Chapter 103: A Severed Bond

The group of four left the classroom and made their way to the cafeteria of the academy.

Valerian and Arthur had already shown that they were horrible at navigating the academy, so Seraphine and Lilith took the lead and walked in front of them.

As Valerian was looking at the back of Seraphine’s head, there had been something on his mind for the past hours, and curiosity had been burning inside him. He finally gave in and activated [Dragon Eyes], and Seraphine’s status unfolded in front of him.

│─────── STATUS ─────── │

│ Name : Seraphine Luna Verdantia

│ Age : 16

│ Race : Royal Verdant Elf

│ ─────── ORIGIN ─────── │

│ Bloodline : Verdantia World Tree Matriarch

│ Physique : Primordial World Heart

│ Core : A

│ ────── ATTRIBUTES ────── │

│ Vitality : A+

│ Strength : B+

│ Agility : A+

│ Dexterity : A

│ Intelligence : SS

│ Mana : S

│ Charm : SS

│ ─────── AFFINITIES ─────── │

│ Wind

│ Water

│ Fire

│ Earth

│ Light

│ Darkness

│ Solar

│ Life

│ ─────── TITLES ─────── │

│ [Pride of Eldoria]

│ [Princess of Verdantia]

│ [Loved by Mana]

│ ─────── SKILLS ─────── │

│ [Racial Skills]

│ [Verdant Longevity]

│ [Sap of Restoration]

│ [Unique Skill]

│ [Reality Weaver]

│ ─────── BOND ─────── │

│ Bound Entity : -

Valerian scanned every line carefully, not wanting to miss anything. While he was scanning the status in front of him, Seraphine turned her head slightly to the side and looked at Valerian from the corner of her eye.

’Why did I feel so exposed just now?’

When Valerian activated [Dragon Eyes], a feeling arose as if all her secrets and her very being were laid out in front of him. But when she looked in the direction she got the weird feeling from, all she saw was Valerian looking into thin air.

’That’s weird.’

But the feeling was only brief, so she didn’t have an opportunity to find out why that happened and turned her head back.

Seraphine’s status wasn’t something he hadn’t expected. After all, she was incredibly talented and [Loved by Mana], so her many affinities and disproportionate mana stat made sense.

Valerian was still slightly surprised when he saw that she had a physique, as he had never seen another person with one. He focused his [Dragon Eyes] on the physique for a moment, and the description appeared.

[Description]

[Physique: Primordial World Heart :

An ancient physique that structures the bearer’s body like the living core of a World Tree. It grants increased vitality, conceptually anchors the physical vessel to the world itself, and allows the seamless circulation of even the most volatile mana and reality-altering spells without causing internal recoil.]

’Interesting, so it allows her to use her [Unique Skill] without suffering the damage of altering reality.’

Valerian couldn’t help but feel slightly envious, as he had experienced a kind of backlash when he used the space attack in the ranking tournament. But he didn’t dwell on it for much longer, turned his head to the vampire walking beside Seraphine, and activated [Dragon Eyes] on her.

│─────── STATUS ─────── │

│ Name : Lilith Nightshade

│ Age : 16

│ Race : Pureblood Vampire

│ ─────── ORIGIN ─────── │

│ Bloodline : Crimson Progenitor

│ Physique : -

│ Core : B+

│ ────── ATTRIBUTES ────── │

│ Vitality : A

│ Strength : A

│ Agility : A+

│ Dexterity : B+

│ Intelligence : S-

│ Mana : B+

│ Charm : S+

│ ─────── AFFINITIES ─────── │

│ Blood

│ Blood Flame

│ Darkness

│ ─────── TITLES ─────── │

│ [Heiress of House Nightshade]

│ [Crimson Aristocrat]

│ ─────── SKILLS ─────── │

│ [Racial Skills]

│ [Blood Frenzy]

│ [Shadow Stride]

│ [Superior Sanguine Regeneration]

│ [Unique Skill]

│ [-]

│ ─────── BOND ─────── │

│ Bound Entity : -

’That’s pretty good, but what is with her physical stats?’

The physical power of a vampire was dependent on the amount and quality of blood they consumed. The increase they gained from the blood went straight to their physical stats, leading to a being with a body far stronger than it should be at a given rank.

The four made their way to the cafeteria without getting lost, unlike what would have happened if Valerian or Arthur had led the group.

When they stepped into the hall, they were confronted by a multi-layered cafeteria with ceilings that spanned so high you couldn’t see the end.

