[Timeline: Day 3 of the Tournament – The Invasion]

[Location: The Arena Floor]

"GO!"

Zero threw Elena through the portal. She tumbled into the heat and light of the Dwarven Kingdom, her scream cut short as she crossed the event horizon.

The Dimensional Drill was destabilizing. The red wormhole was shuddering under the crushing weight of the Divine Barrier. It would soon collapse in seconds.

Zero turned to the last remaining Valkyries.

"Leona! Isabelle! Lyra, all of you! Move!"

Leona, the massive tank, planted her feet. She slammed her tower shield into the ground, refusing to budge, her void gauntlent pulsating.

"I am your Shield!" Leona shouted, her voice thick with panic.

"The Shield doesn't leave the Master! I will stay!"

Zero didn't argue. He didn't have time to. The Avatar of the Rotting King, that colossal grey hand was clawing its way out of the abyss, crushing the arena stands like Styrofoam.

The ground beneath them was practically gone; they were standing on a floating chunk of rock suspended by Zero's mana.

Zero stepped forward. His shadow-dragon eyes burned.

"This is an order, Leona," Zero growled, using the full weight of his Voss Command Authority.

"Protect the students. Protect the future."

He kicked her shield.

CLANG.

The force of the kick, combined with the magical compulsion of the order, broke Leona's stance. She stumbled backward, tears streaming down her face behind the mask.

"Boss!" she screamed.

She fell backward into the portal.

Doing so, he turned to the other elves and Lyra.

Even though he could see a little bit of tears in her eyes, she didn't argue like Leona, rather she calmly made her way through the portal giving him one last desprate glace

Her eyes seemed to say, I'm waiting for you.

Zero then turned to Isabelle.

This loyal maid of his was standing by the edge of the wormhole. She wasn't moving.

Instead, she was looking at the Abyss Gate expanding beneath them. Her red eyes were glowing, resonating with the demonic energy pouring out of the rift.

"Isabelle," Zero barked, pointing at the exit. "Go. Now."

Isabelle looked at the portal. Safety. Life.

Then she looked at Zero. He was trembling. The Dual-Core Overdrive had ended. His scales were fading.

He was bleeding from his eyes. He was alone against a group of Demi Gods, an imperial army, a horde of void and abyss monsters with a Demon Lord on top.

Isabelle smiled. It was a sad, beautiful smile.

"You taught us many things, Young Master," Isabelle whispered, stepping away from the portal.

"But the first rule..."

She walked up to him and took his clawed hand.

"...is that you never abandon family."

"Forgive me young master, but this time as your maid I have to disobey you this once"

ZZZPT.

The Dimensional Drill failed. The red portal collapsed, shrinking into a singularity and vanishing with a soft pop.

The only escape route was gone.

Zero stared at Isabelle. "You fool," he rasped. "You stupid fool."

"I know," Isabelle said, gripping his hand tighter. "I'm a bad maid."

ROAR!

The Abyss Gate fully ruptured.

The giant hand lunged. It wasn't aiming for the school anymore; it was aiming for them.

Behind the hand, a massive, rotting face began to push through the crust of the earth. The Rotting King was entering the material plane.

Above, the Divine Barrier descended. The Golden Ceiling was ten feet away and dropping fast.

They were about to be crushed or eaten.

"Well," Zero sighed, looking at the apocalypse sandwiching them.

"If we stay here, we'll die. If we go up, we'll burn."

He summoned the Pantheon Sword one last time. It felt heavy. The crystal blade was dull, its energy spent on the earlier blast.

"There is only one way to close a Level 10 Gate," Zero said, looking into the infinite darkness below.

"We have to break the anchor from the inside."

He looked at Isabelle.

"It's a one-way trip, Izzy."

Isabelle drew her daggers. She didn't look afraid rather she looked at home.

"I've always hated the sun anyway," she said.

Zero nodded.

He calmly deactivated his gravity magic.

Instantly they fell.

Past the floating debris of the arena. Past the screaming Void Hounds. Past the giant grey hand reaching for them.

They dove straight into the throat of the Abyss.

