Pitch-black aether surged along the ground like a wave.

BOOOM!

The stone spikes were the first to be swallowed by the black wave. They vanished without a trace, but the wave lost none of its momentum. Instead, it rose higher, its currents growing ever more violent.

The firestorm and the black wave collided head-on.

KABOOM!

The impact uprooted trees and overturned the earth. Yet the shock wave traveled only forward from Yuto.

The river was calm. The reeds did not stir. Calipha watched Yuto with wide eyes. It looked almost as though he had shielded her from the aftermath.

'No... Did he really protect me?'

Whether that was true or not, Yuto's power was astonishing.

No, it was shocking. His hunting of the students until now had never gone much beyond surprising her. After all, the students he had hunted were utterly weak.

But this was different. Inexperience in combat. Weakness of spirit. Such shortcomings disappeared entirely under a constellation's protection. Someone inexperienced in combat needed only overwhelming power. With that power, even weakness of spirit vanished.

And no fewer than eight students had received that protection. Frankly, Calipha had never expected the constellations to go this far. A constellation's protection was not granted every time someone wished for it. She had even been prepared to intervene if Yuto found himself in danger, knowing it would mean abandoning her identity as Calipha Rudrock.

Yet Yuto was not being pushed back. On the contrary, he had stopped the attacks of three students.

Even Calipha, watching from behind, was appalled. How much worse must it have been for the students facing him? They were profoundly shaken.

A constellation's protection was a miracle. And that miracle had been stopped—by a pauper who had not even been chosen by a constellation.

"Th-that's impossible..."

The girl wreathed in flames faltered in midair. Before that hesitation had even passed, the enormous ice spear created by the student cloaked in cold tore through space.

At the same instant, Yuto pulled his sword from the ground. Without moving to dodge, he stared straight at the ice spear rushing toward him.

SWISH!

Yuto swung his sword just once. Pitch-black aether flashed along its path. Split in two, the ice spear swept past either side of him and buried itself in the ground.

The students gasped. That spell had contained a constellation's divine authority. And it had been... cut apart by an utterly ordinary sword that did not even look like a fine blade.

"Uh..."

The instant one of the students let out that sound, Yuto kicked off the ground. What had shocked everyone here was perfectly ordinary and natural to him.

The student blessed by the earth stamped on the ground.

BOOOM!

A stone pillar erupted beneath Yuto's feet, threatening to launch him into the sky.

Instead, he planted a foot on its top. Using its upward force to leap, he spun in midair.

KRRRAK!

The pitch-black aether enveloping his blade exploded from its tip, sending a crescent-shaped slash down below.

"Oh, fu—!"

The earth-blessed student threw up layer upon layer of stone barriers in panic.

CRASH!

The slash struck the stone barriers. Despite their many layers, a single blow was enough to crack them.

CRACK!

Descending, Yuto brought his sword down directly on the barrier. Pitch-black aether flooded through the cracks and exploded. The student hiding behind it was swept away before he could even scream, dissolving into light.

Yuto kicked off the barrier as it crumbled back into dirt. Her face deathly pale, the girl swung both flame-wreathed arms. The constellation's flames poured down like rain.

WHOOSH!

Trailing pitch-black darkness, his sword cut through the rain of fire. Yuto leaped into the opening he had created. The girl flailed her arms in horror.

FWOOSH!

Flames billowed from her arms, barring his approach.

Fire burned the edges of his clothes. His skin was singed. But Yuto did not stop. Another line of darkness split the wall of flames.

The girl's eyes widened. Flames blessed by a constellation, cut apart so easily—she could not believe it even as she watched. She tried to retreat, but Yuto's sword reached her first.

SLASH!

His sword sliced open her belly. The constellation's flames vanished as though abruptly severed. Just as she opened her mouth to scream in pain, his sword moved again and cut off her head. Her falling corpse was enveloped in light and disappeared.

Yuto fell alongside the corpse. The instant his feet touched the ground, he charged another student—the one cloaked in wind.

"Aaaaah!"

With a shout, the student summoned a gale.

WHOOOOSH!

Winds as sharp as blades rushed at Yuto. He honed his sword with an ever-greater concentration of aether.

SWISH!

A pitch-black line split the wind. Black aether overflowed from that long line, becoming multiple slashes that tangled with the gale. Uprooted trees, overturned earth, and rocks were shredded by the slashes.

Having cut through all the wind, Yuto reached the student. The student flew backward and erected a wall of wind, but Yuto leaped after him and thrust his sword. The pitch-black blade drove into the gale.

The wall of wind tore apart from within and burst. Its recoil pushed the student backward. Yuto closed that distance in a single step and cut his throat.

"O constellation, O constellation...!"

The student cloaked in cold knelt on the ground with his hands clasped. Even as the other three died, he had been praying desperately to his constellation.

"G-grant me more protection. A stronger miracle! The power to kill that monster, that pauper!"

The constellation answered his prayer. Its light blazed fiercely from the student's body. A desperate prayer. Though the constellation had never answered such prayers before, the student now felt its gaze intensely upon him.

"Th-the constellation wishes you dead!"

He shouted in rapture.

CRRRAACK!

