Chapter 74: The Unexpected Death

Chapter 74: Chapter 74: The Unexpected Death

A minute after the portal mutated into a red gate, several figures appeared before it. Among them were the academy’s professors, specifically Tharos and Kael.

The others were high-ranking agents from the Galactic Order’s Academy branch. The most notable figures present were the Branch Manager and Headmistress Nyxara herself.

Headmistress Nyxara arrived ahead of the group, quickly assessing the situation. Seeing the important figures arrive, Professor Asher immediately explained what had happened.

The moment they heard that the top-ranked freshman was trapped inside an SSS-rank gate, everyone was shocked to the core.

"How could this happen? It’s not even an A-rank gate, yet he’s been thrown into an SSS-rank gate! He’s just a kid! He won’t survive a minute in there!" one of the professors exclaimed, staring at the gate with heartache and regret.

"O Goddess of Luck, please save him from this calamity! Let fortune shine upon him and guide him safely through this peril!" Meanwhile, one of the female agents clasped her hands together and began praying for Aeon’s safety.

Even the usually composed Headmistress Nyxara wore an anxious expression. Everyone here knew that Aeon would be gone forever—no matter what kind of miracle occurred.

’What should I tell Elisabeth and Aldrich? They trusted their son to me, and now this happened,’ Nyxara thought, her once beautiful face filled with guilt.

At any minute, Aeon could be facing an A-rank Voidborn monster. Starting from B-rank, Voidborns possessed the intellect of a healthy adult human.

Aeon would die very soon and once he did, the gate would reopen normally, allowing anyone to re-enter without closing again.

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Inside the red gate, Aeon moved forward, heading toward his first target. Through his telepathy, he had already sensed the exact presence of the enemies ahead: 300 A-rank, 136 S-rank, 59 SS-rank, and 2 SSS-rank Voidborn monsters.

"Oh my. That is a good amount of chickens. I will surely enjoy this," Aeon said sarcastically as he approached his first group of enemies.

A hundred-ish meters away stood a group of four-armed, humanoid black silhouettes. Up close, these creatures’ bodies were completely dark with glowing white eyes. They possessed long, spiky tails, and their limbs ended in curved blades.

Aeon recognized them immediately. ’They are A-rank Voidborn dread reapers. According to the records, they are extremely intelligent, sneaky bastards,’ Aeon thought as he eyed the creatures.

"Oh well, let’s just kill them," Aeon said, shrugging his shoulders as if they were nothing. If the professors and higher-ups who were currently worrying about him heard this, they would have been shocked to death.

As Aeon drew closer, the dread reapers spontaneously snapped their heads toward him. Instantly, all 50 charged at Aeon, some of them roaring fiercely.

ROOOAAAR!

Within seconds, they closed the distance. The first three struck at Aeon with their curved blades, attacking from three different sides.

Aeon looked at them calmly and uttered a single word. "End."

The moment the word left his lips, all the incoming enemies collapsed to the ground. Their once-glowing eyes were now completely vacant and empty.

Thud!

They were all dead. Not a single survivor remained. Immediately, their bodies began turning to dust until they vanished completely.

Aeon had just used one of the effects from his talent, End of Endless: [Absolute End]. With just a single word, he had completely erased the existence of the dread reapers, leaving nothing behind.

"Sheesh! I really like this ability. Very dangerous and super sweet," Aeon admired sarcastically, looking at the results of his work.

Without stopping, Aeon headed toward the next group. This time, there were around 30 A-rank Voidborns, but of a different species.

Some looked like 10-meter-tall tigers with the typical dark skin and glowing white eyes. Others were massive flying organisms with translucent dark bodies, long tendrils, and a massive white eye on their heads.

The Void Drifters spotted Aeon first, making sinister eye contact with him using their massive eyes. But that was a critical mistake.

The Drifters instantly felt a sharp sting, as if their very souls were being cut to pieces. And that was exactly what happened, leaving only their hollow bodies to crash into the dirt.

Thump! Thump!

The giant tigers stared at the dead bodies of the Drifters in shock. The next second, they all simultaneously whipped their heads toward Aeon.

But he was already gone. Aeon had already passed them, idly flicking a wave of sword energy from his fingers. A second later, their heads tumbled to the ground.

Bam! Bam!

Aeon turned back to face the carcasses. With a commanding voice, he uttered a single word:

"DESCEND."

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Instantly, 30 dark, shadowy figures rose from the corpses, taking on their original forms. However, their eyes now glowed a deep crimson, and their skin was purely shadowy, covered in sections of dark armor.

"Hmm! So they can be turned into Nihilborns too. But I can no longer sense the Ruin Energy they originally used—only Null Energy," Aeon noted as he examined his new creations.

Null Energy was a new type of energy he had created by blending the affinities of Nihility, death, darkness, and shadow. It was also the core component of how he created Nihilborns, combining Null Energy with a highly advanced form of Necromancy.

Finishing his examination, Aeon turned around and headed toward the next group. Over the next five minutes, he completely wiped out the remaining A-rank Voidborn monsters.

It wasn’t long before he encountered a group of 20 S-rank monsters. These ones were humanoid, featuring long tails and long, dark horns. Their mouths were wide, lined with razor-sharp, needle-like teeth.

The moment they saw Aeon, one of them spoke. "It’s an enemy. And it’s actually one of those huge lizards. Today we’re going to fe—"

Before it could even finish its sentence, its vision flipped upside down. It caught a brief glimpse of its own body standing motionless on the ground before both its head and torso collapsed into the dirt.

Splat!

Aeon walked right past them as the heads of all 20 monsters severed cleanly from their bodies, rolling across the ground.

"DESCEND."

Instantly, all of them were converted into Nihilborns. They dropped to their knees before Aeon, greeting him in unison with deep respect and awe.

