The Last Place Hero’s Return - Chapter 280

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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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Chapter 280. War (4)
[Attention all students. This is an emergency announcement. All Candidate Program members remaining on campus are to evacuate immediately to the Main Hall Auditorium. I repeat. All Candidate Program members remaining on campus are to evacuate immediately to the Main Hall Auditorium.]
Red warning lights flashed urgently.
“Kyaaaaaaah!”
“H-how did the Demons get here?!”
“S-save us!!!”
Screams from the Candidate Program members echoed throughout the Academy.
“Haa.”
Bishop Jordan, commanding the vanguard of this war, exhaled an exhilarated sigh at the sound of those screams reaching his ears.
“There’s nothing quite like the cries of youngsters to make one’s heart race, I tell you.”
Bishop Jordan’s lips curled into a wide grin as he watched the Candidate Program members shrieking and scrambling in panic.
When the Archbishop of Destruction declared war against the Heroes, he had volunteered without hesitation to lead the charge.
It was not born of any deep loyalty to Amon.
Bishop Jordan’s loyalty was actually among the lowest among the other Archbishop-class Demons.
Yet there was one reason he had volunteered for the vanguard.
“Haa, haa. Uh, hehehehe. I can’t contain myself.”
Bishop Jordan wiped the drool trickling from his lips, his breathing ragged with excitement.
Generally, as a Demon ascended in rank, they gained better control over the destructive impulses granted by the Demon God’s stigma, but his case was the opposite.
An intense destructive urge that burned the very soul.
He wanted nothing more than to seize one of the fleeing youngsters and thoroughly ravage their body.
‘First, I’ll sever their legs so they can’t escape, then break their arms, and slowly slice open their abdomen to extract their organs one by one.’
Ahhh—
At the mere thought of such an exquisite scene, Bishop Jordan trembled with rapture.
‘Not yet, not yet.’
He barely suppressed the surging impulse and surveyed his surroundings with sharp eyes.
His mission as vanguard commander was not merely to charge into enemy territory and unleash a magnificent slaughter.
‘They seem to have had no idea we were coming.’
Had they anticipated war, they would have evacuated the Candidate Program members first.
Judging by the over a hundred Candidate Program members visible right now, it was certain they had not anticipated this attack at all.
‘Surely the so-called Heroes wouldn’t use the Candidate Program members as bait.’
Of course, he did not entirely dismiss that possibility.
Before the attack, he had sent subordinates to each nation to confirm the whereabouts of key figures and powers.
‘Pope Marian, Johan Basillio of the Sword of Holy Nation, and Kalid Han of the Falling Flower Sword.’
And most importantly, the ‘Empress’ Camelia Padshah.
He had confirmed before the attack that all of them were located in the capitals of their respective nations.
‘Then that leaves only one Master remaining in the Academy.’
Thunder God Raonel Ryu alone.
‘Hehe. One Master is hardly a problem.’
The Academy’s professors were certainly formidable, but compared to the Demon forces he had brought, they were negligible.
‘I’ve sealed all the warp gates in Valhalla City, so reinforcements through them are out of the question.’
Investigation had already confirmed that no other warp gates existed within the Academy.
Since warp gates couldn’t be conjured into existence in a single instant, there were no variables to account for regarding them.
‘Even if she is the Empress, it would take considerable time for her to reach Hero Academy without a warp gate.’
In other words.
Right now, Hero Academy was precisely like a rat trapped in a jar.
“Well then.”
Bishop Jordan turned his head to survey his subordinates.
A unit he had assembled by gathering only those Demons with particularly intense destructive impulses.
Even among their own kind, the Demons known as Red Destruction were shunned—yet they now exhaled excited breaths in anticipation of the slaughter about to unfold.
Not a trace of fear or tension regarding the coming war could be detected in them.
Bishop Jordan’s lips curled upward in satisfaction as he drew his weapon.
“The hour of slaughter has arrived.”
“Waaaaaaah!”
With their war cry, the Demons surged forward toward the fleeing Candidates.
But the professors blocked their path.
“Buy time until all the Candidates have evacuated!”
“You wretches! How dare Demons set foot in this sacred Academy!”
The collision between Demons and professors erupted.
Boom! Crash crash crash!
The earth itself screamed beneath the clash of superhumans bearing divine stigmata upon their chests.
“Hahahaha!”
“Yes, this is it!”
“How long has it been since a real battle!”
True to their name as Bishop Jordan’s vanguard, Red Destruction, the Demons unleashed destructive demonic energy as they rampaged.
The professors fought desperately against Jordan’s vanguard, but—
“Ugh! Cough!”
“We… we can’t let them through… Krgh!”
“Damn it!”
The professors were helplessly pushed back against the ferocious onslaught of the Demons.
Though the Academy’s professors were among the elite Heroes, they could not withstand Bishop Jordan’s vanguard.
“Damn it! Where is Lucas Kane?!”
“H-he’s currently at the Main Building…”
Krgh…!”
Professor Jane, instructor for the third-year Magic Department, gnawed her lip with anxious urgency.
If only top-tier professors like Lucas Kane, Jade Bastian, or Bianca were present.
With only the professors here now, it would be difficult to buy enough time for the Candidates to escape.
As she hesitated, forced to consider retreat—
“Haaaaaaah!”