As they crossed the threshold of the rift, the cold hit them. It no temprature. Just the absence of life.

Zero twisted his body in mid-air. He aimed the Pantheon Sword downward, directly at the pulsating purple core of the Rift Anchor deep within the tunnel.

"SYSTEM!" Zero screamed, his voice lost in the void.

"EXPEND REMAINING DP! OVERCHARGE THE SWORD!"

[Command Accepted.] [DP: 500 -> 0.]

The dull crystal blade flared with a final, blinding white light.

Zero drove the sword into the heart of the Abyss Gate.

STAB.

For a moment, there was no sound.

Then, the singularity inverted.

The Pantheon Sword absorbed the spatial energy holding the gate open. It drank the rift.

VW00000000P.

The Abyss Gate imploded.

The giant hand of the Rotting King was severed cleanly at the wrist as the portal snapped shut. The rotting face shrieked as it was banished back to its dimension.

The darkness swallowed Zero and Isabelle whole.

And then, they were gone.

….......….

[Location: The Academy Ruins]

BOOM.

The Golden Barrier slammed into the earth.

There was nothing to stop it. The arena was gone. The island's foundation was gone.

The Divine Dome crushed the remaining Void Hounds into dust. It sterilized the crater, burning away the corruption until only bedrock remained.

Then, slowly, the golden light faded.

The Emperor's bombardment stopped. The Titans stood still in the ocean.

Silence returned to the world.

Headmistress Astra, bleeding on the roof of the Spire, looked down.

Her fellow demi god companions had sacrificed themselves to take the void cultists with them

There was no school. There was no monster. There was no Zero.

There was only a massive, smoking crater in the middle of the ocean, filling slowly with seawater.

"The target..." the Imperial General whispered, watching the scopes.

"Target signature lost. Mana signature... zero."

Emperor Aurelius lowered his hand. He looked at the empty hole in the world.

"He's dead," the Emperor stated.

It wasn't a question. Nothing could survive that.

"Mark the date," Aurelius ordered, turning his back on the ruin. "Today, the Empire starts its purge."

"He seemed to be protecting a group of students? Find them. Find his allies. Leave no trace of his legacy."

"I want the name zero scrubbed from existence!"

…......

[Location: The Dwarven Kingdom – The Magma Forge]

THUD.

Elena hit the metal floor hard. She rolled, gasping for air, clutching her broken arm.

"Professor!" she screamed, scrambling to her knees.

She looked back at the portal.

She saw the red swirling vortex. She saw Leona and Lyra fall through, sobbing.

And then she saw the portal shrink.

Through the closing window, she saw a glimpse of the arena. She saw Zero standing there, his mask cracked. She saw Isabelle holding his hand.

And she saw them jump.

POP.

The portal vanished.

"NO!" Elena shrieked. She clawed at the empty air where the wormhole had been.

"NO! BRING HIM BACK!"

Leona slammed her fist into the floor, denting the steel.

"He kicked me... he kicked me out..."

Lyra and Alpha stood in silence, lowering their heads.

Alaric, who had just regained consciousness from the rough landing, pulled himself up on a workbench. He looked at the weeping girls. He looked at the empty space.

He looked at The Anvil in his hand.

"He's gone?" Alaric asked, his voice rough.

"He saved us," Elena whispered, collapsing into a ball.

"He lost his scarf... and he saved us."

Brokk, the Dwarf Elder, walked over. He took off his helmet. The entire Dwarven army stood in respectful silence.

"He didn't die, lass," Brokk grunted, though his eyes were wet.

"The Young Master just... went to a different battlefield."

Alaric stood up. He wiped the blood from his eyes yet he didn't cry.

He gripped his sword until his knuckles turned white. The grief in his chest hardened into something cold. Something sharp.

"The Emperor," Alaric said.

Everyone looked at him.

"The Emperor attacked us," Alaric growled.

"He tried to kill us. And because of him, the Teacher had to jump."

"And those cultists too! They all have to pay!"

Alaric looked at Class F.

"We aren't students anymore."

He lifted the heavy slab of mythril onto his shoulder.

"In order to avenge professor Mozart, we have to be something much more!"

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