Magic Academy's Bastard Instructor

Chapter 213: Ruination [2]

Who was Telos Alexander IX?

To the people of the Sanctis Theocracy, he was the benevolent pope.

A man of divine authority, a shepherd to the faithful, and a symbol of devotion to the Doctrine of Lumine. His sermons moved millions, and his mere appearance calmed the hearts of paladins, nobles, and beggars alike.

However, for a man whose benevolent heart had once adopted a child accused of being a demon from some forgotten rural village, and another, a little girl who had fallen victim to the sinister rites of heretical priests, how had he fallen out of favor with the very two children he had once saved?

Aston and Selena.

The answer was, in truth, painfully simple.

It was perspective.

The moment Telos Alexander IX ascended to the highest seat of power within the Theocracy, his love for the children he raised slowly gave way to a twisted sense of devotion to the Holy Goddess Lumine.

Of course, the pope was not blind to the suffering of the world. He knew well of the cult who dared stand against the Doctrine of Lumine had begun to rise.

And that knowledge, in time, turned to fear.

As time went on, he saw Aston not as a son, but as a vessel meant to enact divine punishment. A tool whose blade was meant to cleanse the world of impurity.

He saw Selena not as a daughter, but as a miracle saved from the clutches of evil, a sacred idol of salvation to be held high before the masses.

But never again as children.

He had placed halos on their heads, and chained them to roles neither of them ever asked for, afraid of falling out of favor with the Holy Goddess.

To Telos, the two children became his assurance. His guarantee that the cult would never touch him and never corrupt the sanctity of the Theocracy.

But there was one thing the pope had overlooked.

In his blind devotion, he had failed to see that even the most faithful could waver in their beliefs.

Even they could be swayed by Araxys’s sweet, insidious whispers.

For faith, no matter how strong, was not without flaw. It was built on hope, fear, and longing. And those very things, in the wrong hands, became weapons. A

Telos Alexander IX had tried to raise icons of light.

But in doing so, he had forgotten that light casts shadows.

And the deeper the devotion, the darker the shadow it left behind.

“Farewell, Your Holiness.”

Just like that, Telos Alexander IX, the pope, and the most revered holy man in the world, fell to the clutches of the very heretics he once believed to be Lumine’s faithful children.

The gravest mistake he had ever made was not in trusting the wrong people, nor even in placing too much faith in the Goddess.

It was that he refused to believe that those who claimed to serve Lumine could be anything but pure.

Blind faith was not salvation.

It was damnation disguised in light.

* * *

To Aston, it was clear what the dark mages were after. Their target could only be the Saintess.

It seemed Vanitas Astrea’s words had been true all along. However that man had obtained his information, there was no longer any room left to doubt him.

As much as the demonic miasma that emanated from him made Aston’s skin crawl, if Soliette was truly unavailable, then Vanitas Astrea was the next best option, though he hated to admit it.

From what Cardinal Izza had observed, the man in front of them was the pope, or at least, he used to be.

Because now, it was not.

The body belonged to Telos Alexander IX, but the soul had been extinguished, replaced by someone else entirely.

Aston could only grit his teeth, feeling the divine seal burn inside out.

——Give me the wheels, you useless shit! They’ll kill Selena at this rate!

Izza’s voice echoed in his head. Aston, despite the heat surging in his veins and the pride clawing at his resolve for being far too incompetent, clenched his fists and relented.

He closed his eyes.

In that moment, the light in his eyes shifted.

The deep ocean blue of Aston’s irises drained away, replaced by an ominous hue of gold. The air became saturated with pressure, as if the laws of the world had overwritten, recognizing the one taking control.

The next second, Izza had taken over.

The Sword Saint of a forgotten era known only as the Dawn of War, a time where peace wasn’t even in the vocabulary.

At that time, Empires rose and fell in the span of weeks, and kings were nothing more than glorified corpses waiting their turn.

By comparison, Aston, despite being hailed as the strongest of the current age, was a far cry from Izza’s level.

It was the difference between two upbringings. One, a child raised by the horrors of endless war. The other, a boy groomed in an age of peace and diplomacy,

And that difference showed.

The divine seal, meant to keep the Sword Saint shackled, barely managed to restrain him.

Even now, it burned through Aston’s body from within. Any other man would’ve collapsed, writhing in agony. But Izza managed to stand as if the pain meant nothing.

Of course, that wasn’t the truth.

