I got into school for nothing - 311
I got into school for nothing (311)
Lesson 61. Innocent Criminal - 1
It was a sight like a phoenix and a human mixed half-and-half.
Flames, not merely crimson but closer to the color of blood, condensed to form its body. The Constellation's immense presence—which had felt abstract when it was a gigantic sun—now manifested as a tangible pressure, accompanied by searing heat, weighing down Ban Yuwon and the entire party.
It was the moment the winter that had visited the Prominence dimension vanished once more.
"Then, as promised."
Dokgo Yeon leaped, her single sword strike cleaving the heat and forging a path straight to the entity.
Dokgo Yeon, stepping lightly on empty air and rushing towards the Follower of Ten Thousand Kalpas plummeting from the sky, inspired awe not only in Ban Yuwon but in everyone present.
—Ha! You're just Murim trash that can't even enter a higher dimension...!
Sword and flame clashed.
The flames, burning as if to melt everything, extinguished the moment they met Dokgo Yeon's sword.
Dokgo Yeon, shocked, continued to charge forward after cleanly severing the Constellation's right shoulder. But the Constellation, perhaps realizing something, continuously spewed flames to fend off her aura, then brought down a foot raised high above her head.
—Wooooong!
There was no way Dokgo Yeon would be hit by such an obvious attack, but the problem lay in its aftermath.
Shati, who had neatly erased the heat and pressure pressing down on the atmosphere with her own Authority-induced explosion as the Constellation moved its leg, bared her teeth fiercely.
"What the hell is wrong with these Constellations...! When they were huge, at least the target was big!"
—Insolent worm, don't you dare dodge!
"You're just a braggart who got strong by dumb luck!"
—CRASH, BOOOOM!
The fierce exchange between Dokgo Yeon and the Constellation continued.
Dokgo Yeon's attacks never missed, but even her sword, which had once instantly brought death to everything, could only inflict shallow wounds on the Constellation. The Constellation's attacks, if they touched her even slightly, threatened to tear her apart instantly, but their movements were so grand that she could evade them all.
—I want what I want, so why do you, a mere wretch, stand in my way—!
"Your eyes are far too high for your station!"
The problem was the collateral damage.
Each time the Constellation rampaged, the ground shook as if an earthquake had struck, and heat capable of incinerating a person instantly continuously surged forth, forcing Shati to grit her teeth and snap her fingers repeatedly to counteract it.
"How does she dodge all that at such close range?! It's hard enough just reacting to it from afar!"
"Shati, keep up the suppression. I'm going to have to take a shot, if only out of spite."
Ban Yuwon's women, even if roughly, understood his feelings for Dokgo Yeon.
As if to prove his gaze, Dokgo Yeon bravely stepped forward and single-handedly blocked the Constellation's movements. This made Mira, thoroughly envious, pick up her bow, determined to contribute something.
She couldn't possibly affect flames of such insurmountable power with her Changeling, but a curse imbued with the Constellation's power... perhaps.
—Oh my, things got interesting over here~~.
"...The Gravedigger of Purgatory?"
At that moment, Mira's brows furrowed at the sudden voice of the Gravedigger of Purgatory.
"What's so interesting? If you were watching, give me more power."
—Sorry, I'm busy blocking this side right now, so I don't have any power to spare for you? Honestly, there's no slave as kind as me.
"Say something I can understand...!"
—Our cute Mira, hang in there. And tell your husband about me~~.
With those last words, the Constellation's presence completely vanished.
Just in case, she observed her body. The power the Constellation had given her hadn't disappeared, but her connection to it felt so faint, she wondered if her contract with the Gravedigger of Purgatory might just end here.
'Why...? Could it be that not just this Constellation is rampaging, but something has happened that would make all Constellations act strangely?'
How?
Who would dare affect the Constellations?
No, more importantly, not all Constellations would be in the same place...
Just as her mind began to get complicated with thoughts, she quickly regained her composure, seeing the Follower of Ten Thousand Kalpas once again spewing heat from above.
For now, destroying this cursed entity who had sided with the Prominence Family and tried to sacrifice the fairies was the priority.
"Hmph!"
