The Academy’s Unrivaled Professor - Chapter 90

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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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Academy’s Absolute Professor Chapter 90
Ariana Ashford (4)
Viewers across the globe watching the festival froze in shock.
Ariana Ashford had driven viewership to unprecedented levels, and the catastrophe unfolded across the world in an instant.
“What are those masked figures? Hunters? Monsters?”
“Wait—what’s that bizarre symbol, and what’s that dragon-like thing in the sky?”
“How do we even describe this? It’s a disaster! A calamity-class creature!”
Foreign news anchors’ voices trembled with terror.
[CNN Live) Rift Opens in the Sky Above Paris, France—Is This Humanity’s Final Hour?]
[Breaking News) World Hunter Association Issues International Aid Request to All S-Rank Hunters Worldwide]
[BBC Special Report) British Royal Family: “Dispatching Elite Knights for Ariana’s Rescue—Please Hold On!”]
Articles poured in, and the World Association immediately convened an emergency crisis committee.
* * *
Geneva, Switzerland.
World Hunter Association headquarters, Control Tower.
“Just in from the France Division: those faceless masked creatures—they’re not Hunters!”
“Then what?”
“They’re a type of monster. But because they have human forms, the field teams are calling them Demon Humans!”
Demon Humans.
Facing this unprecedented form for the first time, the Association’s executives tensed instantly.
What was truly horrifying was the testimony of the French S-Rank Hunters who had clashed with them directly.
“Each Demon Human’s combat strength matches at least an S-Rank Hunter!”
“Is that really true?”
“That’s insane…”
So dozens of S-Rank monsters had descended upon a site full of pale-faced Students?
Without Ariana’s aid, what would have happened?
Wouldn’t they have been annihilated before defenses could even be established?
“…Wait, then.”
A question slipped from someone’s lips.
“What exactly is Ariana?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Didn’t the report just say she incinerated three Demon Humans with a single sword strike?”
“Ah…?”
“…And look at her fighting that crimson-robed monstrosity!”
The unmanned broadcast cameras had captured part of their battle.
Crash! Clang!
They moved at speeds barely visible, their blades crossing and tangling, and with each step they took, explosions erupted beneath them as though bombs were detonating.
The playback had to be slowed to 0.5x speed just to follow them at all.
“Good heavens.”
“Is she even human like us?”
This was the first time she had engaged in true combat before the masses.
“…So Ariana was more than the reports suggested after all.”
There had been a recent debate in Hunter circles.
Among S-Rank Hunters, the gap between top-tier and lower-tier combat power was so extreme that there had been calls to establish a new tier above: SS-Rank.
That theory, which had circulated only as armchair speculation, was now being proven before their eyes on screen.
Someone who reduced three S-Rank monsters to ash with a single blade strike.
How could such a being be measured by the same S-Rank standard?
“We’ll need to issue SS-Rank Hunter credentials soon.”
“Then should we classify that crimson Demon Human—the one who appears to be the leader—as SS-Rank?”
“That’s the only choice.”
The Association Director nodded.
The next image was the problem.
A Blood Scaled Serpent with crimson scales tore through the sky.
Crash-crash-crash-crash!
Watching the New Training Hall building collapse from just fragments of its scales, the executives trembled.
“That… that’s simply SSS-Rank.”
Not provisional.
They decided immediately.
It was the worst designation humanity could assign—created just in case, never expected to be needed.
* * *
At that very moment, Korea’s news feeds and online communities were ablaze, and nowhere burned hotter than Acanet.
[What’s the situation now? Are the kids okay?]
└ Still no word from the embassy
└ All the official broadcast cameras are smashed anyway. Only Ariana’s on screen right now, so it’s hard to track
└ Cheonrang Guild is mobilizing for Paris as we speak. My son’s there, so I have to go no matter what
[Does anyone have on-the-ground updates from Paris?]
└ Paris airspace is under full lockdown
└ With an SSS-rank Demon Beast in the sky, planes can’t even take off anyway
└ Looks like they’re handling it on the ground
└ Wait, I’m searching YouTube for clips being uploaded from the scene right now
And not long after.
[Found Baek Yu-yeon!]
(Video of Baek Yu-yeon, sweat pouring down her face, shouting something in English as she ran)
└ Whoa
└ No way?
└ How’d you find this?
└ Wait, there are some Orin Party students visible in the background too?
└ Crazy! Why didn’t they run away!
The view count on the YouTube Shorts video, uploaded in French, began climbing rapidly.
It was thanks to the Mongolian viewers.
[Mongolia’s Angel Has Descended Upon Paris!]
[Mother Baek! Mother Baek! Angel Baek! Angel Baek!]
Her devoted acupuncture work, performed with sweat streaming down her face, was touching hearts across borders and around the world.
└ This cohort is a real legend
└ They won the Arc Field Award and now they’re fighting there…
└ I wonder if Professor Kang Hyeon is there too. He wasn’t a guide professor this time, right?
└ If they get hurt… Please don’t overdo it, you guys.
└ Come back safe!
The students continued tracking the situation, their hands clasped in prayer.
That they would all return home safely.
They were the Academy’s hope, but also Korea’s hope—a nation yearning to break free from being a hunter backwater.
* * *
Crack-crack-crack!
Ariana drew in ragged breaths.
Her body had long since stopped feeling hot and now burned as though charred.
A searing pain radiated from deep within.
“Hah—hgh!”
Because of it, her breathing had grown ragged and uneven.
‘Just what kind of monster crawled out of nowhere?’
The crimson-cloaked figure was strong and relentless—so much so that she, for the first time in her life, felt truly pressed.
