Chapter 138: Deadlock and a Crazy Plan

Setting aside whatever Erphine was trying to do, while he stood before Wang Yu and Avia delivering a lengthy monologue like a supervillain, Wang Yu remained on high alert and carefully watched his every move while using his ripples to communicate with Avia.

In a few brief exchanges, Wang Yu quickly grasped Avia's situation and confirmed that the traitor behind this incident was none other than her teacher, Weber Lanchester. His previous use of his ripples to probe Weber hadn't detected anything unusual.

"Have I been relying too much on this ability?" Wang Yu murmured to himself. It wouldn't do to grow overly dependent on his ripples, though much of the problem lay in the conceit of thinking that transcendental forces like mana and the void were necessarily superior to the fundamental tenets of life. That was why Wang Yu had overlooked Weber's abnormalities.

In truth, given Wang Yu's training and knowledge, he should have recognized that there was something amiss about Weber Lanchester. The old professor had simply been too strong for someone of his age.

That certainly wasn't definitive proof that something was amiss, but Wang Yu should have been more careful in conducting subsequent scans. If he hadn't dismissed Weber's abnormalities just because his ripples hadn't shown anything unusual...

Wang Yu shook his head. There was no point dwelling on what ifs. After reprimanding himself for his oversight, Wang Yu refocused entirely on the present.

Now, he and Avia had two choices. The first was to wait for the Nightblades' specialists to break through the crimson barrier before escaping, leaving Erphine to the entire squadron of mobilized Nightblades.

The second was to have Avia attempt to crack the barrier herself, opening a path for them to escape directly.

Regardless, Wang Yu had no intention of engaging Erphine. He was fully aware of his current limitations—at best, he could exert around 60% of his original strength. If he weren't a knight, his condition would have been even worse.

As for Erphine, Wang Yu simply couldn't figure him out. He was neither being aggressive nor letting them leave freely. He was just... there. What was his goal?

Both Wang Yu and the Nightblades' technicians believed that using a curio to destroy Stevenson Academy of Magic served no real purpose. So what exactly was Selwyn trying to accomplish?

Whatever the case, that wasn't Wang Yu's concern right now. His objective was solely to escape. Only after that could he decide on his next move.

"Get ready to retreat. We need to get away from this guy first," Wang Yu relayed to Avia through his ripples.

Avia nodded, nimbly climbing onto Wang Yu's back. Void energy gathered in her hands as she continued crafting bullets.

Fire-based attacks had proven ineffective. Erphine's ability to instantly adapt via biological evolution rendered all continuous damage useless. If that was the case, they would have to rely on sheer overwhelming force to slow him down.

"You can manipulate despite the suppression? I think I've found what I'm looking for. Should I consider this fortunate, I wonder...?" Erphine murmured. His gaze turned toward Avia as she shaped her void ammunition in full view of Erphine.

His voice remained cold and emotionless, but the implications of his words sent chills down Wang Yu and Avia's spines.

A blast erupted as alchemical propellant ignited inside Avia's gun, launching the specialized bullet forward.

The projectile shattered in mid-air. This time, instead of scattering small steel pellets, it unleashed a dense cloud of razor-sharp metal shards. These spinning blades expanded outward in a fan-shaped spread that engulfed Erphine's entire body.

The whirling blades tore through Erfen's body, slashing through his flesh effortlessly.

Unlike steel pellets that would merely embed themselves in muscle, these blades cut through his skin, slashed his blood vessels, and sent streams of blood spraying uncontrollably.

As Avia's gunfire painted Erphine in crimson, Wang Yu kicked off the ground, launching himself and Avia towards the side window.

Glass shattered. The barrier enveloping Avia shielded her from the sharp shards. Adjusting his posture mid-air, Wang Yu bent his knees upon landing to absorb the impact from the three-story drop. Without hesitation, he sprang forward again. Avia guided him out of the academy as they put as much distance between them and Erphine as possible.

Back by the broken window, Erphine remained emotionless as he watched the duo flee. His face betrayed no expression, but he murmured to himself, "Two interesting beings... completely unaffected by spiritual suppression. Are they like me?

