Chapter 142: Collapsing into the Void, Stepping onto the Stage…

"Attention! Check the situation immediately. The annihilation barrier is experiencing violent fluctuations, and all parameters are in chaos. The mana within the internal magic circuits is converging toward the center—it looks exactly like the feedback from a massive impact on a single point!"

The Night’s Edge technician handling the annihilation barrier looked tense, his skin flushed slightly with agitation.

After roughly half an hour of decryption, they had completed over half of the barrier's analysis; further corrections and attempts were all that remained, and a total breach was merely a matter of time.

But in the last ten seconds, the technician watched helplessly as the section of the barrier he was monitoring thinned rapidly, its internal mana siphoned off to other parts of the perimeter.

According to the observational magic, the mana in all other sectors was also rushing toward the same point—the very heart of the barrier.

"Warning! The total mana content of the barrier is plummeting. This mana is being consumed to offset an incredibly powerful impact. This impact has reached the critical threshold for triggering the barrier's self-annihilation. The barrier's own recovery rate can no longer keep pace with this level of destruction!"

The technician roared, the situation unfolding with such suddenness that even the most reactive among them could not mount an effective response to the events of the last dozen seconds. His angry bellow was laced with helplessness and frustration.

"Should we forcibly inject an external mana source to maintain the barrier and prevent annihilation? Once the barrier is breached by the internal impact, annihilation will occur, and all our efforts will be for nothing!"

His colleague, sweat beading on his brow, felt his heart race as the data on the monitoring instruments danced frantically and the technician’s roar echoed around him. His hands, holding the sensors and inscription pens, trembled.

Adjusting his mindset within seconds, the colleague quickly devised a feasible plan: use an external mana source to forcibly sustain the very barrier they had been trying to dismantle, thereby preventing the annihilation.

"It’s too late..." The technician lowered his instruments. A parameter on the display had plummeted to zero, signifying that a node of the annihilation barrier had been completely pierced. After twenty seconds of resistance, the barrier finally collapsed under the fierce impact from its own center.

"Boom!" The translucent shell of the crimson barrier disintegrated like shattered glass, crumbling before being pulverized into raw mana by the torrent of energy erupting from below, returning from a state resembling solid matter to its purest form.

At the apex of the annihilation barrier, a thick, blinding, scorching red pillar of fire tore through the constraints, shooting skyward and piercing the heavens. It reached its zenith, spread outward, and then vanished.

The breach torn by the pillar continued to widen, the power and scale of the flames intensifying. Larger fissures appeared until a critical node shattered, and the annihilation of the barrier began.

Like a row of falling dominoes, when one node was destroyed, the mana shockwave from the collapse raced through the pre-set channels, transmitting instantly to every other node on the barrier.

The secondary magic circuits, already etched within and attached to the primary circuits that formed the barrier, flipped in those few moments of conduction, transforming from secondary to primary and seizing control of the mana source.

The mana that had gathered at the center to resist the fire was now, under control, rapidly redistributed to all nodes. Instead of forming a barrier, the mana began to condense and compress under the guidance of the circuits, pushed toward an unstable state by the forced accumulation.

"Annihilation" was being completed with terrifying speed. Once the mana gathered at each node reached a certain limit, they would all complete the transition from stable to unstable at the exact same moment.

Accompanying the total destruction of the barrier, this mana would be converted into the purest form of destructive force, and the target of this destruction was the entire Stevenson Magic Academy within.

Under the influence of the Silent Forest, a relic that stripped away all magical defenses, Stevenson Magic Academy would perish along with the collapsing barrier, and all the Night’s Edge team’s efforts to crack it would be rendered meaningless.

"Evacuate! Evacuate!" The logistics team roared, forcibly dragging the stunned technicians away from the barrier. The collapse of an annihilation barrier wasn't limited to the destruction of what was inside; anyone near the barrier would be blown to pieces by this indiscriminate, systemless destruction.

The lead technician cast a final, unwilling glance at the cracking barrier shell. He was one of the aces of the Night’s Edge, having dismantled countless barriers in his time.

Technicians of his caliber were usually deployed to the front lines; he was one of the few senior members left in the capital specifically to prevent situations like this—an annihilation barrier planted within the city that couldn't be easily neutralized.

Clearly, he had failed his duty. Though it wasn't his fault—he had performed well and pushed his capabilities to the limit—the lack of other aces to cooperate with made it impossible to deconstruct such an unfamiliar formation in time.

His lingering resentment didn't stem from failing the mission, but from the lives about to vanish in the explosion.

"Damn it! Isn't the mission of the Night’s Edge to protect the people of the kingdom? The Hell Gate incident, and now this—what have we actually accomplished? Damn it! Damn it all!"

The inscription pen in his hand creaked as he gripped it, his frustration nearly solidifying into something tangible.

"What are you standing there for? Run!" A colleague pulled him, the anxiety on his face snapping him out of his self-reproach.

