Led by Alicia, the students pushed toward the stairwell.
“The barrier is propagating from above!” Alicia shouted from the front. “The higher we go, the greater the resistance. Everyone, get ready!”
No sooner had she spoken than the group was blocked by a pale purple barrier at the turn of the stairs.
Without a word, Alicia pointed her wand forward and slashed with a water blade. Several students behind her unleashed their attacks simultaneously, with fireballs, wind blades, and lightning bolts slamming into the barrier one after another. Cracks finally spiderwebbed across the barrier, and after another round of concentrated fire, it shattered completely into a shower of purple shards.
“Go!”
The students made it to the second-floor corridor, then halted in unison.
Standing at the end of the corridor were two people, a male and a female. Wearing standard academy uniforms, they looked no different from ordinary students.
Lorraine recognized them. They were two of the students who had gone up to the rooftop with the princess to fetch equipment earlier. What made Lorraine's heart sink even deeper was that their mana fluctuations were climbing at an unnatural speed. If they usually felt like a pool of still water in class, now it was as if some massive beast was rising from beneath the surface.
The oppressive pressure bore down on them, forcing the foremost students to take a half-step back instinctively. Alicia remained at the front, but her expression was grim.
The female student of the duo spoke first. “Stop here. Our target has nothing to do with you.”
Just as she finished speaking, someone in the crowd suddenly shouted, “Liliana!”
It was the voice of Julian—Alicia's friend and the youngest daughter of the Lombard family. She squeezed her way to the front, her face filled with utter disbelief as she stared at the girl. “What are you doing? Have you lost your mind? Do you even know what you're doing?”
Only then did Lorraine remember that Julian indeed had a good relationship with that girl. They could often be seen sitting together and chatting after class.
Liliana glanced at Julian and was about to speak, but the boy beside her raised a hand to stop her. “Don't waste your breath on them.”
Liliana fell silent for a moment, then withdrew her gaze and nodded.
The boy was the first to raise his wand, and Liliana immediately began chanting alongside him.
Two second-tier spells condensed into shape almost simultaneously—one fire, one ice—surging toward the crowd with violent mana fluctuations.
Lorraine instantly sensed danger. With the power of second-tier spells, if they hit, the front rows of students would surely suffer heavy casualties.
But Alicia had already moved. She drew a semi-circle with her wand, and a dark red water wall instantly rose in front of her, blocking the fire spell. Julian reacted quickly as well, gritting her teeth as she coordinated with the students behind her to forcefully block the ice attack.
“All squads, spread out into formation!” Alicia ordered loudly. “Don't bunch up!”
The students quickly split into two groups. Alicia led one group to engage the boy head-on, while Julian led the other to flank Liliana from the side.
In terms of individual strength, the opposing duo was indeed more than a cut above the students. However, the Class A students had the advantage of numbers. They bombarded the pair with a relentless barrage of magic, and though they couldn't break the opponents' defenses, they prevented them from concentrating on chanting higher-tier spells, resulting in a stalemate.
An ice spike grazed Lorraine's shoulder, smashing into the wall behind her and shattering into frozen debris. Lorraine dodged to the side and was about to counterattack when Alicia's voice suddenly rang in her ears. “Lorraine!”
Lorraine looked back. In the heat of the battle, Alicia gestured to her and tilted her chin toward the stairwell, signaling for her to keep going up.
“I'll hold them off here!” Alicia shouted. “The rest of you, keep going! The princess is still upstairs!”
Lorraine nodded to Alicia and shot a glance at the people behind her. “Follow me!”
Irene, Celine, and several other students rushed out with her. Ignoring the roar of magic and shouts behind them, led by Lorraine, they quickly broke through the barrier between floors and reached the third floor.
The moment they arrived, Lorraine sensed something was off. The third floor was filled with an unnatural chill, like a frozen river in winter—seemingly calm on the surface, but with turbulent undercurrents swirling beneath.
She stopped and raised her hand, signaling those behind her to slow down.
Sure enough, two figures clad in black robes stood side-by-side in the third-floor corridor, blocking the stairwell leading to the rooftop. Seeing Lorraine's group arrive, they said nothing, raising their hands in perfect unison.
Lorraine's heart sank, and she turned to shout, “Watch out!”
It was too late. A low, obscure chant had already been completed. The surroundings abruptly darkened as the light was devoured by something, plunging the corridor into pitch-black darkness in the blink of an eye.
