Chapter 45: Principal of aurelia academy

Sensing the hostile intent, Seraphina’s expression iced over.

With a flick of her wrist, she materialized an exquisite magic staff topped with a glowing red gemstone, raw thermal energy crackling around the tip.

Beside her, Kael drew his heavy broadsword, a fierce, desperate snarl on his face, while Lumian rapidly wove a complex, shimmering blue geometrical formation across his palms, ready to unleash a torrent of high-grade water spells.

Arthur, however, didn’t prepare himself for combat. Instead, he simply stood there, as though he were waiting for something.

As a dense ring of hostile adventurers closed in around Seraphina, Ethan’s immediate instinct was a flash of murderous intent. He wanted to wave his hand and turn every single one of them to ash.

Yet, he forced himself to stay his hand. If Heaven’s Will had deliberately dragged its Chosen Ones here, it would naturally provide a protective buffer to ensure they reached the secret realm’s threshold.

Ethan wanted to test the absolute limits of Heaven’s protective reach over its pawns. Of course, he had silently resolved that if any of those rogue mercenaries so much as scratched Seraphina, he would unleash a torment so absolute it would rewrite their concept of pain.

Down below, the crowd had already swarmed right up to Seraphina, Kael, Lumian, and Arthur.

Mercenaries and rogue cultivators brandished an eclectic mix of weapons—jagged blood-iron sabers, spiked war hammers, and buzzing elemental staves—blocking their escape routes.

"Who the hell are you brats?!" a burly, scar-faced warrior barked, pressing his blade forward. "How did a spatial rift drop you right into the middle of this restricted zone? Hand over your storage rings immediately and submit to an interrogation, or we’ll carve you open right here!"

Despite being surrounded by seasoned veterans—most of whom sat at the third and fourth ranks, with a few weaker second-rank stragglers mixed in—Arthur simply stood his ground with an unbothered, almost patronizing calm, looking at the threatening mob as if they were unruly toddlers.

Before any of the mercenaries could lunge, the atmospheric pressure collapsed.

A blinding pillar of pristine, holy white light descended violently from the heavens, slamming into the earth right between the teenagers and the mob.

As the light dissipated, an elderly man stood tall in the crater. He wore flowing indigo mage robes stitched with ancient, glowing celestial runes, a thick, snowy white beard that reached his chest, and a pointed high-magus hat resting upon his head. An aura of profound, suffocating ancient mystery radiated from his very skin.

This was none other than the Grand Principal of the kingdom’s premier aurelia Royal Academy—the very institution where Arthur and the others studied. Within the hierarchy of the entire magistica kingdom, he sat firmly as the **fifth most powerful being of magistica kingdom**, a terrifying pillar of strength.

The Principal chuckled softly, a rich, deep sound that carried an edge of cold mockery. "My, my... I’d love to see which stray dogs think they have the right to lay a hand on my student."

The moment the surrounding crowd recognized the old man’s face, a collective wave of horror washed over them, and dozens of people instinctively stumbled backward.

They knew exactly who he was. A peak **Rank 5 Grand Magus**.

The gap between the fourth and fifth ranks was an impassable chasm. Though hundreds of ambitious cultivators had gathered here for a shot at the secret realm, not a single one of them had reached the fifth rank.

A peak Rank 5 expert could slaughter fourth-rank masters by the dozen without breaking a sweat. Combined with his deep mastery of ancient spells and vast wealth of combat artifacts, touching him was tantamount to suicide.

One of the braver mercenary captains swallowed hard, forcing himself to step forward while keeping his voice trembling.

"Grand Principal... surely you can’t interfere like this! The Empire previously struck a formal treaty with your kingdom stipulating that no master above the fourth rank is permitted to enter or directly manipulate any secret realm born within this territory. Anyone breaking the rules defies the imperial decree! You’re a Rank 5 master—you have no business meddling here!"

The mercenary was still in the middle of his sentence when a blinding, razor-thin **yellow beam of light** erupted silently from the ground beneath his feet.

*Slash.*

Before the man could even finish his breath, his entire upper torso cleanly separated from his lower body in a horrific flash of golden mana, splashing heavily into the dirt in two gory halves.

Dead silence fell over the entire valley. The surrounding adventurers stared at the corpse, their faces utterly drained of color, paralyzed by sheer terror.

The Principal chuckled again, stepping forward lazily. "Does anyone else have an objection to my presence here, or to my students participating in this trial?"

Not a single soul dared to breathe, let alone speak.

The Principal turned around, casting a warm, almost doting smile toward the four teenagers. "Don’t worry, children. I won’t enter the secret realm myself—the rules restrict my entry. But I am certainly not going to let a bunch of stray mutts harm a hair on your heads."

Seraphina immediately turned her gaze away, a flicker of quiet disgust crossing her face. She had never liked this old man.

He acted less like a grand educator and more like an overprotective guard dog for Kael, Arthur, and Lumian, treating them with a sickening level of partiality that felt entirely unnatural, as if they were more precious to him than his own bloodline.

Arthur, however, breathed a visible sigh of relief, offering a grateful bow. "Thank you for saving us, Principal."

Arthur wasn’t entirely surprised. Not long ago, while out on a solo training excursion, he had narrowly survived an encounter with a vicious, third-rank shadow hound only because the Principal had materialized out of thin air to bail him out. Ever since, Arthur had been acutely aware that the old man was secretly keeping tabs on them, ready to intervene whenever mortal peril struck.

High above in the clouds, shrouded in absolute concealment, Ethan watched the scene unfold with an amused smirk.

*So, Heaven’s Will didn’t just teleport them here—it directly dispatched the kingdom’s fifth-rank Principal to act as their personal bodyguard,* Ethan thought, his blue eyes glinting with cold satisfaction.

*Fitting. Exactly what I anticipated. At least it didn’t summon a Rank 6 monarch, which could have been troublesome. As long as no sixth-rank entities step onto the board, I can handle anything up to the fifth rank.*

Beside him, Rose raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms. "You’re only at the early stage of the third rank yourself, Ethan. Do you honestly believe you can match a peak Rank 5 monster like that Principal if things go south?"

Ethan chuckled, glancing down at her. "You forget how easily I handled you when you reached the early stage of the fifth rank years ago. Besides, that old man relies entirely on light-attribute spells. Rumor has it his signature technique allows him to refract light so thoroughly that he can render his physical body virtually non-existent, slipping past defenses invisibly."

Rose’s expression tightened as she noted, "Even if his light magic makes him hard to pin down, he’s still a formidable obstacle."

Ethan smiled thinly, a dark thought crossing his mind as he reached into his spatial inventory and withdrew the **Light-Swallowing Rusted Sword**—the very divine artifact that had rightfully belonged to Kael in the original timeline.

This sword contains a single drop of the God of Light’s blood. It can unleash one incredibly powerful attack—powerful enough to heavily injure even a Sixth-Rank mage.

Floating in mid-air, a translucent holographic panel displayed their remaining numbers:

* **Lumian:** 620,500 Fate Points (Critically depleted)

* **Kael:** 7,450,000 Fate Points

* **Arthur:** 8,910,000 Fate Points

* **Seraphina:** 10,420,000 Fate Points

Ethan’s gaze locked onto Lumian. Because of a decade of systematic interference, Lumian’s fate reserves had plummeted to a bare minimum, leaving him with little more than his quirky dialogue-transmitting system.

A cold, predatory glint sharpened in Ethan’s eyes.

*It looks like this secret realm is going to be Lumian’s ultimate burial ground*.

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