Chapter 143: LILITH’S KISS

Seline attacked in a rapid sequence, breathtaking, her spear glowing with moonlight, every strike changing angles before the last one had even finished.

Haru’s body kept dodging.

"We’re only getting started." Seline thought.

Haru took several steps back.

"He wants to create enough distance to swing his sword and continue his chain of attacks." Seline calculated. "I’m not letting him."

She spun, throwing her spear, a shockwave carving a visible trail through the air.

The spear was fast.

Haru’s body raised the sword and blocked. The spear slammed into the blade and kept pushing, dragging Haru backward under the force of the impact.

He crashed into the wall of the building.

The spear vanished, teleporting back into Seline’s hand, and before he could react, her fist was already coming.

Luckily, Haru had moved.

Seline’s punch tore through the wall, concrete cracking apart as dust exploded into the air.

Dust...

Haru stood beside her, watching, as if saying, "Compose yourself... We’re still going to fight."

Seline pulled her fist out of the wall, her spear already reforming in her other hand.

"Hey. Who are you? Why are you attacking me?"

Haru didn’t answer.

"Hmm." Seline processed. "No one enters the academy like this. He has to be a student. Then why attack the others?"

Nothing.

His presence remained hostile.

Two professors arrived at a run, the Professor of Magical Behavior and the Strategist.

"The presence is coming from him." One of them said.

They had sensed the anomaly while monitoring that section and rushed over. The hostility was far beyond what the test normally produced. Eldrath’s spirits did not carry that kind of genuinely malicious intent.

"Who is he!?"

"Glen." The Strategist said. "He’s wearing the Forgotten General’s helmet."

Professor Glen adjusted his glasses.

Indeed, that helmet belonged to the General.

"The only conclusion I can draw," he said, "is that he’s possessed... by the General, and... something even more complicated. The amount of presence I’m sensing suggests overlap, not replacement."

"Possessed!? We’re not going to stop this, right?"

"No." Glen replied. "Death is a real possibility in Eldrath. There are things more important to analyze here than immediate safety."

He adjusted his glasses again.

"And besides, that kind of possession shouldn’t last more than ten minutes. The body’s energy can’t sustain it much longer. And the one fighting the possessed student is Seline Orphéne. Again: no."

When Glen looked to the side, the Strategist was already gone.

She had only heard the word "no," and that was exactly what she had wanted to hear.

"Damn it." Glen muttered. "I explained too much again."

He ran after her.

Haru advanced, this time maneuvering his sword against Seline, forcing her to dodge.

As she evaded, she was forced to move in a very specific pattern.

Then it clicked.

The style. The angle. The color of the blade. Its size.

Everything came together, reminding her exactly who that man was.

She recognized him by the way he fought.

"Sarcophagus Gamer!" she shouted, attacking now with genuine anger.

Haru blocked, spear and blade grinding together in a clash between two fighters of equal strength.

"It’s you. The player from the other day. At the Cathedral." she said, her eyes hardening. "You fight exactly the same. Where’s your partner? We weren’t finished."

Seline headbutted him.

Now that she knew exactly who he was, she could stop holding back.

After all, Gamers killed each other.

She stretched into stance—

—and vanished, a blur of speed.

She appeared here.

Then there.

Her attacks barely grazed Haru as she circled him at incredible speed, waiting for the perfect moment to truly strike.

Haru’s body, now fully alert, tightened its grip on the sword while tracking every direction.

Then suddenly...

It straightened.

Relaxed.

Held the sword with only one hand.

Its gaze fixed straight ahead.

Seline, still circling, noticed.

"He’s lowering his guard."

"There’s always a third strike." Haru’s body thought to itself, its memory drawing upon the Forgotten General’s freshly inherited teachings.

Seline appeared behind him.

Without looking...

Haru’s body already knew.

Only his sword arm moved.

"Huh!?" Seline gasped.

She changed her posture in midair—

—but the sword was already there.

Haru struck, nearly cutting her down, but she barely managed to evade.

He gave her no room.

He continued attacking.

Now using the Forgotten Art.

As Seline dodged, her eyes widened.

Not in fear.

In admiration.

"This... is really that Gamer?"

"It is. But now he moves beautifully. The art he’s using..."

"It’s beautiful."

"How!?" she thought, continuing to evade. "I can tell that whatever this art is, his body hasn’t mastered it completely. Even so..."

They moved across the courtyard.

It was as though they were dancing.

"Who is this Gamer?" she wondered. "It’s a shame I decided to kill him before finding out."

Seline returned to reality.

She locked her body into position.

When Haru came again...

