"Who the hell are you?"
Anjou stared at Jovian.
"Me?"
"My name is Jovian. At the moment, I'm the commander of U.S. Forces Japan."
"Of course, I have other identities besides that."
"Let me think. How does 'god of the new world' sound?"
"I'm the one who will lead your world toward its ultimate evolution."
Jovian smiled at Anjou.
"Some old men simply have no desire to enter this so-called new world."
Anjou shook his head. If entering the new world meant becoming the very thing he despised most, he would rather die.
"If that's what you wish."
Jovian gave Anjou a faint smile.
He was not surprised by the old man's choice. It was precisely because Jovian understood Anjou's character and respected his decision that he had personally come here to see him off.
"Goodbye, Principal Anjou."
Jovian waved at him.
Elsewhere, while Jovian and Anjou were talking inside the Board's conference room, the fleeing representative of the Gattuso family lay in a pool of his own blood.
"Why?"
The Gattuso representative could not understand why members of his own family had turned against him.
"It was the family head's order."
The man who had killed him crouched beside him and whispered the answer.
"The family head? Pompeii?"
"Then it must have been the correct choice."
After speaking those final words, the Gattuso representative closed his eyes forever.
"I'm sorry. Everything is for the sake of the family. Your death will allow the Gattuso family to enter a new age of glory."
The assassin put away his weapon.
He was the Gattuso family's new representative, and from now on, he would speak on behalf of its family head.
By the time dusk descended, a completely new Board had been established inside the smoke-filled conference room.
Jovian sat at its head.
"Make the announcement. Tell everyone who the new principal of Cassell College is."
Jovian looked at the assembled men who had surrendered to him.
"Effective immediately, Cassell College and everything under its authority will be transferred from the Board to the institution's new principal. The new principal of Cassell College is Mr. Jovian Grayson."
The secretary beside Jovian delivered the announcement in a clear voice.
"Who supports this? Who opposes it?"
Still smiling, Jovian looked at the Board members trembling in their seats.
"I support it."
"So do I."
"I support it."
One Board member after another cast their vote for Jovian and signed the proposed agreement.
"Stop looking like newlyweds who've already been widowed. This agreement means nothing to me. It exists to save your lives."
Jovian shook his head at the miserable expressions on their faces.
"We understand."
The Board members naturally understood what Jovian meant, but they still felt deeply humiliated.
Once every member had signed the agreement, Jovian rose to his feet.
"You have made the correct choice. There will still be a place for you in the world to come."
"Now it's time for you to accompany me on a tour of my new college."
Jovian left the smoke-filled chamber.
Outside the conference room stood several rows of men dressed in black suits. At the center of the formation rested a coffin.
The person lying inside symbolized the end of an era.
"Let us raise our glasses and celebrate the end of one age and the beginning of another!"
Jovian lifted his glass and proclaimed his toast.
Countless guests responded in unison.
Their next destination was Cassell College.
When news arrived that the vice principal had been removed and Principal Anjou was dead, the entire college fell into deathly silence.
Countless people shed tears in his memory. They had truly loved the perpetually elegant and dignified principal.
Unfortunately, the man who had practically embodied the entire history of dragon slaying had been buried at Cambridge University alongside the alchemical blade he had wielded.
It should have been a day of grief.
Instead, flower petals drifted down from the sky.
The new principal, Jovian, had entered the grounds of the historic college.
Two stunning young women followed behind him, along with a beautiful boy whose features were almost feminine. They were joined by Lu Mingfei, the S-rank student everyone at the college already knew, and Chu Zihang, the A-rank president of the Lionheart Society.
At the rear walked Chu Tianjiao, the biological father of the extraordinarily powerful hybrid Chu Zihang, a man whom countless people had forgotten.
Jovian and his entourage continued forward beneath the furious glares of the gathered students.
A group approached them from the opposite direction.
At its head stood a man with golden hair resembling the mane of a lion. Behind him were some of the most powerful students at Cassell College.
"Are you planning to stand in my way, Caesar?"
"I imagine your family has already explained the situation to you. You're an intelligent man. You understand when something has become inevitable."
Jovian stopped before the golden-haired man.
"The old men in my family chose to compromise. That was their decision."
"My choices belong to me. I have never represented anyone but myself."
Caesar stood his ground and stared coldly at Jovian.
Sparks seemed to fly between them.
"Lu Mingfei! Lu Mingfei, what the hell is going on?"
Finger, who was hiding among the members of Caesar's Student Union, waved at Lu Mingfei from within the crowd.
"Finger?"
Lu Mingfei glanced around and saw that everyone was focused on Jovian and Caesar. No one was paying attention to an invisible nobody like him, so he hurried over to Finger and lowered his voice.
"You should prepare yourself. Everything at the college is about to change."
"Is that guy really so powerful that even an S-rank like you surrendered?"
Finger looked at Lu Mingfei with a hint of sorrow.
"What does my S-rank mean? Even the dra..."
Lu Mingfei coughed and abruptly stopped himself.
"Just don't do anything stupid. This is way beyond us. We can't afford to get involved."
He grabbed Finger and repeatedly warned him.
"Don't worry. I've been a perennial dead-last for years. Something like this has nothing to do with me. This is a matter for important people."
Finger deliberately adopted a relaxed expression.
"Good. That's good."
Lu Mingfei nodded, visibly relieved.
Meanwhile, Jovian suddenly smiled at Caesar.
"Since that's how you feel, I'll give you a chance to lose so thoroughly that you'll have no choice but to accept the result."
"We'll settle this according to the traditions of your own college."
"The college's traditions?"
Caesar narrowed his eyes as though he had already guessed what Jovian meant.
"As the new principal of Cassell College, I hereby declare that today's conflict will be settled according to the rules of the Day of Freedom!"