It was agonizing. A torment so intense it felt like his very soul was being branded. And even Izza couldn’t hold his tongue.

“Holy fucking piece of—”

But he cut off mid-curse as spells came flying toward him. In that moment, a paladin charged forward and swung his blade. Izza, despite the pain, managed to move his arm just enough to deflect the strike.

Clang——!

At the same time, however, the paladin landed a clean kick to Izza’s abdomen, driving the air from his lungs and forcing him a step back.

“Fuck you, Aston! What kind of idiot doesn’t read the terms of a contract?!” Izza snarled, feeling the pain intensifying deeper into him with each passing second.

——I was nine, you shit! Watch out!

Izza ducked just as Aston’s voice rang out in his head, narrowly avoiding another incoming strike.

Without wasting a moment, Izza slammed his fist into the ground.

Boom——!

Divine energy burst forth from the impact and shattered the battlefield, shattering the immediate surroundings.

Truthfully, he could barely even lift his sword anymore. The weight of it only slowed him down. It was dead weight now, and Izza didn’t have the strength to drag it around.

So he abandoned it.

Kicking off the cracked earth, he launched himself forward with such explosive speed that the paladin couldn’t react in time. Izza’s fist drove upward with all the power he could muster.

———!

The strike, aimed cleanly at the jaw and delivered with such blinding speed, was impossible to track. In an instant, the paladin’s head was torn from his shoulders and ripped off clean.

Not wasting time, the false Pope slammed his staff into the ground once more, intensifying the divine seal.

Waves of radiant pressure spread out across the battlefield. It slowed Izza down, but not nearly enough to stop him.

Even under that suffocating restriction, Izza cut through the enemy ranks brutally, killing dark mages and paladins one after another.

Such was the strength of the strongest. Even while restrained by a glaring handicap, the attackers couldn’t close the gap.

They tried, again and again, only to be struck down before they could act.

“Useless!” the Pope roared.

And at that very moment, the corpses scattered across the field began to twitch. One by one, the dead started to rise.

Izza’s eyes narrowed as he came to a halt. “Necromancy….”

Perhaps it was the pain, or the continuous wave of enemies keeping him occupied, but Izza hadn’t noticed until now that the Saintess had joined the battle.

Selena stood not far behind, unleashing divine energy that erupted in bursts toward the nearby dark mages.

“What are you still doing here, Saintess?!” Izza bellowed.

“A-Ah?!” Selena flinched, startled by his tone.

“Just go!”

“B-But, you—”

“He promised you, didn’t he?” Izza snapped. “He’ll protect everyone. So just go!”

Selena’s gaze alternated between the orphanage behind them and Izza. He looked just like Aston, but his voice was rough and nothing like the man she knew growing up.

He sounded more like a mercenary who would sooner kill her than protect her, not a Sword Saint.

Still, behind the orphanage’s windows, she could see the children and the nuns staring out with worry etched across their faces.

They had already finished preparing to escape alongside her and Aston. Yet the moment they’d seen the battle unfold just outside, they had frozen in place.

Selena bit her lip.

Then, shaking her head, she whispered, “Please take care of Aston,” before turning and sprinting toward the orphanage.

A bitter smile crept onto Izza’s face as he watched her retreating figure.

“If I had a beauty worrying about me like that, I would’ve chosen to live far longer.”

——…Don’t talk about the Saintess like that. Behind you!

At Aston’s sudden warning, a flash of steel swept toward Izza’s neck. He leaned back as the blade grazed his cheek, drawing a thin line of blood.

The attacker, a resurrected paladin whose armor still bore the symbol of the Theocracy, lunged again. Izza caught the next swing with his forearm, grunting as divine energy empowered his bones.

He clenched his fist and, with an upward hook, shattered the knight’s jaw and sent the corpse flying, crashing into a broken pillar not long after.

“Cheap tricks won’t work,” Izza growled. “I’ve fought worse than corpses.”

More of the dead were rising now, slowly staggering to their feet.

“….”

His gaze fell on the pope.

To these heretics, consuming the Sword Saint was an impossible feat, just as the prophet Fyodor had warned.

Izza’s soul residing within Aston’s body made possession entirely unfeasible. The same applied to the Saintess, whose raw divine energy far surpassed both, rendering any attempt at control utterly useless.

Because of that, the only logical path conclusion was to reign in the man known as the strongest by targeting the one who held the leash on him in the first place.

The Pope.

