Chapter 224: Escape [II]

The eastern exit was now open.

But, of course, escaping wasn’t going to be easy.

You see, the cyclops’ massive corpse had collapsed right in front of the exit gate — not fully blocking it, but still close enough that the retreating Cadets couldn’t exactly waltz through.

So they had to circumvent a mountain-sized corpse while undead abominations tried to barbecue them alive from all directions.

A strategic retreat was already one of the hardest maneuvers to pull off on any battlefield.

Now add undying fire monsters to the equation, and you’ve got yourself a lovely recipe for disaster.

And yet —

somehow

— we were pulling it off.

Squad leaders barked orders.

Top-ranking Cadets rallied groups of survivors and the injured.

Supporters who could enhance coordination linked Squads together like living communication towers.

It was still chaos. But it was a somewhat manageable mess now.

Cadets rushed past the fallen cyclops’ shoulder, some leaping over blackened debris, others dragging wounded friends.

Screams. Shouts. Roars. Explosions — all of it blended together into a single, suffocating tide of noise.

Meanwhile, Michael was kneeling beside Alexia. His palms were glowing faintly over her mangled arm.

"Okay, Alex, I’m doing the best I can," he said, voice calm but hurried. "We don’t have time for a full restoration. I’ll close the wounds, reinforce the bone — but you’ll probably have a few scars."

He sounded like a tailor apologizing for a rushed hemline.

Alexia raised a brow. "Do I look like I care about that stuff?"

Michael was about to make a joke about noblewomen and vanity — how seriously those elite girls take their appearances...

But then he actually looked at her face. At the ash stuck to her cheeks. Then at her still-smoking hair.

"...Right," he muttered. "My bad."

I leaned slightly over the cyclops’ shoulder, peering past the jagged ridge of its collarbone.

The retreat path curved around its ribs, sloping down toward the eastern gate.

From here, I had a clear view of the right flank — and the mess unfolding there.

A handful of Brawlers and Scouts were falling behind. They’d been covering the others, holding off the

Lesser

Solbraiths that were swarming in from the sides.

One of them — a noble girl I vaguely recognized — stumbled. Her foot caught on a cracked slab of cobble. She hit the ground hard, rolled once, and didn’t get up fast enough.

A

Lesser

Solbraith lunged for her. Its jaw stretched wide, fire bubbling between rows of bone-black teeth.

She looked up.

And I knew — she wouldn’t be able to do anything in time.

So I moved.

My Origin Card flashed into existence above me.

Almost immediately, the ground beneath the monster convulsed — and a massive earthen hand erupted upward.

It snatched the Solbraith mid-pounce, the monster’s molten body thrashing violently in the stone grip.

Then, without a second thought, I commanded the hand to hurl the creature across the plaza — straight into a different pack of Solbraiths closing in on another Squad.

The sound of burning flesh colliding with burning flesh was oddly satisfying.

The girl on the ground just stared at me, eyes wide with disbelief.

The squad I’d just saved turned as well. One of them pointed at me, looking utterly speechless.

"Move!" I shouted, nodding toward the exit.

They didn’t need to be told twice.

They joined the others and raced out of the plaza.

But I didn’t stop there.

I conjured more stone hands, one after another — shackling, grabbing, and flinging monsters wherever I could.

I tried to keep as many Cadets from being turned into charcoal as possible.

And I helped a lot of them escape.

But, as much as I’d love to claim otherwise...

I wasn’t an all-powerful god.

Sometimes I reacted too slow.

Other times, they were too far outside the range of my ability.

And occasionally, I had to choose — who to save... and who not to.

For every Cadet I managed to pull to safety, two more died deaths so gruesome they chilled even me.

My breath came out sharp. My fingers trembled from exhaustion. The Essence I’d absorbed from the cyclops was already burning away faster than I could manage.

By then, Michael had just finished healing Alexia’s arm.

"There," he exhaled, his face slick with sweat. "That should hold it together. Now join the others and get out of here."

Alexia stood, flexed her fingers, and frowned up at him. "I can help with the retreat."

"Nope," I chipped in. "You’re in no condition to help."

She opened her mouth to argue—

But Michael cut in, "He’s right. And beyond the injuries, I can tell you’re painfully out of strength

and

Essence."

