Chapter 55: Anomalies

The mist was already beginning to dissipate when Caelus opened his eyes.

His right arm hung at his side. The sleeve had burned away from the elbow to the hand, leaving blackened flesh exposed beneath it. Heat still clung to his skin, and the smell of scorched cloth mixed unpleasantly with blood in the air.

Caelus looked at the damage.

The last candidate exploded.

He had reacted quickly enough to use Water Sheathe as a coating despite its intended use before the candidate detonated. The spell had absorbed part of the blast, but only part. Without it, his arm would have been considerably worse.

He flexed his fingers.

They moved.

That would have to do.

Caelus stepped through the thinning mist and began searching the bodies.

He found several low-grade potions, some food rations, and a handful of ordinary supplies.

He stored everything in the Ring.

Caelus uncorked one of the potions he’d taken and drank it. The taste was horrible, but he finished the first, then forced down the second before reconsidering whether whatever had been inside was worth swallowing. By the third, the combined smell of blood, scorched flesh, and cheap alchemy had begun turning his stomach.

He gagged and forced the potion down anyway.

Heat spread through his body, followed by a sharp ache that traveled from his stomach through his chest and into his limbs. The potion was doing its job, though whoever had brewed it apparently considered flavor an unnecessary expense.

Caelus clenched his teeth as a sound almost escaped him, then swallowed it.

His body had been running on adrenaline throughout the fight. Now that the danger had passed, the accumulated damage was making itself known.

He lurched toward a tree and lowered himself against the trunk. His breathing was uneven, so he drew air through his nose and released it slowly through his mouth while the potion worked through his system.

The shaking in his hands gradually subsided.

The pain remained.

Not even a week had passed, and someone had already tried to assassinate him.

Caelus stared through the thinning mist.

He felt uneasy, though not because ten people had tried to kill him. That part was almost straightforward. What bothered him was that none of it made sense.

His gaze returned to the bodies.

Something was wrong with every one of them.

He slowly stood and approached the nearest corpse, crouching to place a hand against its chest.

His eyes narrowed.

The Core was still there, but almost no mana remained within it. He checked another, then a third. The result was the same. Utterly drained.

A dead person’s Core didn’t simply lose all its mana the moment their life ended. The remaining mana would gradually dissipate, but the process took time. Depending on the person and the state of their core, it could take weeks or even months before it became completely empty.

These candidates had been alive less than an hour ago.

Their cores should still have held mana.

Yet there was almost nothing left.

This wasn’t normal.

It didn’t fit the Contractors either.

Contractor corruption left traces. The mana associated with it lingered in the body and accelerated decomposition, producing a decay that would have already been noticeable if enough time had passed.

There was no such trace here.

Just empty cores.

Caelus looked over the bodies again.

The Goddess’s warning returned to him with uncomfortable clarity.

Thy will eventually find you, and they won’t be restricted as I am.

So they were almost on him now?

He nearly laughed.

The Goddess had been vague about almost everything she’d told him, but apparently she had been generous enough to warn him that powerful beings wanted him dead too after failing to kill him.

The amusement disappeared as quickly as it came.

If something powerful enough to erase him could reach the mortal world without restriction, then this would have ended differently. None of these candidates would have been necessary. Caelus would already be dead.

Which meant the opposite was also possible.

Whatever was interfering with him was also restricted somehow.

He didn’t know how much, by what, or how many of them there were. That was enough to make the situation dangerous.

There was no point trying to fight something he couldn’t even identify.

He needed information first.

Caelus looked toward the horizon. The darkness was beginning to thin, and a pale line of dawn rested beyond the trees.

The world had already deviated from what he remembered. Whatever this was, it was another reminder that his old knowledge had become a guide rather than a rulebook.

He could worry about the rest later.

For now, there was still an examination to finish.

His eyes settled on the damaged forest ahead.

Rank one.

Everything else came after.

Caelus waited until his mana recovered to roughly a half of what he could currently hold. It took long enough to annoy him.

Then he stood.

His injured arm throbbed, but he ignored it. He made certain nothing had been overlooked, and continued walking toward the deeper part of the island.

---

On the observation platform, the examination continued.

The displays flickered across the chamber, each showing a different candidate fighting, running, hiding, or doing whatever else they had decided gave them the best chance of surviving.

Veyra stood behind the Headmaster.

She paid little attention to the majority of the screens. Most of them were predictable. Candidates fought monsters, some fought each other, and others formed groups that relied on cooperation.

The rankings changed constantly.

Eve remained in first.

Her score had climbed at a ridiculous pace, and unlike most high-ranking candidates, she was doing it alone.

Second belonged to Toren Valerius Vespera.

Third was the Hero.

Lucien had already formed a group and was hunting together with several other candidates, his performance steady rather than spectacular.

Caelus remained far below them.

