The blade-wings that had flapped and carried the monster through the air disintegrated into countless streams of particles and then into nothingness.

The demon's flesh tried to regenerate, its vast reserves of energy flooding toward the injuries in a desperate attempt to rebuild what was being destroyed!

But the Arrow of Abyssal Extinction's power was specifically designed to counter regeneration. It didn't just destroy the flesh, it erased the very existence of yhe flesh the demon has.

Trying to regenerate from such an attack was like trying to rebuild a house that was currently exploding from a large bomb! The regeneration speed wasn't even nearly as fast as the arrow's rate of destruction!

"AAAAAAAAAGH!"

The demon's screams echoed violently. It was so loud that it made the very sky tremble!

The sphere of destruction from the arrow reached its maximum diameter, exactly ten meters, and held for precisely three seconds.

During those three seconds, reality itself seemed to hold its breath.

Then the sphere collapsed inward with a sound like the universe tearing.

"WHOMP!"

When the sphere vanished, the demon was… also gone.

Not known if he was dead or not, he simply vanished like he was never there.

Simply gone.

The upper half of its body, from the waist up, had been completely erased from existence. Five heads, eight arms, two blade-wings, all the organs, all the accumulated energy, all of it removed from reality as if it had never been.

What remained was the demon's lower half, from the waist down, still floating in mid-air for a moment before gravity remembered it existed.

"THUD."

The severed lower torso fell to the ground, legs twitching and spasming as the last electrical signals fired theiugh its body.

Black blood pooled around the corpse, but this time it didn't rise into the air to fuel regeneration.

The demon was dead.

But then,

"CRACK… CRACK… CRACK…"

The students watching from across the battlefield felt their hearts sink.

The demon's lower half actually stopped spasm and moved.

The legs were flexing, as if testing their strength. The remaining waist trembled as black blood flowing to the ground rose up and like iron to magnet, blood was being pulled back into the body, defying gravity to flow upward into the severed flesh.

"Impossible," someone whispered.

Dark energy began to gather around the remains, swirling like a vortex. The accumulated death energy from thousands of sacrifices hadn't been completely erased.

The flesh at the top of the severed waist began to grow.

New tissue was forming, but instead of the give heads, it grew just a singular skull.

A single massive head began to form, three meters tall, with a mouth that split the entire face horizontally. Dozens of eyes sprouted randomly across its surface—some human, some reptilian, some insectoid. Arms grew from its shoulders, but they were not normal and looked demonic with one thin and spindly, one massively muscled, one ending in a claw, one ending in a blade.

The demon was trying to survive by any means necessary, abandoning all form and aesthetics in favor of pure function.

"It's… it's still alive," one of the students stammered, his voice shaking with disbelief.

The reformed demon, now fucking ugly and horrifying to look in every from. It turned its dozens of eyes toward the battlefield. Toward where Levi had fallen after being released.

Its mouth opened, revealing rows upon rows of teeth, and it was about to speak when a crushing feeling overwhelmed it.

"FROZEN SOVEREIGN'S DECREE: GLACIAL PALACE EXECUTION!"

Aldric's voice boomed across the battlefield like the crack of a whip!

The number-one Elite student appeared in mid-air above the demon, having activated his movement technique the instant the creature began reforming. His silver hair whipped around his face, his ice-blue robes billowing in a wind that existed only around him.

His hands moved through seals so fast they left afterimages, and ice energy condensed in the air above him in overwhelming quantities!

"WHOOOOSH!"

A blade formed.

It was a titanic blade of concentrated ice, that was over one hundred meters long and fifty meters wide. It looked less like a meteoric weapon and more like a falling glacier, its surface covered in patterns that glowed with pale blue light. The temperature dropped so dramatically that frost began forming on every surface within two hundred meters.

The blade hung in the air for exactly one second, gathering power, accumulating momentum.

Then it fell.

"SLASH!"

The glacial blade descended like the judgment of an ice god!

The demon's dozens of eyes all widened in terror! Its mismatched arms reached upward in a desperate attempt to block or deflect the attack!

