Thud!
The woman shuddered violently, and she fell to her knees, saying, "Y-Yes. He… he asked us. Please don't kill—"
"Thanks for telling me." Max nodded. "In return, I'll give you a painless death."
Saying this, he reached out his hand and grabbed her neck. Just as he was about to twist it, a loud shout sounded out from deep within in the hall.
"DON'T YOU DARE!"
"Mm?" Max paused and turned to look at who was coming out this time. He saw a man — who seemed to be in his thirties, had a good-looking face, a confident and upright gait and was garbed in the disciplinary hall Elders' uniform, the same as the one pot-bellied Elder had — walking toward him with slow steps.
But strangely enough, even though it looked like he was walking slowly, his every step would bring him tens of meters forward. It was as if space was warping around him, helping him travel faster.
Noticing this, a solemn look appeared in Max's eyes. He was about to throw the woman away and prepare to cast [Calidus Brachium] once again, but then he heard the girl cry out:
"Elder Raina, please save me."
"Oh? So, he is the guy." He muttered, and then.
Crack!
He twisted her neck, killing her. The woman's eyes were wide open in disbelief in her last moments.
Whoosh!
Elder Raina stopped a few meters away from Max and glanced at the woman and shook his head, "How foolish! If you hadn't called out to me, he wouldn't have killed you."
"Hm? You seem pretty sure of that?" Max asked.
"Of course. After surviving decades in the mage world, you learn to pay attention to the smallest of things. Just now, after you saw me, you were clearly about to throw her away to get ready to engage in battle with me. Unfortunately, she had to call out my name and stroke the flames of anger further." Elder Raina calmly answered.
"I understand. Now tell me something." Max nodded and asked, "I'm pretty sure I don't know you and you don't know me. Then why are you targeting me?"
"Why don't you take a guess?" Elder Raina smiled.
"Mm, let's see." Max put on a pondering look before saying, "Perhaps you are a lackey of either the Dalton or the Arasia family and doing it on their orders."
Elder Raina's eyes narrowed at the word 'lackey' but he didn't get angry and calmly nodded. "You are wrong about the lackey part. I'm not their lackey, but a member of the Dalton family instead. Raina Dalton."
"So, it's the Dalton family, huh?" Max nodded, not surprised at all and then asked, "Did your young master Dalton ask you to or is it because you are trying to take revenge for that guy, Jack Dalton's death?"
"Does it matter?" Raina asked, his expression finally changing to become slightly dark.
"You are right. It doesn't matter" Max shrugged.
Then a curious expression appeared on his face as he asked, "Tell me something. As an Elder of the academy, you are trying to take your personal revenge against a disciple. Wouldn't the academy punish you when they find out?"
The crowd had finally understood what was happening after they heard their conversation, but none dare to comment on Elder Raina's action.
But inwardly, they felt angry because it was clearly not something an Elder was supposed to do.
Just when Max and everyone expected him to give some excuse to make his action justifiable, Elder Raina laughed. "Punish me? Haha! How laughable! Do you think the academy doesn't know of my actions?"
"It does, but it's not doing anything to stop me. Do you know why?" He asked and before Max could speak, he answered it himself,
"It's because being an enemy of both the Dalton and the Arasia family isn't worth it."
He then added, "Sure, some Elder were still dissatisfied and stopped me from acting against you personally as it would sully the academy's reputation. But now that you've killed a three-star Elder, you are already a rebel in their eyes and no one would say anything if I were to kill you now."
Meanwhile, hidden in a corner of the disciplinary hall, two figures watched it all happen. One was a robust middle-aged man while the other was someone Max was familiar with, Elder Adrienne.
Elder Adrienne looked the middle-aged man asked, "Hall master, shouldn't we stop this now?"
"Why should we?" The middle-aged man asked.
Adrienne raised her delicate brows and said, "When this disciple joined the academy a few months ago, he was just an early-stage two-star mage, but he has already reached the three-star realm now."
"Moreover, as you can see, his actual strength is at a lot higher than a mid-stage three-star mage like the Elder he killed a few moments before. He is a monstrous genius. We should protect and nurture someone like him."
The middle-aged didn't speak for a moment and then asked, "Do you know why the headmaster allowed Raina to do as he wished?"
Adrienne frowned and shook her head. "No."
"It's because the Dalton family gave us a shocking piece of information that only the royal family and the Dalton family currently know." The middle-aged man's voice was grave as he said this.
"What is it?" Adrienne asked, finally realising that this matter was far from simple.
"The war against the demons which was supposed to happen after the competition between the academies will start in just a few days. Furthermore, this time, demons won't retreat after fighting for a month or two, like in the past."
The man sighed and said in a grim tone, "It will be an all-out war. Although it might not be as intense as the war that broke the continent into two, its scale would be very huge. And most important of all, the battlefield will be our region."
"If we form an enmity with the Dalton and the Arasia family, our chances of surviving this calamity would plummet even more. That's why the headmaster decided to sacrifice this kid."
Adrienne was much too shocked to respond.
After a while, she asked, "Why aren't we preparing ourselves then?"
She didn't ask why the academy kept it secret even after knowing about it, because the answer was obvious.
If this shocking piece of news was revealed to the public, there would be chaos.
"We are." The man answered curtly.
"Aren't you a little too overconfident?" Max narrowed his eyes.
"Overconfident?" Raina chuckled and then,
Whoosh!
He appeared in front of Max and, before Max could react, his neck was in Raina's hand.
"It's not overconfidence, but a fact." He sneered and tightened his grasp, causing Max's face to turn red due to lack of oxygen.
However,
"I would say it's overconfidence." Max smirked and just then, Riana's expression changed drastically. He hurried to release Max's neck and wanted to retreat, but it was already too late.
BANG!
A blazing fist had landed in his gut, burned his clothes, skin and destroyed his internal organ before coming out from his back.
"You… tricked me." Raina spat through clenched teeth as the light from his eyes gradually faded.
While talking, Max had been channeling and condensing his mana around his fist so he would be able to cast [Calidus Brachium] at a moment's notice and because the system had the special, passive ability of concealing his mana until he activated the spell, Raina didn't notice it, making it easier for Max to take him off guard.
However, he hadn't thought that it would be so easy to take him off guard and because he knew Raina was a lot stronger than the pot-bellied Elder, he hadn't held back and poured all the mana he could into this cast. To his surprise, he was able to use 5000 mana units.
Just an over 2000 mana units [Calidus Brachium] had killed the pot-bellied Elder with ease and while Raina was stronger, Max believed a [Calidus Brachium] infused with 5000 wasn't something he could resist.
But who would have thought that he would be so overconfident that he wouldn't keep his guard up when he was so close to his enemy, giving Max a perfect chance to deliver the killing blow.
However, truth be told, Riana wasn't overconfident. He was just confident in his speed and believed that he could kill Max before he could cast any spell.
Unfortunately, he didn't know about the system's concealment ability.
Thud!
Raina's dead body fell to the ground, breaking the pin drop silence that ensued after his death. Everyone looked at the dead body and then at Max in shock.