"She must be the 'key,' if she's able to marshal void energy despite the suppression. Such affinity can only belong to the 'key' that those Selwynians spoke of. To gather all thirteen keys...Humans truly are fascinating. They make utterly irrational choices for the sake of obtaining the void's secrets. They're even willing to throw away the essence of life itself—what arrogance."

Erphine's body slowly dissolved, his flesh melting into wriggling, amoeba-like masses that slithered into the building's drainage and disappeared.

"Should we wait for rescue or force our way through?" Wang Yu asked Avia, deferring to her expertise with magical formations and barriers.

"Give me a moment." Avia steadied herself, extending her mental energy outward to scan the surrounding void as she searched for anomalies.

In her mindscape, crimson raindrops poured down in torrents. However, the protective barrier Wang Yu had erected over her mental domain blocked them entirely, allowing her to observe them up close.

"They look like red rain, but in reality, they're highly purified void energy—almost completely devoid of material impurities. It's void energy in its most refined form..."

These raindrops were conceptually similar to the liquid mana found within purest-grade mana crystals. Because they lacked any physical impurities, they exhibited a powerful infectious property not found in regular void energy.

Avia wasn't sure why Wang Yu remained unaffected, but she knew her own protection came from his mental barrier shielding her from the rain.

Upon contact with anything of the material world, these raindrops of pure void would start transmuting it into the void.

And since the soul was the bridge between the void and the material world, it was the first thing to be affected. Anyone whose soul came into direct contact with this red rain would be pulled into the void, leaving their physical body in the material world unresponsive and unconscious.

"That's why they're all in comas. If we wait any longer, the Academy's buildings will slowly be sucked into the void as well. The purpose of this barrier is to prevent external intervention and allow that to happen."

Avia took a deep breath as she processed the sheer scale of what she had just uncovered. Selwyn was planning to drag Stevenson Academy of Magic into the void, but why? What inside this academy would be worth such an effort...?

"Wang Yu, take me to the edge of the barrier. We can't wait for the Nightblades outside to break it. There's no time."

Avia explained the situation to the best of her ability, as quickly as possible. Without hesitation, Wang Yu did as she commanded.

In truth, Wang Yu had some understanding of the void-infused environment within the academy as well. His ripples granted him a unique perspective on his surroundings.

The presence of high-purity void energy that contrasted sharply from ambient void led him to a certain hypothesis. He had encountered similar high-concentration void energy before—when the Lady of the Night channeled divine power through him as a medium, the power she unleashed far surpassed the usual purity of void energy.

In other words, the void energy saturating this space likely belonged to an entity even more powerful than the Lady of the Night. As for who that might be, Wang Yu had no idea. However, if that were the case, then someone like Erphine—who was on par with the Lady of the Night—would also find it extremely difficult to wield void-based powers in this space.

"No magic, no wizardry... This is the purest form of biological power at play." Wang Yu summarized the situation in his mind, then swiftly led Avia toward the boundary of the barrier.

Meanwhile, tiny tendrils extended from various hidden spots along the path they took, their minute sensory organs twitching slightly.

Inconspicuous insects turned their compound eyes toward the direction in which Wang Yu and Avia were running.

The roots and leaves of ornamental trees and shrubs split open with thin cracks, revealing crude "eyes" within—far simpler than the complex structure of human eyeballs, but nevertheless able to collect and relay information back to their core.

The academy's research wasn't limited to spells and magic formations. The study of magical creatures and exotic biological materials was also part of the curriculum. Weber Lanchester was one of the professors specializing in biological research.

All of his experiments generated a considerable amount of biological waste—carcasses of expired test subjects, discarded body parts of magical creatures, and various byproducts from their bodies. The total amount of biological waste resulting from similar research conducted by the faculty and students was staggering.

This waste was typically incinerated, but Weber Lanchester had, for some time, been secretly burying a significant portion of the waste beneath the laboratory grounds he had rented in one of the mountains to the back of the academy.

No one paid attention to this biological waste—after all, they had already been completely drained of any useful value. But little by little, as time passed, the amount of biological waste buried beneath the ground reached an alarming level.

