"I don't care."
When those words were said, the three knew what they needed to do. They must try to stop a Rank 0 from erasing an island and everyone on it from the map.
Elvira jumped in the air. The pitch-black sky offered no moonlight, only the pale, cold glow of the massive ice boulder she was weaving above her head, which she threw at the island with insane speed.
"You two know what to do. Let's get this handled fast," Darius said to Anton and Mila before teleporting away.
"This won't be good," Anton said as air began moving around him.
Back on the island.
"What... what did I do?" Roy asked between his fast breaths.
"What did you do?" Omar said, helping him stand.
"Guys!" Ren's voice cracked with pure terror as he pointed at the sky. "The horizon! It's coming!"
"How could you anger the principal that much?" Marie cried out.
"No time. Get ready to try and block it," Valeria ordered, and everyone listened, getting ready to try and block it. Even if they didn't know how to stop a football-field-sized ice boulder, trying was better than just accepting it.
But to their luck, they didn't have to do anything.
A hundred meters away from the island, Darius appeared in front of the boulder, a tiny silhouette against the frozen titan. He opened his hand, and the moment the boulder touched his palm, violet lightning surged through the entire mass, evaporating some of it in an instant and breaking it into smaller pieces. He didn't stop at that. He teleported to every one of the smaller parts and also made them evaporate, until all of it turned into vapor. All of it happened in about a second.
"So, you are trying to protect him," Elvira said as she landed on the water ten kilometers away.
"Elvira, wait!" Mila shouted, but her words were swallowed by the wind as Elvira launched herself across the ocean.
"Buy me time," Anton said as he also flew to the island.
Mila sighed, reaching into her pocket. "This will cost too much." Mila took out a sum of coins and flicked them into the dark.
One coin grew beneath her feet, carrying her into the sky and toward Elvira.
As Elvira was going to the island, she saw a small coin go in front of her. In a moment it was just a small normal coin; then in the next it turned into a huge wall. Elvira didn't stop. She created an ice blade and cut the coin into two, just to find another one behind it. She then created an ice platform under her and used it to jump above the coin, just for another coin to come and turn into a wall above her.
Elvira looked back. Mila was coming toward her on a floating coin, her glasses reflecting the chaotic light of the battle. Her eyes glowed with a predatory mana-sight, predicting Elvira's every move.
"You're with him too? I will deal with everyone after I am done with the rat." Elvira's mana began moving toward her two hands.
"That isn't good," Mila said as she fixed her glasses and started moving back.
In less than a second, a huge amount of water came out of Elvira's hands. Not in the thousands, not in the millions, but in the billions of liters of water that made a sphere around her with a radius of 100 meters. In a heartbeat, it froze solid, then shattered into millions of jagged, lethal shards. Just like a small ice cube struck by a hammer.
Mila checked her pockets. Empty. "I did my job. Now it is your turn."
Elvira continued her charge, a storm of ice shards trailing her like a tail.
But the time that Mila gave was enough for Anton to reach Darius.
"She is coming."
"You think I am blind?" Darius snapped.
"Any plans?" Anton asked sarcastically.
"Aren't you the one who makes them?"
"Yes, I am." Anton threw an earpiece to Darius. "Deal with the ice. I will tell you when to start and the rest of the plan."
Darius didn't say anything. He just put the earpiece in and teleported away.
"Now let's do this. The first real test for it." Anton cracked his fingers. "Code black, ' password: big-Y2Fubm9u ' Activate the End Cannon."
In the middle of the island, the roof of the three towers opened. A road exited from every one. The roads expanded and connected together as they began building the cannon.
"Schneller, mach schon!" Anton hissed in German, watching Elvira close the distance. "Wenn du nicht fertig wirst, sind wir am Arsch!"
1.5 kilometers away, the cannon's exterior finished.
1 kilometer away, the cannon's interior finished, now charging.
500 meters away from Anton, the barrel hummed with a terrifying, low-frequency vibration.
Anton raised his hand, lining up the shot. "Bang."
A beam of pure, concentrated energy tore through the night.
Elvira's skin turned pale, and the armor dress appeared again, the same form that she used to block Darius's attack. She also created an ice platform, but this time she made a shield to block the shot.
"Now!" Anton yelled.