But it was too slow, too weak, too damaged from the Arrow of Abyssal Extinction's assault!

"BOOOOOM!"

The blade struck the demon's head with enough force to split mountains!

The impact released a shockwave that expanded outward in a perfect dome, clearing the clouds from the sky and sending visible ripples through the ground like waves on water!

"CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!"

The demon's hastily-formed body split under the blade's edge! The massive head was cleaved vertically from crown to jaw! The mismatched arms were severed! The entire upper body was bisected in a single, perfect cut!

But Aldric didn't stop there.

His hands blurred through another set of seals, and the glacial blade rotated ninety degrees while still embedded in the demon's body!

"SLASH!"

A horizontal cut followed the vertical one!

The demon's body was carved into quarters, each piece falling in a different direction!

"SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!"

Aldric's blade struck three more times in rapid succession, each cut faster and more precise than the last!

By the time he finished, the demon's body had been reduced to dozens of small pieces, none larger than a human torso!

"WHOOOOSH!"

And then the ice energy detonated.

Every piece of the demon's body froze solid in an instant, the temperature dropping to absolute zero in a fraction of a second! The black blood crystallized! The flesh turned to ice! Even the demonic energy trying to fuel regeneration was frozen in place!

"CRACK!"

The frozen pieces shattered simultaneously, breaking into countless fragments that scattered across the battlefield like dark snow!

This time, there was no regeneration or healing of any kind.

The demon was truly, absolutely, finally dead.

Silence fell across the entire secret realm.

Every student, every dark cultivator still all stood frozen in shock at what they'd just witnessed.

Aldric descended slowly from the sky, his ice energy gradually dispersing. He landed beside the scattered remains of the demon, his chest heaving with exertion. That final technique had drained nearly all his remaining energy—his face was pale, his hands trembling slightly.

But his eyes were sharp as they swept across the battlefield, checking for any remaining threats.

When he was satisfied the demon was truly gone, he turned toward where Levi had fallen.

-----

Levi lay in a crater thirty meters from where the demon had dropped him, his body slowly regenerating his severed legs. The process was extremely painful, bones extending from the severed parts, muscles wrapping around new skeletal structures, nerves reconnecting one by one, skin crawling over exposed flesh.

But he was alive.

Luna had somehow survived being crushed between Levi's body and the demon's grip. The little beast was pressed against his chest, the Blood Refining Fruit still clutched in her small paws, squeaking worriedly as she licked his face.

Levi's eyes opened, and despite the pain, despite the exhaustion, despite having been moments from death, his expression remained cold.

The demon was dead, he was alive and he still had the Blood Refining Fruit.

"Tap. Tap. Tap."

Footsteps approached, and Levi's danger sense remained quiet. It was obvious it wasn't a threat.

Aldric appeared at the edge of the crater, looking down at Levi's regenerating form. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Then auddenly Aldric's lips curved into a slight smile—the first genuine expression Levi had seen from the typically cold number-one student.

"You're insane," Aldric said, but there was respect in his voice. "Sacrificing a Tier-3 treasure without hesitation. Using yourself as bait to create an opening. That demon had you completely captured, and you still found a way to turn it around."

He stepped down into the crater and extended his hand toward the scattered remains of the demon. Ice energy condensed, forming a blade that he used to cut through one of the larger pieces.

"This kill belongs to you," Aldric said, severing one of the demon's ears cleanly. He held it out toward Levi. "Your arrow dealt the critical damage. Without it, we'd all be dead. The academy's reward should be yours."

Levi's eyes widened slightly in surprise.

This was unexpected. He'd assumed Aldric—being the strongest and having delivered the finishing blows—would claim the kill for himself. The points awarded for slaying a Peak Fiend Warrior demon would be astronomical.

But Aldric was giving it to him without hesitation.

Levi's legs had regenerated enough that he could sit up. He reached out with a trembling hand and accepted the severed ear, storing it carefully in his spatial ring.

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