Horn's finger rested on the red switch.
He did not hesitate.
There was even a hint of reverence in his touch.
For the past few days, he had acted like a diligent janitor, filling the gaps between the stone slabs of the plaza every day.
No one had noticed those inconspicuous bits of alchemical dust.
Nor did anyone know that those dust particles, once connected, formed a massive amplification array.
“Click.”
A crisp mechanical snap rang out.
The base of that comical, megaphone-like Soul Vibration Cannon lit up with a piercing red light.
The array activated.
Amplification factor: one thousand times.
The vibration wave, which was originally meant to only cause terrifying hallucinations, became the scythe of a reaper in this instant.
“Vroom—!!!”
The sound was no longer on the auditory level.
It exploded directly inside the skull.
It was as if someone had taken a massive iron hammer and slammed it ruthlessly against the crown of your head.
The air in the plaza distorted instantly.
The students, who had been screaming in terror and fleeing in all directions, stopped their movements in perfect unison.
They looked like dolls whose power had been cut.
The next second.
Countless translucent phantoms were violently shaken out from the tops of their heads.
Soul departure.
The terror of their final moments was still etched onto the faces of those phantoms, while their physical bodies collapsed limply to the ground.
Thousands of warm bodies.
Thousands of drifting souls.
A living hell.
Horn lay sprawled over the cannon mount, blood spraying from his nose, yet he smiled like a child who had just received candy.
This was the blueprint Cecilia Lucas had given him.
That madwoman said the inspiration came from an otherworldly movie called 《Kung Fu》.
A giant copper bell.
A giant loudspeaker.
All it took was one roar to shatter a person's soul.
“Aaaaaah!”
The souls drifting in the sky began to dissipate.
Like bubbles under the sun.
If something wasn't done, these thousands of elite mages—the future of the kingdom—would all become vegetables today.
“Restrain!”
A thunderous shout came from the high tower of the Aqua Branch.
Headmaster Signia.
This normally gentle and elegant water element Archmage now had a face twisted with ferocity.
The staff in his hand shattered.
The water elements filling the sky turned into countless blue chains, precisely binding every soul that was about to dissipate.
He forcibly locked them in midair.
But this was only a temporary measure.
The vibration wave was still continuing.
With every passing second, souls wailed within the chains, liable to shatter at any moment.
“Griffin!”
Signia roared, blood seeping from the corners of his mouth.
“This thing is too powerful! I can't hold out for long!”
He didn't need to shout.
Headmaster Griffin had already acted.
The old monster of the space element slammed his palms together.
“Two-Dimensional Barrier: Absolute Isolation!”
A visible transparent wall centered on the plaza, descending like an inverted bowl.
It attempted to seal the vibration wave inside.
“Crack!”
As soon as the barrier formed, its surface was covered in cracks.
Griffin's aged face instantly turned the color of a pig's liver.
It was too strong.
This wasn't a simple magic spell.
This was a long-premeditated strike targeted at the soul level.
The combined effort of the madman Horn and the monster Cecilia Lucas.
Plus the Physics core provided by Bell Lucas.
The thing these three had cooked up together was something that could not be resisted by raw mana alone.
“Don't just stand there! Help!”
Orville, the headmaster of the Terra Branch, charged out like an enraged brown bear.
The earth rumbled.
Countless stone pillars shot into the sky, propping up the crumbling spatial barrier.
Altan, the headmaster of the Ignis Branch, was wreathed in flames as he frantically poured mana in to repair the cracks in the barrier.
The elite students of the Disciplinary Committee no longer cared about their usual prestige.
Their faces were pale as they stood at the edge of the barrier, overextending their mana to maintain the ward.
“All Things Resurrect!”
Margaret, the headmaster of the Ventus Branch—that always smiling old lady—now had a solemn expression as well.
Green light fell like raindrops.
She forcibly sustained the life force of those bodies, preventing physical death from the souls being detached for too long.
The entire upper-tier combat power of the academy was pinned down by this single cannon.
“You're courting death!”
A cyan wind blade tore through the air.
Leovet Victor.
He didn't bother with the souls.
His goal was clear.
As long as he killed Horn and destroyed that cannon, everything would end.
His figure pulled a blur through the air as he lunged straight for Horn behind the cannon mount.
The wind pressure even carved furrows into the ground.
Horn watched the lethal wind blade approaching and didn't dodge.
He simply pushed up his glasses and grinned.
“Boom!”
Three white figures appeared around the cannon mount without any warning.
White robes.
Golden masks.
White Tower Society, Core Councilors.
The three acted simultaneously.
Fire, frost, and lightning.
Three distinct types of high-level mana converged into a torrent, slamming hard against Leovet's wind blade.
“Boom!”
A massive shockwave swept outward.
Leovet was forced back over ten meters, crushing two floor tiles when he landed.
He narrowed his eyes, looking at the three people standing in front of Horn.
“White Tower...”
Leovet sneered, the wind elements in his hands beginning to turn violent.
“It seems you wish to be erased from this world.”
The battlefield fell into a stalemate.
Everyone was dazed by this sudden attack.
Except for one person.
Bell.
He stood among the crowd, surrounded by fallen classmates.
But he was fine.
He didn't even feel the slightest bit dizzy.
The sound wave capable of shattering souls passed through his body like wind through a screen window.
No resistance.
No effect.
“As I thought.”
Bell looked at his palm.
The soul attacks of this world were designed based on the soul frequency of this world.
But his soul...
It came from Earth, a different dimension.
The frequency was completely different.
This targeted strike was nothing more than invalid junk code to him.
“Bell...”
Tia Astane, beside him, swayed.
The blue light in her eyes flickered, and her Mithril skeleton emitted a faint vibration.
“Are you okay?”
Bell reached out to support her.
“It's a bit... noisy.”
Tia's voice carried the static of a bad microphone.
Though her soul belonged to this world, it had been forcibly integrated into the Mithril skeleton by Bell.
That level of stability was comparable to pouring an egg yolk into a concrete block.
The vibration wave could make her uncomfortable, but it certainly couldn't shake her soul out.
“Mom!”
Bell had no time for anything else.
He spun around and looked toward the viewing gallery.
Eleanor was clutching the railing, her body swaying.
She was a high-level warrior after all; her soul strength far exceeded that of an average person, so it hadn't left her body immediately.
But she was close to her limit.
Bell rushed over and pulled Eleanor into his arms.
“Son...”
Eleanor's eyes were somewhat unfocused. Seeing that Bell was fine, she forced a smile.
“As long as... you're okay...”
Bell pressed his hand against his mother's back.
Although he didn't know soul magic.
He could act as a lightning rod.
Or rather, a jammer.
He poured his mana into his mother's body without reservation, using the unique frequency of his otherworldly soul to forcibly disrupt the surrounding vibration waves.
Eleanor's complexion improved slightly.
“Whew...”
Bell let out a sigh of relief.
He looked up at Griffin in midair.
The old headmaster was reaching his limit.
The spatial barrier had been compressed to its breaking point and could collapse at any second.
Once it collapsed...
These thousands of souls would be vibrated into fragments instantly.
Griffin seemed to sense Bell's gaze.
In the midst of his struggle, he looked down.
His cloudy old eyes were bloodshot.
He glanced at the unharmed Bell.
Then he glanced at Horn, who was protected by the White Tower Councilors.
Finally.
He gave Bell a smile that looked more painful than crying.
His lips moved.
No sound came out.
But Bell understood.
The mouth movements said:
“The whole academy has been acting along with you to this extent. If you mess this up, you're dead.”
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