Chapter 181: The Professor’s Betrayal

Chapter 181: Chapter 181: The Professor’s Betrayal

The Vice Principal clashed with Louisa above the battlefield.

Fire against dark energy. His fists blazed with infernal heat — each punch launching concentrated fireballs that screamed through the air. Louisa countered with waves of necromantic energy that ate through his flames like acid through metal. Each collision created shockwaves that scattered clouds and cracked the air. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

The Vice Principal pressed harder. His Astral Realm mana surged — fire coating his entire body, turning him into a living inferno. He launched a compressed fire lance at Louisa’s chest. She raised one hand. A shield of condensed dark energy materialized. The lance struck. KRRRAK. The shield cracked but held.

But the Vice Principal was forced to split his attention — every time he pressed Louisa, the corpse bear intervened. Its massive claws swept through the air with enough force to level a building. WHOOSH. The Vice Principal dodged by meters, the claws missing his head by inches. The wind pressure alone sent him spiraling sideways.

Louisa smiled through it all, her eyes gleaming with amusement. She directed her army with casual gestures while trading blows with an Astral Realm cultivator. A flick of her wrist sent three more beast puppets into the fray. A wave of her hand redirected a Grand Core corpse to reinforce a failing flank. She was conducting a symphony of destruction with a relaxed elegance.

The Head Instructor fought Tariq and Seth simultaneously. His golden avatar swung massive fists, each one carrying Peak Grand Core power. BOOM. BOOM. Tariq dodged with blood mist — dissolving his body into crimson vapor and reforming behind the avatar. Seth countered with shadow serpents that struck from blind angles — black constructs lunging from the dark sky, fangs sinking into the avatar’s golden surface. CRAAAACK. Fissures spread across the avatar’s shoulder.

The three-way clash lit up the dark sky with explosions of gold, crimson, and black.

Inside the barrier, students huddled in shelters while some others rushed towards the research department where there was an emergency gateway.

Lucian stood in the courtyard, his crimson eyes fixed on the battle above.

His hearing had caught every word of the conversation above. The Khamsins. The Apeps. The Du Mauriers. Three vampire families, working together, demanding his head and the Soul Matrix Treasure.

And Louisa.

Seeing her again made his blood boil. His fists clenched so hard. Every fiber of his being screamed at him to rush forward — to scale the sky, drive his claws through her throat, and take the head he’d been dreaming about for more than ten years.

But reason cut through the rage like a cold blade.

Even going near that fight would leave him at death’s door. Early Astral Realm cultivators clashing above. Peak Grand Core patriarchs. An army of Grand Core corpses and B-Rank beast puppets. He was Peak Core Realm. Strong for his level — perhaps the strongest Peak Core cultivator on Earth — but that gap was still realms above the current him. And right now, the barrier would not hold long.

He had to run.

Clara appeared in front of him. Her silver hair whipped around her face. "Hey, Lucian. Who’s that? Why are they after you?"

Lucian glanced at her. Right. She’s a vampire too. She heard everything.

"Vampire clans," Lucian said, his voice tight. "The Du Mauriers, the Apeps, and the Khamsins. They’re here for me."

Clara blinked. Then a smirk curved across her lips. "Wow. I didn’t know my boyfriend was so popular."

Lucian smiled, a brief, involuntary twitch of his lips. "It seems you’re still in the mood to joke."

Clara’s smirk widened.

They ran. Both of them activated movement techniques — Lucian’s Light Steps and Clara’s gravity-enhanced acceleration — carrying them across the courtyard toward the Research Department building where the evacuation portal was located. Students scattered around them, some running in the same direction, others frozen in panic.

The Research Department was on the northern side of campus. Three hundred meters away. They could make it in under a minute if nothing —

FWEEESH!

A flaming spear screamed toward them from the right. Lucian’s Blood Sense caught the heat signature a fraction of a second before it arrived — the sudden displacement of air, the concentration of mana, the trajectory aimed directly at his and Clara’s position.

He grabbed Clara and pushed her left. He jumped right. The spear passed through the space they’d been standing — the heat singeing his cheek — and slammed into the ground behind them. BOOM. The explosion of flame sent debris spraying across the courtyard.

Lucian turned toward the source.

Standing on the roof of the Combat Department building, her white lab coat replaced by dark combat robes, was Professor Elena Vasilev. In her hand was a long, slender spear, wreathed in flames that pulsed with S-Rank energy. Her expression was one of cold amusement.

Lucian’s eyes narrowed. He’d always suspected something was off about her. He’d filed it away as suspicion without proof.

Now she was standing on a rooftop with an S-Rank weapon, and her true colors were finally showing.

"Professor Vasilev." His voice was cold. "What’s the meaning of this?"

Vasilev smirked. "Lucian Grimaud. Surely you aren’t so ignorant."

She raised her free hand. Multiple fireballs materialized around her. She fired them downward.

Lucian drew Aethon. The S-Rank longsword hummed in his grip, Light Blade coating the edge. He intercepted the fireballs heading toward him and Clara — SLASH, SLASH, SLASH — cutting through three of them in rapid succession. The flames dispersed in showers of sparks. Clara dodged two more.