Currently, a dark mage infamous for his mastery of necromancy had taken that route.

He had once been a respected professor at the Viridian University Tower, an institution second only to the prestigious Silver University Tower.

However, labeled incompetent further in his career, he was pushed to the margins, leading to his fall.

Tempted by promises of power and a place in the future Araxys sought to build, he turned to forbidden arts. Forsaking his old title, he pledged allegiance to Araxys and was reborn as one of their spies.

Izza scrunched his brows. His hearing was beginning to fade as a dull ringing was building in his ears, blood trickling down from them.

“….”

* * *

Upon entering the orphanage, the panicked nuns immediately gathered around Selena. The children clung to their robes, clearly scared of the situation as they asked if they were going to be okay.

Selena did her best to calm them, offering words of reassurance as she quickly outlined a plan to escape through the back door.

With urgency tightening in her chest, she clasped her hands in prayer.

A surge of divine energy burst from her body. Through that energy, she extended her senses and searched for any remaining pulses within the building, ensuring no child had been left behind.

At the same time, she scanned for hidden enemies lurking nearby. Finding nothing, Selena gave a firm nod to the nuns and led the way to the back exit.

There were nineteen children in total, and six nuns. It was a large group that would be difficult to move quickly, but they all readily followed her.

Selena swallowed hard, pushing down the fear that clawed at her throat. She couldn’t afford to think about what might happen if the Sword Saint lost.

With the lives of people she considered family resting in her hands, Selena pressed forward and led them through.

The children clutched the hems of the nuns out of habit. Some of them were still too young to understand the danger, while the others were old enough that the terror was evident in their eyes.

Selena moved at the front with her divine energy, ready to respond at the first sign of danger.

Every time she glanced back to make sure they were still together, she forced a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

It was then, where the sounds of battle no longer reached them, that someone appeared ahead.

Selena’s body moved on instinct. She raised her arm, motioning for the others to stop, shielding the mass of nuns and children behind her.

“How wonderful for the Holy Goddess herself to bless us with her beloved daughter.”

It was difficult to tell whether the figure was a man or a woman. He appeared male, perhaps, but at the same time, he seemed like a delicate beauty, with long black hair cascading down his back and eyes gleaming with an incomprehensible hue. Perhaps gray, perhaps silver.

He approached them slowly with his hands folded at his waist, offering a tranquil smile that carried no malice, yet offered no comfort either.

There was a strange sense of peace surrounding him.

But Selena had a bad feeling. She did not see this encounter in any of her divine revelations, and that made it more terrifying.

The man stepped forward, clasping his hands together as though in prayer.

“The winds sing of change. Do you hear it, daughter of light? Even the stars above pause in anticipation, for her divine will shall soon be fulfilled. The chains of false mercy are weakening. Salvation… true salvation… draws near.”

Selena’s fingers twitched, sensing the chill in the air that hadn’t been there moments ago.

The stranger’s smile widened.

“And here you are, bearing Her light… walking straight into the dusk. How divine. Truly divine!”

Unbeknownst to her, the man standing before them was the very prophet who had walked the lands before even the late Emperor Decadien was born.

Fyodor, Araxys’s supposed messenger.

* * *

Vanitas clenched his fist and narrowed his eyes.

“….Saintess.”

Magic sparked at his fingertips, ready to strike in an instant.

Selena flinched at the sight, her body instinctively curling back in fear. “M-Marquess…! P-Please, calm down for a moment!”

“How could you, the Saintess, step on the Sword Saint’s boot while dancing, then flee from your own inauguration?”

“Y-Yes?! W-What?!” Selena stammered, her eyes widening at the sudden question. “I never danced with the Sword Saint! I chose you!”

Vanitas exhaled, slowly easing his hand as the mana around his fingers faded, realizing there was no body swap or third-party manipulation. He didn’t know the Saintess was immune to such power.

“I see.”

Vanitas straightened in his seat.

“Apologies. I simply needed to confirm whether I had let a beast into my home.”

“A-Ah….”

“Then, what happened next?”

Selena’s face paled as she remembered the encounter with that man.

Her voice shook. “He let me go… I was able to escape…”

“You?” Vanitas’s eyes narrowed. “What about the children? The nuns?”

“….”

Selena couldn’t speak. Her throat tightened as she swallowed hard, lowering her gaze.

Vanitas closed his eyes. Her silence was answer enough of what had happened.

“….”

….Everyone but Selena had been slaughtered.