Necromancer Academy’s Genius Summoner - Chapter 575

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Summoning Genius of the Necromancer School – Episode 575

‘It’s begun.’
Bermud, who understood Phantasus better than anyone, shot skyward faster than the rest.
Already the air grew thick and heavy. His clothes and hair were soaked through, and instead of wind he felt the resistance of water against his skin.
‘I have to prevent Mua-Mong-Jung from fully manifesting.’
Bermud’s hand swept through the empty air.
The world answered—a hundred magical circles unfurled. Dark magic charged, trajectories calculated, variables accounted for.
Then, as tens of thousands of brilliant rays of light were about to cascade down—
Whoooooosh!
The world turned blue first.
Blue Screen.
Every Necromancer who fell to this technique called it that.
Bermud clapped a hand over his mouth. Water droplets seeped between his fingers. The hundred magical circles he’d painstakingly constructed dissolved like salt into water—gone in an instant.
‘I’ve never seen it firsthand, but it’s unbelievable.’
A soft sigh escaped his throat.
‘A curse that manifests dreams as reality itself.’
The world was drowned in water.
Bermud cast breathing magic upon himself and fixed his gaze forward.
A sea had formed, and the sea had birthed life. Hideous creatures emerged across its expanse.
Swarms of fish swirling pitch-black, manta rays the size of a sports field, jellyfish crackling with electricity, deep-sea fish bristling with teeth.
Like a child’s careless scrawl across blank paper—creatures utterly devoid of biological sense, grotesque beyond measure.
[…….]
[…….]
They made no sound. They simply watched Bermud with ten thousand glowing eyes from the darkness.
‘The impossible made manifest.’
Ten thousand demons surged toward Bermud, churning the water to foam.
‘This is his world. The only way to win in his world is—’
Bermud’s body blazed crimson, like metal heated in a furnace.
‘To build my own world inside it.’
Roaaaaaar!
His entire body erupted in volcanos, spewing lava. A sun rose in the middle of the black sea, and the swarming fish vanished the moment they touched the inferno.
‘Make it more excruciating.’
Bermud’s eyes gleamed.
‘Pain is my very source!’
Red energy spread wider across the blue sea. Each creature born was immediately consumed by lava and scorching heat, erased.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-!
Phantasus, trying to drown his opponent in his own dream, and Bermud, building his own domain even within that dream—
A battle between creatures long since transcended the realm of humanity.
‘According to what I’ve learned, Mua-Mong-Jung’s greatest weakness—’
Bermud raised his remaining arm. His gaze turned toward Phantasus, who sat cross-legged on the ground.
‘The dreamer cannot move.’
The grandest magical circle Bermud had yet summoned unfolded.

What burst forth was a thin red arm.
A demon’s arm with three fingers advanced toward the cross-legged Phantasus. The whale and grotesque creatures defending him moved to intercept, but Diabolos was not black magic to be negated.
The demon’s arm destroyed everything it touched. Simon and Serne swung their greatswords and hurled feathers, but it was useless.
Then—
Boom!
With a heavy crash, Phantasus was pinned beneath the demon’s arm.
‘Heh.’
The corner of his mouth lifted.
“Hahahahahaha!”
The seawater that had filled the space drained away, and the grotesque creatures crumbled to bone before dissolving.
Bermud, laughing in such rapturous triumph—
Slice!
felt pain shoot through his body.
A sharp blade pierced his skin, severed muscle, and cut through flesh and blood.
Even as lava engulfed his entire form, Bermud sensed this new agony. In the moment all his senses converged upon this fresh wound—
Screeeeeech!
The world twisted and warred. A white greatsword—evoking the very thought of death—swept across his shoulder toward his neck.
Bermud twisted his body just in time, slipping clear.
His attacker was none other than Simon. Feather Wings, crafted by Serne from feathers gathered and woven, were strapped to his shoulders.
‘Just barely missed!’
Simon bit his lip.
Whoosh!