Unable to see anything in the darkness, Lorraine gritted her teeth and stayed put. She feared that moving would make her lose her bearings, and feared even more that she would bump into her companions. But her heart beat faster and faster; the sensation of being unable to see the enemy was incredibly suffocating.
She could hear sounds, but only the breathing and footsteps of her own companions. The two black-robed figures seemed to have melted into the darkness, making not a single sound, and she couldn't even hear their thoughts.
Someone whispered, “What do we do? I can't see a thing...”
A sudden ripple of mana surged from a certain direction in the darkness, carrying a clear hostile intent. Lorraine dodged to the side, but her reaction was a fraction of a second too slow without her sight. The force grazed her arm, leaving a stinging burn.
“Spread out! Don't bunch up in the middle of the corridor!” she called out in a low voice. The others scrambled to separate, pressing themselves against the walls.
Just then, a light flared up.
The light came from behind Lorraine—a pure, warm white glow that spilled out like the first ray of dawn, irresistibly pushing back the surrounding darkness. The light didn't spread quickly, but wherever it touched, the suffocating oppression melted away like snow. Not only was her vision restored, but the panic in Lorraine's heart also vanished along with it.
Looking back, she saw the Holy Maiden standing there, holding her wand upright before her, enveloped in a soft halo of light. The fluctuations of power radiating from her were unlike anything Lorraine had seen from any of her peers at the academy, including Erich.
The second-tier Class of the Lord of Dawn was the 【Dawn-Dew Deacon】. Lorraine had heard Celine mention that this was an extremely rigorous path of advancement, requiring one to complete three "Pilgrimages of Light" to be eligible for promotion. Most clergy remained at the initial stage of 【Dawnlight Believer】 for their entire lives, yet Celine had already advanced despite being around her own age.
The Holy Maiden's light remained stable, covering a large area in the middle of the corridor. The darkness had been driven back, but the edges were still pitch black. The two black-robed figures had clearly not left, yet they didn't launch an immediate attack either. They likely hadn't expected such a young female student to be able to cast such pure holy light. With their trap disrupted, they were probably reassessing their strategy.
In the next instant, attacks from the darkness intensified. Multiple spells rained down from two different directions, completely disregarding accuracy, solely aimed at pinning them down.
“They expose their positions every time they cast,” the Holy Maiden commanded as she countered the attacks. “Counterattack in those directions!”
Lorraine immediately understood her meaning. She focused her attacks in the direction the Holy Maiden indicated, but the black-robed figures were incredibly fast, changing positions immediately after each attack. After several rounds of concentrated fire, Lorraine and the others only managed to hit the corridor's walls and floor, leaving behind a trail of scorch marks.
“We can't hit them like this!” Irene's voice was anxious, sweat beading on her forehead.
The Holy Maiden didn't reply. She stared into the darkness, seemingly analyzing something. After a moment, she raised her wand and cast a healing spell toward a certain spot in the dark.
The two in the darkness were caught completely off guard. After all, who would guard against a healing spell?
But the Holy Maiden certainly wasn't kind enough to heal her enemies. Utilizing the ability of a 【Dawnlight Believer】, Celine could infuse a burning effect into all of her spells. The sudden burns caused both of them to let out low grunts of pain, their figures momentarily revealed under the light.
“Strike!”
Lorraine took the lead, and the group's attacks converged into a single beam that blasted toward that position. Part of the attack connected, but the opponents were highly capable after all; they managed to block most of the impact with defensive spells in their haste, then rolled back into the darkness to conceal themselves once more.
The corridor fell silent again, the darkness remaining thick and heavy.
The Holy Maiden looked at the darkness, then turned to Lorraine. “Keep going up. Leave this place to us.”
Lorraine looked at her. “Can just the few of you hold them off?”
“We can,” the Holy Maiden replied in a tone that brooked no argument. “I will not let them breach this line of defense. Every moment you delay is another moment of danger for Her Highness.”
Lorraine nodded. She turned around, her gaze sweeping over Irene and the other three students. “Let's go.”
The five of them bypassed the battlefield and moved toward the stairwell leading to the rooftop. The darkness closed in again just outside the range of the Holy Maiden's light, swallowing the scene behind them. Without looking back, they continued upward.
Rate on N.U.
