Novel Full Chapter 228: Red
Chapter 228: Red
Did he really just want to see the boy?
To many of them, it seemed almost pointless, such a brief interaction for someone Maximus had personally called for.
But others like Halbrecht, did not look confused at all, because they understood, or at least, they understood enough.
And without saying anything, they simply shifted their attention back to the screens, as if the matter had already been settled.
If Maximus thought that was enough, then that was enough. Whatever made this boy special… It was already clear to him.
Maybe he wasn’t as special as they had initially thought.
George straightened and gestured lightly.
“Come.”
Elion nodded once and followed.
As they walked back through the corridor, the silence lingered for a short while, the distant sounds of the arena slowly growing louder again as they descended, but after a few steps, George glanced at Elion and finally spoke.
“What did you speak about with the Master?”
Elion’s eyes widened slightly at the question.
George noticed the reaction and continued calmly.
“I know the nature of Master Maximus’ power,” he said, his tone steady, “time does not simply flow normally when he wills it otherwise.”
That alone was enough to say everything.
He knew something had happened.
Elion remained silent for a moment, his expression returning to normal as quickly as it had changed.
“…Nothing important,” he said simply.
His voice was calm.
He did not elaborate.
And the silence that followed made it clear that he did not intend to speak on the matter any further.
George glanced at him briefly, studying him for a second longer, before letting out a quiet hum.
“I see.” He did not press the issue.
Honestly, Elion did not know what to make of the matter with Maximus; the whole interaction felt too simple, given how shocked the elderly man had acted, and that alone made him uneasy.
Would the old man really do nothing but observe? That sounded far too good to be true, and from his experience, things that seemed that simple usually had something hidden beneath them, something that would surface later.
As they continued walking, George eventually stopped and glanced at him.
“You can go from here,” he said calmly.
Elion nodded. “Thank you, professor.”
George gave a small nod in return before turning away, leaving Elion alone in the corridor.
For a brief moment, Elion stood still, his thoughts still circling back to Maximus, trying to make sense of it all, but then his eyes widened slightly as he remembered something.
Right… Aria…
She was fighting William right now.
With everything that had happened in the past few minutes, he had completely forgotten about it, and he had not even thought to look at the screens while he was inside that room.
A faint sense of urgency and unease rose in his chest.
Without another thought, he increased his pace.
He was really worried about her.
Elion’s quick steps echoed faintly as he moved lower and lower through the corridors, his pace increasing with each passing second as the urgency in his chest grew.
Along the way he ran into quite a few people, mostly upper year students, brushing past them without slowing down, and at one point, he even bumped shoulders with someone, his body colliding briefly before he continued forward without so much as a glance back.
“How rude,” the older student muttered with a frown, turning to look at Elion’s retreating figure.
“Come on, Leon,” his friends called out from ahead, noticing that he had slowed down.
“Right,” Leon replied, giving Elion one last lingering glance before turning and catching up with them.
For Elion, it felt like the pathway stretched endlessly, like the distance back to the first years’ waiting room had somehow grown longer, each step taking too long, each turn feeling unfamiliar.
’Did I take a wrong turn somewhere…?’
The thought flickered briefly, but he pushed it aside, continuing forward until finally, he arrived.
The doors opened in a hurry, and Elion stepped inside, and immediately, the atmosphere told him that something was very wrong.
He glanced around quickly, taking everything in within a single second. Tessa was there. She looked disturbed.
Her hand was gently patting Isolde’s back.
Isolde… She had her hand clamped over her mouth, her body trembling as she struggled to suppress sobs, her face pale as if she was fighting the urge to vomit.
Around them, several others looked no better.
Some pale. Some shaken. Some were frozen in shock.
The room was absolutely silent. Eerily so. Elion’s heartbeat quickened.
’Mira…?’ She was not there. His eyes quickly snapped toward the screens. A replay was playing.
And the moment he saw it, he saw red.
“An unfortunate but disastrous accident,” the host’s voice echoed faintly, though Elion barely registered it, “but things like this do happen in tournaments. I do hope the young lady is fine. I’m sure the healers are doing their best—”
To Elion, the voice faded completely, as if it didn’t exist. His eyes were glued to the screen. The replay played again.
And again. And again.
There wasn’t much of anything on it. Only the final moment of Aria and William’s fight was shown. But that was enough, more than enough.
The moment when William had severed Aria’s right arm clean off from the shoulder.
Elion’s breath hitched, then quickened violently.
His chest tightened painfully as he stared at the screen, his eyes unmoving, locked onto that moment as it repeated over and over again, and even though the audio was muted, he could hear it.
He could hear her scream as her face twisted in silent agony. The blood seeping from the stump on her shoulder, painting her lovely dress and figure in crimson.
Elion stood still as he seemed to burn the scene into his mind. Everyone in the room had turned toward him by now. Students and staff all at once.
That is when they all felt it. A dense, violent, overwhelming wave of killing intent burst out of Elion like a burst of air.
The shockwave was invisible yet impossibly suffocating, slamming into everyone in the room without discriminating and knocking the closest ones back in shock, their bodies staggering and falling as their faces turned pale.
Even the stronger staff froze in deep fear, because what they felt was not normal. It was not just killing intent. It was pure, unbridled rage.
’What is he…!?’
That thought echoed in every mind present. It was clear to all of them, including Isolde, Tessa, and Lyra, that what they thought they knew about Elion was only the surface of a deep, unfathomable abyss.
He had never shown the true depths of his strength.
For a brief second, everyone in the room came to a single conclusion, they all subconsiously believed that they were going to die today.
That was when the faint sound of footsteps broke into the air. They came from behind Elion.
Elion turned around slowly and saw him.
William.
Walking toward the waiting room entrance. He was a bit tired and bruised here and there, but otherwise mostly fine. Alive and standing. After what he had just done.
It felt inconceivable. Elion’s mind went blank. ’He hurt her…’ And he had the audacity to walk in here. Did he come to taunt him?
To provoke him?
To show off?
It didn’t matter.
None of it mattered.
Elion’s eyes turned bloodshot.
All of that killing intent—
All of that pressure, which had been flooding the entire room, abruptly focused entirely on one person.
“You’re a dead man.”
Elion moved.