Bermud forged a blade of lava and swung it. Simon answered without hesitation, wielding the Sword of Ruin.
Crash! Clang! Screech!
White and crimson arcs collided in a frenzy, the impact thundering across the space.
‘Unbelievable.’
Bermud’s brow furrowed.
Clarity returned to him: the Mua-Mong-Jung was still active, and a demonic arm was simply battering the floor. Phantasus sat cross-legged some distance away, with Serne standing at his side.
The memory of killing Phantasus had been nothing but a ‘dream.’
‘Did I… actually fall asleep?’
Over two thousand degrees of lava covered his entire body.
Yet was it possible for a human, coated in such heat, to feel drowsiness and sleep?
Boom!
The two fighters collided fiercely in the center and both retreated in unison.
“Serne!”
At Simon’s call, light flashed across the Feather Wings. Simon’s body traced a white arc through the air, wheeling in a circle before driving hard from the right.
Bermud tracked the movement, eyes sharp and focused.
Young Legion Commander though he was, a Legion Commander remained a Legion Commander. One moment’s carelessness meant death. He abandoned the troublesome lava blade and, spreading a massive Magic Circle before his palm, aimed it at the approaching Simon.
Slash!
Yet the pain came not from the right, but from his left arm.
‘A feint!’
Bermud seized the pain to wrench himself from the dream again.
Simon’s blade sang from the left, and Bermud, reading the trajectory of the sword edge, twisted his body and deflected the strike.
‘Human reaction time? Impossible.’
Simon could only gasp.
Decayed or not, the Ivory Tower Master was the Ivory Tower Master. He was no mere figurehead of a faction.
Whoosh!
Simon urgently raised the Sword of Ruin to receive the lava Bermud spewed in counterattack.
“Ugh!”
The Sword of Ruin, having neutralized the lava, blazed a vivid green.
“Lend me your strength, blade!”
Simon swung the greatsword with all his might.
<Blade Original – Chimera>
Boom!
Crash! Crash!
Dozens of venomous hounds erupted from Simon’s blade stroke, spreading in all directions.
Bermud raised a Defensive Magic Circle to shield the front, then poured more shadow into it, wrapping a second shell of defense around his entire body.
Burst!
Burst!
This time the attack came head-on. As the venom dissolved through his Defensive Magic Circle, Simon shot upward again into the air.
“Haaah!”
He dropped at speed, the greatsword held high above his head, and brought it crashing down.
‘From above? Or—’
Bermud, his counterattack spell primed, had to choose.
Then.
Pain lanced through his waist.
‘Behind!’
Flame erupted!
Lava gushed from his left hand, scorching everything behind him.
—You fool—
Serne’s voice reached him. The vast torrent of lava at two thousand degrees succeeded only in burning away a single feather attached to his waist.
—How many times will you fall for it? Father.
‘Damn!’
Serne had read through his entire strategy—relying solely on pain to anchor himself.
Bermud lurched to the side—
Inferno!
This time, it found its mark. The Sword of Ruin descended in a sweeping arc, severing Bermud’s remaining left arm as it flew.
“Aaaaaaahhhhh!”
Bermud screamed, blood pouring from both severed limbs as he rocketed skyward—in the opposite direction from Simon’s descending form.
‘I need to buy time.’
The arms didn’t matter; what mattered was that he had no winning hand here.
The Mua-Mong-Jung wouldn’t last much longer, and this dungeon’s duration was nearly spent.
He had to get outside before they fought again.
“Hgh!”
Simon gave chase, racing upward after the fleeing Bermud, but Bermud’s speed outpaced him.
‘If I can break this technique, I can win.’
The dungeon groaned and cracked around Bermud as he climbed higher.
Then, in an instant.
Crack!
A sharp sound like hands clapping echoed in Simon’s ears, and the world inverted with a sickening lurch.
“Enjoyed your little dream, have you?”
Phantasus’s voice cut through the air.
‘!’
Bermud found himself plummeting not toward the heavens, but toward the ground below.
The very direction had reversed.
