The Professor’s Reckoning

On the campus, the once-arrogant monsters howled in agony.

With strange wet thuds, one after another, the beast-headed, human-bodied corpses collapsed to the ground.

Blood splattered everywhere. Bodies littered the ground.

Red and green corrosive blood flowed along the downward slope, gathering into streams.

Sightless eyes stared up at a pair of leather shoes stepping over them, the glossy leather reflected in the bloody streams.

Squelch!

A pig-headed creature leaped out from the woods, its massive frame blotting out the moonlight.

It wore an apron, had a fat head and big ears, and carried a cleaver about half a meter long.

“Die!”

The sharp cleaver swung down with gravitational force, its pristine blade reflecting two faces: one was the pig’s snarling visage, the other was the middle-aged man’s rugged, bandit-like eyes.

The force of the blade was immense, its whoosh deafening.

There was no doubt: if it landed, even a boulder would be split in two.

“Finally, one that can talk!”

Professor Yuan had killed his way through the entire path, his eyes growing weary, but now he had finally caught a monster with intelligence.

The grin on his face was harder to suppress than an AK.

Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!

The wind from the descending blade ruffled the man’s messy hair.

He extended his right hand, forming a finger gun, and aimed his index finger at the creature plummeting from above.

“Bang,” he said softly.

The next second, with a loud squelch, blood cascaded down from the air like a waterfall.

The creature let out a pained howl, traced a beautiful parabola backward, and crashed heavily into the pile of corpses.

“Again… this move again!”

Holding the bowl-sized hole in its chest, the creature’s eyes flashed with fear.

No matter which level of employee approached, this man would simply point his finger and say “bang.”

An unknown attack would tear through their tough bodies and send them flying.

What kind of ability was this?

The creature coughed up a large mouthful of blood.

“If air can be continuously compressed until it explodes, the instantaneous force can even pierce steel.”

Professor Yuan paced over and crouched in front of the creature, his right hand pointing at its forehead.

“You ignorant void creatures wouldn’t know that, would you?”

“Is… that so?” The creature squinted, staring intently at the man’s finger.

Whoosh… whoosh… A faint breeze rose. The surrounding air flowed at an imperceptible speed.

And in that instant, it finally saw the attacker that had wounded it.

It was an extremely small cube of air, about one millimeter on each side.

The air cube was incredibly dense and solid, glowing with a crystalline blue light like the sky. It floated just in front of the man’s index finger, spinning and trembling.

A terrifying power lurked within.

“Gulp.” The creature swallowed hard. It had no doubt that if that air cube exploded, it would punch through its skull and turn its brain into mush.

“What… what do you want?” it asked.

It had struggled to reach a mid-level position in the academy, gaining wisdom and strength.

It didn’t want to die ignorantly like before.

“You’re too weak. Killing you is too troublesome, like cockroaches, disgusting.”

Professor Yuan smiled. “So, could you do me a favor and introduce me to your school’s principal?”

“I’d like to ask him how to raise livestock.”

He had been to the principal’s office, but it was empty. Instead, he was ambushed by monsters on his way out.

The principal of this monster academy was hiding in the shadows.

“The… the principal?” The creature realized something. It lifted its head in terror. “You’re going to destroy us!”

“Destroy this world, actually,” Professor Yuan corrected.

There were only two ways to destroy a void world.

One was to kill all the native species. The other was to take or destroy the world’s origin item.

These origin items came in many shapes. Some were objects, some were living beings.

Some were even just concepts.

But they were always near the strongest being in that world.

“If this world is destroyed, you can still drift in the void and find another void world to live in.”

Professor Yuan squinted, smiling.

“But if you die, you’re really dead. Nothing left. Just void.”

Someone had once said that when he squinted and smiled, he looked like an evil mastermind from an anime.

Destined to be defeated by a righteous protagonist sooner or later.

But he never cared. Destroying the world was what villains did.

“You have to promise not to kill me!” the creature said weakly.

“Mm, I swear,” Professor Yuan said softly, like a sleazy uncle coaxing a little girl.

But what he was doing now wasn’t far off.

“The principal…” The creature gritted its teeth. “He’s in the gym.”

It had made a decision that betrayed its ancestors.

“Thanks for the information.” Professor Yuan stood up and then unhesitatingly uttered the word: “Bang!”

The air cube spun out and exploded the instant it touched the creature’s forehead.

Whoosh!

A massive amount of air concentrated at one point, instantly ripping off its scalp, punching through its skull, and turning its brain into tofu pudding.

“How foolish, you void creatures,” Professor Yuan said, his eyes devoid of emotion.

How could a human ever spare a void creature?

The two were natural enemies, fighting to the death.

Without hesitation, he turned and headed toward the gym. He had memorized the campus map on his way here.

****

Inside the gym, Tiger sat in the stands, bullet wounds from the guard troops still fresh on his body.

But the wounds were healing. One by one, brass bullets were pushed out by the muscles and clattered to the ground.

“He’s coming!”

A figure shrouded in a black robe materialized in the air and sat on the backboard.

Its voice was fuzzy, heavily distorted.

“He pierced through the White Bone Mountain void world. The Demon Fire Crematorium was suppressed by the others. We’ve failed. Let’s retreat.”

“No!” Tiger looked up sharply. “We won’t fail. As long as we start the blood sacrifice now and summon the void world’s descent, even if I die, the plan will succeed.”

His tiger eyes were filled with madness and bloodshot veins.

He wanted to achieve a noble ideal. Even if he died, as long as he could push things forward a little, it would be fine.

“Impossible. With your strength, you wouldn’t last a single move against him,” the shadow sighed.

A firefly’s light could not compete with the moon. The gap in their power was that vast.

Even with the shadow added, they had no chance of winning.

Yuan Fei wasn’t a professor just because of his knowledge.

“The time isn’t right. It’ll take at least another hour for the contact fusion to reach the blood sacrifice standard.”

“Leave. Spare your precious life. You can still serve the organization and contribute to the noble ideal.”

The shadow tried hard to persuade Tiger.

It had worked hard to develop this high-potential subordinate. It couldn’t let him die for nothing here.