Everything around him began to freeze. The ground. The air. Everything froze as a world of ice spread out around him.

Anyone who approached would freeze. But Yuto did not stop. The frozen, slippery ground cracked beneath his forceful steps. With brute strength alone, he shattered the ice to make footholds.

"Stay away!"

The hands clasped in prayer thrust toward Yuto.

WHOOOOSH!

A storm of cold that froze everything swept toward him, accompanied by dozens of ice spikes.

The aether coiled around his sword writhed violently and swelled. Yuto swung.

CRACKLE!

Pitch-black light swallowed the freezing storm. The ice spikes melted the moment they touched the light. No, they evaporated. Rather than dripping down as water, the ice vanished in a black mist.

Shock filled the student's eyes. He could not understand why he was so helpless when he felt his constellation's gaze and protection so strongly. He screamed at the approaching Yuto.

"Why—why isn't the constellation's power working...?!"

Those words were not meant for Yuto alone. They were also directed at the constellation granting him its protection. Why could its power not stop that pauper?

The constellation did not answer. Yuto answered instead.

"It seems your constellation doesn't care much for you."

His sword moved as he sneered.

"Or perhaps it wants you dead."

The student dissolved into light and disappeared. Only four students remained now. Their Evomon were already all dead. Flokai had drawn back to watch from a distance without interfering in Yuto's battle.

The students trembled beneath his gaze. If Yuto found himself in even the slightest danger, that monstrous Evomon would join the fight.

"Uh... Uhhh..."

The four students standing before Yuto shook uncontrollably. Their bodies, too, bore their constellations' protection—but the omnipotence and rapture that had filled them moments ago were gone.

That sense of omnipotence and rapture had come from the overwhelming power their constellations had bestowed. Yet that power's supremacy had been denied head-on. A pauper without a constellation had slaughtered four students.

"Wh-what do we do...?"

One student stammered. Legs, shoulders, voice, eyes—everything trembled. And it was not just that student. All four were the same.

At that moment, the students' bodies suddenly stiffened. Their eyes remained full of terror, but their bodies no longer shook. The light signifying their constellations' protection grew even more brilliant.

"Huh... Wha...?"

The light shone far more intensely than it had around the four who had just died. One of the remaining four stammered.

"What... is this? I can't mo—"

Contrary to those words, the student's body moved. The sword arm that had hung limply after losing the will to fight rose into the air. Terror saturated the student's eyes. But the body moved regardless.

"Aaah, aaaah! My—my body!"

Each movement brought excruciating pain. It felt as though bones were breaking and muscles were tearing apart moment by moment. Screaming, the student charged Yuto.

The raised sword came crashing down at him. There was no wasted motion in its path. It was fast, precise, and powerful. Swordsmanship worthy of respect. Yet despite wielding such a blade, the student's eyes were steeped in terror, and screams poured endlessly from that open mouth.

'Is the constellation moving that body itself?'

This was a virtual space, not reality. Only their minds were here, not their real bodies. That made it easier for the constellations to manipulate them.

Yuto understood at once. The constellations had intervened directly. Ignoring the students' minds and pain, they were controlling those bodies like puppets. No matter how much pain or fear the students felt, they could no longer flee.

Their constellations would not allow it.

CLANG!

Yuto's sword caught the student's blade. It was the heaviest blow of any student he had killed today. This strength did not come from the student's body. The constellation was injecting aether directly into it, forcibly driving its muscles and tendons.

"Aaa—aaaah!"

Power that ignored the human body's limits.

CRUNCH!

Bones creaked in the student's arm. The constellation was forcibly extracting more strength than the body could endure. Screams spilled from the student's mouth.

"Aaaah! It hurts! It huuurts!"

Still screaming, the student swung. Crying. Howling. Arms, legs, and sword all moved against their owner's will, lunging at Yuto.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

With each clash, the student's arms grew more mangled, the screaming voice more hoarse.

The other three were no different. Their constellations' light blazed fiercely from their bodies. Their eyes, too, held terror. One was crying. But their bodies would not obey them.

"S-stop...! Please! O constellation, please stop...!"

Yuto deflected the spear that came at him with that scream. At the same time, he stepped deep inside its reach to cut down the student.

The student let go of the spear and threw a punch at him. It was an improvisation possible only for someone well versed in real combat. Unfazed, Yuto altered his sword's path.

SLASH!

His blade severed the student's fist at the wrist.

"Aaaaaaah!"

Even a seasoned fighter would scream and retreat after losing a fist, but the student did not. That body's pain was not the constellation's pain. The wrist, gushing blood, flew toward Yuto to strike him.

"Grrh."

Grinding his teeth, Yuto swung again. With its head severed, the body finally stopped moving and was enveloped in light. But the student whose arms were mangled was already approaching to swing again, and the other two were about to attack as well.

'Two hundred points.'

Killing the spear-wielding student had brought Yuto to the passing score. That should have been certain, yet he felt no change at all.

["Not yet."]

The voice he had heard from the crystal echoed in Yuto's ears. A voice laced with giggles, brimming with fascination and indulgence.

["Show me just a little more."]

It was the voice of a constellation.