The Return Of The Exiled Villain

Seeing that posture, the big serpent suddenly fell into a strange sense of fear, and because of that, its charging speed doubled.

THRUUUUMMMM, THRUUUUMMMM, THRUUUUMMMM!!!

The sphere at the back of its throat reached critical density, the air around it warping so severely that the space between it and Gray visibly distorted, the chamber walls behind him reflecting back a funhouse version of reality.

The girls behind him had stopped breathing as they watched, and finally...

Then Gray moved.

Fwip!

A single swing.

It came from behind his back, following the diagonal angle of the blade’s resting position, sweeping upward and forward in one clean, unbroken arc that covered the full length of the chamber faster than the eye could honestly claim to have followed it.

The energy that ran along the rapier’s edge was grey.

Swip!

One sound.

The sphere at the back of the serpent’s throat split first.

The technique collapsed inward on itself without detonating, simply ceasing, its mana structure divided so cleanly at the foundational level that neither half retained enough coherence to complete the reaction.

The cut continued.

Through the sphere.

Through the back of the throat.

Through everything.

.....

...The chamber fell into a deep silence.

The serpent’s body remained upright for two full seconds, held there by the sheer momentum of what it had been a moment ago, its King Realm aura still flickering at its surface as if it hadn’t yet received the information.

Then the top half slid.

Slowly at first.

CRASH, BOOM!

THUD, THUD, THUD!!!

The impact of fifty meters of serpent hitting the chamber floor in two separate pieces sent a shockwave rolling outward that cracked every remaining intact stone tile simultaneously.

The mana vents along the walls sputtered and died one by one as the boss’s aura flatlined, and the dungeon’s energy began its post-subjugation collapse.

The core crystal beneath where the serpent had been coiled dimly pulsed once, then went dark.

Dust rained from the ceiling in a slow, continuous curtain.

”...Fuuu.”

Gray lowered the rapier, letting out a small breath.

Behind him, the Phoenix Class stood exactly where they had been standing, in the same positions, with the same expressions they had been wearing at the moment the swing landed, collectively frozen in a tableau of people whose processing capacity had reached its limit and stopped.

Darya was still sitting on the floor.

Vivienne was still sitting next to her.

Reinette’s mouth was open.

Orin had both hands pressed flat against the sides of her face.

Wren was holding Thessaly’s arm with both hands, gripping it with the focused intensity of someone who needed confirmation that the ground was still real.

Thessaly was letting her, because Thessaly was doing the same thing to the wall on her other side.

Maelis stood at the front of the group, one step ahead of everyone else as she always ended up, her eyes moving from the two halves of the serpent to Gray to the rapier to Gray again.

Her expression had passed through shock some time ago and arrived at something quieter and more complicated that she kept very close to her chest.

Cassandra was completely still.

Her scythe was at her side. Her posture was perfect, and her face was composed in the way that required active effort to maintain.

However... her dull grey eyes definitely were different from that outwardly cold person.

Seraph looked at the two halves of the serpent before turning her gaze back to Gray who sheathed his rapier back to his waist.

Then, after a long moment, she sheathed her sword.

It was the quietest, most understated acknowledgment in the room, and somehow it said more than anything else.

The silence stretched for another few seconds.

Then Sola, from somewhere in the middle of the group, said what everyone was thinking.

”...He cut it in half.”

”Yes,” Ysolde confirmed, voice completely empty of inflection.

”In one swing.”

”Yes.”

”The King Realm serpent.”

”Yes.”

”In. One. Swing.”

”Sola,” Darya said from the floor.

”What?”

”Please sit down.”

A pause.

Sola sat down on the floor next to Darya and Vivienne.

Gray looked at the three of them sitting on the dungeon floor and then at the rest of the class in varying states of structural collapse and said, with complete sincerity:

”Good work today.”

Reinette made a sound that wasn’t quite a word.

”The core... you still need to extract it,” Cassandra advised.

Gray glanced at the serpent’s remains.

”Right.”

He walked toward it without ceremony, stepping over a section of tail that was longer than most buildings were tall, and crouched beside the lower half where the core sat visible now through the split, a deep pulsing sphere of condensed King Realm energy that threw grey and crimson light across his face in alternating waves.

He reached in and took it.

Click.

Like picking up a stone from a riverbed.

