"No... impossible... I am Seluvis! How could I, Seluvis, be defeated here!"
Seluvis growled through gritted teeth, forcing himself to try and stand. However, his left leg—beaten until the white of the bone was exposed—could no longer support his weight. It snapped with a sickening crack. He collapsed into a half-kneeling position, the glintstone staff in his hand broken down to a mere stump of a handle.
The waterwheel had not yet reached its zenith, but the magical duel had already been decided. Around them, the steel blades of the waterwheel were scarred with the blackened scorch marks of sorcerous bombardment.
"Is this truly all the professors of the Academy are capable of? How disappointing." Sellen stood her ground, her breathing only slightly hurried. Her apprentice robes were torn in several places, but she had sustained no significant injuries.
"Dammit! If only I had my puppets with me, how could I ever—" Seluvis spat venomously before looking up. "I still don't understand. You found no evidence, no proof. Why were you so certain that I was the killer?"
"You were constantly and deliberately leading me toward Raven. Although I am not entirely sure what happened with the 'Raven' I saw at the waterwheel that night—an illusion, I suspect?" Sellen approached him slowly. "I know Raven is not the killer. He is not that kind of person. Therefore, you—the professor who provided detailed clues and induced me to investigate him—became a suspect I could not ignore."
"That's it? That simple? Raven... hah, you really trust him, don't you?" Seluvis began to laugh, only to be cut off by a fit of coughing that sprayed bloody froth. "Calling him so intimately... it seems the rumors are true. You two have been together for a long time, haven't you? Hmm? You've probably even shared a bed. Otherwise, how could a commoner like you hold the position of Vice President of the Student Council so securely? I suppose I overlooked that little detail."
Sellen's brow furrowed.
"Trying to provoke me is pointless, Professor. Now, repent for your evil deeds, for the murder of innocent apprentices. Apologize to the victims. I will give you a swift end and bury your ashes so they may return to the roots."
"Did I accidentally kill your friends? Hah! You want to send me to the roots? Those poor wretches will never return to the Erdtree. I turned them into my lovely little puppets; their souls will never find their way back to the Erdtree. Hahaha!"
Sellen closed her eyes, then opened them again as she stepped closer to Seluvis. Her left hand gripped the hilt of the single-edged knife hanging at her waist.
"Your precious Prince Raven is a dead man too. The Ringleader of the Black Knives never misses. You betrayed me... were you dreaming of hooking up with Raven so you could rise to power as his Queen? Your little dream is about to shatter, hehehe..."
"What are you talking about? Who is the Ringleader of the Black Knives?"
"Your eyebrows are quite beautiful... when you suppress your anger, your muscles twitch in such a subtle, elegant curve." Seluvis began to mutter to himself, his head drooping. It seemed his injuries were too severe; his consciousness was fading. "I... I find I like you even more now... Sellen. I will have you, one way or anoth—gurgle..."
He couldn't finish. Sellen grabbed him by the hair, yanking his head up, and slit his throat with a single, clean stroke. Blood sprayed out, splattering across her face.
Leaning close to Seluvis's ear, Sellen whispered coldly, "Go to hell, Professor."
She brought her staff down hard on the back of his neck, crushing half his skull, and then kicked him off the waterwheel.
"Robbie, Tana, Anderson, and Judy... I have avenged you." Watching Seluvis's corpse plummet hundreds of meters into the mist below, Sellen sheathed her knife and wiped the blood from her face with her sleeve.
Recalling Seluvis's dying words, she hesitated for a moment before leaping onto the waterwheel's axle, deftly sliding down through the gaps in the machinery.
Inside the bunker, the atmosphere was somewhat bleak. Even the Enforcer Professor, who had previously been optimistic about the battle, did not dare to make any further judgments. If a second star could fall, who was to say there wouldn't be a third or a fourth?
"My usual duties involve hunting down heretical sorcerers; I don't know much about the starscape," the Enforcer Professor said. "The cosmos is indeed full of danger, but from what I know, after General Radahn conquered the stars, creatures from the outside shouldn't be able to descend so easily."
Raven, meanwhile, was flipping through an ancient tome from the Eternal City.
"The once-glorious Nox civilization was destroyed by a creature that descended from the heavens, forcing them to abandon their Eternal City and go into exile." He carefully deciphered the mottled ink on the pages. "The author of this book believes that the actions of the Eternal City angered the gods, and thus they were punished."
"Oh? And what did the Eternal City do?"