Veyra’s eyes lingered on his display for a little longer.

A senior teacher suddenly stopped.

"Wait."

Several heads turned as the teacher stepped closer to one of the displays.

"Zoom in."

The image expanded.

Caelus stood in the middle of the forest.

Ten candidates surrounded him.

The teachers immediately recognized the situation.

"He can’t be serious."

"They’ve surrounded him."

"Ten?"

A few of the newer teachers exchanged looks. Caelus was already under suspicion because of his strange advancement and unexplained magic. Whatever confidence they had in him, ten mid-C-rank candidates attacking at once was another matter entirely.

One teacher shook his head.

"He’s done."

Veyra said nothing.

The display became blurry.

Something spread across the image.

Mist.

It erupted around Caelus and swallowed the surrounding forest.

Several teachers leaned closer.

"What is that?"

The candidates disappeared inside it.

Then one fell.

Another followed.

A third collapsed.

The display struggled to keep track of the movement. Blue flashes appeared through the fog, and a candidate stumbled out before being pulled back inside. Another dropped, then another.

The chamber became quiet.

Nobody could see Caelus clearly. They could only see the consequences of his movements.

One teacher slowly stood.

"He’s controlling the mist."

The Head of the Magic Department frowned.

The display shifted again. A candidate flew backward, while another collapsed without any visible attacker.

The fog moved with unnatural precision, forming shapes that resembled human silhouettes before dissolving again.

Then the display suddenly blurred.

A flash of white swallowed the image.

The candidate at Caelus’s hands exploded.

When the image stabilized, Caelus was still standing.

Fayer turned toward the Head of the Magic Department.

"Do you recognize the spells?"

The woman shook her head.

"No."

Her eyes remained fixed on the display.

"I recognize similarities in the structure of the Water spells, but they’re modified. The projectile spell is different, and that mist shouldn’t be capable of behaving like this."

Her expression tightened.

"Those silhouettes aren’t an ordinary effect."

Another flash crossed the screen.

A candidate disappeared.

The woman continued.

"Even if we ignore the modifications, he’s using them without incantations."

The implication was obvious.

"He shouldn’t be capable of that at his current level," another teacher said.

Someone behind them muttered, "I told you. He’s a Contractor."

Another teacher frowned at the display.

"Regardless of what he is, Caelus killed those students. Shouldn’t he be held accountable for that?"

Fayer turned his head toward him.

"Accountable for what? They surrounded him with ten people and attacked first. What exactly was he supposed to do, ask them to take turns?"

The teacher opened his mouth, but Fayer continued before he could answer.

"Those candidates were armed, trained, and clearly intent on killing him. If he had tried to restrain them and failed, you would be asking why he didn’t defend himself properly."

The teacher’s expression tightened, but he said nothing.

Fayer looked back at the display. "It was self-defense. Unless you have evidence that he started the fight, there’s nothing to discuss."

No one responded.

The Headmaster remained silent as well.

Since he had offered no objection, the matter was left where Fayer had put it. No one raised the issue again.

The Head of the Magic Department looked at Caelus’s display.

"Contractors experience abnormal increases in rank and mana."

She pointed at the display.

"Caelus did reach C rank in a remarkably short amount of time, but that alone isn’t enough. His advancement doesn’t show the abnormal surge in rank or mana associated with Contractor corruption."

The woman’s gaze remained fixed on Caelus’s display.

"The abnormality isn’t his rank. It’s his spell construction, his control, and the way he is using his perception in synergy with those spells."

She paused.

"And the calmness."

Nobody spoke.

"He shouldn’t be this composed while fighting ten people."

The teacher who had accused Caelus of being a Contractor folded his arms.

"That sounds worse to me."

The Magic Department Head didn’t disagree.

"This might be worse."

Whispers spread across the platform. Some watched Caelus with suspicion, others with interest, and a few with genuine concern.

Azrael remained silent, his eyes fixed on his brother’s display.

Caelus wasn’t fighting like someone who had stumbled into an ambush. He was dismantling it methodically.

Silence settled over the observation platform.

Fayer slowly turned toward the Headmaster.

The Headmaster had not moved. His attention remained on Caelus.

Veyra watched the display as well.

Pride touched her expression.

Not because Caelus had defeated ten people. She had never doubted that he could fight. It was because everyone around her had finally begun to see what she had noticed long before.

He was an anomaly.

Her disciple had walked into an examination filled with rules she understood and somehow found a way to turn them into something none of them recognized.

Veyra’s pride faded into thought.

She would need to have a talk with him. She wanted to know exactly what had happened in that forest, why those candidates had attacked him, where those spells had come from, and how he’d managed to survive whatever had happened at the end.

Her gaze remained on Caelus’s display.

Then her expression turned cold.

Whoever had dared to lay hands on her disciple had just made themselves her problem.

She would erase them.