Five minutes later, Balzac strolled casually at the Eden Palace. He stood outside the gates of the Eden Palace and looked up at the sky.

A shower of golden and crimson meteors continued to streak across the clouds.

Balzac chuckled and adjusted his collar. "It seems like the kids had their fun."

He walked through the entrance of the ruined palace. The battle had leveled the architecture. Only a few inner walls remained standing among the debris. The ceilings were entirely gone, exposing the broken hallways directly to the meteor shower above.

Balzac navigated the rubble and approached the grand marble stairs. He stopped at the base of the steps. A massive pool of crimson blood painted the white stone completely red.

Solomon lay motionless at the center of the gruesome puddle.

For the very first time since arriving at the academy, genuine panic cracked Balzac’s lazy facade. His eyes widened. He sprinted up the blood-soaked stairs to reach Solomon’s corpse.

Balzac dropped to his knees and reached out to check for a pulse.

He froze.

Solomon was alive. He breathed evenly, sleeping soundly against the cold marble.

Balzac quickly inspected his body. Solomon lacked a single scratch. The fatal chest wound had vanished entirely.

Balzac stared at Solomon’s right arm, which he recalled seeing get cut before the stream ended. Instead, a perfectly intact hand rested peacefully on the stone, completely restored. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Balzac furrowed his brows in total confusion. He stood up and left the sleeping Solomon on the stairs.

He walked up the remaining steps and entered the main courtyard. Balzac immediately spotted Uriel’s severed head resting in the dirt. The face remained frozen in a weeping wail.

A few feet away, Uriel’s headless body lay in absolute ruin. The limbs were violently torn apart and scattered across the crater. It looked like someone had physically pulled the entity to pieces.

Balzac scanned the perimeter of the courtyard. He searched the shadows for Vlad, but he was completely gone.

He couldn’t sense anyone in the entire Eden kingdom.

’What the hell happened here?’ Balzac wondered, staring down at the mangled remains. ’What kind of force tears a divine being apart like a ragdoll?’

Balzac walked over to the severed head. He raised his right hand and casually swirled his index finger over Uriel’s face and body. The physical remains of the body broke apart into glowing golden dust.

The magical particles floated upward and absorbed directly into the palm of Balzac’s hand.

Crouching next to the sleeping boy, Balzac grabbed Solomon’s shoulder and gave it a firm shake. The teenager remained completely unresponsive, his chest rising and falling in an uninterrupted, peaceful slumber against the cold stone.

Balzac stood up and dusted the red stains from his trousers. "How can someone sleep so peacefully on a blood-soaked staircase?" he mumbled to himself. "I could never. I should definitely ask him for sleeping tips when he wakes up."

Turning his attention back to the ruined courtyard, he took in the sheer scale of the destruction. Massive craters dotted the stone floorboards alongside splintered pillars and pulverized walls.

Those were obvious remnants of a cataclysmic clash. Glancing toward a pile of gray rubble, Balzac spotted Eden’s Penance resting harmlessly in the dirt.

He strolled over to the weapon, raising his eyebrows at the colossal steel blade. "That sword looks much bigger in person."

Stuffing his hands deep into his coat pockets, Balzac looked up at the golden and crimson meteors still painting the night sky. "Since I am already here, I might as well have a look around and enjoy the scenery before heading back. I will treat this as a picnic."

He wandered deeper into the palace ruins, bypassing the collapsed grand halls entirely.

Instead of searching for stairs, he simply jumped down through the broken floorboards to reach the lower levels, navigating the destroyed wreckage with effortless grace. Leaving the main palace boundaries behind, he eventually spotted the skeletal remains of the grand cathedral resting in the distance.

Balzac entered the cathedral grounds and stepped casually over a massive trench carved directly through the center of the foundation. He kicked aside a piece of stained glass, thoroughly inspecting the shattered pews and the blown-out walls for any signs of life.

The entire area was completely devoid of people.

"Nobody is here either," Balzac muttered, scratching his chin thoughtfully. "So the world rankers definitely left."

He furrowed his brows, piecing together the logistical impossibility of that conclusion. The dimensional administration had completely locked down the spatial portals, trapping everyone inside.

Vlad, Miro, and Zoro lacked the magical capacity to jump across spatial dimensions on their own, leaving them with absolutely no viable exit route.

’How exactly did they manage to leave this place?’ Balzac wondered, his gaze sweeping across the empty ruins one last time.

Balzac wandered through the cathedral wreckage, his boots crunching over the shattered glass.

Suddenly, his heel pressed down on something fleshy hidden beneath a layer of white ash. Pausing his stride, he lifted his foot and looked down.

A severed hand lay in the dirt, wearing the familiar cuff of the academy uniform.

He crouched and picked up the severed limb.

"If this is here..." Balzac muttered, lifting the pale hand to eye level. "Where exactly did his current arm come from? Did he just regrow it out of nowhere?"

He tilted his head, turning the dead hand over to inspect the severed wrist. ’Regenerating an entire limb requires a five-star Priest at the absolute minimum. Even they would struggle immensely to perform such a complex ritual in perfection.’

Balzac swirled his index finger over the severed stump. The flesh and bone broke apart into glowing golden dust, floating upward to absorb directly into his palm.

"It seems I missed quite a few interesting things today," Balzac sighed, dusting off his fingers.

After finishing his inspection of the ruins, he retraced his steps back to the grand marble staircase.

Solomon remained exactly where he left him, sleeping peacefully in the dried pool of blood. Balzac rubbed his face in annoyance, glancing between the sleeping teenager and the colossal greatsword resting nearby.

"I really do not want to carry anyone," Balzac groaned. "And I have to bring that thing too."

An idea sparked in his lazy mind.

"A highly practical solution."

Balzac grabbed Solomon by the collar and dragged the boy over to Eden’s Penance. He placed Solomon directly onto the broad, flat surface of the blade. Unbuckling the leather belts from Solomon’s uniform, Balzac wrapped the straps tightly around the metal, securing the sleeping teenager to the weapon.

Then, he grabbed Solomon by the ankle, and started walking to where he came from. He dragged the boy across the floorboards, using the colossal sword as a makeshift metal sled.

"Sometimes my genius... it’s almost frightening."