[...One hundred percent sure, he said.]

Jasmine’s voice carried the particular tone of someone who had been proven right about something and found no satisfaction in it whatsoever.

’I was right, wasn’t I?’ Gray replied inwardly, turning the core over once in his palm.

[You’re insufferable.]

’Mhm... this should be enough for the little snake to go up a little.’

Gray stood up and pocketed the core.

Then, he turned around and frowned as every single pair of eyes in the chamber was on him.

He had barely crossed half the distance before Reinette broke first.

”What was that!?”

”A sword technique,” Gray replied simply.

”That’s not...!” She stopped her words, thinking that maybe it was some kind of secret technique, so she decided to ask another question instead.

”The grey energy. What was that?”

”The energy that I’ve gained from that Sword Technique?”

”...Then is it Sword Qi?”

”You could say that,” he nodded.

Reinette deeply stared at him.

”Really?”

”More or less.”

”And it’s strong enough to cut a King Realm serpent in half with it?”

”Yes.”

She opened her mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

”...Okay,” she said finally, in the tone of someone who had decided that okay was the only word left that still functioned correctly.

”The stance,” Vivienne pressed, stepping forward. ”Before you swung. The reverse grip, the claw hand. I’ve never seen that form before. What battle style is it from?”

”It’s not from a battle style.”

”You made it up?!”

Gray said nothing, which was apparently answer enough because Vivienne turned to Darya with an expression that communicated several things simultaneously without requiring words.

’...That was simply the most efficient stance for me to use the Severing Pursuit move,’ he added inwardly.

Somehow, those girls tend to exaggerate a little.

Darya was still sitting on the floor.

”The cut chased the technique,” Maelis said.

Her voice was quieter than the others, cutting cleanly through the surrounding noise.

She stood with her arms loosely at her sides, her eyes on Gray with a focused, unhurried attention that was different in quality from everyone else’s excitement.

”I watched it intensely...!”

”The serpent’s sphere was already firing when your blade moved. The cut went through the sphere first and then kept going,” she paused slighly, recalling what happened.

”It changed direction inside the serpent’s throat to follow the technique’s mana signature inward.”

Gray looked at her.

”Yes.”

Maelis held his gaze for a moment.

Then she looked away, something settling quietly behind her eyes that she kept entirely to herself.

”And the soul component,” Seraph suddenly spoke.

The group went slightly quieter at that.

She stood at the edge of the cluster, arms at her sides, pale eyes on Gray with that measuring, contained attention she rarely directed at anything for long.

”The serpent’s defensive forcefield didn’t interact with it,” she said.

”At all. Even my sword qi left a mark on the surface before the forcefield closed. Yours went through as if the forcefield wasn’t there.”

Gray looked at her for a moment and said nothing.

’...She noticed that, huh? It seems that her title as the ’Sword Princess’ isn’t a joke at all.’

Seraph nodded once, accepting the non-answer with the composure of someone who had expected exactly that, and said nothing further.

The rest of the class absorbed that exchange in silence.

Then Sola, still seated on the floor between Darya and Vivienne, raised her hand.

”Can you teach it to us?”

”No.”

”Not even—”

”No.”

”The stance at lea—”

”No, Sola.”

A pause.

”I had to try,” she said, to no one in particular.

”We know,” Darya replied from beside her.

Shrugging his shoulder, Gray’s gaze swept across the whole chamber before once again turning to the girls.

”Regardless, we still have an entire chamber’s worth of resources and a competition score to submit before the dungeon resets.”

The girls moved without needing to be told twice.

”Reinette, Sola, Vivienne. Guardian remains on the western arc. Scale fragments, crest materials, anything crystallized.”

”Darya, Ysolde, Clem. Mana stones along the vent lines, they’ll have concentrated during the breakthrough. Don’t leave a single one.”

”Thessaly, Rue, Orin. Serpent remains. The blood essence will have settled toward the lower body after the split, so start there and work upward. Wren, assist them.”

He looked at the rest.

”Everyone else fills gaps. Nothing stays on this floor.”

They scattered immediately.

Gray watched them for a moment before speaking again.

”Once everything is collected, we split it evenly between everyone here.” His eyes moved across the group.

”Contribution-based distribution for the individual rewards. Everything else goes to the whole class equally.”

”And your share?” Cassandra asked.

”I only need the core.”