And standing directly in his path was Phantasus.
Bermud was falling straight toward him, accelerating, unable to stop even if he’d wanted to.
“No escape now!”
Phantasus dropped into a fighting stance, spreading his hands wide.
“Just as well!”
Bermud roared. A magic circle blazed across his form, and demonic arms erupted from his body once more.
<Bermud Original – Diabolos>
If he could end this now, while he had the power, it would be finished. Bermud watched the Dark Element coil around Phantasus’s hands and spoke.
“Now that I’ve broken free of Mua-Mong-Jung, your Sleep won’t work on me!”
“Sleep need not be a curse to bind an opponent. There are many ways to render someone unconscious, and the finest of them all is this!”
Phantasus opened his massive palms into fists, then thrust his bent knees upward, launching himself into the air.
“Sleeeeeeep!”
The demonic arm descended toward Phantasus from above. He twisted his hips and drove his fist forward with tremendous force.
“Punch!”
Crack-thoom!
The demonic arm snapped like sugarcane under Phantasus’s fist, bending back to drive directly into Bermud’s face.
Bermud’s visage twisted as the impact sent him hurtling upward at blinding speed.
The shockwave sent all the sand around them skyward, inverting heaven and earth, a display so violent that it made spectators’ knees buckle.
“Hahahaha!”
Phantasus clenched his fist—boulder-sized—and laughed with booming delight.
“Perfect!”
A single punch with a one-hundred-percent success rate for Sleep. Of course, this was Sleep from which no one ever woke.
From where he floated in the sky, Simon let out a bewildered laugh.
‘That guy… why is Sleep his main weapon?’

* * *
As the duration of the World of Sand expired, Simon’s party and Bermud returned to the outside world.
Bermud lay sprawled on his back, his face crushed and distorted. His legs and arms were bent at grotesque angles.
The Dark Magic that had been sustaining his body had dissipated entirely.
“Ivory Tower Master. Bermud Aindark.”
Phantasus walked forward to stand over him. Simon and Serne flanked him on either side.
“Any final words for the world?”
“Heh… heh heh… heh heh heh.”
Bermud turned his head, his gaze settling on Serne.
“I was… wrong… to take you in…”
“When you use others, you must be prepared to be used in turn,” Serne said, a faint smile crossing her lips as she raised her hand.
She waved her fingers gently.
“Farewell, Father.”
Her feathers descended, settling over Bermud’s fading form.
“I hated every moment of being your child.”
The feathers became cloth, veiling his face. Others transformed into flowers, blooming across his body.
“Don’t let me see you again.”
It was a characteristically crisp farewell from Serne. She turned her back and walked ahead.
Once they’d escaped the dungeon, the sun was already climbing into the sky.

* * *
Bermud’s breathing simply stopped.
In truth, ever since the attack from Simon of the future had punched a hole through his abdomen, he had been little more than a corpse clinging to life. He’d merely forced himself to persist, drawing strength from agony itself.
No doubt he’d clung to existence in hopes of capturing Simon and delivering him to the Covenant, but Phantasus’s arrival had rendered all of it to nothing.
Afterward, the Barrier that had shrouded the Ivory Tower headquarters dissolved, and its inhabitants entered. Upon seeing the collapsed Tower of Time and Bermud’s body, they raged—but mercifully, Daniela, having regained her senses, gave her testimony.
“It was all the Ivory Tower Master’s design.”
He had activated the Memorial Crystal. An object obtained from the previous center on the tenth floor.
“I will eliminate everyone connected to this incident. Not only the invited guests, but the children from Kizen and the Ivory Tower youth, the guards and scholars working at the Tower of Time—all of them.”
Learning that the head who commanded the Ivory Tower was nothing but a puppet dancing to the Covenant’s strings sent the tower’s inhabitants into a fury beyond measure.
Combined with testimony from other Necromancers and the invited guests, Bermud’s misdeeds began to surface in earnest.
Soon after, as though they’d been waiting, agents from Kizen arrived, followed by investigators dispatched from the Dark Alliance, who immediately commenced their inquiry.
