The sky above Westerios did not collapse with sound.It froze.
Cracks between dimensions hung suspended in the air like wounds forced to remain open. Pulses of deep violet light throbbed slowly, siphoning mana from the surrounding world, making every breath feel heavy and setting bones trembling. The ground beneath Rosenbach Academy had been reduced to a wasteland—towers lay in ruins, protective walls shattered, and defensive runes winked out one by one like extinguished stars.
At the center of the main courtyard stood the Demon King.
Its body was colossal, towering like a mountain of flesh and horn. One wing was torn, one arm severed, yet its presence still crushed everything around it—feral, ancient, and utterly unwilling to die. Each breath it took made the air scream.
And yet—
It did not move.
Chains of magic bound its body.
Not iron.Not ordinary seals.
They were constructs of pure sorcery—layer upon layer of ancient formulas, forbidden runes, and the very laws of the world forced into submission.
All of them converged on a single man.
Gerrad Rosenbach.
He stood with his staff embedded deep into the shattered ground, both hands trembling as blood spilled from the corner of his mouth. His silver hair drifted unnaturally, as if gravity itself no longer fully applied to him. His eyes were wide—sharp, unwavering, aflame with a burden no single human was ever meant to bear.
This spell was not meant to kill.
This spell was holding the world together.
Around them, the remaining students of Rosenbach Academy either stood—or knelt.
Many no longer moved at all. Some had lost limbs. Others were little more than broken torsos scattered across the courtyard. Academy robes once white and blue were now unrecognizable, soaked through with blood and ash.
There was no cheer of victory.
Only ragged breathing.And the stench of iron.
"…Master."
The voice was hoarse, nearly swallowed by the roaring mana.
One student stepped forward from what remained of the ranks.
His body was riddled with wounds. Blood seeped through his fingers, each step leaving a crimson trail across fractured stone. And yet his back was straight. His eyes were calm—calm in the way only those who have already accepted death can be.
Cyrus van Bunansa.
A Combat Mage.Direct disciple of Gerrad Rosenbach.
"The chains won't hold for long," he said. There was no panic in his voice—only cold calculation. "I can feel it."
Gerrad did not turn his head. The slightest lapse in focus would exact a price the world could not afford.
"I know," he replied quietly.
Cyrus drew a breath.
The air resisted him, as if refusing to enter his lungs. He could feel his body failing—fractured bones, organs pushed beyond their limits, mana nearly exhausted. Not enough for grand magic. Not enough to survive.
But enough for one thing.
He raised his hand.
There was no magic circle.No incantation.
The mana he had left did not flow outward.
It collapsed inward—forced violently into his own body.
His muscles screamed. Blood vessels burst one after another. The world narrowed to a single point.
His life force ignited as well.
Not as a price—but as fuel.
"Then," he muttered, almost joking, "let's end it here."
The ground beneath his feet exploded.
Cyrus shot forward.
Not teleportation.Not spatial magic.
Just a human body forced beyond the limits the world allowed.
Dozens of meters vanished in an instant.
The Demon King roared.The magic chains screamed.
Cyrus twisted his body mid-motion, gathering every shred of momentum into a single point—
A single strike.
His fist tore through the demon's aura, shattered bone, and buried itself deep into the Demon King's chest.
The world stopped.
Then something cracked.
The Demon King howled—not from its throat, but from agony itself. Black blood sprayed into the air as its chest caved inward, the wound filled with burning human mana that devoured it from within.
And yet—
It did not fall.
Cyrus staggered.
His hand trembled violently. His vision shook as color drained from the world.
Damn it…
Even after giving everything I had…
It's still not dead.
His legs finally gave out.
Cyrus fell to one knee.
With what little consciousness remained, he lifted his head—and saw one last thing.
Gerrad Rosenbach.
His master was staring at him. He did not turn. He couldn't afford to. If his focus wavered for even a moment, the world would collapse. "I can hold it," his master said, voice strained beneath magic so immense the world itself had nearly failed to endure it. "But I can't end it." "The rest… is up to you."
For the first time—
His eyes trembled.
Cyrus smiled faintly.
"Master," he said softly.
The world went dark.
Consciousness returned like a slap.
Cyrus's first breath caught painfully in his throat.
He jolted awake, fingers clutching coarse bedsheets as his heart hammered wildly—too fast, too strong for a body that should have been shattered beyond repair.
No.
This is wrong.
I should be dead.
His final memories were far too vivid to deny.
A fist buried in the Demon King's chest.Ancient flesh cracking beneath his last blow.The searing burn as his life force was consumed—not as a price, but as the final thing he had left to give.
And his master's voice, strained beneath magic so immense the world itself had nearly failed to endure it.
The rest is up to you.
There should have been nothing after that.
And yet—
He was breathing.
Cyrus forced his eyes open.
