He’s lost his mind!"
"Get the barrier up!"
It didn’t matter who shouted what. Students scread, distancing themselves from the front rows. They had no way of knowing who the true enemy was, so all they could see was Vanitas as the cause of everything.
From the stage, Vanitas noticed the slightest movent from Ezra, Silas, and Cassandra. All three were prepared to assist him. Yet Vanitas shook his head. He could not allow any of them to beco involved.
They were students who still had a future. They had lives that should never be entangled with the consequences he was willing to shoulder.
Vanitas understood that the mont he made his move, he had already isolated himself.
Whatever judgnt or punishnt ca afterward would fall entirely on him. The world would bla him. Nobles would denounce him. Professors would condemn him. Students would fear him.
And the mont this incident spread across the continent, the scholars of every tower would petition for sanctions.
Yet none of that mattered.
He had long accepted that he would bear everything alone.
* * *
Vanitas walked out of the university halls drenched in blood. For anyone beyond his path, they could only take a step back in fear. But Vanitas didn’t touch them and simply kept walking. No one tried to stop him. No one could, when not even the strongest had tried to stop him.
"...."
At that mont, Vanitas paused. The temperature began to drop. A chill spread through the hall that even the air seed to crystallize. Frost spread outward until the tiles were reminiscent of winter sunlight.
When Vanitas looked around, every person who had been fleeing just seconds before was now frozen in place, as if ti itself had locked them mid-motion.
Vanitas looked ahead.
Standing there with her hands loosely clasped behind her back was Karina Maeril.
"Hello, Vanitas."
"...."
He stared at her face in complete silence. That face, so painfully similar to Kim Minjeong’s, pulled him to a dangerous territory. The woman who had shaped him, broken him, healed him, destroyed him, and left a hole in his chest he never learned how to fill.
This woman... whose very existence had confird the String Theory for him.
Was it really love he felt all those years?
Or was it longing out of loneliness?
Was it yearning born from trauma?
Or was it simply a wounded boy holding on to the only soft hand ever offered to him?
Was it love at all?
Or was he rely grasping at the pieces of what he thought was salvation?
He wasn’t sure anymore. Not after all that he had learned through the Lily of the Valley.
His fist tightened at his side as he stepped forward. Karina rely watched him approach.
Vanitas stopped only a breath away from her and murmured the na he had not spoken aloud in years.
"Minjeong-ssi."
But Karina rely tilted her head. "...What?"
"...."
Vanitas felt sothing inside him crack. Her confusion wasn’t forced. There wasn’t even a single recognition in her eyes.
Was it a mistake?
Was she pretending?
Or... was she truly not Kim Minjeong?
Was it possible that the strings had rely aligned cruelly, placing a familiar face in front of him to tornt him further?
Was it only a resemblance?
Was he simply chasing a ghost?
The answer eluded him. And as he stared into Karina’s uncomprehending gaze, he realized, for the first ti, that he genuinely did not know.
And that terrified him more than anything else in the frozen hall.
"I don’t understand you," Karina whispered. "Why do you go out of your way to create such sinless sins? Was this how you killed my father?"
"I’m tired. Move out of the way."
"Please, confirm sothing for ."
"...."
"Why did you visit my mother that day in the hospital room?"
Vanitas narrowed his eyes and sifted through his mories. Karina’s mother had once been his professor during his high school years. A respectable woman who had called him in during her final days.
——You’re... here, Viscount Astrea...
Vanitas had recognized her imdiately and accepted the summons of a dying woman in her hospital bed.
’I don’t have a lot of ti, Professor Maeril. What do you need from ?’
——Zelliel... I know you’re working with him...
’....’
——He’s... my ex-husband... I need... to see him... W-Will you grant this favor...?
Perhaps that was when the long threads of misunderstandings began. A mont that ignited into sothing far larger when her new husband, Romulus Neuschwan, decided to insert himself into matters that never involved him in the first place.
Vanitas looked at Karina.
"Because she called ."
"What for?"
"Will you believe ?"
"Because she wanted to see your father."
"...."
Karina imdiately understood what that ant. Vanitas working with Zelliel. Vanitas claiming Zelliel was her biological father. The clarity she wanted only made the confusion in her mind worse.
"...."
Karina held his gaze.
She already knew their relationship had reached a point where nothing could be nded. She did not regret any of her past decisions, believing each one had been the only choice she could make.
And Vanitas held no resentnt toward her either. Their circumstances were simply far too tangled to untie.
It was this very knot that drove her to spark the flas in the first place. She had told Astrid everything out of desperation for answers, even if Vanitas was dragged through the mud in the process.
Was Romulus truly a good man?
If soone asked her outright, Karina would say Romulus Neuschwan had been everything she ever wanted in a father.
Yet deep in the core of her mories.
Smack——
——You stubborn girl! How many tis have I told you not to go out without telling ?!
’I-It hurts... father...’
——Karina, listen to . You know I love you very much. So I can’t let you wander around without knowing. Do you understand what happens to children these days?
Smack——
——Karina. Look at when I’m speaking to you.
——You know I didn’t an to hurt you, right?
’I... I know...’
——Good girl. You made worry. If you disappear again, what would I do? I only want to protect you.
He wiped away her tears, even though he was the one who had caused them. Karina leaned into the touch because back then, she really believed it was protection.
Another mory surfaced.
A broken vase on the floor. Karina is holding the pieces with shaking hands.
——Did you do this?
’I-I didn’t an to... I was just cleaning—’
Romulus slamd his hand against the wall beside her head, hard enough to rattle the shelves.
——Accidents don’t happen unless soone is careless. Are you careless?
’I... I’m sorry...’
He then knelt and pulled her into a tight embrace.
——I shouldn’t have raised my voice. You’re my precious girl. I’m just scared you might hurt yourself. Don’t make lose my temper again, alright? If you behave, I won’t ever have to.
She nodded. She believed it then. mories pushed into the farthest corners of her mind surfaced only because she kept digging for answers. Yet now, as everything unraveled around her on a daily basis, Karina found herself drifting in a disorienting sea.
She gave Vanitas a peaceful smile.
"Forgive ," she said softly. "For whatever happens next."
Shatter——
Karina dissolved into ice. Ti, frozen only monts earlier, resud its flow as if nothing had happened.
Whatever Karina had ant by that, Vanitas could only watch the remnants of her form fall silently to the ground, unsure of what she had set into motion.
And quite frankly, he couldn’t care less.
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