A cold chuckle came from Dean Thistle's lips.
"… Maybe I should take back my words. I thought you were intelligent, but it's clear that you haven't even properly assessed the situation."
Theron's response was to unsheathe his blades.
General Pennel suddenly moved, but it was too late. A twisting line of sharp wooden thorns suddenly rose out from the ground, ripping through the Alpha's belly and right up and out of Theron's jaw through the top of his head.
Everyone's eyes widened in shock.
It wasn't due to Theron's death, but instead his survival.
An afterimage rippled away and a burst of Water Mana crumbled. Then, Theron appeared right next to it, having barely moved three feet or so to the side.
The Dean's aura turned malevolent, rippling vines of dark branches swinging around him.
"General, unless you want us all to be wiped out, I would probably suggest that you… actually stop him. He's forming a root network underground. If he succeeds, none of us will be able to leave here. Luckily, he's too incompetent to control his temper and exposed this ahead of time."
Of course, that last part was a lie. Theron had sensed it even before the Thistle Marquis attacked, using similar methods to how he had dealt with Yonowai.
Ultimately, sensing Wood Mana was harder for him than sensing Water Mana, but comparatively speaking, he was still far superior to most.
The Dean's eyes sharpened, but Theron had already hopped down from the Alpha's back, a twisting change taking place in his aura.
The wind became colder, and the smile in Theron's eyes vanished entirely.
"If you all want to live," Theron spoke to the geniuses over his shoulder, "stay within this clearing. If you want to die, feel free to step outside of it. Whatever happens if you don't listen to me will not be on my conscience."
"What the hell are you talking about?" The Fourth Year military stream student, Ray of the Brien Marquis Clan, looked at Theron's back as though he was insane.
But Theron didn't respond, his body swaying as he suddenly vanished in a blur of black and blue.
No one had called for the start of the battle, but a head had already flown into the skies. It soared upward, but the cut was so clean that the blood still seemed to connect with it, forming a line that arched through the skies toward the spiraling skull.
Theron had already moved again, his body limber and free.
Dean Thistle's eyes opened wide. No matter the situation, he never expected that Theron would actually dare to kill his own people right in front of him .
Before he could even say anything, a heavy sword cut down the tree he stood in.
"You're mine," General Pennel said coldly.
"You overgrown brute." The Marquis spoke with a voice as cold as ice. "Do you not understand that you don't stand a single chance in this situation? I will crush you."
Theron turned a deaf ear to their words. He knew that Dean Thistle wasn't lying. In this situation, if he and General Pennel had been even before, there had certainly been a huge tilt to the balance now. General Pennel wouldn't last very long.
But Theron didn't need very long.
The geniuses of the Thistle Clan fell as though weeds along the ground, the superior Wood Mana in the air holding no weight at all.
Theron was too fast, too fluid. Sometimes they would swing down at him, or attack him with vines from beneath the ground, or even try to control the trees in the surroundings to block his path or restrict his movements.
But somehow, Theron saw through it all.
He ducked beneath sharp whips, severing legs at the hip. He leapt over roots aimed for his chest, spinning in the air like a twisting whirlwind of blades and decapitating enemies. He bobbed and weaved, his hair following him to his back in a mane-like stream that painted an eerie black, almost as dark as the despair in their hearts.
Ray and Supra, Gengh and Shah, didn't move because they couldn't even quite grasp what they were seeing.
Was this really a First Year?
"ENOUGH!" Dean Thistle roared. "End this!"
Theron's ears twitched when he heard these words. As powerful as he had grown, he knew that this couldn't have been the limit of what the Thistles had to offer.
The reason they had brought their geniuses forward was obvious—they were the ones that could benefit from the Blood Crystals the most.
So how could they not bring their best?
Sigil, Lani, and Surgen appeared, the first of them wearing an expression that was one part confusion and another part a frown. But in the end, he sighed and shook his head.
"Use it," Dean Thistle commanded again, locked in fierce combat with General Pennel. He was assaulting the latter from all sides, their battle taking place across the tree canopies as neither of them wanted to harm the children below.
"A pleasure," Surgen said with a smile, his burly body rippling.
His Wood Mana began to circulate, and Theron felt a strong tug on his body…
One that immediately broke.
[Tidal Convergence]. Theron remembered the Bronze Resonance technique well—it had been quite useful at the time. Its concepts helped him refine his polarity control even more as well.
But the moment Theron got it, he knew that it was a technique that could be turned against him.
If his expression wasn't so ice-cold right now, he might have chuckled.
That was because the tug on him didn't just break—it reversed. All of a sudden, Surgen found that he couldn't even control his Wood Mana anymore, and the spiking thorns aimed for Theron curved out of the way all on their own, allowing Theron to streak right toward him in a straight line.
Theron's blades flashed so fast the combination was completed even before Surgen fell to the ground.
Like a butcher dissecting a pig, he sliced his arms out cleanly through the shoulder socket, not even touching bone.
Then he did the same for his legs, sliding right into the hip joint…
All before he slid through the vertebrae in his neck.
Theron appeared behind Surgen, his movements sharp, fast, and more lethal than could be explained in words.
The so-called genius fell to the ground in six pieces.