The sky above Astrea Academy and the surrounding student district abruptly bled into a sea of bruised crimson. The colossal, ancient magic rune activated by Lord Sterling whirled wildly across the firmament, forming concentric circles that bled a blinding scarlet luminescence. At the center of the vortex, the mass-annihilation spell, Judgment of the Abyss, concentrated its payload, poised to unleash a thermal wave capable of reducing an entire city and its thousands of inhabitants to ash in a single second.

The gravitational pressure of the forbidden incantation was so massive that the stone flagstones across the academy courtyard fractured in jagged spiderwebs. The students sheltering in the basement and the surviving knights scattered in the distance dropped instantly to their knees, clutching at heaving chests as though battered by an invisible sledgehammer.

Amidst the cratered wasteland, Lord Sterling stood tall, his white-and-gold robes snapping violently in the wake of the magical storm. Sweat beaded across his brow, twisted into the manic grin of a villain convinced he had ascended to godhood.

"Taste this, Rian!" Sterling's laugh pierced shrilly through the howling wind. "Even if you are the reincarnation of an elite mercenary, you can never withstand a power engineered to wipe an entire city off the map of history!"

The mass of blood-red light in the sky reached its boiling point. The pillar of mass-annihilation energy began its downward descent toward the earth, carrying absolute destruction in its wake.

Rian tilted his head up to watch the collapsing sky. The obsidian energy wings at his back beat fiercely, drinking in every pocket of toxic draft nearby. Deep within his chest, the crystal core left behind by Professor Vane pulsed in synchronous harmony with his shadow mana circulation, blending the ancient breathing arts of his Oakhaven origins with his past mercenary combat mastery from Earth.

This isn't just about surviving, Rian thought, his gaze igniting with a razor-sharp crimson flare. This is the final boundary of all the shadows from my past.

Rian threw both arms wide. Instead of evading or fleeing, he concentrated every remaining drop of mana in his body, drawing out the core energy of the forbidden grimoire and fusing it directly with his mentor's crystal relic.

A torrent of pitch-black light, woven with pure golden luminescence, erupted from Rian’s palms. It spun outward into a cosmic spiral shield that surged counter-clockwise against the descent of the enemy's spell.

"Perish along with your ambition, Sterling!" Rian roared, his voice carrying a heavy, echoing resonance that rattled the dimensional fabric.

He shot straight upward into the air, piercing the sky toward the descent point of the annihilation pillar.

BOOM-THUD-CRAAAK!

The collision of colossal energies high above the student capital unspooled a cataclysmic detonation that blinded all sight. The absolute black of Rian’s shadow magic clashed directly against the golden-and-scarlet glare of the Judgment of the Abyss.

The world below seemed to grind to a halt. The shockwave of the apex clash swept the cloud cover clean across the entire kingdom territory, forcing thousands of citizens in the lower city to their knees, utterly crushed by the bleeding fallout of gravitational mana pressure.

In mid-air, Rian marshaled every fragment of strength and unyielding willpower forged across his two lives. He shoved his hybridized energy shield upward against the enemy's pillar of ruin, forcing the destructive torrent to reverse its trajectory.

"I-Impossible! How can a mere child force my annihilation spell back?!" Lord Sterling shrieked, his complexion abruptly draining to an ashen, absolute terror as he watched his own wave of energy recoil toward its creator.

Crack... CRACK... BOOM!

The mass-annihilation spell detonated prematurely in the open air before ever touching the ground, shattering the remaining magical runes across the firmament and cascading a backflow of pure, unadulterated energy straight down toward Lord Sterling.

The pillar of gold and black slammed squarely into the mastermind's frame.

The massive shockwave subsided within seconds, fading softly into a chilling, absolute stillness across Astrea Academy. A wisp of thin smoke drifted lazily through the midnight air, which was now growing steadily calm.

At the center of the shattered courtyard, Lord Sterling stood frozen in place. There were no bleeding wounds on his flesh, yet his immaculate white-and-gold robes began to fracture across the seams—before the mastermind's entire body disintegrated into fine, grey ash swept clean by the night wind, vanishing from this world without leaving a single trace behind.