All that waste was, for Erphine, an extension of its own body. He was able to shape and utilize the biological waste at will, without any need for fighting spirit, magic, or even void energy.

Though Erphine lacked knowledge of DNA, genetics, and mutation, its instincts as the Font of Life alone was enough to transform these lifeless scraps into the living organisms it desired.

With Weber Lanchester's assistance, these biological lifeforms had unknowingly spread throughout the entire academy.

They were everywhere—hidden within tree trunks and nestled in cracks within the soil. Save for a few places inaccessible to biological matter, Erphine's vision now extended across the entire academy. No matter what Wang Yu and Avia did, they would not escape its watchful gaze.

"This is a quicksand barrier... No wonder the Nightblades outside haven't attempted to break it by force. If the balance of this barrier is disturbed, the entire academy will suffer catastrophic destruction. Given the sheer scale of this barrier, I don't have the means to dismantle it in a short time."

Avia pursed her lips. She extended her mental energy into the crimson barrier as she carefully analyzed the magical circuits within. Her voice was heavy—despite her talent, the immense complexity of the structure was overwhelming.

"If not for this anti-magic space, things wouldn't be this dire. The existence of this anti-magic field means that when the quicksand barrier is breached, the academy will have no means of protecting itself. It's a death trap. The moment this barrier was formed, the outcome was all but decided."

Wang Yu gritted his teeth. Selwyn had essentially achieved its objective the moment the barrier took shape.

Given Aleisterre's current capabilities, there was no feasible way to break through Selwyn's scheme. The destruction of Stevenson Academy of Magic seemed almost inevitable.

To accomplish such a feat, Selwyn had sacrificed the curio used to generate this massive anti-magic zone, an exorbitant price.

This curio might even be more valuable than Stevenson Academy itself—but neither Wang Yu nor Avia would be comforted by such a thought.

Their circumstances were dire.

Either they waited for time to run out, for the entire academy to collapse into the void, or they attempted to forcefully breach the quicksand barrier. If they failed, the former outcome awaited them; if they succeeded, they would be obliterated along with the entire academy.

Wang Yu slammed his fist into the ground, furious.

He felt helpless—a feeling that had surfaced time and time again. The last time it had been this acute was when Hela had intruded into his home. Now, he was facing an overwhelming checkmate at Stevenson Academy.

In the end, he was simply too weak. Despite all the unique abilities he possessed, they seemed utterly meaningless at this moment.

Wang Yu took a deep breath, forcing these useless emotions out of his mind. He turned to Avia. Giving up wasn't part of their vocabulary—neither for him nor for her.

"Is there another way?" He locked eyes with Avia. There was no way out. If there was even a sliver of a chance, why not take it?

"If I were alone, I really wouldn't have any options... but your presence changes things, Wang Yu. It's reckless, but I think it might actually work. Besides, we don't have a choice, do we?"

Avia suddenly smiled. She did have a plan. If she were alone, it wouldn't have been possible, but with Wang Yu around, there was nothing to fear.

Without hesitation, she outlined her plan—a strategy as reckless and crazy as something Wang Yu himself would come up with.

"The origin of the virtualization is at the very center of the academy. That's where the entire academy is being dragged into the void. And when the quicksand barrier starts breaking, that's where the collapse will initialize. Wang Yu, you have the ability to carve open a void rift. That should allow us to accelerate the academy's descent into the void. And if we collapse the quicksand barrier at that moment—"

"We could shunt all that explosive energy straight into the void?" Wang Yu grinned. Now that was a crazy plan.

There was no precedent, nothing this situation could be modeled after—it was pure improvisation. But at the same time, it didn't sound entirely unreasonable.More importantly, it was their only option.

If they could redirect the destruction of the barrier into the void, that would suffice. Even if the academy's descent into the void would also accelerate, the reality anchors in the sky weren't just for show.

"Let's do it!"

The plan was set. All that remained was to execute it with precision. Wang Yu hadn't forgotten about the lurking threat, either—Erphine, the Font of Life. He was hardly going to just stand by and let them do as they pleased...