The engine of the magi-car roared as black smoke billowed from the direction of the academy, which was rapidly coming into view. Professor Baldwin jerked the steering wheel, slammed the brakes, and kicked the door open.

“Dale, from here on, we run!” she said.

“Yes, ma’am!” I replied.

Unless it was far, running was faster than riding in a magi-car. Together, Professor Baldwin and I sprinted toward the smoke-filled academy. As we drew closer, the thick stench of blood filled the air, mingled with the clang of battle.

Damn it! I thought.

The attack beginning so soon was a shock to me. I bit my lip, a nervous expression twisting my face, and drew up more mana. The scenery blurred past, and soon the Hero Academy came into sight.

“This is...”

A horde of monsters was surging endlessly, and the professors and cadets were desperately fighting back.

Professor Baldwin let out a breath of relief, her hand pressed to her chest. “Phew! At least they’re holding out.”

As she said, there were no casualties among the academy’s defenders yet; only monster corpses were piled across the ground. The number of enemies was still high, but judging from the flow of the battle, victory seemed to be tipping toward the academy.

I narrowed my eyes at the battlefield, my expression hardening. The academy is holding the upper hand?

“Hm? Why that face?” asked Professor Baldwin.

“Something’s off,” I replied.

“Off? What do you mean?”

“In my previous life, even when a thousand heroes from three nations joined forces, it took a brutal, drawn-out fight just to barely defeat the legion of demonic monsters.”

Yet now, without the tri-nation allied forces, with only the professors and cadets of the academy, they were not just holding their ground, but pushing the monsters back?

“Maybe the monsters are weaker than they would be ten years later?” Professor Baldwin said.

“Could be, but still.”

I stomped and vaulted high into the air. From above, the full scale of the battle spread out beneath me.

I grimaced as I landed. It was just as I had thought.

Seeing my expression, Professor Baldwin asked, “What is it?”

“They’re not here.”

“Not here?”

“There isn’t a single monster with ten eyes or more.”

“What?”

The monsters numbered at least ten thousand, yet there wasn’t a single monster with ten eyes among them. Those monsters were the elite that formed the true core of the beast legion. Moreover, even the master of the beast legion, the Archbishop of Beasts, Jackal, was nowhere to be seen.

Professor Baldwin said, “Which means?”

“This is a decoy. A distraction,” I replied.

“What?”

“Haah!”

I bit my lip and pressed my forehead with my hand. Damn it.

I had been mistaken, blindly assuming that because the same event was happening again, its purpose was also the same.

I said, “Jackal’s real target isn’t the academy.”

Professor Baldwin frowned, confused. “Then what the hell is he after?”

Honestly, I couldn’t think of what goal he could have right away. Even in my past life, no one ever discovered why Jackal had attacked the academy. Nevertheless, I let my thoughts flow, comparing the past and present, connecting what I knew.

The true power of Jackal’s beast legion lay in the ten-eyed demonic monsters he controlled. So, where had he sent them? What was he after? Where were they headed?

“Ah!” A quiet sound escaped me as a single word flashed through my mind like lightning. “The Abyss.”

Professor Baldwin was surprised. “The Abyss?”

“Jackal’s goal isn’t the academy, it’s the Abyss buried beneath it.”

Professor Baldwin furrowed her brow. “But didn’t you say you’re the only one who knows how to descend below the first layer of the Abyss?”

She was right. The passage to the second layer was built around the Three Conundrums of the Great Sage. Unless the Demon God’s seal weakened, no one but me could access it.

“I don’t know how, but I’m certain that’s what Jackal is after,” I said.

Jackal’s strongest monsters, monsters with ten eyes or more, had been sighted in the mountains where the entrance to the Abyss was hidden. That path would lead down to the vast ruins beneath the academy. At the center of those ruins was a magic circle that opened the gate to the second layer.

I didn’t know how Jackal had learned how to activate the gate, but his goal was clear. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have sent every one of his elite forces away just to stage a meaningless diversion.

“We have to go after him,” I said.

“You mean back the way we came?” Professor Baldwin asked.

“Yes.” I nodded grimly.

She hesitated, glancing at the chaotic battlefield. “But right now...”

While it seemed that the academy had the upper hand, the battle was far from over. Thousands of monsters remained, hurling themselves at the professors and cadets with claws and fangs bared.

If we turned back now, there could be casualties. With the power Professor Baldwin and I possessed, we could easily tip the battle toward a decisive victory.

I replied, “You don’t have to worry about that, Professor.”

“Don’t worry? Why?”

I pointed toward the skies above the battlefield. “Look there.”

Floating high above, calmly overlooking the chaos, was an old man. It was the headmaster of the Hero Academy and one of only five Masters, the elite title reserved for the heroes ranked in the top five, across the three nations.

