Once Alverto Left, the time barriers disappeared and the awakeners in Oaklum City rushed up to the students instantly.
But no matter how fast they were to arrive, it was already too late.
A life was already lost and nearly all of the students had suffered varying degrees of wounds.
Later, Jin Walt who was supposed to arrive at the Oaklum area a few days later, arrived at the scene just a few seconds after the other awakeners rushed to the scene.
People were surprised to see his sudden arrival, but it seemed like he wasn't in the mood to talk.
He had a look of extreme anger as he stared at the wounded students being carried away, he was angry at the demon who dared to do such a thing in the territory of the human empire.
The whole city felt more relieved under his presence.
...
Oaklum Alliance Branch, Infirmary.
Rio slowly opened his eyes and a white ceiling came into his view.
'I have seen this ceiling so many times now, that I am not even surprised about where I am...' (Rio)
Rio slowly sat up from the infirmary bed and leaned his back against the wall.
Just when Rio sat up, a familiar voice rang out in his ears.
"You are finally awake..." (Jin)
Rio tilted his head and found that Jin was sitting cross-legged on a nearby chair.
"How long have you been sitting here..." (Rio)
"Just came a few seconds ago..." (Jin)
"Is that so..." (Rio)
After that small talk, the room went silent again for a while.
Rio glanced at his right hand.
'I lost again.... And so pathetically this time.... I wasn't even able to land a proper hit on the opponent this time....' (Rio)
Alverto, the demon prince was not only physically faster and stronger than Rio, he also had time manipulation skills to accelerate or slow down time in a small area.
Alverto used his time manipulation to easily dodge any and every attack. Moreover, he used that speed to easily overpower Rio and he didn't even give Rio the time to use his 'soul splitting' skill on him.
'It was a colossal failure... I am still too far away from fighting an S-ranker...' (Rio)
Rio shook his head and stopped thinking about this further.
He knew that strength can't be forced, it takes time and effort to improve, and encountering Alverto was a great misfortune.
"What about others? Are they all right" (Rio)
Hearing Rio's question, Jin shook his head helplessly and replied in a solemn tone.
"Everyone is out of danger, no need to worry about them much, their wounds were not that fatal to life..... except..." (Jin)
"Except?" (Rio)
"The third-year student, Zachary Hunt, who had the potential to reach S-rank in the future... is dead." (Jin)
*Silence*
Rio and Jin both went silent for a moment when Zach was mentioned.
"Is that so... he killed Zach Senpai..." (Rio)
Hearing Rio's emotionless tone, Jin was confused.
"I am not joking, Zach is really dead... you don't sound sad at all though...." (Jin)
At Jin's remarks, Rio shook his head and replied in his usual emotionless tone.
"I am sad... in fact, I am feeling extremely sad right now...." (Rio)
Jin was doubtful of Rio's calm behavior but he didn't pry further.
"Aside from that, that little girl Riya seems to have suffered a heavy blow from the fact that she wasn't able to save Zach's life.... She's being consoled by Link for now..." (Jin)
"Raji Croft will also be arriving soon to check on her sister's state...." (Jin)
"Everyone else has already been discharged..." (Jin)
"What about Zach Senpai's body? Did they salvage it or not?" (Rio)
"His body was still intact... only his chest had a hole, aside from that he didn't have any other wounds... so we handed over his body to his family members for funeral..." (Jin)
"The funeral is arranged for evening today... make sure you are present too..." (Jin)
"News came that, Zach's death was too big of a blow for his grandpa to handle... due to his old age, he suffered a sudden heart attack... and he fell into coma..." (Jin)
"How is he now?" (Rio)
"He woke up a few hours ago, then a sudden second heart attack took his life... losing his grandson at such age was too big of a blow for him... he died while shouting Zach's name over and over..." (Jin)
At Jin's words, the atmosphere in the room became even grimmer than before.
