Broken Possessors of Infinite Regression Academy

“Woooooah?!”

Maker, caught in the trap, was launched into the air. He let out an odd scream as he flew towards the ward and crashed into it. Flaming hands grabbed him from above and below.

The flaming arms whipped from side to side, tearing Maker’s body into two halves, armor and all. Even as his body was ripped apart, he attempted to counter-attack. Dozens of tentacles sprouted and struck in all directions.

Crackle-boom!

Where the tentacles struck, it looked like a bomb had gone off, creating a crater several yards wide. A sturdy tree, easily a dozen yards tall, was snapped like a tender sapling.

Maker regenerated the two torn halves of his body. As the two Makers confirmed each other’s presence, he inhaled pure mana once more. Blue light, transformed from magic circles within his body, spread with the wind.

Before the Makers could fully form, the tendrils that had curled up like a spring shot towards me. I erected a barrier to deflect the attack and slammed a massive rock pillar onto their heads.

“Ugh?!”

A hundred-ton rock, by rough estimate, crushed the Makers flat.

“It’s not over yet! It’s not over!”

The flattened bodies exploded, and thousands of fragments began to grow into Makers. The ones that couldn’t escape from under the rock started to break it apart from below.

Before they could fully form, I plunged Eternity into the ground. Refined mana-infused blades tore through the earth, causing the already chaotic terrain to twist and contort further.

Roots sprouted wildly, covering the area. Frost and ice mist settled on them, and sharp icicles sprouted from the frost crystals, piercing everything in sight. Finally, flames engulfed it all. Ice and fire clashed violently, creating a thick cloud of steam. The Makers, exposed to the mana-infused steam, evaporated one by one.

As their bodies evaporated, the remaining fragments combined to form the original Maker.

“This is amazing! You’re even stronger than when I first met you! Is it the result of your training, or were you hiding your true strength?”

“Think whatever you like.”

“Then I’ll assume you were hiding your strength! Maker wouldn’t have guessed that it’s beyond what can be achieved through mere training!”

Despite his frivolous demeanor, Maker had a sharp sense for these things. When he first met me, I was just a talented student at the Academy level, but now he was on the same level of a  Legion Commander.

“Hehehe, this won’t do! I need to kill you before the Sword Saint arrives! If the Sword Saint is as scary as they say, and you kill me first, the name of Legion Commander will be at stake!”

“Oh, really? You don’t seem to have many cards left to play. What do you plan to use against me?”

I checked the time and deliberately let Maker ramble on. It was about time for the effect to kick in.

“This Maker’s—Ugh?!”

‘Done.’

Maker, as always, began to puff up his body and was about to say something exaggerated when he suddenly spat out an odd, viscous substance. The parts of his skin not covered by armor turned a dull grayish color.

‘Finally, it’s working.’

I had suspected he had ingested it quite some time ago, but the effects were only now becoming apparent. Maker noticed the grayish substance oozing from his skin and shouted in alarm.

“What have you done to my body?!”

“The same thing you tried to do to me.”

“Poison! You used poison! How cowardly!”

“Didn’t I say it was the same thing you tried to do to me?”

From the very beginning, when I saw the ward around him, I quietly started spreading poison, just like he had tried to do to me. I also healed the area around us in real-time to prevent the Academy from being contaminated.

If I had left him alone, this place might have turned into a toxic swamp.

“It’s fine. I won’t be angry. What else can you expect from a slime-brained creature like you?”

“Krrraaaack! How dare you call me a slime again! I won’t forgive you!”

Maker, enraged, began to inflate his body for a final attack. Every part of his body swelled rapidly, like balloons, and in just a few seconds, he became larger than most buildings.

“I’m sorry, Mira Crete! You will die with me!”

“Why? Are you going to pretend to self-destruct like the others and escape with your main body?”

“……”

Maker fell silent for the first time. He had no response to my accusation, having been exposed as he tried to use his trump card.

When I heard Priscilla’s story about her battle with the Legion Commanders, Maker had once tried to scare her and then escaped. So, I casually mentioned it, and it seemed I had hit the mark.

“Go ahead, explode if you want.”

I snapped my fingers. Refined mana, which had filled the ward, poured into Maker’s body. The grayish body turned blue as it was infused with mana.

“Krrraaaack! What are you trying to do, Mira Crete!”

“The same thing you tried to do to me.”

I continuously injected refined mana into his body and altered the shape and position of the ward. The cube-shaped ward transformed into an icosagon and shrunk in size, enclosing only Maker.

Maker became anxious as the ward tightened around him, and he frantically tried various methods to escape, but the ward held firm. His body filled the inside of the ward.

I kept injecting mana into the ward, and his body, now close to the color of mana, a deep blue, continued to swell.

Maker, who had seemed to be endlessly inflating, finally stopped when the icosagon was almost full. He was mumbling something inside, but I had no intention of listening.

