Chapter 716: Another Academy Down And The First Loss

"WE ARE GETTING ATTACKED!!" the elf shouted repeatedly, alerting everyone inside the stronghold.

Since 7 of them had just been defeated recently, almost all the remaining 18 students were inside the stronghold, with some outside the walls patrolling, still deliberating on which flag to capture with their nearly exhausted force of capable men.

"A huge beast is attacking from the south!" another man shouted almost simultaneously when they saw Nyxa's 8-meter form weaving through the sparse forest and approaching them.

At that moment, the man who had just shouted had a thin line of blood run across his neck. The very next second, he started disappearing into white particles.

And it was not just him. Anyone who looked even slightly capable of fighting back, with strength around Mid 2-star to Low 3-star, started disappearing into white particles.

The person standing on the watchtower, who had also spotted Agnivar first, was shocked to see things unfolding.

"W-what is happening?!" He staggered back in shaky steps, only to find himself suddenly mid-air with a spear jutting out of his chest from the front.

Blood seeped from his mouth, and just before disappearing, he turned his head to see an eagleman who wasn't even looking at him.

ROOOAAARRR!!

Neeeggghhh!!

Suddenly, Ronan's Sentinel and Cecil's Flamehoof Vanguard appeared inside the stronghold walls and almost instantly started breathing flames and razing everything in their path.

Skrreeeeeaaahhh!

Agnivar also roared and started breathing inferno flames alongside the walls, forming a containment in case somebody tried escaping from the killing spree Leo was making under stealth.

THUD! THAM!

Countless Astral Wolves of varied sizes burst through the stronghold walls and started running down anything in their path.

An alchemist elf saw all of that with horrified eyes.

"W-what in the world…?" He also saw that almost all of the other elves had disappeared almost instantly. Not even the people who were inside some building and working were spared.

He quickly ran away to some sort of storage house where countless potions and makeshift explosives were kept.

"If we are going out, we will at least take 1 with us!"

Saying that, he picked up one explosive flask and threw it at the others.

At that moment, while the flask was still mid-air, something—or someone—caught his shoulder.

He turned just in time to see a man standing with a calm smile, wispy black particles subsiding into his shadows. All of a sudden, a yellow barrier with an orangish tint formed around him and the storage house.

The next instant—

BOOOOOMMM!! BLASSSTT!! DHOOOM!

A series of blasts rang out, and the elf's eyes contracted sharply. Even while being in the closest proximity to the blast, he hadn't died due to whatever shield had formed over him.

But an even more terrifying fact was the man who had held his shoulder.

Even without a shield around him, the man was perfectly fine as he took wave after wave of blast right to his face, wearing a smile that sent shivers down the elf's spine.

It was none other than Leo.

With Shyra's [Obsidian Hide] trait now unlocked to 70% and Niri's [Tough Body] trait unlocked completely, combined with the natural body resistance of a Low 5-star individual, these explosions were not going to leave even a scratch on him.

And that was the fact that Leo wanted the elf to have ingrained in his memory.

"Tell your leader to think twice before attacking Aurelius Beast Academy's Stronghold."

As Leo said that, all color drained from the elf's face because, at the same moment, he felt Leo's grip on his shoulder tighten.

"Oh, wait… you haven't actually done anything special to deserve this painful goodbye." Leo muttered, realizing ripping the shoulder out was an unnecessary thing to do to a student who was just in a competition.

With that, Leo simply sliced his neck as he had been doing to the others. That way, they didn't even register the pain before being sent away and having their bodies healed… hopefully. Leo didn't know what happened when people were sent away.

As for the explosion damaging other people, Leo had formed another Aura Dome around the whole storage building that contained the blast inside, and he simply walked out.

The stronghold had been completely razed within just 2 to 3 minutes. Not a single survivor remained.

"Damn… this new shadow movement is a game changer." Leo muttered.

He had been teleporting almost instantly between the shadows of the elves and finishing them. Though there was a bit of delay due to it being daytime with lots of light around, it was still awesome.

He could only imagine the sort of movement he would be able to achieve during the night.

And though Leo could have decided not to raze things completely and loot the potions that had just exploded and a few other things, he felt the need to do so.

Because that way, the audience watching the stream might realize that humans were no less in strength, where only dragons seemed to be dominating the field.

Not to mention, Vice Principal Tarun had told Leo to have Aurelius Beast Academy's name soar high.

And the desired effect Leo wanted was achieved.

"OH MY GOD! WE HAVE OUR FIRST HUMAN ACADEMY TAKING DOWN AN ESTABLISHED STRONGHOLD!!" The host's voice echoed through all 3 Empires.

"And look at how clean it was! Aurelius Beast Academy managed to wipe out the whole Evergrove Sovereign Academy with less than 25% of their force!"

"Hey! That was because there were no rankers!" one of the elves sitting somewhere shouted in defense.

The host heard him.

"No rankers? Doesn't change the fact that all of those rankers were defeated by 1 person from the attacking academy previously!" The host's words silenced the person as humans started to cheer for Leo and Aurelius Beast Academy.

Aiden—the 1 ranker of Evergrove Sovereign Academy—could only grimace as he watched the extermination of his academy's stronghold through the screen because he had been taken out before the others.

"Fuck… how could such a disparity exist?" He looked at the screens that had started to shuffle between other academies, showing the flag-capturing moments and fights.

"Now we can only hope for Elarion to save our dignity for the next 5 years."

Back at the destroyed Evergrove Stronghold…

Leo had just finished destroying the stronghold beacon when, the very next second, one of the small glowing dots in his and the other bracelets dimmed.

Someone had been defeated from their academy.

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A/N: I don't know what happened, but I ended up sleeping 18 hours while being awake for around 2 hours somewhere in between.