Simon and Serne were kept busy all day responding to questioning. Fortunately, Neftis and the Ivory Tower headquarters sent a student representative on their behalf, and the two finally managed to slip outside.
“…….”
The two sat side by side on a park bench, their eyes fixed on the ruins of the collapsed tower.
After a moment of silence, Simon turned to regard her quietly.
“I saw it. What you really are.”
“……What do you mean?”
She smiled softly and continued.
“The part where you helped Kizen and fought Bermud?”
“That too, but.”
Simon spoke quietly.
“Especially the thing about Merin.”
Serne smiled silently, without words.
“I’m sorry for misunderstanding all this time. I mean it.”
Serne’s promise to make him Ivory Tower Master had almost come to pass in the saddest of ways.
Had Serne been sacrificed while breaking the Absolute Seal, Merin would have naturally become the next Ivory Tower Master.
It was unexpected.
She, who commanded the minds of others, had been a tyrant. Always aloof and prideful, yet simultaneously willful, distrustful of human free will, and emotionally hollow, or so he’d thought.
But.
She was human. A person capable of willingly sacrificing herself for someone.
A golden opportunity to topple Kizen itself. She was someone who could set down her greatest ambition and choose to protect another.
“When we return to school, I’ll take responsibility and correct Merin’s misunderstanding of you.”
Simon said.
“Once Merin learns what you’ve done, things will get better between you.”
“No.”
But Serne shook her head.
“Please don’t.”
“Huh? Why not?”
She gazed slowly upward at the sky.
“Because I didn’t do it hoping for a reward. Everything I did was because I wanted to.”
Simon’s expression hardened.
“You’re fine with Merin continuing to misunderstand you like this?”
Even if their relationship might never return to what it had been, the thought of Merin harboring hatred for Serne was something he couldn’t accept.
“Then let me ask you.”
Serne crossed her legs and spoke in an even voice.
“What happens if Merin learns the whole truth?”
“……Well.”
“Her mind would be completely shattered, wouldn’t it? Every harsh word she’s ever said to me will come flooding back, and she’ll spend nights trembling with regret. Will she even be able to look me in the eye again? Can she still curse at me so freely as before? I think it would only become suffocatingly awkward. And more than that, if Merin learns the truth, she loses her clear life’s purpose to crush me, her reason for entering Kizen. All of it disappears.”
“…….”
She shrugged.
“I like things as they are now. Merin, confronting me head-on with burning determination to crush me. Merin, trembling and on the verge of tears when she’s wronged. Merin cursing me with her eyes, Merin snapping and sulking, Merin’s face flushing red. And.”
Serne slowly rested her head against Simon’s arm. Simon flinched and stiffened.
“Merin, thrashing about in a fury even when Simon and I seem just a little close like this. I like all of it.”
“…….”
Simon exhaled a long, weary sigh.

It’s true—Serne’s sacrifice was an act of her own will, undertaken without asking permission from the person it concerned.
It was a noble sacrifice, yes, but also—
a twisted kind of love.
Given Merin’s nature, she would have preferred that Serne tell her everything truthfully and work through a solution together.
She might have demanded: Why didn’t you tell me? Did you think I’d be happy if you made this sacrifice? Did you believe I’d find peace in your death?
Merin might even be angry. The truth was, Serne’s words and actions had left wounds on Merin that time could not heal.
This is good.
Those words of Serne’s carried multiple meanings beneath the surface.
“All right. I’ll do it your way.”
“Thank you.”
“So……”
Simon hesitated, his lips parting uncertainly, before speaking in an urgent tone.
“We can keep going to school together from now on, right? I mean…… we can still do that?”
Silence fell.
Simon watched her, tense with anticipation. Serne, leaning against his shoulder and gazing up at him, slowly closed her eyes.
“……That might be difficult.”
The Ivory Tower Master, Bermud, was dead.
And the next heir was her—Serne.
She was the Ivory Tower Master now.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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