But sadly, the arrow she shot evaporated and vanished in the heat swirling around the Constellation before it could even reach it.
Even though she had aimed for the brief moment Dokgo Yeon cleared the Constellation's heat, her power was insufficient to withstand even the entity's body heat.
Of course, the curse contained within the arrow remained intact and infiltrated the entity.
—Kuk...!
It was a mental curse similar to what Mira herself had once suffered.
While the Constellation emitted an aura that was physically and magically unapproachable, its behavior patterns had shown a subtle clumsiness until now, hadn't they?
It was an attack she attempted, thinking that if she delved into its mind, its unique childishness and obsession, which could even be compared to students at the Academy, might expose a weakness.
—What, why suddenly...? Nooooooo!
"Huh? Why is it reacting like that?"
But it was effective beyond Mira's wildest expectations.
The moment the curse took effect, the Constellation began to scream, clutching its head and spewing flames indiscriminately in every direction.
Mira's expression of surprise, even after firing the shot herself, was rather cute.
—No, no no no no no no! He couldn't have lied! Tell me I won't die, it can't be!
Flames burst forth like fireworks.
The fragments of the broken greatsword that had been floating in the air were struck, scattering into even smaller pieces.
"Hmm?"
It was astonishing that the mental barrier of a transcendent Constellation was so vulnerable, but considering that the Constellation had never manifested its true body before, the party was likely the first to discover this fact.
In any case, Dokgo Yeon wouldn't miss such a fatal opening.
Anticipating that the enemy would regain its senses the moment she attacked, she concentrated the maximum possible power into her short sword and thrust it into the Constellation's heart.
Concentrated death flowed through the sword, choking the entity.
—Kack, Haaaargh! I told you not to!
"Kuk?!"
But immediately after, Dokgo Yeon couldn't even pull out her short sword and had to quickly leap back, retreating into the air.
Perhaps her attack had triggered the Constellation's trauma; the entity let out a horrific, dying scream and erupted in full-body flames.
"Yeon!"
"...I'm fine, Yuwon."
Even though she had retreated the moment she perceived the attack, her right arm, which held the short sword, was burned black along with her clothes. Dokgo Yeon, after silently gazing at her arm for a moment, pulled out a Candy of Life she had carefully hidden in her sleeve, tossed it into her mouth, and bit down.
'Sweet. Like him...'
For a moment, Dokgo Yeon's melting expression changed back to its usual blankness as she registered the current situation.
A normal person, no matter how potent the Candy of Life, would not be able to regenerate a burned arm. But she was a martial artist who wielded ki.
As the charred outer skin on her arm, exposed where her clothes had disappeared below the shoulder, swiftly peeled away to reveal smooth, bare flesh, the onlookers could finally relax.
"It effortlessly pierced through my body-protecting Or. These Constellations..."
Dokgo Yeon keenly realized her own lack of skill in manipulating ki.
Body-protecting Or was an aura that protected the body.
Especially her Or was a technique close to an Authority that nullified attacking energy, fundamentally preventing injury. Yet, it had been easily breached, and her arm had been burned. She couldn't help but acknowledge the Constellation's sheer firepower.
No, rather, her ability to suppress the fire, only burning the skin and muscle in that situation, was remarkable.
The Constellation that had emitted such power, meanwhile, was screaming as if Dokgo Yeon was out of its mind.
—Don't kill me! Don't kill me! No, no! Don't trap me...! Let me out! You! I'll kill you! I'll definitely burn you to ash someday!
"A childish display."
Dokgo Yeon uttered, watching the Constellation's pathetic figure weeping with a gaping hole in its chest.
It was extremely regrettable that she had lost her cherished short sword to it.
Moreover, for an attack that sacrificed such a short sword to fail to completely silence the entity, there was no greater humiliation.
'Still, I can somehow kill it.'
When she first saw the sun-like entity floating in the sky, she had thought she might die there.
That had been an underestimation of her rapidly growing comrades.
Not only Rucell, but also the assistance of Mira and the fairies, and Asha's surprising growth in recreating a dragon's breath that even she couldn't block, were astonishing.
No, in Asha's case, it was less her own growth and more Ban Yuwon spoon-feeding her everything.
And, of course, she herself had grown—.
