Chapter 63: Boss(4)

BOOM.

The ceiling split.

Two more puppets dropped one crashing into the rear quarter of the training hall, the other landing dead center in the dueling pit.

Level 20.

Both.

Marlon raised his head, still kneeling from his fight, eyes wide.

"You’ve got to be kidding me."

But Eugene didn’t hesitate.

His coat flared behind him as he stepped forward, dragging his right hand across his chest, fingertips sparking.

"Burning Heart."

The activation was near-silent no chant, no theatrics. But the temperature in the room jumped instantly. Heat shimmered around Eugene like a heatwave over glass, distorting light. His eyes narrowed, irises flaring molten gold.

His breath fogged backward.

The pressure hit first.

Then the flame.

FWOOOM.

A plume of red-white fire burst upward from his chest not uncontrolled, but anchored to every part of his frame. His silhouette burned with layered rings of energy, a hybrid core of fire and lightning twisting around his spine like a coiled reactor.

He didn’t speak again.

He moved.

Straight at the first puppet.

CRACK—

A punch connected to its chest before it could fully rise. Not a spell, not a weapon just his fist. The impact sent shockwaves through the floor, cracking tile and bending reinforced support.

The puppet staggered. Metal groaned.

Then the second lunged from behind.

Eugene turned sharply his coat whipping sideways and raised one hand.

"Heaven Crack."

A spiraled bolt of flame-lightning tore from his palm, curving mid-air like a predator and slammed directly into the second puppet’s arm. It twisted back, metal singed, recoil grinding through its spine.

Eugene shot forward again footwork tight, posture perfect. He weaved inside the puppet’s zone and unloaded a combination of body shots. Each hit exploded with compressed flame, melting armor, heating gears until they sparked.

He was on the offense.

He was winning.

Across the hall

Marlon stood shakily, turning toward a new threat.

Class B students.

Dozens of them.

All with that same hollow look. Controlled. Empty. Some wielded training blades. Some just fists. One or two even had low-level spells forming in twitching hands.

Marlon gritted his teeth.

"I can’t hurt them," he whispered.

But they were already charging.

He moved.

He ducked under the first swing, flicked a parry with the flat of his blade, and slammed a shoulder into the attacker’s chest to knock them back not hard enough to break anything. Just enough.

The second came in swinging.

He disarmed them with a precise strike to the wrist, then swept their legs. Caught them before they hit the ground. Laid them down. Gently.

More rushed in.

"Why are there so many of you!?" he growled, dodging between two lunges. He knocked aside one training sword, used his blade to hook another’s ankle and send them off balance.

He caught a stray fist to the jaw. Didn’t retaliate. Just shoved the attacker away.

No killing. No cuts. No blood.

Just control.

Painful, exhausting control.

His sword moved with restraint. Every action was wrapped in discipline. He was breathing hard already, burning through his stamina not from force but from precision.

Then

He saw a group break through.

Heading straight for the unconscious students in the corner.

"No—!"

He sprinted forward. Leapt a toppled bench. Slammed a defensive barrier spell into the air just in time to intercept the onrushing wave.

BANG!

The students hit the barrier like a wall.

He staggered. Held it.

Barely.

His legs quaked beneath him.

Back at the center—

Eugene was bleeding.

One puppet had landed a strike across his ribs — a deep gouge — and the other had scored a hit across his shoulder blade.

But both were dented, scorched, twisted.

"Time to end it," he muttered, eyes glowing white-hot.

He stepped back, planting both heels, pressing a hand over his chest.

"Burning Heart: Unstable Release."

He let it detonate.

A ring of searing light exploded outward from his core, wrapping both puppets in a vortex of pressure and heat so intense the walls began to melt. The metal in their joints screamed as they seized.

Eugene stepped inside the blast zone.

He raised one hand.

Lightning.

The other.

Fire.

And with both palms forward, he forced them together and unleashed.

"OVERDRIVE: SEARBREAKER!"

A beam of white-gold energy tore through the puppets in a line, punching through both torsos like a divine lance. Their chests erupted in sparks and slag, cores blown apart.

Silence followed.

Then

They collapsed.

Twisted metal. Smoking pieces. One still twitching slightly.

Eugene’s body slumped against the nearest column.

Burning Heart faded, the glow leaking from his veins like steam from an engine shutting down.

He didn’t fall.

But he wasn’t moving either.

His chest rose, then fell. Once. Slow.

And across the room—

Marlon held the barrier.

Breathing like he’d run a marathon.

The students on the other side were still.

Still twitching. Still staring.

Still chanting.

"Help her."

"Help her."

"Help her."

Marlon’s knuckles tightened on the hilt of his sword.

"What the hell is going on?"

The room was shrinking.

Not literally but it felt that way.

The flowers kept growing.

Blue, gold, violet once just creeping along the walls now cracked through the floor itself, vines curling between the tiles like veins under translucent skin. They spread upward, tangling around broken benches, across the ceiling beams, thick enough to choke out the light. Every inch of space seemed claimed, colonized, reshaped.

The scent changed too.

Not floral.

Something sweet and sharp, like rotting honey and wet stone, thick enough to clog the lungs.

Marlon lowered his barrier.

The students behind it had stopped attacking. Not fallen just... stilled.

They stood with their heads tilted back slightly, faces blank, eyes wide. Their mouths hung open just slightly whispers slipping out on cracked tongues.

The chant had changed.

No longer "Help her."

Now:

"She’s dreaming."

"She’s dreaming."

"She’s dreaming."

Again. Again. Again.

Marlon’s breath caught.

Then came the heat.

It wasn’t Eugene’s. Not now. His magic had faded, his coat still smoking where the flames had flared too close.

This heat was wrong.

It came from the puppets.

The ones Eugene had destroyed

They twitched.

Their limbs jerked violently as if something inside was trying to escape.

One puppet, the center one, arched backward, spine creaking, and from the seams in its armor, a thin black smoke began to bleed out.

Then

FWOOM.

Flame.

But not red. Not orange.

Blue.

Blue fire erupted from within the puppet’s chest cavity. Not from magic. Not from spellwork.

From transformation.

The flames didn’t consume it. They melted it—and not just the shell. The internal structure began to twist. Elongated limbs. Reconstructed plating. Joints turned in on themselves.

It wasn’t rebuilding.

It was growing.

Same for the second.

Same for the third.

All three puppets were evolving.

Their surfaces cracked, shedding old armor like dead skin. Beneath, something new pushed through organic, but not human. Glowing veins pulsed underneath half-molten plating. Sharp root-like tendrils erupted from their backs, threading into the walls and pulling vines into themselves like feeders.

"They’re not puppets anymore," Marlon whispered.

Eugene, barely upright, leaned off the pillar, forcing himself back to his feet. "They’re... mutating..."

He was right.

This wasn’t some backup defense. This was an infection a graft. The flowers weren’t just atmosphere.

They were the source.

One of the puppets twisted its head full around, cracking audibly, and opened a mouth it hadn’t had minutes ago.

A human mouth.

No lips. Just teeth.

Dozens.

And it whispered in a voice layered with a thousand others:

"Dreaming. Still dreaming. She’s not awake yet."

Then the three of them moved.

Not in sync. Not mechanically.

They hunted.

Fast.

Too fast.

Eugene threw a blast of heat wide a desperate deterrent.

It bought them seconds.

Marlon shouted, "We can’t fight them here this space is going to collapse!"

And he was right.

The walls were bowing inward from the vines. Flowers now bloomed from the ceiling itself. From students’ mouths. From the broken arms of the puppets.

Too much pressure. Too much presence.

Something was coming.

And "she" wasn’t awake yet.

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