A strange crimson clung to the green leaves, beads of blood sliding slowly down flower petals, breaking the silence with a sharp, metallic stench.
The cultist, Lilaite, struggled to contain the joy rising in her heart, keeping the tremor from her lips.
She was certain that Huperion would never dare to attack Immortal Mercury.
Because if Huperion got close, she’d still have to guard against Lilaite and Immortal Mercury striking her down in secret.
Only Lilaite dared to go all-out and try to kill Immortal Mercury.
For Huperion, this was actually an invisible dead end.
In the distance—
Huperion seemed to understand this too, collapsing onto the ground in despair.
Meanwhile, Lilaite, without hesitation, charged at Immortal Mercury.
“……”Lan Qi’s gaze shifted slightly from the pages of his book, catching sight of Lilaite savagely tearing apart the summoned beast.
This criminal seemed unusually fond of putting on a performance, even making the silver monster fight back occasionally, as if she truly were its mortal enemy—working tirelessly to frame Huperion.
Lan Qi then turned his head toward the fallen Huperion.
Their eyes just happened to meet.
Lan Qi quietly blinked.
The message was clear: all according to plan.
“……”
Huperion’s expression was full of helpless exasperation.
She felt that even if Lan Qi had simply dragged the cultist down with the help of two demon teachers, he wouldn’t necessarily have lost.
Of course, avoiding bloodshed was preferable.
But Huperion strongly suspected that what Lan Qi really wanted was to watch the cultist’s mind collapse when she finally realized she’d been toyed with.
…
A few minutes later.
The botanical garden lay in ruins. With the combined efforts of the Head of Magic and Lilaite, the silver monster was finally destroyed.
Lilaite let out a sigh of relief and looked toward the Headmaster.
She was convinced the mechanism had succeeded.
Now, surely, the Headmaster would help her get rid of that duke’s daughter.
However—
That sense of relief lasted less than a second. In the instant she relaxed, a wave of deadly, inhuman magic crashed down from her side without warning, like sudden thunder in the sky.
It was a sneak attack from the Head of Magic.
Lilaite reacted with astonishing speed, instinctively twisting her body, narrowly dodging the fatal strike.
Even so—
Her outer robe was sliced open, blood seeping from the wound and staining her dress red.
Fear once again filled her heart.
In the distance—
The Headmaster was still calmly reading.
Huperion was still sitting on the ground.
The scene was harmonious, as if the Headmaster had never intended to fulfill his promise to execute Huperion.
“Why?!”
Deflecting the Head of Magic’s deadly blows, Lilaite’s eyes burned with shock and confusion.
If not for her quick reaction, she’d already be dead.
One of the demon teachers near the Headmaster was already moving, cutting down the tier-two black fog warlock with ease.
“You fool—did you really think you could deceive the Headmaster?”
The Head of Magic sneered, mocking her.
Of course, he understood the Headmaster’s scheme.
At this moment, he revered the Headmaster’s wisdom, as if he were a great demonic sage.
With nothing more than a few words, he had manipulated this rule-breaking student into destroying the troublesome silver summon with her own hands!
“Isn’t the Headmaster supposed to be neutral?!”
Lilaite’s heartbeat thundered wildly, frantic and out of control. The crushing despair of reality made her very mind tremble.
She couldn’t understand why the Shadow World was so unfair.
It felt as though no matter how she played the mechanism, the one to be executed would always be her.
“Of course I’m neutral. But you violated school rules—and you even tried to slander a good student. If I don’t punish you, then who should I punish?”
Lan Qi’s voice was calm, like someone flipping through a book in his garden, too uninterested to glance at the buzzing pests.
Huperion, still seated on the ground, finally broke into a vengeful smile, laughing at Lilaite.
The sight gave Lilaite the fleeting illusion—
That the Headmaster was blatantly favoring Huperion.
“Lan Qi, can I tell her the truth now?”
Huperion turned and asked him.
“Haven’t you already said it?”
Without lifting his head, Lan Qi brushed the page with his fingertips as he replied.
“Lan Qi…?”