"If you want to drive me out of this college, then fight with everything you have!"
Jovian's voice rang across the campus, officially beginning the battle for control of Cassell College.
"How many people will be fighting on your side?" Caesar asked, still maintaining his composure.
"As you can see, including the kid who just ran over to your group, there are only seven of us."
Jovian brought over a chair and sat down in front of Caesar.
"Seven people?"
"You plan to challenge the entire college with only seven people?"
The Student Union members behind Caesar stared at him in disbelief.
"Why not? Seven people are more than enough to deal with a group of children."
"Actually, that still feels excessive. Let's make this more interesting."
"From this moment onward, I'll remain seated here without moving. If even one of you manages to strike me, you win."
"Your entire college will only have to defeat the six people on my side."
Jovian remained seated as he addressed the students before him.
"You're far too arrogant!"
"Even Principal Anjou would never have dared to sit there and claim that we could attack him without inflicting a single injury!"
One student shouted furiously.
The moment the words left his mouth, however, he seemed to realize what he had just said and fell silent.
He was right.
Even Principal Anjou would never have claimed that he could sit still and endure their attacks without suffering a scratch.
Yet Jovian was making precisely that claim.
That meant Jovian believed himself to be even stronger than Anjou.
"So the principal's death really was connected to you."
Caesar lowered his head and glared at Jovian, who sat before him like a king inspecting his subjects.
"No matter how furious you are, it doesn't matter."
"Release all of it. Attack me with everything you have, provided you're capable of reaching me."
Jovian remained perfectly calm.
Caesar said nothing.
His body had already begun moving.
He crossed the distance like a bolt of lightning, raised his handgun directly toward Jovian's head, and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The bullet exploded from the barrel and shot toward Jovian's skull.
Clang!
Jovian did not react to Caesar's attack because someone else had moved at the exact same moment.
The man possessed a cold, expressionless face and Golden Eyes that never went dark. He held a katana wreathed in pale blue flames.
His reactions were extraordinarily fast.
He had perfectly calculated the bullet's trajectory and placed his blade along its path before Caesar even fired, effortlessly intercepting the shot.
The man who blocked Caesar's bullet was Chu Zihang.
"You've grown stronger."
The others might not have clearly seen what happened, but Caesar had been standing directly in front of him.
He had seen everything.
Before the bullet from his handgun could even touch Chu Zihang's katana, the blue flames burning along its edge had melted the projectile into liquid copper.
Caesar could not imagine how intense those flames had to be.
Chu Zihang did not answer him.
His actions had already made his decision clear.
"It seems you've chosen your side."
Caesar sighed.
He understood what Chu Zihang meant. Unfortunately, it appeared that the two of them would have to settle the matter through battle.
"Boss Caesar, we'll help you!"
Just as Caesar prepared to challenge Chu Zihang, a group of Student Union members charged at him.
"You..."
Caesar froze.
He hated having others interfere with his battles, but then he remembered that many of these students had only recently joined the Student Union after he publicly declared on the college forum that he would defend Cassell.
"Chu Zihang, go play with your friend."
"Just remember to come back early."
As Chu Zihang prepared to confront the incoming students, a hoarse, weathered voice sounded beside him.
No matter how anyone interpreted those words, they sounded exactly like something a parent would say to his young son.
The speaker was a middle-aged man whose features bore a noticeable resemblance to Chu Zihang.
He walked toward the charging students with a blade in his hand.
The instant the man lowered his weapon, every student who had blindly rushed him collapsed to the ground.
"Was that Moment?"
"Or was it Time Zero, like the principal's?"
Caesar's pupils contracted sharply.
He had already suspected that Chu Zihang's father possessed an extraordinary bloodline, but he had never expected him to be this powerful.
Chu Tianjiao was nearly on the same level as Principal Anjou.
"We'll fight over there."
While Caesar was still stunned, Chu Zihang seized him by the collar and dragged him away.
"So fast."
Caesar's expression grew serious.
Chu Zihang had grabbed his collar so quickly that Caesar had failed to react.
Had the object reaching toward his neck been a blade instead of a hand, would he have already lost?
Chu Zihang took Caesar away, Lu Mingfei did his best to avoid contributing, and Chu Tianjiao dealt with the Student Union members.
Only three people remained beside Jovian.
Two were impossibly beautiful young women.
The third was an adorable young boy who looked almost like a girl.
Yet those three alone prevented every attack from advancing another step.
Bullets, Yanling, and every other form of attack completely collapsed the instant they approached Jovian.
The students had studied this phenomenon in their textbooks.
It meant that an overwhelmingly powerful Yanling domain surrounded Jovian.
"This is getting annoying."
"Let's disable all their Yanling."
One of the two women beside Jovian seemed to have grown tired of the battle.
She ignited her dazzling Golden Eyes, which burned like brilliant lights, and an immense domain instantly covered the entire college.
"Yanling: Discipline!"
It was the same Yanling used by the former vice principal.
Countless students frowned when they discovered they could no longer use their Yanling.
However, some of the more knowledgeable students immediately realized that this was not Yanling: Discipline at all.
No ordinary Discipline domain could force weaker hybrids to collapse onto their knees and beg for mercy.
This was the royal domain of a Dragon King.
To put it simply, it was something that surpassed Yanling entirely.
If they absolutely had to give it a name, they would call it Authority.
"Under these circumstances, I'm the only one who can turn this battle around."
High atop a tower, light flashed across the lens of a scope.
A beautiful red-haired girl lay behind a sniper rifle, its barrel aimed directly at Jovian.
The round loaded into her weapon was no ordinary bullet.
A conventional projectile could never penetrate the oppressive domain surrounding him.
Instead, the girl was using a bullet forged from the fifth element.
A Philosopher's Stone.
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