"Sorry..." Despite his deep frustration, it wasn't enough to make a determined Night’s Edge member lose his sanity. He stopped lingering and chose to follow his colleague; senseless sacrifice was meaningless.

"Beep-beep-beep-beep!" The monitor in his hand suddenly emitted a high-frequency alarm, one of the values skyrocketing toward an absurd figure.

The running technician glanced at the monitor, his eyes widening in disbelief. He turned his head involuntarily, looking back at the academy, now revealed through the gaps in the crimson barrier.

Except for the pillar of fire, which was still erupting but beginning to wane, everything inside the academy was wrapped in a hazy red substance.

That illusory texture, combined with the void energy concentration on his monitor nearing its peak, left no doubt: the academy was under the influence of a large-scale void event. The degree was so deep it was as if the entire academy were being dragged into the void.

No—it *was* being dragged into the void. That was the enemy's goal. The anti-magic field of the Silent Forest had prevented them from probing the interior, and the annihilation barrier had prevented direct entry.

The time bought by the annihilation barrier was meant to allow the enemy to complete their layout for Stevenson Magic Academy, dragging the whole place into the void. Now, as the barrier collapsed, the process was nearing its end...

But something was wrong. If the process of being dragged into the void was nearly finished, the collapse of the annihilation barrier was entirely unnecessary. An academy already inside the void couldn't be destroyed by a collapse...

His thoughts were a mess. As he ran, he pondered. The image of the fire pillar shooting into the sky appeared in his mind again. Familiar memories surfaced—had he seen such a pillar at Stevenson Magic Academy before, albeit on a much smaller scale...?

His reasoning bogged down in a mire. He felt he had grasped a vital point but couldn't connect the threads. His mind was a blur of confusion; the lingering resentment hadn't faded, and the agony of seeking an answer he couldn't find began to drown him, until something flew across the sky before him.

"Reality Stabilization Spear!" An airship flying toward them from the front entered his field of vision. A node lit up in his mind, and all the key pieces clicked into place. He stopped abruptly, standing still in the face of his colleague's surprised and indignant gaze, looking toward the academy with a gleam of excitement in his eyes.

"Who could you be? You are a true hero..." he muttered. He didn't continue to run, for he knew that someone inside had the right idea, and their actions could save Stevenson Magic Academy.

……

"No problem. The void rift is accelerating the process of the academy being dragged into the void. The space around the academy's perimeter has already begun to be stripped from reality into the surface void. They will meet the collapse of the annihilation barrier!"

Avia observed with intense focus the miniature void rift created by Wang Yu, which shared the same properties as a normal one.

Once again, Wang Yu had used the Wall-Breaker Hammer to pierce the boundary between reality and the void, creating a rift too small to be of much significance.

Wang Yu’s capabilities were limited; the rift he created was too small for even the smallest void creature to pass through. Only by borrowing the help of the Lady of Night to widen the gap could he exert any real influence.

But now, with Stevenson Magic Academy saturated with high-level void energy, the academy's own tendency toward void-transformation acted as Wang Yu's assistant in widening the rift.

This tendency caused the space to "discover" the rift Wang Yu had bored and autonomously attempt to widen it, "falling into the void" through this passage, which in turn accelerated the process for the entire area.

"It can work!" Avia encouraged herself, looking at Wang Yu’s weak body crouching nearby. Wang Yu still needed to deal with the hard-to-kill Source of Life within his mental space.

And she needed to stabilize the formation originally etched by Sevintan to drag the academy into the void, waiting for the right moment to let the void meet the collapsing annihilation barrier above.

Inside the mental space, Wang Yu looked at the twisting mass of flesh on the endless lake, its form constantly shifting. His eyes were indifferent; his guess was correct—he had to deal with this so-called Source of Life here.

All void life required a vessel in the material world; without one, they would be banished back to the void. Gods like the Lady of Night, whom Wang Yu understood better, required believers; without them, they would fall into dormancy.

Wang Yu had once allowed the Lady of Night to linger on this lake in his mental space; it seemed this place could serve as a vessel or a temporary resting place for these deities.

He still hadn't figured out his relationship with this space, but that didn't stop him from utilizing it.

When the entire area was covered in high-level void energy, making it difficult to use, and when Elfin’s vessel was pulverized by the fire from the Mountain Forge, leaving him nowhere to go, Elfin had no choice but to come to Wang Yu’s endless lake.

"I remember you used to look at least a bit like an old druid..." Wang Yu spoke the third sentence since the battle began. He started running across the lake.

He remembered seeing Elfin’s image before; although there had been mutations on his body then, at least he hadn't been this disgusting.

"That was a shackle! A shackle placed on my life by those arrogant people! I have broken the shackles. You cannot comprehend how fragile humans are; you are just seeking your own death."

Waving his distorted, twisted limbs, Elfin smashed down at Wang Yu, who was charging across the lake.

"Shackles...? I think you’ve just been bound by new ones." Wang Yu repeated the word, which the Lady of Night had also mentioned, harboring some suspicions.