In the distance, Lilaite froze in shock, disbelief and unwillingness boiling inside her.
She had heard Huperion call out the Headmaster’s name.
Lan Qi.
An absurd yet terrifying thought exploded in her mind like thunder.
At the same time, countless suspicions began connecting in her heart.
Why had Huperion’s teammates never shown up?
Why was the Glimmer Demon’s power so unfathomably strong?
And why had the Headmaster let the challengers pass the earlier mechanism so easily?
All of it made sense if—Lan Qi was the Headmaster!
“Don’t tell me… you are Lan Qi?”
It was the only explanation she could find.
“Indeed, I am the Headmaster.”
Lan Qi elegantly pulled from his pocket the teacher’s badge he had first acquired in the music classroom, 【Lan Qi, Music Department Teacher】, and pinned it to his chest—as if to show her that he was not only the Headmaster, but also a faculty member of this school.
His indifference, never once looking at her directly, highlighted the vast gulf between their statuses in this demon academy.
“Ahhh!! Lan Qi!! You bastard!!!”
Lilaite’s scream tore through the air, echoing with fury and despair among the trees of the garden.
Her eyes were swollen, bloodshot, glistening with tears as though they might overflow in crimson.
She finally realized she had been played for a fool, spun around in circles by this man.
Even back in the Headmaster’s office, she had been deceived by the clear hierarchy between him and the demon professors.
Now, bewitched by his presence and words, she had destroyed with her own hands the greatest weapon for her survival.
And now—
The corridors were already filled with demon teachers, waiting only for Lan Qi’s command.
“Teachers, please administer punishment to this student who violated school discipline, harmed her peers and teachers, and caused grievous damage to school property.”
Holding his book with one hand, Lan Qi raised his right hand, index finger twitching slightly.
The next moment, the demon teachers surged forward from the corridor.
In Lilaite’s terrified eyes—
She saw a wall of demon teachers, dense as a fortress, ready to flatten the garden.
The earth itself thundered.
In that moment, she finally recalled the nightmare-like fear a human could feel when faced with something far beyond their limits.
Even as her mind collapsed, she could not comprehend what kind of madman could infiltrate a demon academy, and in a single night, rise from student… to Headmaster.
…
“Huperion, thanks for keeping the Poet busy. You’ve worked hard.”
Lan Qi, still racing against time to finish his book, spoke calmly.
The Shadow World had less than a minute left.
From the instant the Great Poet was defeated, sitting in his office, Lan Qi had already sensed the upheaval in the garden.
He had rushed over immediately.
Though he had lost some reading time along the way through the corridors—thankfully, he was nearly finished now.
“If I keep hanging around you and that Great Poet, I feel like I’ll officially be registered as a demon.”
Huperion rose tiredly to her feet.
This trip to the demon academy had taught her a lot.
The good news was, everything she learned came from Lan Qi.
The bad news was, she felt like she’d awakened some kind of demonic bloodline.
In theory, one learns how to be human from other humans. But from Lan Qi, she hadn’t learned a single human trait.
As they waited for the Shadow World to come to an end—
“Lan Qi!!”
From afar, just before the demon teachers drowned her out, Lilaite’s voice rang out like a final curse:
“You’ll regret helping that half-demon duke’s daughter!!”
Her words were cut short.
Her scream of despair was swallowed by the tearing of flesh and the roar of demons.
Lan Qi showed no reaction, no emotion.
He simply continued reading.
Huperion’s face, however, turned pale.
Her long-hidden secret had been exposed at the very last moment of the Shadow World.
She had known she couldn’t hide her demonic lineage for long.
But she had planned to confess to Lan Qi herself, at the right time, back in the real world.
Not like this—not revealed by someone else, as if she had been deceiving him all along.
“Lan Qi, listen to me—I… I was going to tell you soon.”
The heavy silence pressed down on her, choking her words into fragments.
But Lan Qi’s eyes remained on his book, as though he had no desire to hear her explanation.
“…I really never meant to deceive you.”
Huperion’s voice grew weaker, like breath fading into the cold winter air.