"Greetings, my liege."

Aeon then stored their bodies inside his inventory, planning to devour them later when he was in a private place. Meanwhile, the newly created Nihilborns sank into his shadow.

Aeon moved on. These enemies were weak, and he didn’t want to waste time, killing them all in a single move. By now, he had been inside the gate for just over ten minutes.

Although he killed his enemies in one go, the terrain was vast, and he was literally just walking toward them. Soon, he reached the next group and eliminated them just as easily.

The most noticeable change was that the Voidborns were becoming increasingly humanoid and could speak clearly.

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BOOOOOM!

A humanoid silhouette materialized in front of Aeon, throwing a punch heavily coated in the sinister dark forces of Ruin Energy.

However, the fist collided with an invisible barrier, triggering a thunderous explosion. In the exact same millisecond, the Ruin Energy was completely erased—along with the enemy’s entire right arm.

"GRAAAAAGH."

The Voidborn screamed in agony, desperately clutching his bleeding shoulder. Dark blood gushed from the wound as he stared at Aeon with pure terror.

"Wh... what was that? What was that barrier?!" the Voidborn demanded, growling through the pain.

Aeon tilted his head slightly and replied, "Barrier? Ah, you must be talking about my Nihil Protection. It’s one of my abilities. A nasty one, right?"

The glowing white eyes of the humanoid Voidborn widened in shock at what he just heard. It wasn’t the nature of Aeon’s Nihil Protection that terrified him, but something else entirely...

"How can you understand and speak our language?!"

Just now, Aeon had spoken their language flawlessly, like a native. It shocked the monster to his core. A creature who had taken countless lives was now feeling pure, raw fear for the very first time in his existence.

"Well, I just learned it from the memories of intelligent Voidborns. Though, that nasty stuff inside their heads was pretty disgusting," Aeon casually mentioned, frowning slightly as he recalled the repulsive memories he had sifted through.

Then, with a casual flick of his index finger, Aeon made a horizontal sliding motion in the air. In that exact same millisecond, the Voidborn’s neck was severed as if a clean, invisible blade had sliced right through it.

Slash! Thud!

Aeon promptly turned him into a Nihilborn and stored his body. The creature he had just casually executed was an SSS-rank Voidborn monster. And a few meters away, the second SSS-rank monster stood completely alone, trembling violently.

For the past three minutes, they had been fighting together against the dragon, using everything at their disposal to bring him down. Yet, none of their abilities had managed to harm him. They couldn’t even damage the clothes he was wearing, thanks to the invisible barrier protecting him.

The remaining Voidborn looked at Aeon with a horrified expression and asked in a trembling voice, "W... what are you?"

Aeon just smiled. He then threw a final word at the Voidborn before making another slicing motion with his index finger.

"I am your Doom."

Slash!

The next thing the monster knew, his vision was spinning before he lost consciousness forever. In the exact same manner as before, Aeon turned the monster into a Nihilborn and stored his body inside his inventory.

Finally, he had killed all the enemies within this red gate. He had spent an hour simply walking through the terrain and casually slaughtering the monsters.

Aeon had deliberately chosen to prolong the process so that the Academy members would believe he had actually struggled.

Aeon then turned back toward the exit of the red gate, plotting how best to deceive them. But suddenly, a beam of black energy shot out from the inner gate behind him with unimaginable speed.

Whooooosh!

Sensing the immense, dreadful danger heading straight for Aeon, all of his spirits instantly manifested barriers to protect him from harm.

But as if they were nothing, the black beam shattered the barriers instantly and tore toward Aeon’s back.

Crack! Crack!

At the same time, Aeon’s Nihil Protection barrier also tried to halt the assault. Bur unfortunately, It too was effortlessly destroyed. The attack passed cleanly through Aeon’s back, burst out from his chest, and slammed into the ground ahead.

SHNK! BOOOOM!

Everything happened faster than any time, giving Aeon no time to react or sense the danger. With an expression of pure shock, Aeon looked down at his chest and saw a massive, empty circle where his flesh used to be.

A huge chunk of his lungs was completely gone, and half of his heart had been destroyed while blood gushed violently from the cavity in his chest.

KHACK!

Aeon coughed up a wave of blood, stumbling for a fraction of a second before crashing face-down onto the ground.

WHAM!

Aeon lay completely motionless on the dirt as his eyes turned vacant and glassed over. From the swirling depths of the inner red gate, a figure stepped out, their metallic boots striking the hard ground.

Completely clad in dark armor, the figure walked over to Aeon and flipped him over to get a better look at him.

Seeing that Aeon’s pupils were fully dilated—confirming that he was dead, the helmet of the armor retracted. It revealed a bright-skinned figure with entirely white eyes.

Etched into the center of his forehead was a menacing black nightmarish emblem featuring a horned, crown-like crest, razor-sharp spikes, and the snarling face of a beast with jagged fangs.

With a sneering expression, the figure spoke, kicking Aeon’s body away and sending him tumbling a couple of meters across the dirt.

"Tsk. I thought he was some strong lizard, but it turns out he was just a mortal. What a waste of time," the figure muttered, his voice dripping with arrogance and disdain.

He then turned around, preparing to head back toward the inner gate. But the moment he took a step, he felt a dreadful aura erupting behind him.

With a cautious glare, he turned around to face the source of the pressure. To his surprise, the dead dragon he had just slain was emitting an ominous, multi-colored energy.

Then, the corpse stood completely upright. The massive hole in his chest closed up and healed perfectly in the blink of an eye.

The white-eyed figure stared at Aeon in sheer confusion, certain that he had successfully killed this dragon. Instantly, the stranger’s expression morphed into one of pure amusement, and he smiled maniacally.

"Interesting."

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