I would have liked to mock him a little, but I refrained, as it would only give him time. Instead, I quietly added a tiny spark to the ward.

!!!!!!

The small spark reacted with the refined mana, causing a chain reaction. The inside of the ward became a massive inferno, hell itself, consuming Maker’s body as fuel and unleashing a grand explosion.

The flames that had devoured Maker continued to rage, pounding against the ward. The surface of the icosagon rippled madly, but the ward remained intact.

The inferno raged until there was nothing left to burn, reducing Maker to ashes. The flames gradually subsided as there was nothing left to fuel them. I compressed the ward into a small size and crushed it in my palm, scattering the blue powder into the air.

‘That’s two down now.’

With five Legion Commanders remaining, it was a remarkable achievement considering the amount of damage they had caused in the original story.

I exhaled the last breath of the Mana Breathing Technique. The pale blue light that had enveloped my body slowly faded as my lungs filled with the air of the forest instead of mana. The air tasted refreshingly cool.

The only one left was the undead dragon, which had been split into 27 pieces, each piece writhing on the ground, fixed in place.

I gathered the remaining refined mana and snapped my fingers. White flames engulfed the undead dragon. It was a magic I had used in the other world to deal with undead-type monsters with regenerative abilities.

I had refrained from using it in this world because it didn’t exist here, and its use would leave a strong trace.

‘Still the same.’

As the white flames subsided, I noticed the salt-like white residue that had settled on the ground. I quickly cleaned up the mess and restored the forest to a reasonable state.

The fact that Legion Commanders had come here must remain a secret until their identities are revealed. Otherwise, it would inevitably lead to questions about who defeated them.

As I finished cleaning up, I felt an incredibly intense killing intent from afar. The Sword Saint had arrived. Now, I didn’t have to worry about them.

‘Where is the Chairman?’

The only one left was the Chairman. Astaroth had said she lured out Meligor with the Blast Dragon, but I wondered what the outcome of that encounter was.

‘I hope he doesn’t end up permanently missing like in the original story.’

I felt a nagging sense of unease. Perhaps I should ask Elysier about it.

.

.

.

“You’ve grown weak, Meligor. Did you flee to humans and become influenced by them?”

“Shut…… up…… Don’t call me by that name…… Didn’t I tell you not to……?”

Erestika gritted her teeth, but with her joints twisted and half-crushed, there was nothing she could do. If she had been human, her survival in such a miserable state would have been a miracle.

Mahbat looked down at her with contempt, mocking her pitiful state.

“So, you want to die as a human instead of a dragon. That doesn’t change who you are, Shadow Dragon.”

“Shut…… up……!”

Creak, creak. Erestika’s broken bones grated against each other as she tried to move, but her body refused to cooperate.

“What a shame. If we’d had a little more time, I could have eaten you. But now, I think I’d have trouble digesting you. You may be rotten and weak, but you’re still a Shadow Dragon, aren’t you?”

“Try…… it if you…… dare……”

Erestika tried to move, but she ended up spitting out dark red blood. The impact caused her already precarious left shoulder joint to shatter.

Mahbat looked down at her with disdain, as if her current state was truly pathetic. He dropped something onto Eresstika’s body, a remarkably precise placement considering the difference in their sizes.

“Oh, right. I almost forgot.”

Erestika’s eyes widened with anger as she saw what had been dropped on her.

“It’s the ‘new one’ I promised. Do whatever you want with it.”

It was the corpse of a woman who had starved to death. By the looks of it, she had been dead for at least 30 to 40 years. Her face was shriveled and twisted with extreme suffering.

“Hmm, I suppose the one you were raising was still alive.”

“……”

“Anyway, I’ve kept my promise, so don’t bother me anymore.”

Mahbat left without another word, showing no interest in either Erestika or the woman he had dropped.

Erestika stared blankly at the corpse of the woman who had starved to death decades ago, now in her arms.

Dragons perceive time differently from humans. What may seem like decades to humans is but a fleeting moment to a dragon.

This woman had probably been collected as a ‘preparation’ with the dragon’s sense of time in mind. The ‘soon’ she had in mind was in dragon years, so the woman had been left untouched for decades before finally being released.

Even Erestika, who had lived as a human for over 130 years, sometimes got confused. How much more so for someone who had never experienced such a life?

“……”

Above all, Mahbat wouldn’t have cared about humans. Not 130 years ago, nor now.

“Ugh……”

It may have been a fleeting moment for a dragon, but it wasn’t for Erestika.

“My child……”

Erestika’s eyes filled with clear tears as she recalled the past. With trembling hands, she untied the old, frayed hair tie.

She had failed. She had intended to kill Mahbat and offer her body at his grave to ease her grudge, but she had failed again.

“My child…… I’m sorry…… Mommy is sorry……”

Erestika hugged the old, frayed hair tie to her chest and sobbed for a long time.