The Thunder God, Lionel Ryu, raised his arm lazily toward the horde below. Blue lightning engulfed the skies above the academy.

Crackle!

Even from hundreds of meters away, the surge of mana made my skin prickle.

The bright blue sky darkened as thunderclouds swallowed the sun. Then, bolts of lightning poured down in unison, striking the ground with a deafening roar. The monster horde that had been surging forward was instantly engulfed in the storm of lightning, scorched into ashes.

A low, breathless laugh escaped Professor Baldwin’s lips. “So that’s what you meant.”

Now that the Thunder God had joined the fray, there was no longer anything to fear on the battlefield.

She continued, “Understood. Let’s go after Jackal.”

“Yes.”

“We should get back to the magi-car.”

I shook my head. “No.”

I drew the sword from my hip.

“What are you planning to do?” she asked.

“There’s no time to go back.”

I didn’t know why Jackal was heading toward the Abyss, or rather, precisely because I didn’t know, I had to follow him as quickly as possible.

Holding the sword in a reverse grip, I pointed the blade at the ground. “Did you know? The first layer of the Abyss is far larger than the entire grounds of the Hero Academy.”

Professor Baldwin replied, “Wait. You’re not thinking of—”

Before Professor Baldwin could finish, flames ignited along the length of the sword and I slammed the burning sword into the ground. The aura condensed at its tip erupted downward like a cannon blast. The searing flames melted through the earth, piercing straight down and carving a vertical shaft hundreds of meters deep.

I continued, “In other words, if we just dig straight down, there’s no need to take the long way through the entrance.”

Professor Baldwin looked down into the bottomless pit and let out a helpless laugh. “Hah! You really... have lost your mind.”

I gave a faint smile and shrugged. “I’ve lived like this my whole life.”

She was still standing frozen in disbelief when I walked toward her and said, “Stay still.”

“Huh? W-wait!”

Without warning, I lifted her into my arms in what could only be described as a princess carry.

Her face flushed crimson as she glared up at me, flustered. “W-what on earth are you doing, Dale?”

“It’s still scorching down there. You’d be burned alive if you went alone.” Holding her firmly, I summoned the Primordial Flame that slept within me. “Ignite.”

A faint sizzling sound filled the air as smoke seeped from my pores, wrapping both of us in a shroud of ash-gray mist. Then, with one step, I jumped. A shrill, uncharacteristically cute scream escaped Professor Baldwin’s lips, but I ignored it.

***

After a long plunge, we landed on the first layer of the Abyss, hundreds of meters below.

Professor Baldwin glared at me, her cheeks still burning red. “Y-you really are... unbelievable!”

The contrast between her usual cool composure and her current flustered state made my heart skip for a moment, but now wasn’t the time for that.

“Let’s go,” I said.

“Ugh!”

We moved toward the center of the ruins, the spot where the gate to the second layer of the Abyss could be opened. When we arrived there, the scene was as I had expected.

I said, “As I thought...”

“The gate is open.”

A rift identical to the one I had created before shimmered before us. Exchanging a glance, Professor Baldwin and I stepped into it without hesitation. Our vision flickered, and the familiar landscape of the Abyss’s second layer unfolded before us.

She looked around. “Where’s Jackal?”

“He must’ve gone deeper,” I said.

It looked like he had cleared the area as he passed; the monsters that had once rushed us here were nowhere to be seen. We descended further, reaching the third layer of the Abyss soon.

There, a blazing world awaited us. The ceiling writhed with fire like a sea of living flame, and the earth glowed with an ominous orange hue. At its center stood an old man covered head to toe in intricate tattoos.

The Archbishop of Beasts, Jackal, stared at us with wide eyes. “Well, well.”

“Jackal!”

“Heh heh! I see now why they call you the Cursed-Eye Spider. You’re truly a persistent pest.” Jackal shook his head, as if exasperated that we had followed him all the way here. “How did you even know I was here?”

“Do we need to tell you?” I replied.

A crooked grin spread across his wrinkled face as his shoulders trembled with laughter. “Heh. I suppose not. It doesn’t matter anyway. Still, since you came all this way, I should give you a little gift.”

“A gift?”

With a flick of his fingers, the tattoos covering his body flared to life. Then, a massive rift tore open in midair. From the rift emerged a towering beast. It was a monster tens of meters tall, its body glistening with malice, and its eleven glowing eyes glared down at us.

Professor Baldwin’s eyes widened in shock.

Jackal’s laughter echoed cruelly. “How is it? Brings back memories, doesn’t it?”

He reached out, almost affectionately, to stroke the massive creature that had stepped through. “This little one is the very beast that devoured your parents alive and trampled your hometown into dust.”

A faint tremor ran through Professor Baldwin. Her left eye, marked by a scar, throbbed with pain. The nightmare that had swallowed her life and the endless despair she could never escape had returned once more, standing before her in the flesh.