"The details are vague." Raven fell into deep thought. "Could it be that the Carian Kingdom has also angered the gods? If that's the case, is the only way to save Caria from disaster to uncover the cause of that anger and cease whatever behavior triggered it?"
"Nowadays, the only god capable of such interference in the Lands Between is the one who planted the Erdtree—the so-called Greater Will, the deity worshipped by the followers of the Two Fingers," the Enforcer Professor remarked. "The Carian Kingdom has never submitted to the Erdtree. If we're talking about 'angering' them, we've done so countless times already. The people of Liurnia will not bow their heads and beg Leyndell for forgiveness because of that."
"Perhaps warring with the armies of the Golden Order didn't truly provoke the Greater Will. But now, a new variable has appeared..."
As Raven spoke, a sudden clamor and shouting erupted from the apprentices' side of the room. It seemed someone had started a fight.
The Enforcer Professor snorted, standing up to deal with it.
"Silence! Who is fighting? Whoever started this, step forward!"
The crowd immediately parted. One apprentice lay on the ground clutching his face, apparently having been struck, while another apprentice stood nearby with his head bowed.
"You're the one who hit him? In times like these, you still have the energy to brawl!" the Enforcer Professor barked, stepping toward the apprentice.
Watching from a distance, Raven felt something was off. Just as he was about to speak, the situation shifted violently.
Killing intent.
It was a sharp, piercing intent—as if it had been distilled for a thousand years in a dark pool, perfectly fused with the shadows.
The apprentice with the bowed head suddenly exploded into motion. Raven could barely track the movement; he only saw the Enforcer Professor let out a roar as a massive gavel of shimmering blue glintstone magic manifested in his hands. He twisted his waist and swung the hammer down with crushing force.
The apprentice transformed into a flickering shadow, retreating with incredible speed. However, the blue gavel suddenly accelerated for a second strike, managing to catch up to the retreating figure.
With the kinetic vision of a demigod, Raven caught a glimpse of the shadow pressing a hand against the head of the hammer. The figure's body twisted unnervingly, as if they had no bones, flowing like water out from under the strike.
The hammer's momentum slammed it into the ground. The reinforced steel floor buckled and surged like a wave, and half the bunker seemed to groan in agony. A tide of blue magic erupted from the point of impact, sweeping toward the retreating shadow.
But the shadow offered no resistance to the force; she rose and fell on the crest of the magical wave like a leaf in a gale, before drifting back against the bunker wall. She paused for a moment before landing lightly on the floor. Only the deep, man-sized indentation in the wall proved that the pressure she had sustained was not as light as it appeared.
"The Witch-Hammer, the judge of good and evil in Raya Lucaria. Hah. A grand reputation indeed." The shadow spoke with a mocking, raspy, yet melodic voice. It was clearly a woman.
The woman glanced at her left arm. Her forearm was bent at an unnatural angle—dislocated. She clamped the pitch-black shortsword she held in her right hand between her teeth, then gripped her left arm, giving it a sharp shove and a twist. With a sickening pop, the joint snapped back into place.
She flexed her fingers, her movements so fluid there was no sign of injury. She scanned the terrifying crater the magical gavel had left in the floor. "These apprentice robes are truly a nuisance; they made it so I couldn't even dodge such a clumsy attack. Still, for dealing with the likes of you, they are more than sufficient."
"Arrogance!" Several lecturers and assistants rushed over, surrounding the woman in a triangular formation. "Who are you? What is your purpose in infiltrating this place disguised as an apprentice?"
"A mere assassin. My name is of no consequence." The assassin chuckled as she counted. "One, two, three, four. Only four formal mages, and Loretta isn't here. Heh... it seems he did his job well. He deserves a reward."
"Who sent you! A Judge of the Haima Conspectus is here; do you think you can escape?" a lecturer shouted sternly.
Raven, however, had already drawn his light greatsword with a grim expression, coating the blade with a magic armament enchantment. "All apprentices, leave the bunker immediately! Watch out for this assassin!"
Clang!
The lecturer turned his head, only to find the Enforcer Professor making a strange, gurgling sound. The Professor was clutching the bottom edge of his glintstone crown with one hand, blood pouring through his fingers. The Haima Gavel—which had tasted the blood of countless heretical mages and witches—clattered to the ground, dissolving into dissipating mana.
"Professor? What's wrong?" an apprentice asked, trembling.
The Enforcer Professor did not answer. His tall, imposing frame slumped forward, and he crashed face-first into the ground, no longer able to protect his students.
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Elden Ring: The Unborn One's Journey Through Elden Ring(34 Chapter - Ongoing)
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