—Kuk, Kwaaaah!
After a brief moment of reflection, Dokgo Yeon, having finished her recovery, stretched out her right hand into the air, creating a sword composed of the energy of death. At that moment, the Constellation also showed a change.
Amazingly, it plunged its hand into the hole in its chest—then crushed 'something' inside.
—Kyaah!
Perhaps that 'something' was undoubtedly the source that both restrained and sustained it.
The Constellation's fading flames began to flare up explosively once more, but an unstable tremor could be detected from them.
—Finally... I'm regaining my senses.
The flames engulfing the Constellation once again transformed its appearance.
It was now almost human-like, with two large orbs floating and swirling around its torso instead of a right and left arm.
Dokgo Yeon had never seen it before, but it was similar to how the former head of the Prominence Family wielded orbs.
—Yes, it's been a while since I appeared in my true form, so I made a mistake. I showed a shameful side. It doesn't matter anyway, since I'll kill you all.
"Rest assured, you're quite shameful even now, you worm."
With those words, the sword she thrust out was blocked by the orb.
The entity tried to incinerate Dokgo Yeon then and there, but in the next moment, the sword it thought it had blocked had already sliced a long gash across its lower abdomen.
"I'll say it again."
Chest, leg, back, then head again.
Dokgo Yeon's momentum as she attacked the Constellation, as if to confirm how many stabs and slashes it would take to kill it, was chilling.
Though she had lost her sword, the sword of death, created by concentrating all the energy recovered from eating the Candy of Life, possessed even greater power than before, tearing off the entity's limbs one by one.
"You're just a braggart."
—Die!
An orb the size of a human head, wreathed in flames, flew towards her, but Dokgo Yeon was no longer there.
In the aerial battlefield, where death and flames raged, fine metallic particles scattered into the empty air.
The Constellation's gaze suddenly fixated on them.
What is this?
When did it start swirling around me?
—Yeon, that's enough.
"I wanted to finish it."
However, knowing that the power the Constellation wielded was so immense that if she continued, a glancing blow could cost her life.
Dokgo Yeon poured her remaining energy into her sword, hurled it, binding the entity in the air, and retreated from the battlefield.
—Kuk— Have you finally run out of power, you, of all worms—!
"Its name is, Downpour."
Responding to the Constellation's shout as it pulled out the sword plunged into its chest was not the retreating Dokgo Yeon, but Ban Yuwon on the ground.
The iron filings—no, the liquefied fragments of the greatsword, melted by the Constellation's flames, which had covered everything for an unknown duration—suddenly surged and pierced the Constellation.
The shattered greatsword, now countless fragments, had been moving under Ban Yuwon's control all this time.
—Haaah... agh...!
While Dokgo Yeon was fighting, piercing holes all over the Constellation's body, Ban Yuwon focused on resonating with the fragments of the shattered Stormrain Sword to unleash them all at once.
And now, those infinitesimally tiny particles, which had become liquid, flowed into and completely filled the holes in the entity's body, transforming it into a mass composed of metallic liquid.
Only then could Ban Yuwon be certain of victory.
"Phew, we barely won."
—Why... isn't it melting...?
"Well, it's because the owner of the Unquenchable Flame is on this side."
He didn't really want to explain the preliminary work that had been required to 'resonate' with Ban Yumi.
However, the Unquenchable Flame and Ban Yuwon's 'god-slaying power' were incredibly compatible, to the point of seeming capable of choking the Constellation's true body to death.
And on top of that—.
"Want me to lend you ice? Want to kiss me too?"
Aire, who was exhausted after her dragon-combined transformation had ended, seemed to read Ban Yuwon's mind and turned her head to him, asking. Ban Yuwon shook his head in response.
"No, thankfully, I have ice with me."
"..."
Ignoring Aire's gaze, he borrowed the ice magic of Frost Fortress, one of the components of the combined robot.
In addition, Adamantite, Starlight, Rebellion, and finally, Judgment.
He hurled Requiem, imbued with all these concepts, with all his might.
The sword, wreathed in cold ice, drew a straight line connecting the ground and the sky, embedding itself in the metallic mass at the end of its trajectory.
It froze the Flame Constellation whole.
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