A familiar battle cry accompanied a large-framed Candidate who burst onto the battlefield.
“B-Berald? What the hell are you doing here right now?!”
“I’ll lend my strength as well!”
“Wait, how are you going to—”
A third-year student who could barely cast proper magic beyond mana bullets—how could such a candidate possibly hold back this overwhelming horde of Demons?
Professor Jane reached out urgently as Berald charged forward.
“Earth, cry out!”
Berald stomped the ground violently.
“Seismic Stoooooorm!”
Boom, boom, boom, boom!
The earth trembled, splitting like a hammer had been driven through glass.
Hundreds of tons of earth became a colossal tidal wave, crashing down upon the Demons.
Bishop Jordan’s vanguard, which had been pressing forward savagely, was swept away by the massive earthen tsunami.
“Hehe, how’s that, Professor? Magic I learned from you!”
Berald turned back to Professor Jane with a grin, giving her a thumbs up.
“What… is this?”
I never taught you anything like this, you bastard.
Professor Jane stared at the fractured earth in bewilderment.
From the devastated ground, she sensed no magical aura whatsoever.
In other words.
He had overturned the earth and created a tidal wave of hundreds of tons using nothing but pure physical force.
“How on earth…?”
“You don’t need to strain yourself trying to understand.”
A petite woman passed by Professor Jane, whose expression had frozen in shock.
“Aren’t you… Sophia, one of the candidates?”
“I’m not a candidate anymore, though.”
Sophia chuckled softly and pointed her staff toward the Demons swept up in the earth.
“This place is dangerous, so please step back.”
“…Step back?”
Was a candidate (or rather, someone who wasn’t a candidate) really telling a professor to retreat?
Professor Jane looked at Sophia in disbelief.
“You might get caught in the crossfire.”
Sophia shrugged and began chanting an incantation.
At that same moment.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!!!
With a deafening roar like thunder descending from the heavens, everything around them began rising skyward.
Trees were uprooted and floated in the air, stones rose like balloons toward the sky.
“What is this…?”
Professor Jane was no stranger to gravity magic.
But in all her years of teaching, she had never witnessed gravity magic on such an absurdly vast scale.
‘This is the magic of a fresh graduate hero?’
Impossible.
Only a hero whose magical perfection and power approached a Master’s level could display such magic.
“What in the—”
“Aaahhh!”
“Blood, blood!!!”
Magic so devastating that even allies recoiled in shock—what must it be like for the Demons?
The Demons, who had been rampaging like starving beasts, scattered in all directions to evade the boulders raining down upon them.
“What shameful display is this!”
Bishop Jordan bellowed at his subordinates as they fled in panic.
He stretched his hand toward the cascading boulders.
Craaaaaack!
Lightning wreathed in black flames erupted, deflecting the falling stones.
“Skill or not, they’re nothing but two whelps! Press the attack!”
“Yes, sir!”
The vanguard, spurred by Bishop Jordan’s command, surged toward Berald and Sophia.
Seeing this, the professors regained their composure and rejoined the fray.
The battle raged on, neither side yielding.
‘Damn it.’
Bishop Jordan’s eyes narrowed with irritation.
The resistance he’d expected to crush easily was proving far more formidable than anticipated.
‘There’s no time to waste here.’
Bishop Jordan left a portion of the vanguard behind and circumvented the battle, heading toward the School Main Building.
This way, he wouldn’t be able to seize fleeing Candidates as hostages or make examples of them, but—
He could reach the Main Building far more swiftly and safely.
‘After all, where the heroes gather is the Main Hall Auditorium.’
The slaughter could wait until every hero in the Academy had been herded toward the Main Building.
As he and part of the vanguard took the detour toward the Main Building—
“Hmm?”
A woman with silver hair as beautiful as moonlight braided stood alone, blocking the vanguard’s path.
“…A Candidate?”
Judging by the Candidate uniform she wore (though oddly, it was a male Candidate’s uniform), she was indeed a Candidate.
‘Now that I think about it, Hectar’s unit was defeated by Candidates, wasn’t it?’
He’d laughed himself breathless when he heard that news, but he hadn’t dismissed it as merely Hectar’s foolish blunder.
Hectar was one of the few strong ones who had received the ‘Ember of Destruction’ from Amon alongside him.
He’d already investigated the identities of any Candidates strong enough to defeat him.
‘Dale Han, whom Lord Amon warned to be cautious of; the Saint Iris; Camilla, heir of the Sword of Holy Nation; Morris Jin, son of the Falling Flower Blade.’
And finally, Yuren Helios, heir of the ‘Sun Swordsman’ Reynald Helios.
‘But I’ve never heard of a silver-haired female Candidate among them.’
This Candidate had likely taken a wrong turn while evacuating.
“I was growing thirsty for blood. This will do nicely for entertainment.”
Bishop Jordan’s lips twisted into a smile as he slowly approached the silver-haired Candidate.
* * *
The plan was straightforward.
Gradually fall back while engaging the Demons in measured combat, then funnel them toward the Main Hall Auditorium.
Activate the ‘Warp Gate’ to evacuate the Candidate Program students while simultaneously summoning reinforcements from each nation’s military to the Academy.
A simple operation with nothing particularly complicated about it.
“…Why haven’t they arrived?”
For some reason, the Demons’ vanguard showed no signs of reaching the Main Building.

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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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