"But you both are in no better shape either!" she shot back, scowling.

"We’re [

B-rank

]," I said, gripping Aurieth tighter in my hand. "We get to be hypocrites. Come back and complain when you’re on our level."

"T-That’s not how that works," she muttered.

Michael raised a finger. "Actually, that’s exactly how it works. Welcome to the Awakened hierarchy."

Before she could respond with another bout of defiance... a thundering tremor rippled beneath our feet.

Then a long, echoing howl followed.

It was the kind of howl that freezes your blood and reminds your

fight-or-flight

response that there’s a third option:

freeze and hope whatever monster made that sound eats someone else first.

I turned toward the plaza’s center.

And there, lumbering through the broken columns and collapsed ruins at the far end, was another

Greater

Spirit Beast.

It looked like a dog... if dogs were the size of fortresses and had three heads with bodies made of obsidian and smoke. Liquid fire oozed from between its rock-like plates. Lava hissed between its claws with every step.

Each of its many eyes glowed like twin furnaces of hatred and locked on the cluster of retreating Cadets ahead of it.

It wasn’t even rushing to kill them.

It didn’t need to.

It knew it was fast enough.

And the Cadets ahead of it weren’t.

"Fuck," Michael muttered. "It’s coming this way."

I nodded grimly. "Alexia. Get out."

She looked like she wanted to argue again.

But she didn’t get the chance to even open her mouth this time.

Because I conjured an earthen hand behind her to grab her by the leg, spin her around, and yeet her toward the exit — like throwing out a stubborn cat that refused to leave the kitchen during a fire.

She yelped midair. "Samael, you

absolute

—!"

But her voice was drowned by the chaos, so I didn’t hear whatever unladylike curses she threw at me.

Michael activated his Origin Card.

The wind roared around us.

Ash fell like black snow.

And the three-headed colossus of a dog opened its maws and unleashed a wave of hellfire, incinerating everyone in front of it. Around twenty Cadets were burned to a crisp right before our eyes in an instant.

"So what’s the plan?" Michael gulped. "And please,

please

tell me you have a plan."

I shrugged. "It’s too strong. Probably stronger than the cyclops. And it has no obvious weakness."

"I

hate

where this plan is going," Michael whispered in a way that could’ve been a sob.

"I’m low on Essence," I said. "Not enough to fight. But I can conjure twenty — maybe thirty — earthen hands. I’ll use them all to start launching Cadets toward the exit, like I did with Alexia."

"You... want to start throwing people?" Michael blinked.

"You’ll copy my ability and do the same," I continued. "We can evacuate at least eighty people if we act fast."

Michael stared at me like I’d just proposed murdering them instead. "Samael, they’ll

break bones

! Not everyone can reinforce their bodies like Alexia!"

"I don’t care if they break their damn

skulls

," I replied flatly. "They’ll live to cry about it."

Honestly, it wasn’t a careless suggestion.

Yes, I knew launching people like ragdolls could injure them — I was familiar with how gravity works — and yes, that might lower their survival chances if they had to keep fighting after escaping.

But I had my reasons.

In the game, once the massacre began, it took Selene roughly thirty minutes to suppress the numerous

Ancient

and

Unholy

Solbraiths she was up against.

And then, the moment she got an opening, she teleported the Cadets away to the

Golden Sanctuary

.

Now when the massacre started here, there were about five hundred Cadets in the plaza.

The rest were eliminated during the test — so I had no doubt most of them were already taken to safety. Some might’ve even made it back to the Night Castle in time.

By now, around twenty-five minutes had passed.

Over two hundred Cadets were already dead... or

undead

, since they’d been turned into Solbraiths.

Which meant maybe three hundred were still alive. Well — a little less than that.

Maybe a lot less.

And about half of those had already evacuated.

So if I could save just a few more — fifty, maybe even a hundred — I could keep the death toll from hitting the same number it did in the original story.

In hindsight, this was a terrible day to start the massacre.

That’s why Samael triggered this event the day

after

the test in the game.

But regardless... I just needed to save a few more.

Just a few.

And then, after five minutes, Selene would be able to teleport us all out of this hell.

Just five more minutes.

We just had to survive until then.