The Academy’s Ankle Reaper – Chapter 406

Even though I was throwing a fit as if nothing were wrong, the truth is I didn’t fully grasp what was happening.

I knew that I had been ambushed by Satan and ended up dead, but after seeing the light and waking up again, there I was.

In the center of the Chapel of Castle Raoul Cathedral, I came to my senses among a crowd of people, noticing that the hole in my chest was completely healed and that the ‘Rewinding Clock’ I had seen in the light was now resting atop my chest.

“I really have opened my eyes!!!”

“My goodness… I never thought I’d witness such a miracle…”

Voices of others echoed in my head.

Seeing the flowers scattered around as a sign of mourning made me believe that I really had died once.

Could it be that what I saw just a moment ago wasn’t a dream?

“Stop worrying me!”

The Saintess hugged me as I blankly looked around.

After just returning from the River Styx, feeling paradise right away seems a bit extravagant, doesn’t it?

“I think I’ve seen the afterlife or something.”

“I knew you wouldn’t go over there.”

“You knew?”

“I received a revelation. I kept hearing that there was no plan to call you back yet.”

It seems the Saintess, who supposedly hears her parent’s voice closer than even the Pope, hears such things too.

“You knew that while crying for me? Thank you.”

“I really didn’t know!!”

Though she said that, tear stains were clearly visible on Carmel’s face hidden beneath the veil.

“… Looks like the clock is broken.”

“Yeah, it won’t be usable anymore. But Atlas is back, so that’s what matters.”

The Rewinding Clock was damaged beyond repair.

The hourglass in the center was intact, but all the other parts were cracked and broken, unable to shine like before.

The light I had passed through flitted to my mind.

This was an opportunity from Hayden.

“I just spoke to that guy who’s always been by your side.”

“You talked?”

“Yeah.”

I wanted to say more, but an ominous feeling crept down my spine.

“Something might have happened at the Academy… or elsewhere as well. Can you try to make contact, and offer support where there’s no response?”

“Where do you think you’re going, just after coming back to life?!”

As soon as my eyes opened, the Saintess gripped my arm in alarm when I tried to get up right away.

She probably wanted to ask why I was trying to leave.

“Am I really supposed to go?”

I pointed to my chest.

“I need to repay this.”

.

.

.

As soon as I woke up, feeling the chills, I arrived to find the Academy was once again caught in a strange incident.

Hellfire was burning all around, and Holy Knights were facing off against the monsters of the Black Forest, making it look like the end of the world.

As I feared, it seemed Satan had ordered a full-scale war as soon as he returned.

“Uh… wha…??”

It wasn’t just Asmodeus staring at me as if I were a ghost.

Everyone, like Casey and River, who were fighting fiercely against the hellfire, looked at me in bewilderment.

They gazed as if they were seeing a ghost.

[Didn’t Satan crush that heart? Tsk, I knew I shouldn’t trust anything! No… This is perfect timing. I should have ended you with my own hands!]

The grotesque giant, formed by the swarm of demons, looked up at me while its severed leg reformed.

It seems that guy has been blabbing about me dying all over the place.

I recognized the twisted shape of the demons tangled together, as I had certainly seen it before.

“Are you Asmodeus? No… it feels more like that ‘Atlas’ guy talking. What are you doing?”

[I am… Asmodeus. No… I am Atlas!! I’ve returned to take my revenge!]

Though it looked like Asmodeus, when it introduced itself, it seemed like the Atlas from another world that I had missed before.

The voice and manner of speaking mixed together, making me wonder if something had gone wrong.

But knowing that much was enough.

“Revenge, huh? Sounds good.”

Is Atlas really Atlas? The Atlas from another world, amusingly enough, shared my feelings.

That guy wants to finish me off, but so do I.

I was extremely upset the last time I let him slip away, and now I even had Asmodeus, who had once burned me with hellfire? Even better.

“A little rehabilitation should be enough.”

[Hmph… Is the burn all healed up? I remember your pathetic form trying to escape hell!!]

“Earlier you called yourself Atlas, and now you’re back to Asmodeus?”

The Atlas from another world seemed to be in a bizarre state.

It was giving off the unmistakable presence of a Great Demon, yet its full consciousness as a Great Demon wasn’t there.

It felt like the consciousness of both the contractor and the Great Demon had become mixed up.

I don’t know exactly what caused it, but one thing is certain: physically, it’s definitely Asmodeus’s true body.

That means killing this guy is the same as killing Asmodeus.

“Hey, little guy. Have your horns grown back? This time I’ll cut the other side as well.”

[Horns… horns!!! Where the hell did you put my horns, you bastard!!!]

