Chapter 60: The One Who Wrote Fate

From the beginning of the battle until now, he had neither attacked again nor tried to escape. He had only watched.

That gaze... Victor did not like it at all because it felt as though the man was verifying some kind of data.

"Have you seen enough?" he asked.

The man’s face had already grown pale from blood loss, yet he suddenly smiled. "Enough."

"Then it’s my turn to ask questions." Victor slowly approached. "Who are you?"

"Not Ron, definitely." The man smirked.

"I know that already."

"You know?" The man’s eyes widened in shock.

"You’re only using his body," Victor pointed out. "Or perhaps you copied it. But the mind is not his."

After a moment of silence, the man smiled bitterly.

"It seems the thing attached to you... is even more troublesome than we anticipated."

It was quite easy for Victor to tell that this person was referring to his System. The other party did not know what it was. They only knew Victor possessed some abnormal ability.

’Good.’

...At least things had not deteriorated to the point where everyone knew about the System.

"Second question," Victor continued. "Why do you possess Elena Vane’s authorization?"

The man looked away.

"Third question. What is beneath the Seventh Trial Ground?"

Still no answer.

"Fourth question. Who were you originally planning to target during the freshman assessment... Ryan?"

This time, a distinct fluctuation appeared in the man’s pupils.

Although the reaction lasted only an instant, with Combat Intuition and Victor watching his expression so closely, there was no possibility of missing it.

"Your original target was Ryan Carter. Then Leah awakened, and you switched your target to her at the last moment."

"You know too much," the man spoke through gritted teeth.

Ignoring him, Victor continued. "Did you also tamper with Grant Carter’s academy director authorization? He is still in the Western Territory, but seven days ago, someone used his soul bound authorization to submit an adjustment plan for the assessment. You can even bypass authorization of that level. Combined with Elena’s old research privileges..."

Victor looked at the face belonging to Ron.

"The thing you excel at most is forging someone’s identity, right down to the ’proof that a person once existed.’"

At this point, the fake Ron’s face had completely turned dark, and his eyes seemed to hold countless questions.

Evelyn slowly frowned as she finally understood the severity of the problem.

If an organization could reactivate a dead person’s authorization, make a living person’s soul bound authorization record appear thousands of kilometers away, and even cause someone possessing a completely identical body and appearance to appear inside the academy, then whoever they wanted to make "appear" or "disappear" could be placed in extreme danger.

With such an ability, it wasn’t even a stretch to say they could forge the identity of a king and wage war with neighboring kingdoms!

Realizing all this, Evelyn felt a cold chill run down her spine. The way she looked at this person changed.

Victor’s thoughts were no different from Evelyn’s, but unlike her, he could perfectly keep his emotions in check.

"Take them back," he suddenly said.

Evelyn paused. "Which ones?"

"All of them."

"What about the dead ones?" She looked toward the four corpses unloaded from the transport vehicle.

Victor looked at them as well. "Take those too."

Sometimes, the dead were more honest than the living. At the very least, corpses could not fabricate stories.

The one armed man suddenly laughed aloud. "Take us back?"

Victor stopped walking, his heart rate speeding up because Combat Intuition had suddenly transmitted an intense warning.

At first, he was confused, as the feeling was vague. The next moment, his eyes suddenly widened in horror.

"Evelyn! Get back!"

Boom!

Almost simultaneously, an extremely strange gray black mana erupted from within the man. Countless thin black lines appeared beneath his skin, spreading outward from his heart throughout his entire body.

[Warning!]

[High level soul binding spell detected!]

[Target’s mental structure is being forcibly destroyed!]

They were silencing him!

Victor’s expression changed sharply!

"Mana Devour!"

He charged forward and planted his left hand directly against the man’s chest.

System warnings flashed madly.

[High risk mental energy detected!]

[Current probability of successful Mana Devour decomposition: 71%.]

"Devour!"

Boom!

The gray black mana was forcibly torn out of the man, causing his entire body to convulse violently.

[Decomposing unknown soul energy.]

[Decomposition successful!]

[High quality special energy obtained: Soul Curse Energy.]

[Mana Devour evolution condition updated!]

[High quality special energy: 1/3.]

Victor noticed the change in the evolution conditions, but there was no time to dwell on it. It was not over yet. He had only devoured the outer layer of cursed energy, while the core spell binding the man’s soul was still collapsing.

[Warning!]

[Target’s memories are being rapidly destroyed.]

"Stop!"

Mana Devour activated at full strength, and large quantities of gray black energy were continuously extracted.

[Soul Resistance Fragment +1.]

[Soul Resistance Fragment +1.]

[Soul Resistance Fragment +2.]

But the light in the man’s eyes continued to fade.

He stared at Victor, who was standing only inches away, and suddenly spoke in a voice that only the two of them could hear.

"You think... you’re fighting against fate?"

Victor pressed firmly against his chest, applying more pressure with his skill. "What do you mean?"

Blood began flowing from the corner of the man’s mouth.

"You haven’t even met... the person who truly... wrote fate."

Snap!

As the final syllable fell, the man’s pupils completely lost focus.

[Target’s mental structure has collapsed.]

[Deceased.]

For several seconds, Victor’s hand remained on him. Mana Devour was still operating, but it was already meaningless. The remaining gray black curse energy was nothing more than uncontrolled, ownerless energy.

Some time later, another System notification appeared.

[Special unit deceased.]

[Residual soul information detected.]

[Consume 2 Investment Points to conduct reverse analysis?]

"Analyze."

[Investment Points: -2.]

[Current Investment Points: 6.]

The System forcibly captured countless faint mental fragments. The images were extremely broken, with almost no complete memory among them.

There was a dark corridor. Twelve doors. A silver gray mask. An academy map that had been half consumed by flames.

And... a name.

[Elena.]

The images flickered, and Victor seemed to see a woman lying inside some kind of transparent cultivation chamber, but the image was too blurry for him to see her face.

In the next instant, the entire image shattered.

[Analysis concluded.]

[Insufficient valid information.]

[Keywords obtained: Soul Vessel, Experimental Zone Twelve, Astral Compatibility, Elena.]

While he was looking at the screen, Evelyn approached him. "Is he dead?"

"Yes."

"What about the other three..." She turned around, and her expression changed sharply.

The Heavy Blade Warrior, Hexcaster, and assassin, who had already lost their ability to fight, were convulsing as well.

"Damn it."

Victor quickly rushed toward them, but this time, it happened even faster. Blood poured from all seven orifices of the three men almost simultaneously, and their mental fluctuations vanished instantly.

[Target deceased.]

[Target deceased.]

[Target deceased.]

The entire surrounding area fell silent once more, leaving only the scraping sound of wind blowing across sheet metal and broken stone.

Evelyn stared at the corpses on the ground. "They never intended to return alive from the beginning, did they?"

Victor stared at the corpses with a complicated expression. After a few seconds, he finally said, "Not necessarily. More likely, the person behind them refused to allow them to be captured."

Evelyn remained silent for several seconds, simply staring at the three corpses. She clenched and unclenched her fist as if struggling with something.

"Victor," she suddenly called out.

"Hmm."

"What that man said just now... that I would die next spring." She paused and then turned to him. "Was it true?"