Darius, in seconds, began teleporting to every ice shard and evaporating them with his lightning, turning the frozen storm into a blinding cloud of superheated vapor.
'That is a real fight between the strongest. Could I reach that level?' A thought ran through Valeria's head, and the same thought ran through everyone's. Not just those of Class A, but everyone who was watching what was happening, with some being more afraid than Valeria.
"Wait!" Marie screamed. "Elvira Stahl, a Rank 0 with three powers: ice, water, and vapor manipulation. Evaporating the ice will just give her more tools to attack with. What do they want to do?"
"—and with that we will win," Anton's voice crackled through the earpiece.
"That better work," Darius said, floating above and behind Elvira.
"When did my plan fail?"
"That's the only reason I am still listening to you."
The moment the laser shot ended, the massive cloud of vapor rushed toward Elvira. The heat was so intense it created a shimmering mirage, and then, not a hiss but a roar that was heard from the island happened as the hot vapor started spreading everywhere at high speed, and the mirage spread with it.
"Are we dead?" Jax's question got answered fast by Elise. "Not yet."
The vapor spread was stopped by an equally fast wind coming against the steam, created by Anton. He unleashed a localized hurricane, the wind slamming into the steam with surgical precision. The two forces collided, expanding sideways into a massive, rotating ring of mist and air.
Elvira turned back to normal, the armor dress disappearing like frost melting in sunlight. The pale skin faded, leaving her looking human again, but no less dangerous. Then she turned the shield into a sword and used the ice platform to jump to Anton. The moment she was about ten meters from him, a lightning cube appeared around them, eight points of violet energy at the corners, walls of crackling electricity connecting them into a perfect geometric prison. The lightning hit her sword and evaporated it.
Darius was teleporting between the eight corners of the cube so fast he appeared to be in eight places at once.
Inside, Anton's wind held Elvira suspended.
She tried to use the vapor to attack Anton, but he made a perfect replica of the vapor pressure and the same speed in the reverse direction. They collided with each other, creating a wall, then the vapor turned into water, which got hit by lightning, turning it back to vapor.
She tried again, attacking with the vapor, ice, and water. Every time she tried to manifest ice or water, Darius's lightning vaporized it instantly. Every time she tried to use the vapor, Anton's wind stopped it.
It was a perfect, suffocating cage.
But creating the box of lightning and creating wind with different pressure and speed was too much to hold for an extended amount of time. But to their luck, they weren't the only ones who were getting exhausted. Blocking the laser was already tiring enough. The three were on their last stand.
"Why?" Elvira's voice was a physical assault, vibrating through their bones. "Why help that boy?"
"You will know when you wake up," Anton replied coldly.
"You think this will stop me?" Elvira started moving mana toward her feet. Anton saw that, but he gave no reaction.
She didn't care about the cage. She used a blast of pressurized vapor to rocket herself straight through the lightning wall. She hit it, getting hit with hundreds of lightning bolts in the moment; in less than a second, she was touching the box. But she had one thing in mind: to catch Roy.
Roy put his hands in front of him as a shield, and the other students started reacting too. Ren and Jax ran away. Omar and Marcus created shields from stone. And the others fit in one of those two, either trying to run or block whatever was coming at them. But they didn't have enough time to either run or make a shield.
"Now!" Anton shouted.
And just two meters away from Roy, Darius teleported right behind Elvira. She didn't notice him from her focus on Roy. He didn't use a flashy move. His hand just snapped out to grip the back of her head. He let out a single, precise pulse of lightning, a surgical shock intended to short-circuit her brain.
The silence that followed was deafening. A collective sigh of relief went up from the students, but it died the moment Darius touched down on the roof.
He laid the unconscious Elvira down with surprising gentleness, then he turned to Roy.
Darius didn't say a word. He stepped into Roy's personal space, his face a mask of cold, concentrated fury. The veins in his neck and forehead were bulging so much it looked like they might burst, and his eyes... they weren't the eyes of a teacher. They were the glowing, violet eyes of a predator deciding whether or not to kill.
Roy looked up to see a face that had visible veins big enough that it was a mystery how they didn't explode and the eyes of a predator that was just a second away from killing its prey.
"I... I..."
Roy's voice failed him. Every word he had prepared died in his throat as he stared into the face of a man who had just wrestled a Rank 0 to the ground and looked ready to do it again.