It had no effect. The tentacles split upon hitting Wang Yu, failing to stop him for even an instant. Wang Yu ran up to Elfin’s massive, twisted body and used his own to push the entity, which was over ten times his size, backward.

"What are you! Stop!" Elfin shrieked madly, whipping Wang Yu with his tentacles, but it was all in vain—there wasn't even any feedback from the hits.

"I don't know. But this particularity is really useful for dealing with disgusting things like you that can't be killed in the void." Wang Yu said casually, pushing Elfin’s body forward, forward, until he reached the edge of his space.

"You're too big to fit through the door frame, so get back to the void." Wang Yu shook his head and pushed Elfin’s massive body off the edge of his lake. Beyond it lay an endless red rain—the world saturated with high-level void energy.

At the same time, in the material world, Wang Yu’s body tapped Avia on the shoulder. The girl understood, and void energy flickered through a node of the formation. In that instant, the void-transformation accelerated sharply, the entire academy began to fade, and the next moment, the annihilation barrier collapsed completely.

Watching Elfin’s body being submerged by the intensifying red rain and falling into the endless abyss, Wang Yu knew the final moment had arrived. His consciousness returned to his weak body, and he sat down with Avia to watch the sky.

There, the annihilation barrier was collapsing, infinite mana turning into the most explosive force, raining down cruelly upon the academy.

But that violent force ultimately sank into the ocean of the void, vanishing without a trace. All the impact and heat fell into the void-transformed space at the academy's outer layer, disappearing and becoming neutralized.

The academy, its process of falling into the void accelerated, was now difficult to affect by things from the material world. Explosions and destruction continued, and the collapsing barrier fell into the boundary of the void-transformed space, so even its own collapse no longer produced explosions. The annihilation barrier, having fallen into the void, lost its ability to affect the material world.

"What exactly is the void..." Avia watched the shocking scene, a hint of wariness in her eyes, but more curiosity and a thirst for knowledge.

She was no longer as afraid of this unknown as she had been as a child. Facing it—that was the ultimate way to dispel fear. No scholar could claim to understand the void yet, but the future was unpredictable.

"Who knows? But if you wish to study it, I shall assist you." Wang Yu shook his head; he lacked the academic rigor possessed by the girl.

He knew a fair amount, but when it came to practical application, well, that was another matter entirely; yet, he was curious nonetheless—how did this unreasonable thing called the Void function, and from where did it originate?

"Thank you." The girl offered a smile; compared to researching the Void, she cared far more for the person beside her, the one who remained by her side through every trial.

"For now, you had best find a place to hide, somewhere simple where you won't be seen." Wang Yu rubbed his chin and turned to speak to Avia.

"Very well." Though puzzled, Avia complied without hesitation; she gathered the remaining shreds of her Void energy to mold a small mound of earth amidst the piles of creature carcasses, concealing herself within.

Wang Yu sat weakly atop a heap of remains, gazing up at the blackened, Void-corrupted horizon, fishing supplements from his pockets to swallow—they were mere tonics, not true healing agents.

His exhaustion was profound; his cells and organs, having undergone frantic cycles of repair, were mired in a fatigue that transcended their limits, a state no potion could mend; he required a period of absolute stillness.

The process of Void-corruption continued, and soon the entire Stevenson Academy of Magic would be dragged into the abyss, yet Wang Yu was not anxious; he was waiting for his familiar associate, the very entity the Nullification Barrier was designed to impede.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!" Massive metal cylinders descended from the heavens, striking evenly into every corner of the academy; force fields rippled and expanded, locking the material world firmly in place, and the process of corruption, unwilling, halted and recoiled under the influence of these reality-stabilizing anchors.

The blackened Void in the sky began to recede, and all things returned to the material realm; the landscape beyond Stevenson Academy revealed itself to Wang Yu, as a multitude of Nightblade members rushed toward the site.

"It is Wang Yu of the Special Operations Team!"

"He used the Void-corruption to prevent the catastrophic collapse of the Nullification Barrier!"

"Thank goodness... the academy is saved."

"A hero, Mr. Wang Yu, you are a hero!"

...

No one understood the magnitude of Wang Yu’s actions better than these technicians, whose grasp of the event far surpassed that of any other observer.

Having failed in their own attempts to dismantle the Nullification Barrier, they understood all too well how arduous and monumental his feat truly was.

They cheered for the salvation of the academy, celebrated the resolution of the crisis, lauded Wang Yu for turning the tide, and swiftly moved into the grounds to begin the cleanup and finalize the subsequent arrangements.

The joy of success did not cloud the minds of these Nightblade members; they knew exactly what needed to be done.

Wang Yu’s gaze did not drift toward the Nightblade members, and the voices of praise and gratitude did not truly penetrate his mind.

His eyes were fixed on the knights and mages approaching from afar, and those who had lingered there before—family crests, royal insignias, the emblems of guilds and organizations, and others in attire devoid of any mark.

Wang Yu sighed and clicked his tongue. "Damn it... so they have finally taken the stage."