But the remaining fireballs weren’t aimed at them.

They struck the ground behind Lucian — directly into a group of students running toward the evacuation point. The explosions ripped through the crowd. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. Screams. Bodies flew. A student behind them — a girl Lucian recognized from the Support Department, second year — was caught in the blast. Her body hit the ground.

Lucian’s crimson eyes snapped back to Vasilev with an indifferent expression.

Vasilev fired again, aimed in a spread pattern to cut off their escape routes.

Clara’s aura exploded.

Early Grand Core Realm.

Her mana surged outward. Silver light gathered around her body as her SS-Rank Lunar Authority activated. Lunar energy spread in a wide arc, a visible wave of frost and moonlight that swept across the courtyard. The fireballs met the lunar wave and extinguished instantly — hissing into nothing. HSSSSSS. Steam erupted where fire met frost, billowing upward in white clouds.

Vasilev frowned. "It seems she’s already reached the Grand Core Realm."

Her eyes assessed Clara. Then she shrugged. "No matter."

Multiple flame spears materialized around Vasilev, hovering in a ring around her body. The heat radiating from them distorted the air. Her aura pressed down on the courtyard.

"I’m still a Mid Grand Core master."

Lucian activated Blood Eclipse Art. The technique ignited in his veins — spell power jumping 70%, mana circulation accelerating by 40%. Crimson energy shimmered around his body.

"We don’t have time to fight her," he said to Clara through the telepathic link. "The barrier is failing. We need to reach the portal."

Clara nodded. Both of them turned and ran — Light Steps and gravity acceleration carrying them across the courtyard at maximum speed. They zigzagged between rubble and fallen students, heading for the Research Department building.

Vasilev watched them go. Her smirk didn’t waver. "Trying to run?"

She swung her spear. The fifteen flame spears launched simultaneously — screaming downward in a coordinated barrage. FWEEESH-FWEEESH-FWEEESH-FWEEESH-FWEEESH!

Lucian and Clara dodged. Lucian swerved left. Clara swerved right. The spears struck the ground between them — BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM — each impact creating a crater of fire and shattered stone. But the explosions released shockwaves of flame that expanded outward in concentric rings.

The shockwave caught both of them. The heat disrupted their movement techniques — Lucian’s Light Steps stuttered. Clara’s gravity field wavered. Both stumbled, their runs broken. They stabilized quickly — Lucian stabbing Aethon into the ground to arrest his momentum, Clara creating a gravity anchor to steady herself.

But the delay cost them precious seconds. Vasilev was already forming more spears.

Above the academy, the golden barrier shattered.

KRRRAAAAACK!

The sound was deafening — a million windows breaking simultaneously. The golden dome that had protected the campus fractured into thousands of fragments that dissolved into light. The maintenance staff inside screamed — their mana drained, their arrays overloaded by the relentless assault of beast puppets and vampire cultivators.

Figures poured through the gap. Tariq al-Khamsin dissolved into blood mist and materialized inside the academy grounds. Seth al-Apep sent shadow serpents slithering through the broken barrier. A dozen B-Rank beast puppets surged through the opening — wolves and bears and serpents, their necromantic eyes burning, their bodies driven by Louisa’s will.

Chaos erupted inside the campus.

Beast puppets attacked everything that moved. Students screamed and fled. Instructors who had been maintaining the barrier from the inside were overwhelmed — two were caught by a B-Rank corpse wolf and torn apart before they could raise their defenses. CRUNCH. CRUNCH. The sound of bones and flesh was drowned out by the screaming.

The Grand Core human corpses entered next — three of them. The Mid Grand Core fire user corpse launched a fireball into a cluster of fleeing students. FWOOOOM. The explosion sent bodies flying. The Peak Grand Core earth user corpse slammed both palms into the ground. Earth spikes erupted across the courtyard — impaling students, shattering walls, carving the campus into killing zones.

The Vice Principal saw the barrier fall. His face — already strained from fighting Louisa — went white with horror. Students were dying. His students. The people he had sworn to protect.

He reached into his robes and pulled out an artifact — a golden amulet pulsing with concentrated mana. S-Rank. The amulet’s energy surged into his body, boosting his cultivation beyond its normal limits. His Early Astral Realm aura intensified — climbing toward Mid Astral. His flames turned from orange to white. The heat was so intense that the air around him ignited spontaneously.

He turned on Louisa with everything he had.

"Enough!"

His fist connected with the corpse bear’s skull. BOOOOOM! The bear’s head exploded — bone, flesh, and dark energy spraying across the sky. The corpse collapsed, its body going limp without its controller’s focus.

Louisa’s smile finally flickered. The Vice Principal’s white flames roared toward her. She raised both hands, dark energy condensing into a massive shield. KRRRAK. The shield cracked under the Astral Realm pressure.

But Louisa wasn’t panicking. She glanced over the Vice Principal’s shoulder — toward the academy.

Her smile returned.

"Take your time," she murmured. "Every second you spend on me is a second my children spend inside your school."