In raw strength, she held the advantage, but the enemy’s combat experience was extraordinary.
Even as the battle raged on, Ariana’s eyes kept searching for someone.
‘That man.’
The Oriental man she’d glimpsed in the stands earlier.
She’d seen everything.
How he cleaved through the Faceless Yaksha, blocked the scales the serpent above had fired, and ranged across the battlefield carving through monsters.
That’s why she was certain.
‘That man knows what these creatures are.’
And his skill was no ordinary affair.
Having spent years as the Royal Guard Captain watching renowned S-rank Hunters, she rarely saw one move with such economy and wield a blade with such refinement.
‘Qualitatively different from your standard S-rank Hunter.’
Whether he surpassed her in strength remained uncertain, but that wasn’t what mattered.
‘What matters is.’
Gurgle-gurgle-gurgle!
The serpent overhead, revealing an ever-massive form.
“Ha.”
A sigh escaped her lips unbidden.
How was anyone supposed to slay something like that?
Even with a blade in hand, she doubted they could so much as scratch its hide.
Yet still, Ariana steeled herself.
‘I’m living on borrowed time anyway.’
Night after night, burning from the inside out, I’d nearly resigned myself to the fact that dying today or tomorrow made no difference.
‘I need to dispose of this masked monster first, then face that serpent.’
But winning? I wasn’t deluding myself about that.
If we fight, I die. Full stop.
Still, if this life is destined to be short anyway, I might as well burn brilliantly on my way out.
‘Even if it means a Mutual Destruction.’
Bang!
It was as Ariana barely deflected the Faceless Yaksha’s talons that her brow furrowed sharply.
‘But why has that man been darting around like that this whole time?’
Honestly, it stung a little.
With that level of power, wouldn’t it be simple to come over here and fight together?
‘Fighting alone like this… I’m in so much pain I can barely think.’
Throb-throb.
From deep within her Dantian, lava-hot flames continued to surge upward.
Her chest felt suffocating.
Blood rose again, flooding to her throat.
“Cough!”
She spat crimson.
In that instant of vulnerability.
The cunning Faceless Yaksha did not waste the opportunity.
Screech!
Talons condensed with demonic energy screamed toward her heart.
“Ugh!”
She raised her blade on instinct to block.
Crash!
The full force slammed into her entire frame, too much to parry—her body launched backward through the air.
Then she crashed into the debris of the New Training Hall, scattered by the serpent’s bombardment.
“Aaaagh!”
Every bone screamed as if crushed to powder, and the taste of blood flooded her mouth.
Her whole body trembled, her vision swimming.
‘I… I have to get up.’
Ariana was barely pushing herself up on the rubble when—
Whoosh!
The Faceless Yaksha leaped through space in an instant, its talons driving down again.
Crash!
She managed to block once more, but raw strength overwhelmed her, and this time she was driven deep into the interior of the collapsed hall.
“Haah… gaah…”
Each breath felt like her lungs were tearing apart.
A bitter, hollow laugh escaped her.
‘I thought I’d die fighting the serpent…’
So this is how it ends? Killed by some nameless masked beast?
‘Fine.’
If I’m going to die anyway.
Then I won’t hold back here.
I’ll unleash every scrap of Yang Energy in my body on this thing—let’s go down together.
Whoosh!
Her body began to burn.
‘I, Ariana Ashford, die here today.’
Rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble!
The overturned debris began to shift and crumble all over again.
* * *
At that same moment.
Splash!
The sixth Apostle’s head, hiding beneath the spire, flew skyward under Kang Hyun’s blade.
‘We did it!’
The majority now broken.
The Summoning Circle is finished.
Zing!
Looking up, the Blood Gate that had been expanding began to contract once more.
Screeeeeech?
Confusion flickered across the Blood Scaled Serpent’s hideous cry.
‘Want to come out? Then come out.’
If it forced its way through, the Blood Gate would snap shut and sever its head clean off.
‘After it gets severed, hand over a Demon Stone or Heart Core or something.’
That was what I secretly hoped for, but the cunning creature panicked and yanked its massive head straight back into the Demon Realm—that’s what I’d been calling it for now.
“Tch.”
Kang Hyeon’s gaze snapped toward the ruins.
I’d already seen it.
Ariana flying off in that direction.
‘I need to move fast.’
I couldn’t lose my one precious Nine Yang Meridian like this.
“Stay here and wait, kid.”
I set Min Seo-jun down and rushed toward the ruins—
A sharp crack.
By the time I arrived, Ariana’s Red Flame Sword had already pierced through the Faceless Yaksha’s chest.
“…Ha, we won after all.”
Whoosh.
The incarnate body burned away into nothingness, leaving behind not a single Demon Stone.
There was nothing to be done.
It wasn’t the real body.
“Cough!”
Ariana, who had barely won through Mutual Destruction, had reached her limit and collapsed to her knees.
The blood she coughed up was so hot it sizzled across the concrete below.
‘So this is how it ends…’
She sensed her own fate.
‘My life ends here.’
It was the moment her consciousness began to fade.
Footsteps, steady footsteps.
Through the dust and dirt, she heard someone approaching.
Ariana lifted her head with difficulty and saw a man stepping toward her.
‘That man from before!’
“…Why are you only now… who are you…?”
As Ariana asked with barely a whisper, Kang Hyeon replied in English.
My recent studies had made basic communication possible.
“If you want to live, the person you’ll come to call your master.”
‘What does that mean?’
Ariana couldn’t comprehend it.
‘I can live?’
What kind of nonsense was he spouting?

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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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