The battle raged on around them.
Flames roared, shadows danced, wind screamed through the shattered courtyard.
Cordelia, Varek, Tirien, and the black-haired second-year girl fought side by side—holding back the tide of lesser Spirits that kept pouring in.
Noah stood with them one moment—katana in hand, eyes locked on the distant Training Hall.
None of them noticed at first.
Cordelia loosed a wave of fire across a line of water wraiths. Varek shattered a stone elemental with a brutal punch. Tirien called out commands to his golem. The second-year girl flickered between shadows and light, her magic carving paths through the enemy.
But the space where Noah had stood seconds ago was empty.
A faint shimmer—Gibbous Step—had carried him forward, unseen.
He moved through the wrecked outer halls of the Training Wing, body low, footsteps silent.
Another Gibbous Step—his afterimage flickered for a breath, vanishing behind the arch of a broken doorway.
’Close. Just a bit more.’
Behind him, distant shouts and blasts of magic echoed.
A roar split the sky.
As Noah darted through the final corridor, the Training Hall’s main chamber came into view—collapsed in parts, wreathed in living roots and walls of mist and flame.
He stopped at the edge of the rubble, breathing steady, eyes narrowing.
The three Legendary Spirits, locked in a deadly dance of power.
Their presence pressed against his skin—thick, suffocating mana that made the air hum with energy.
Noah crouched low, eyes scanning for an opening.
’Now... the real fight begins.’
The courtyard was a battlefield.
Chunks of stone and mana-scorched earth covered the ground. The air pulsed with heat and pressure from the clash above—the three Legendary Spirits fighting for dominance in the sky.
Screams and shouts rang from every direction.
Amid the chaos, the professors moved with practiced precision.
Professor Trinity led the charge—her face set in a calm mask, eyes sharp.
"Move them! Prioritize the first-years!" she called, her voice slicing through the noise.
A wave of frightened students streamed past her.
Professor Al, already shielding a small group of younger students with shimmering walls of light, called out.
"Come on, move it! You don’t want to stay here for the finale, trust me!"
His voice was steady, though sweat beaded on his brow.
Professor Darius worked without words—each punch of his mana-reinforced fists clearing debris, smashing through collapsing roots and stone. Every motion precise, efficient.
Professor Halvern, paler than before, darted from group to group, ushering students forward.
’Damn it... I need to be seen helping. I need to fix this. I need them to see me doing this.’
Around them, other professors joined—casting barriers, stabilizing wounded students, shielding the retreat.
Trinity glanced upward, eyes narrowing at the storm of magic.
"This is beyond us," she muttered.
Then she pulled a slender silver sigil from her pocket—an emergency casting token.
She snapped it between her fingers.
A pulse of energy shot upward.
"Adler, if you can hear me—stop watching and start helping."
There was no immediate reply.
But Trinity’s eyes gleamed with fierce focus.
"I swear, old man... if you don’t get down here soon—"
A new tremor shook the ground.
The fight above was escalating.
The battle at the edge of the Training Hall was chaos incarnate.
Cordelia, Varek, Tirien, and the second-year girl held their ground, waves of mid-tier Spirits still pouring toward them.
Varek crushed a leaping elemental with a fist like a hammer.
Tirien’s golem launched a burst of compressed wind, toppling two more.
The second-year girl danced between strikes, blades of light and shadow weaving through the air—each movement effortless, precise.
Cordelia’s flames burned in wide arcs, her breaths growing heavier.
But even as they fought, one thought gnawed at her.
She glanced ahead—but he was already gone, vanished into the heart of the storm.
Suddenly—a deep hum of magic rolled across the courtyard.
Adler Vos Vogelsong appeared at the far edge of the field, walking calmly through the swirling debris—his signature half-smile in place, eyes bright with amusement.
"Oooh," he said lightly, hands in his sleeves. "These little ones are making quite the mess today."
His gaze lifted—locking onto the three towering Legendary Spirits.
Without hesitation, he stepped forward.
Mana surged around him—so dense it rippled the very air.
And then—he was gone.
In a flash of movement too fast for the eye, Adler shot upward, a trail of condensed mana spiraling behind him.
In seconds, he was among the Legends—weaving between the dragon’s flames, the whale’s torrents, and the stag’s roots with almost casual grace.
Cordelia’s eyes widened in awe.
’A human... fighting on equal ground with them?!’
From the ground, they watched as Adler danced between elemental strikes—deflecting a blast of fire with a shimmering barrier, leaping from a root toward the stag’s antlers, and launching a shockwave of pure force that rippled through the air.
All the while—he was smiling.
"Well now," his voice echoed faintly. "Let’s make this a little more interesting, shall we?"
Noah crouched low behind a collapsed pillar, the heat of the Fire Spirit’s last blast still lingering in the air.
Ahead of him loomed the final barrier—a dense, living wall of intertwined roots, swirling water shields, and flickering arcs of flame.
Gaia’s power pulsed through the ground, anchoring the barrier.
Aqua’s wards spun in concentric circles, glistening and cold.
Above, Fire’s essence flared along the edges, ready to incinerate anything that approached.
And behind all of it, near the shattered remains of the inner hall, he could barely see her—Lys Everin, floating within a chaotic vortex of mana, unconscious, her body suspended in an unstable web of runes.
Noah’s eyes narrowed.
’I’m close. But this... this is the last wall.’
He adjusted his stance, katana at the ready.
Suddenly—a shockwave tore through the air.
A flicker of silver and blue streaked past above him.
Noah’s gaze snapped upward.
Through the swirling chaos, he caught glimpses of the Director moving like a phantom—deflecting the Fire Spirit’s claws, weaving between the whale’s torrents, twisting through Gaia’s branches as if gravity itself bent to his will.
All while that damn half-smile remained on his face.
’So he’s finally here.’
He gripped his blade tighter.
’Good. That’ll buy me time.’
With one deep breath, he focused.
One step at a time. Break through. Get to her.
Then he moved—slashing into the first layer of roots, the battle above raging louder with every passing second.