Asmodeus recovered its legs and hurled hellfire at me.

The red hellfire surged toward me as if it were alive, charging in unison.

Last time I had quite a bit of trouble with that hellfire.

In the middle of hell, everything was filled with hellfire, maximizing Asmodeus’s powers to control it.

But this time, coincidentally, I had no intention of getting caught as before.

This isn’t hell.

“A Great Demon should be holed up in hell rather than crawling out into other worlds, thinking it’s something special!!!”

Gathering my aura with all my strength, I struck down on the hellfire summoned by Asmodeus.

Light flared as suddenly, the hellfire and Asmodeus were cut apart neatly.

[Huh… that was nothing. It felt like a fly landed on me!!]

Asmodeus, now cut in half, tried to act cool and threw hellfire at me again, but deep down it was probably anxious.

Though its body split, Asmodeus’s true form was not like I had seen before; it was the swarm of demons that it controlled.

Unlike other types, when that swarm gets cut, they don’t actually die; they just switch the broken parts out, allowing them to return to their original form with less effort, but getting sliced in half is a different issue entirely.

If the swarms couldn’t reduce their power and were cut in one go, it meant that if I wasn’t careful, the true form hiding inside could take direct hits from this dreadful attack.

‘The intensity feels similar to before. Not much to it.’

Of course, that previous attack was not meant to kill me in one go; it was probably a procedure to check how much it had grown while I was away.

[Nobody… nobody can ignore me!! Look at me, I’m this big! This is my true form! Don’t look down on me!]

Continuing to clash with a Great Demon, Atlas from another world seemed to be mumbling incoherently, possibly because his mind was tainted.

How ironic that he ended up contracting with a small Asmodeus as the true form, being pulled into another world; his life must be rather pathetic.

Well, I don’t feel any sympathy for a trash who made a contract with a demon in his original world either.

“Really looks ugly.”

Even with my linear attacks, his true form kept trying to flee.

I could keep cycling this until all the demons in the swarm were dead, but I remembered that’s what I did the last time to replenish other demons.

The Aura Blade’s moves began to shift from linear to more surface area.

-Kwaaaang!!!

[Wh-what?!!!]

The true strike unleashed a storm of cuts.

While a massive mountain range appears as a singular entity, countless peaks exist within it, and it seemed as though Asmodeus’s body was being cut down rather than simply sliced away.

[What the… what kind of swordsmanship is that!! A greatsword is supposed to hold the enemy down with slow attacks!!]

“This is also a mountain’s swordsmanship, and you don’t know that?”

[Wha…?]

The other-worldly Atlas recoiled in shock at the unfamiliar wounds.

They said that the Aura Blade would create a reverse field on the body of a greatsword, and originally, that reverse field would usually cling to the opponent and crush them, but that’s common sense only for experts.

True vision swordsmanship shows its real power only when it’s used by a master.

“Are you running away again? Is it really fitting for a so-called Heir of the Titan to flee to the Academy without even inheriting swordsmanship?”

Asmodeus, or rather ‘Atlas,’ who had been retreating, suddenly stopped.

[Wh… what? Say that again!!! What did you just call me?!!!]

The swarm of demons protecting him had been largely eliminated.

I was still unscathed, and they were both on the defensive.

Asmodeus and Atlas both knew that fleeing was the right choice like before.

And yet, when I directly scratched the emotional wound they had been desperately trying to hide, it immediately sparked a reaction.

“I wanted to be the heir, but you haven’t fulfilled anything besides lineage, so it’s only natural that everyone looks down on you, you fool.”

His face was probably burning red, hidden behind the swarm.

[Who said I was fleeing?! Just because I’m using that old rusted sword doesn’t mean you’re better than me!! I am the Sovereign of the Flames of Inferno, fully occupying hell. I am fire, and I am the light of this world. You, a mere lowlife, dare to match me?! I will not forgive this!!]

Two voices roared in unison, whipping their arms toward me.

[Ayshma!!]

At that moment, the space split open, and an enormous wave of hellfire, unlike anything I’d seen, poured out from the crack and rushed toward me.

“Of course, I’m better.”

If I had faced such an attack back in hell, chills would have ran down my spine.

The towering wave of hellfire was like a natural disaster, evaporating anything that stood in its way, something too great for a human to endure.

But now, it wasn’t the same as before.

I was always a master, but I was feeling even more confident this time.

The proof of that was the Aura Blade I held above my head, radiating an unprecedentedly clear light.

“I’m the only one Hayden entrusted with a favor you’re so scared of.”

[Hayden?!]

With that final word, I swung down my sword.

A single, sharp line drawn in the air.

Along that single line, Asmodeus was cleaved like a landscape.