She blocked in a very particular way.

Her spear flashed.

She knocked the sword out of his hand.

Then struck Haru’s body repeatedly with the shaft before sweeping his legs.

He fell.

Before he could get back up, her foot was already planted on his chest.

Her glowing spear hovered above him.

Ready to pierce his skull.

...

The wall stretched horizontally as far as Haru could see.

Enormous.

Every footprint in the desert led to its center—

—to the gate.

Equally enormous.

It looked far too massive for any human mechanism to open.

Unfortunately, Haru couldn’t feel any mana in that place.

He was growing weaker with every passing second.

On both sides of the gate stood colossal statues of creatures.

Shapes he didn’t recognize.

Their angles were too wrong to belong to anything familiar.

He sat down in the sand.

Tried calling the System.

Nothing.

"Damn it. Why do things never go the way I want?" he thought. "Now I’ve got this crap. If those were angel statues maybe I’d actually want to go in. Instead I’ve got... whatever those things are. And to make it worse, I can’t even feel mana. And I’m naked."

He sat there for a while.

Then sighed.

Stood up.

"What else am I supposed to do?"

"Maybe appearances are deceiving."

He approached the gate.

Stopped nearby.

It really was even bigger than it had looked from a distance.

The moment he reached for it—

One of the statues moved.

A chill shot up Haru’s spine.

His only reaction was to try opening the gate.

It wouldn’t budge.

He was too weak.

He ran.

The statue’s strike landed exactly where he had been standing.

"Son of a bitch."

Haru scrambled to his feet and sprinted.

The stone creature charged after him like a wolf hunting prey.

Haru stumbled.

Got back up.

And cried while running.

"AAAAAAAH! YOU BITCH! I’M GONNA DIE!"

...

"Any last words?" Seline asked.

Just before the spear came down...

She felt it.

A chill.

She dodged.

Purple flames streaked through the exact spot where she had stood a heartbeat earlier.

"Who is it this time?"

She sensed a presence behind her.

Turned.

The presence struck her.

She collapsed unconscious as if she weighed nothing.

The figure didn’t remain where it had attacked.

Instead, it walked toward Haru’s body...

...which had just picked up the sword.

Haru’s body pointed it forward.

It was Lilith.

And she didn’t stop walking.

She kept coming.

The sword pierced her abdomen.

She didn’t stop.

Haru couldn’t twist the blade to tear her apart.

It was impossible.

When he tried letting go of the sword to escape...

Lilith took hold of his head.

At that instant, Haru found himself unable to move.

The arm holding the sword gave way as she stepped even closer.

"Finally." she said.

She removed the Forgotten General’s helmet with effortless ease and tossed it aside.

Haru’s eyes were closed.

Unconscious.

She brushed his hair back with a gentle motion.

A gesture that completely contrasted with the sword still buried inside her.

Blood trickled from the corner of her lips.

Then...

She kissed him.

Energy began radiating from both of them.

...

Haru ran.

The stone creature was still chasing him.

Every footstep made the entire desert tremble.

Closer.

Closer.

Then...

The sky split open.

Not like glass.

Like flesh.

Purple fissures opened above the eclipse, spreading from one side of the horizon to the other.

The red sky began to rot.

Pieces of heaven fell.

They weren’t meteors.

They were spirits.

Hundreds upon hundreds of them.

They poured from the cracks like silent rain, crossing the desert and vanishing before they ever touched the sand.

The creature stopped.

Haru stopped too.

Neither of them looked at each other anymore.

Both stared at the sky.

For the first time...

The statue showed emotion.

Fear.

A voice echoed through the fractures.

Distant.

Almost impossible to understand.

"...wake up..."

Again.

"...Haru..."

The entire world trembled.

The desert began dissolving like ink washed away by water.

The last thing Haru saw...

Was the enormous gate opening behind him.

Then everything went dark.

...

Haru opened his eyes.

A white ceiling.

The smell of medicine.

Silence.

He blinked several times.

"The hospital..."

He slowly sat up in bed.

His body didn’t hurt.

Not a single wound.

As though the entire battle had never happened.

He didn’t know where the Forgotten General’s helmet was.

But he could still feel it resting on his head.

"So... it really happened."

DONG...

DONG...

DONG...

The Academy bell echoed throughout the entire campus.

The summons to the central courtyard.

The results of the second test were about to be announced.

Haru got out of bed.

Left the room.

As he walked down the corridor, a blue window appeared before his eyes.

[SYSTEM NOTICE]

> Core Update...

> System Update: 99%

> Please wait...

Haru stopped.

"...What?"