Shattered Sanity

(A few minutes later, Vice Principal Chadwick’s POV)

”Vice Principal? Vice Principal!”

Professor Mike shouted, as he stormed into Chadwick’s office without bothering to knock, his enormous muscular frame covered from head to toe in sweat despite the cold rain falling outside.

Chadwick slowly turned away from the window, where he had been sipping tea while observing the distant Academy grounds through the rainfall, only for his eyebrows to rise upon seeing the usually composed professor looking so unusually pale.

”Yes, Mike? What’s with the ghastly face?”

Chadwick asked, as he lowered the teacup slightly and studied the man standing across his office.

Professor Mike was breathing heavily enough for his chest to visibly rise beneath his clothes, while droplets of sweat continued running down his forehead despite his extraordinary physical conditioning.

”Tragedy.... It’s a fucking tragedy, sir.”

Mike replied, as Chadwick’s expression immediately became more serious.

”The Principal is already on his way there, but you need to come as well. It’s the Northwatch Grounds.”

”What happened at Northwatch?”

Chadwick asked, as he finally lowered his teacup towards the table beside him.

Mike swallowed heavily.

”There are bodies, sir. A dozen at least from what I’ve been told, although nobody has finished counting them yet.”

For several seconds, Chadwick simply stared at him as though his mind had failed to properly interpret what the professor had just said.

”Bodies?”

He repeated, as the fingers holding his teacup gradually tightened around its handle.

”Yes, sir.”

Mike confirmed, as whatever uncertainty Chadwick had hoped to find within the man’s expression simply wasn’t there.

”There has been death inside the Imperial Academy.”

Chadwick’s pupils immediately constricted.

CLINK!

His teacup struck the table hard enough for some of the tea to spill across its polished surface, although Chadwick didn’t spare it another glance as he immediately moved towards the open window.

There were countless rules governing Black Week, and students were expected to leave the competition bruised or occasionally carrying broken bones, although death remained the one boundary that everyone inside the Academy understood could never be crossed.

Especially not a dozen deaths.

”Minerva preserve us....”

Chadwick muttered, as the implications of Mike’s words began settling over him.

If students had truly died within the Academy grounds, then Black Week was no longer the greatest concern facing them, because every dead student belonged to a family that had entrusted the Imperial Academy with their life.

Chadwick stepped onto the windowsill without bothering with the door.

”Vice Principal?”

”Get every available professor to Northwatch and keep the students away from the grounds until we understand what happened.”

Chadwick ordered, before launching himself straight through the open window and disappearing into the rain.

By the time he reached the Northwatch Grounds, a crowd had already begun gathering around the distant scene as professors desperately attempted to force curious students farther back.

Several senior Academy officials were already moving through the blood-soaked grounds, while at the center of the rapidly growing commotion stood a figure whose presence immediately confirmed just how catastrophic the situation had become.

Principal Boseman himself had arrived.

Unlike everyone else within the Imperial Academy, Principal Boseman was a genuine Radiant Rank Ascendant, which allowed him to perceive traces of Aether that remained completely invisible to nearly everyone surrounding him.

”It’s a tragedy. Someone extremely powerful and evil did this.”

Boseman muttered, as he stood over Cyrus’s corpse and slowly surveyed the destruction surrounding him.

”The concentration of Storm Aether still lingering throughout these grounds is unlike anything I have experienced within my lifetime before.”

Chadwick approached without interrupting him, while Boseman slowly moved away from Cyrus and walked towards the edge of the Northern Forest, where the majority of the bodies remained scattered across the blood-soaked earth.

By now, several professors had gathered around Jeff and were attempting to nurse the unconscious First Year back to consciousness, while the remaining faculty members carefully examined the dead and tried to understand the nature of the injuries that had killed them.

”What happened here, sir?”

Chadwick finally asked, as even his normally composed voice carried a faint tremor while his gaze moved across the mutilated students lying before them.

Boseman stopped beside one of the corpses before slowly looking towards another lying several meters away.

”The cuts across these bodies are consistent.”

Boseman informed him, as he gestured towards the corpses scattered across the ground.

”The depth of the wounds and the direction in which the blade passed through them indicate that the same weapon caused nearly every fatal injury we’re seeing here.”

Chadwick’s expression darkened considerably.

”One opponent did all of this, sir?”

”Yes. One extremely powerful Storm user.”

Boseman confirmed, as he slowly raised his gaze towards the rain falling from the darkened heavens.

”What I don’t understand is how someone at the Inferno Rank or above managed to infiltrate the Imperial Academy without any of us sensing their arrival.”

Chadwick immediately looked towards him.

”But sir, how can you be certain that whoever did this was at least Inferno Rank?”

”Aether resonance.”

Boseman replied, as he extended one hand into the falling rain and remained silent for several seconds, seemingly sensing something within the surrounding atmosphere that Chadwick himself couldn’t perceive.

”The traces of Storm Aether remaining around us indicate the usage of techniques that must have reached the Inferno Grade or higher. No mere Flame Rank Ascendant could release this much elemental Aether and leave such a powerful resonance behind after the technique itself had already ended.”

Chadwick slowly surveyed the Northwatch Grounds again as the implications of that conclusion settled within his mind.

An Inferno Rank Ascendant had somehow entered the Imperial Academy without triggering any warning, and judging from the corpses scattered before him, whoever it was had possessed enough strength to slaughter these students with horrifying ease.

”But I suppose we’ll understand considerably more once the survivors are capable of telling us what they witnessed.”

Boseman added, as his gaze briefly shifted towards the professors gathered around Jeff.

”Jeff, Riven Dawnriver and Gary Ironveil are currently the only known survivors of this massacre.....

So we should know more once we talk to them.”

Boseman muttered, as Chadwick’s face immediately twisted into an ugly expression upon hearing Riven’s name.