They walked to the counter and ordered what they wanted without paying. The food inside the academy was completely free, and the variety was something even noble students had to marvel at.

In less than a minute, the food they ordered arrived, and they walked to a table that was empty.

Valerian and Arthur sat on one side, and Seraphine and Lilith on the other.

Valerian ordered a juicy-looking steak with some vegetables on the side, along with a glass of chocolate milk.

Arthur had a bowl with long noodles, and apparently that was something they had back in his first life as well, causing him to nearly break out in tears as he saw them.

’I think he called them ramen.’

Seraphine, who sat across from Valerian, had a plate with steamed vegetables and some form of yellowish sauce.

Lilith, who sat across from Arthur and next to Seraphine, couldn’t have picked a meal more different from Seraphine’s.

Her meal was just one giant slice of meat that looked like it was still actively bleeding onto the plate, but the vampire looked at it with twinkling eyes.

As they began to eat their respective meals, Valerian initiated conversation.

"So, Lilith, how did you two fighting turn into this?"

Valerian pointed at the elf and the vampire with his knife. Lilith looked up at him with a slightly confused face.

"Well, it just kind of happened. We fought, I lost, and Seraphine wasn’t a dick about winning."

"That’s it?"

The whole concept of making friends was still fairly new to Valerian, so he wasn’t sure how to properly make them.

His interaction with Arthur was anything but normal, and even how he and Seraphine met wasn’t something that was exactly repeatable. And don’t even get started on Clara, whom Valerian had "befriended" in an even weirder way.

"Yeah, does there have to be more?"

Lilith tilted her head to the side and looked at the dumbfounded Valerian.

"Don’t listen to him, this guy doesn’t understand anything about friends," Arthur said absently between slurping up his noodles.

"Eat like a normal person, please..."

Looking at his friend practically burying his face in his bowl to get every noodle out, Valerian felt slightly embarrassed.

"But you seem like a nice per-"

Valerian was interrupted as his insane mana perception granted by [Child of Mana] picked up a disturbance, not in the mana around him, but in the very fabric of reality. But while his senses could pick the disturbance up, actually reacting to it was a completely different matter as a fine line appeared in the air behind him.

As soon as the line appeared, the fabric of space split apart, and a hand reached out from the rift, grabbing Valerian by the collar of his uniform and dragging him inside.

His body disappeared before anyone in the cafeteria could even sense anything.

By the time he was gone, Seraphine’s eyes widened as the Valerian she had just been looking at vanished into thin air.

"Valerian?"

But there was no answer, as Valerian was long gone.

By the time Valerian realized what had happened, he was lying on a completely white floor. He looked around, and everything was the same absolute white, making it look as though there were no walls or ceiling at all, just an infinite expanse of white.

’What the fuck?!’

One second he was sitting in the cafeteria, and the next his senses picked something up, and he was lying in this white space.

"Stand up."

A female voice came from behind him.

’I didn’t sense anyone.’

He turned around, and standing behind him was a woman who had completely evaded both his spatial perception and his mana sense.

She had a tall build reaching nearly two meters, with muscles outlined clearly even though her clothes didn’t reveal much skin. She had long, midnight-black hair that looked somewhat messy and uncared for. She wore a black, combat-oriented outfit that paid no heed to fashion, designed purely to be optimal and out of the way.

She was incredibly beautiful, with tan skin and two silver eyes that looked down at Valerian with cold detachment.

’Who is that??’

He didn’t know the woman, but what he did know was that the mana she gave off made panic rise inside him.

’Fuck, she is at least Demi-God, maybe even Demi-God+.’

"What are you waiting for?"

Her voice echoed once more in the white space, causing Valerian to stand up, not wanting to invoke the woman’s wrath.

"The elf asked me to train you, so take out your sword."

’The elf? Who is she talking about?’

Valerian didn’t want to argue with the woman and complied, summoning Twilight in the shape of a katana.

As the black substance appeared and molded into shape, the woman’s brows furrowed.

Her figure appeared right in front of Valerian, plucking the sword from his grasp like taking candy from an infant.

"What the fuck is that? This blade sucks."

Without a care in the world, she raised her hand. Her hand began to glow with a sharp, silver light, and she brought it down upon the blade.

Without any resistance, the katana was sliced clean in half, and a soul-piercing pain shot through him.

-Valerian!-

’What is happening?!’

-This woman... she destroyed Twilight... it’s gone-