Nearly twenty students were approaching. Counting their Evomon, their numbers doubled. Wolves, bears, spiders, eagles, snakes... The Evomon were as varied as the students themselves.

“There he is!” shouted the boy at the front.

Yuto stood motionless with his sword in hand, waiting for them. He did not know the name of the student who dared point at him.

‘Was he there in my previous life?’

No, he had not been. Maria Academy admitted only talents who could proudly call themselves the best. Wretches who huddled together to hide their weakness would never ordinarily gain admission.

Yes, ordinarily. Yuto smiled coldly and drew up his aether. He knew things were different from his previous life. His existence had drastically altered the history of Callisto, a world in which Yuto had not existed. With even the constellations now intervening in academy admissions as a result, the future had become all the more uncertain.

But here and now, at least, Yuto could decide the future. He could send these students, who ordinarily would never have dared cross Maria Academy’s threshold, back where they belonged, just as in his previous life.

RUMBLE...!

The pitch-black aether wrapped around Yuto’s sword spun like a vortex. At the same time, aether surged from his entire body, flickering like flames. It was vivid and intense enough to be visible to the eye. The students flinched to a halt, unable to approach.

“Ugh...”

There was no device beneath Yuto’s feet projecting his constellation and aether now. That aether was purely his own power made visible. It was more than enough to make the students at the front hesitate.

Twenty students in all had banded together to hunt Yuto. They had joined up along the way while following the map in the sky. Naturally, there was little trust between them.

In the end, only one of them could claim Yuto’s points. Fifty-three points would propel anyone straight into the upper ranks. But that was not all cause for celebration. Fifty-three was still a long way from two hundred. Whoever stole Yuto’s points would have to start watching for someone else trying to steal theirs.

That made the front an unfair place to be. Those who looked weakest had been placed there first. The students at the front had been unable to object to that decision, so they really were the weakest.

“Move, or die.”

A vicious warning came from the rear. In the end, the students at the front had no choice. They could charge Yuto and die, or freeze in terror and be killed by those behind them.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and kill the top scorer. No such luck awaited the students who had come with that hope. Shouting to drown out their fear, they charged toward the misfortune waiting with its jaws wide open.

“Kill him!”

At the cries of the students charging in front, the Evomon picked up speed. Send the Evomon ahead, then follow up with an attack. Ultimately, they wanted to keep themselves alive just a little longer.

It was a pathetic charge. No strategy, no tactics. They were simply throwing themselves at him, trusting in their numbers. Yuto strode forward, and Flokai kicked off the ground at the same instant. They had roamed battlefields together for years, earning countless honors. In battle, Yuto and Flokai had no need for words.

FWOOSH!

Wreathed in flame, Flokai opened his jaws wide and roared. The flames covering him exploded, scattering into five streams.

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

The flames struck the Evomon and blazed higher. Another explosion drowned out their monstrous screams. Flokai burst from the fire, his gaping jaws tearing into a giant snake’s neck.

“What the fuck is that?!”

“Th-that bastard’s Evomon didn’t look like that before!”

The Flokiro the students had seen at the entrance ceremony had been a small, adorable humanoid Evomon. The ferocious beast spewing flames and mauling Evomon before them now was nothing like the Flokiro they had seen then.

Five Evomon were engulfed in fire in an instant. The students at the front, who had meant to hide behind them, lost their shields.

Before the flames consuming the Evomon had even cleared, Yuto broke through them.

SPLURT!

His sword, wrapped in pitch-black aether, moved. That jet-black line split the body of a student at the front.

“Ugh... Aaaah!”

The student beside him thrust a spear. Yuto did not dodge. Instead, he extended his left hand straight toward it. Just before the spearhead pierced his palm, his hand moved strangely. Slithering along the blade like a snake, it caught the shaft.

He gripped it and pulled. Unable to let go of the spear, the student was jerked right up to Yuto. Yuto drove his forehead into the student’s head.

CRUNCH!

Bone broke. Before the student could scream and fall backward, Yuto’s sword pierced his chest.

Two were dead in an instant.

“Kill him! All—all of you, attack together!”

The shout came from the rear. The one shouting did not come forward himself. Yuto remembered that voice.

“Yaaah!”

Three nearby students charged at once, swords in hand. A slash from the left, a thrust from the right, an overhead strike from the front. Blades closed in from three directions simultaneously.

Yuto was unperturbed. Instead, he pushed forward and met the overhead strike. At the instant of impact, pitch-black aether exploded from his sword and swallowed the student’s arms.

“Aaargh!”

The student screamed, both arms gone. Yuto kicked him in the chest, sending him crashing into a mage chanting behind him. The spell stopped, and the two fell in a tangled heap.

“You son of a bitch!”

The student whose slash had met nothing but empty air swore and swung again. From the left. Yuto did not even need to turn his eyes; the wind accompanying the blade’s path told him all he needed to know. He twisted his body. Just as before, the student’s sword cut uselessly through empty air.

Yuto drew the dagger at his waist with his left hand.

THUNK!

Leaning over, he drove it into the left-hand student’s armpit. The armpit was one of the body’s vital points. The student screamed and writhed in horrific pain.

CRACK!

Yuto brought his pommel down like a club. The crown of the student’s head caved in, and his eyes bulged out. With a grotesque groan, he staggered and began to collapse.

