Azel managed to stay on his feet for a few seconds before the wind pressure threw him off completely.

The explosion of aura shot through the air, roaring like a storm even as its brightness faded.

The ground beneath him cracked apart and spiderweb-like fissures spread outward in every direction.

The guards fared no better… they were flung through the air, slamming into trees and sliding across the fractured earth.

Some lost their footing entirely, barely managing to protect their heads as the shockwave howled through the surrounding.

When the dust settled, silence followed.

The kind of silence that felt wrong.

Sebastian opened his eyes, his body trembling from the exertion. His aura dimmed and finally faded, vanishing into the air like smoke.

All that remained before him was a crater several meters deep… and what was left of the Skinbutcher.

The creature's body was nothing more than shredded flesh and ash, pieces of bone scattered across the crater.

But then his eyes caught something… half of the monster's head.

Perfectly intact.

His heart sank.

'Fuck… all that effort for nothing?' he thought, a grimace twisting his face.

He could already see it...

The half-head was regenerating.

"Why…" Sebastian muttered under his breath as he lifted his leg, aura gathering around it.

He brought it down with a thunderous stomp that shook the crater. "Do you have to be so damn overpowered?"

He stomped again. And again.

Each hit was weaker than the last, his exhaustion was catching up to him.

It felt like he was striking stone.

The head didn't so much as dent.

The skin rippled once, then started to reform completely.

Sebastian stared at it with weary eyes. "Fine then… we'll just find somewhere to lock you up."

His voice was low and far quieter than before, hell it was barely audible.

He reached down and grabbed the head, lifting it by the strands of skin that were forming into a neck.

He turned to leave the crater, staggering backward slightly.

That was when it hit him.

A splitting pain erupted in his right arm…

Sebastian gasped, his knees nearly buckling as black veins crawled rapidly up his hand and forearm.

He dropped the head instantly, clutching his arm. The veins spread to his shoulder and his vision began shaking.

'What the hell…?'

The skin of his arm was turning black, like something had infected him.

He could feel it writhing inside.

He fell to one knee and gritted his teeth.

'I'll just pull off the skin,' he thought. 'Let me see the face of this tyrant… whoever's been behind this.'

Pain made his vision blur, but his determination didn't lessen.

He reached down and tore at the patches of flesh surrounding the head.

The fake skin peeled away, revealing the true face beneath.

For a moment Sebastian froze.

"... It's you."

His mind went blank.

And then…

Pain.

A searing pain shot through his skull. His eyes burned like molten fire had been poured into them.

He stumbled backward and clutched his face, trying to scream but they came out as rasping whispers.

Azel reached the edge of the crater just in time to see him collapse.

"What the fuck…?"

He jumped down, landing hard and sliding against the loose rubble until he reached Sebastian's side.

The Skinbutcher's head was gone… vanished completely, leaving only scorched dirt behind so Azel assumed he was dead.

He crouched beside Sebastian, grabbing his shoulders. "Hey! Hey, are you okay?!"

Sebastian tilted his head weakly toward him.

His right arm was a ruin… covered in blackened veins that bulged unnaturally beneath the skin.

And where his eyes should've been…

There was nothing.

The only things that Azel could see was burned hollow sockets and that made his stomach drop.

"L-listen…" Sebastian whispered. His voice was low and Azel had to listen very closely to even get the words. "The… one… in… that… mask… is the… person… you were…"

Azel leaned closer. "What?"

But the rest of the sentence never came.

The veins on Sebastian's arm clenched one last time then exploded.

Blood burst across the crater wall in a violent spray, the shock forcing Azel to step back.

The entire limb burst open, shredded into a mess of flesh and blood.

Sebastian screamed or tried to. What came out was nothing but a hoarse gasp. His body shook uncontrollably, and then he collapsed completely.

"Hey!" Azel shouted, gripping his uninjured shoulder. "Sebastian! Stay with me!"

But the man didn't respond.

The crater filled with the sound of footsteps. The guards rushed down in a blur, led by a female mage who immediately knelt beside them.

She checked his pulse with trembling hands.

"He's still alive!" she yelled. "Get him to the infirmary now!"

Two more mages ran down, each grabbing one side of Sebastian's body. His remaining arm hung limply as they hoisted him up.

He was in very bad condition…

Azel stepped back, watching in silence as they carried him away.

His face, his hair, even his uniform were splattered with Sebastian's blood.

When they were gone, he stood alone at the edge of the crater.

He looked down at the blackened ground where the Skinbutcher had once been.

Nothing remained.

'The person I was…?' he thought.

Sebastian hadn't finished his sentence. But what he had been told… it was enough to at least find a person.

'Does that mean… today?' he wondered and gritted his teeth. 'If the Skinbutcher's a man… then who?'

The obvious answer rose in his mind first… the people close to him.

The ones who had been there when it started. It was most certainly not Feng since he was still in closed cultivation and besides what use did that guy have to hunt skin?

And it most definitely couldn't be Silas or some of his other classmates, they were too soft-hearted and he couldn't say it was Aegon too… If it was Aegon, he was sure that the Skinbutcher would be using a sword.

"Elion…?" he muttered.

The name left his lips before he could stop it.

It made a strange kind of sense.

Could that be it?

"Since the Skinbutcher is a man… could it be Elion?" he said out loud, running a hand through his hair.

He wanted to laugh at the thought.

The nerdy boy with glasses and someone who Azel was genuinely starting to like… how could someone like that possibly be capable of this?

But then again… looks meant nothing.

Azel had seen too many faces to believe appearances told the truth.

He looked back toward the academy.

"So how do I kill him?" he murmured.

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