What greeted him was not a fractured sky. Not a battlefield soaked in blood and mana.
But an old wooden ceiling.
Cracked.Damp-darkened.Low.
"Th—" His breath hitched. His voice came out younger. Lighter.
Wrong.
He sat up too fast.
There was no pain.No ruined body resisting his will.No mana raging out of control.
This body… was whole.
And that terrified him.
Cyrus stared at his hands.
Less muscle. Long, clean fingers. No scars. No calluses. Nothing forged through decades of war.
"No…" he murmured. "This isn't my body."
A foreign pulse surged within his chest.
Mana.
Too dense.Too heavy.
He tried to move it by instinct—and the body rejected him. Pressure bloomed painfully, like thick liquid being forced through channels far too narrow to contain it.
Realization struck harder than a second death.
Cyrus staggered toward the crooked mirror hanging on the wall.
The reflection froze him in place.
A young face. Too young.Smooth skin untouched by war. Black hair streaked faintly with silver, falling messily—never scorched by hellfire magic.
But the eyes—
Too old.Too calm.
He pressed his palm against the glass.
"I…" His voice barely emerged. "…alive?"
Memories not his own surged without warning.
Cold academy corridors.Whispers.Looks of disgust.
CMP.Failed child.Family disgrace.
The name carried bitterness.
Cyrus Fon Ronsenburg.
A crown prince in name alone.The problem student of Rosenbach Academy.
The body's final memory tore through him.
A basement chamber.Crude magic circles drawn with trembling hands.Stacks of research notes.Mana collapsing inward.Heat.
Then nothing.
Cyrus Fon Ronsenburg had died alone.
And in that very place—
Cyrus van Bunansa opened his eyes.
"A hundred years…" he murmured.
The knowledge was not a guess.It simply was.
He could feel it—in the age of the building, in the weakened flow of mana, in the silence of a world no longer braced for war.
A hundred years had passed since the final strike.
Cyrus pulled the curtains aside.
Rosenbach Academy lay before him.
Or what remained of it.
Once-proud towers were now supported by emergency steel frameworks. Protective runes glowed dimly, many already dead. Long cracks scarred the walls—not from battle, but from neglect.
This had been humanity's final stronghold.
Now it looked like a structure waiting for permission to die.
The academy bell rang.
Its tone was off-key.Unimpressive.Meaningless.
Cyrus stood at the window for a long time.
The shock did not explode outward.
It sank inward.
And there, between loss and alienation, something hardened.
Not anger.Not grief.
Resolve.
"So this is how it ends," he said softly. "Rosenbach… you were truly abandoned."
He turned away.
His body was young.His reputation ruined.His academy dying.
Yet the eyes that had once witnessed the end of the world did not waver.
After his breathing steadied, Cyrus lit the small crystal lamp in the corner of the room. Warm yellow light spilled across the walls, revealing what he had deliberately ignored.
A study desk.
It was buried beneath notebooks, loose pages, worn research papers—none of them academy textbooks. All written in the same messy, aggressive hand.
He didn't need to touch them to know.
These were his.
Cyrus Fon Ronsenburg's.
He picked up one notebook at random.
Diagrams of mana flow filled the pages—but unlike standard schematics, every pathway pointed inward.
The problem isn't insufficient mana.The problem is density.
Cyrus exhaled quietly.
"So you made it this far too."
The pages were raw. Flawed. But sharp.A child condemned by CMP had not tried to become a normal mage.
He had tried to redefine what "normal" meant.
Cyrus sat down.
In his previous life, he had been a Combat Mage.His body had been the weapon.
But that body had always been the limit.
Fragile flesh.Cracking bones.A life force that thinned every time he pushed further.
This body was different.
The mana within it was not unruly.
It was heavy.Dense.Pressing inward.
Slowly, the pieces aligned.
CMP was not a disease.
It was a condition.
And that condition—
"Is suited for close combat," he murmured.
A faint smile appeared—not satisfaction, but recognition.
Close-range magic was not about incantations.
It was endurance.Micro-control.Brutal efficiency.
If he stopped forcing mana outward…If he compressed it further…If he turned muscle, bone, and joint into reinforcement points—
Then he would not become a failed mage.
He would become something else.
Something this world was not prepared to understand.
Cyrus closed the notebook gently.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
When he opened the door, academy sounds greeted him—footsteps, hushed laughter, whispers that died the moment he appeared.
Nothing had changed.
He was still Cyrus Fon Ronsenburg.Still the problem student.Still the academy's disgrace.
But as his foot crossed the threshold—
There was one crucial difference.
For the first time since awakening in this body,Cyrus no longer asked what was wrong with him.
He began to ask:
How far can this body be pushed before it breaks?
And deep within the ancient walls of Rosenbach Academy,
something long dormantbegan—
to stir.