There was no time to rest. A spear thrust in from the right. Yuto pulled the collapsing student upright as a shield.

THUNK!

The spear buried itself in the chest of the still-living student. Before he could die completely and vanish into light, Yuto shoved him forward hard.

“Eek!”

The student holding the spear screamed in terror. Then the student with the crushed head and impaled chest dissolved into light. Beyond him, pitch-black eyes flashed. That glare was the last thing the spear-wielding student ever saw.

Magic flew at him from behind. Three aether bullets. They were timed precisely to the moment Yuto killed the student—a coordinated attack by the mages.

It was deftly done, but nowhere near enough to unsettle him or make him tense. Without stopping his sword’s swing, Yuto spun a full circle.

BOOM!

The circular slash swallowed the aether bullets. The spells lost their light and vanished the instant they touched it, but the slash continued toward the mages.

“B-block it!”

They could not. The slash shredded the three mages’ barriers like paper. All three were bisected alike, enveloped in light, and vanished together.

Meanwhile, Flokai was slaughtering the Evomon. These were, after all, students who had aspired to Maria Academy. Evomon served as status symbols at the academy, too. As such, all of theirs were high-grade, but Flokai was in a different league.

Engulfed in flames, Evomon screamed and collapsed. Flokai raced among them. A giant black-bear Evomon bellowed and blocked his path. The way it spread its arms wide made it look as though it intended to grab him.

Without hesitation, Flokai leaped into the bear’s embrace. The bear immediately closed both arms, trying to crush him in its grip.

At that instant, flames exploded from Flokai’s entire body.

BOOOM!

The violent blast blew off the bear’s arms and head. Having killed another Evomon, Flokai sprang toward a student fleeing with a scream.

CRUNCH!

His flame-wreathed forepaw crushed the student’s body. Death came without even a scream.

The battle was moving far too fast. In an instant, nearly half the students and Evomon had been slaughtered. Only then did the students realize that Yuto, whom they had come to hunt, was an absurd monster.

“C-Constellation! O Constellation!”

Faced with such an immense calamity, humans turned to their gods. So it was with these students. They cried out to their constellations at the top of their lungs.

A contract with a constellation granted a human tremendous power. A swordsman’s blade grew sharper, a mage’s magic stronger. The body grew sturdier, and aether increased.

That was not all. Those who did things that pleased their constellations were rewarded with still more power. To humans, that made constellations akin to gods.

And a constellation’s divine authority was a miracle. When humans prayed and yearned desperately enough, constellations lent them miracles through divine authority, incomparable to the powers they had bestowed before.

Light flared around the students. Just as when they had projected their constellations on the platforms during the entrance exam, the surviving students’ bodies were now imbued with their constellations’ light.

“Ha—hahaha! Hahahaha!”

The students burst into laughter in that brilliant, warm light. A constellation’s divine authority was not guaranteed merely because one prayed and yearned desperately. Divine authority was a miracle. If it happened whenever one wished for it, it could hardly be called a miracle.

Yet now, the constellations’ light shone upon every surviving student. The meaning was clear.

“How dare a mere pauper kill noble aristocrats!”

The constellations were furious with that pauper. They had chosen the students as instruments of their wrath, and so the light had descended upon them all.

FWOOSH!

A girl with flames wrapped around both arms floated into the air. Powerful fire she would ordinarily never have dared wield now moved at her command. No, she could make it burn even more fiercely than this.

“Aha—ahahaha!”

The girl burst into laughter, intoxicated by her fleeting sense of omnipotence. Bolstered by their constellations’ divine authority, the students’ demeanor changed. Their earlier terror flipped into madness. Eyes that had feared death now gleamed with fanaticism.

“The constellations have granted us a miracle!”

“Kill that pauper!”

The girl swung both arms. An immense blaze poured forth, its power incomparable to the aether bullets the students had fired earlier. Such was the effect of her constellation’s divine authority. Scarlet flames surged toward Yuto.

At the same time, a hulking boy stamped the ground.

BOOM!

The earth split, and sharp stone spikes shot toward Yuto.

Fire above, stone below. And that was not all. A student wreathed in wind swept both arms wide. Fierce winds met the flames, magnifying their power. A firestorm bore down on Yuto.

Beyond it, cold ice was gathering into a massive spear. The intent to hurl it into the firestorm’s wake was blatant.

‘The constellations’ divine authority.’

The corners of Yuto’s mouth twitched upward. He had seen this sight often: constellations lending humans power, and humans, drunk on that power, charging enemies stronger than themselves.

That power was real. The flames were hot, the stone hard, the wind sharp, and the ice cold. Imbued with the constellations’ divine authority, these were no ordinary spells. Their might approached that of miracles.

But.

Yuto reversed his grip on his sword, pointing its tip down. A constellation’s divine authority was indeed formidable, but its potency varied enormously depending on how it was wielded. The reason Yuto had trained with his sword day after day in his previous life was to fully wield the power of the Shattered Star, the constellation of Belkain with whom he had contracted then.

‘In the end, even borrowed power requires training if I’m to use it properly. And...’

Yuto drove his sword into the ground.

‘Borrowed power is still nothing more than borrowed power.’

Pitch-black aether exploded along the ground.