"Aside from that, I have found the severed head of another individual... I asked the other students about it... it seems that severed head belongs to a dragon named Aaron..." (Jin)
"Alverto must have killed him before attacking us..." (Rio)
"I think so too, thus I went to that cave you guys investigated and it turns out the whole cave has been destroyed by massive attacks..." (Jin)
"He must have tried to resist Alverto's schemes...sigh..." (Rio)
'We will never be able to fulfill our promise of sitting together again, now...' (Rio)
Rio clenched his fist tightly and closed his eyes in regret.
'If only I was strong enough…' (Rio)
…
After a few minutes, Jin left Rio's room.
Rio slowly got up from his bed, his indifferent eyes seemed to be filled with sadness and regret today.
'Forgive me Senpai, I can't even properly cry for you… I might not be that good of a junior it seems…' (Rio)
Rio shook his head in helplessness. Even though he had heard about the death of three close acquaintances he still wasn't able to shed a single tear.
Rio felt quite miserable at the fact that he was incapable of mourning others.
He walked out of his room and walked through the empty corridor.
'Alverto…. His attack was extremely well planned… he avoided the detection of SS-rankers, sneaked into the human empire, placed barriers without anyone else's knowledge…' (Rio)
'He did all this without alerting anyone, then he attacked up at the very first moment the opportunity arose…' (Rio)
Rio and others were out of the city and thus it made things even more easier for Alverto.
If they had been in the city instead of on that yacht, they could still have had some time to run away while the S-ranker stationed at the city held Alverto back.
'We were careless…. It seems that the news I saw on TV about Directly support the authors on ReadNovelFull!
various water phenomenon appearing in the sea area… it was because Aaron was already fighting Alverto…' (Rio)
'Aaron must have lost miserably under Alverto's skills…' (Rio)
After walking for a few seconds Rio arrived at the counter and filled in his details to get discharged from the infirmary.
When Rio walked out of the infirmary gate, he noticed Lia standing nearby.
"You are here…" (Lia)
Rio nodded his head at Lia's words.
"Are your injuries okay now?" (Rio)
"Yes…." (Lia)
Lia had a sad look on her face as she talked to Rio.
'Jin must have told her about the deaths of those three…' (Rio)
Rio shook his head and sighed.
He placed his hand on Lia's shoulder and said in an emotionless tone.
"It's not your fault… don't blame yourself too much…. It's my fault that I fainted so early in the battle…." (Rio)
At Rio's words, Lia shook her head and wiped the slight tears from her eyes.
"No… we were all equally useless against that demon… I don't blame you for anything…" (Lia)
Both Rio and Lia went silent at that moment.
They both had nothing to talk about for a while. They just silently shook their heads in sadness and boarded a flying bus to go back to the Hotel.
…
Hotel Arya.
The weather seemed just as depressing as the mood of people at the hotel.
The hotel was closed for the day, but several employees who were close to Zach and his grandpa still came to express their shock and sadness on the matter.
Just one day ago, they sent Zach and the other students to the yacht dinner party, with great pomp and show.
They all clapped as they watched Zach and others walk on the red carpet and leave the hotel with bright faces.
And today, they watched Zach and his grandpa's dead body being escorted back to the hotel's backyard by several bodyguards.
The atmosphere in the hotel became grim when they found out what had happened yesterday night.
The news about this incident even reached the capital and every other city. Reporters were flocking all over the Oaklum city to pry further on this matter but under Jin's orders, they were still being kept at bay.
If it was some other day, Rio and Lia would have been welcomed with happy smiles by the workers of the hotel.
But today, all of them had a sad and helpless look on their faces.
No one said anything, everyone knew just how bad the situation was.
All of Zach's family members rushed back home from wherever they were in the empire after hearing this shocking news.
Preparations for a funeral started very early in the morning.
…
…
Author's Notes.
Life is strange, just the other day all of them left the hotel with bright smiles on their faces, but when they returned they had nothing but sadness left on their faces….
The goal of reaching 200 chs has been completed today, but I don't feel happy at all… Zach's death has brought me great sadness too…
I hope that, In the next life, Zach will find true love and live a happy life…