William 28

Title: The True Flash of Time

Even from outside, Kousen could see two masked terrorists in black, wearing protective gear, standing guard behind the two support pillars in the main hall.

(I can’t alert them. If they notice, wiping them all out will be impossible.)

Kousen made a decision in his mind and began performing dual calculations in his brain.

He was enveloped in a deep blue light, and a moment later, his entire body vanished under the sunlight.

“Who’s there!”

Accompanied by intense dizziness, the last terrorist in the hall was unable to resist and collapsed to the ground.

Kousen reappeared, crouching down to record the personal information of the man lying on the floor.

He had just used one of the Kudou family’s five disguise magics, [Optical Camouflage], manipulating light and mental interference magic to create an illusion, achieving a state akin to invisibility.

Now, he was reading the enemy’s personal information to use one of the Kudou family’s most famous surface magics, [Parade], another of their five disguise magics.

When Kousen stood up again, his appearance had completely changed. Not only his looks but even his magical aura perfectly matched that of the man on the ground.

This was the Kudou family’s [Parade], capable of fully replicating an opponent’s personal information.

In theory, it combined illusions formed by visible light and heat illusions manipulated by infrared, while simultaneously using mental interference magic to induce hallucinations in the enemy, then reading their information with non-systematic magic and overlaying it onto oneself.

It merged small components of various systematic magics to create this extreme disguise magic.

“Well then, let’s head up.”

Kousen quietly ascended the stairs. Though his disguise was nearly perfect, he couldn’t just walk in openly.

He made his way to the fourth floor, where he only dealt with one Second Course student standing guard; the rest were empty. His decision to head straight to the fourth floor had a reason.

The library itself had no particularly special areas to infiltrate, but it did have one place that even regular students needed multiple layers of teacher approval to access—a highly restricted area.

That was the archive room!

Kousen looked at the tightly shut door in front of him.

The library’s archive room stored valuable magic sequence data and experimental records. Though not comparable to the Magic Association’s headquarters or the storage capacity of Magic University, for a weak organization like [Blanche], it was clearly invaluable.

Though he didn’t want to destroy the door outright, he hadn’t brought his student card. With a resigned sigh, he raised his [Night].

Pulling the trigger, a black hole the size of a bowl appeared at the door’s lock. As the black hole formed, he seemed to hear a man’s scream from inside.

Breaking through the door, Kousen saw a terrorist writhing in pain, clutching a severed thigh.

The right thigh, from the knee down, had been completely melted by Kousen’s atomic beam.

Blood gushed from the wound.

His companion was performing emergency wound treatment with delay magic.

Seeing the archive room’s main computer intact, Kousen felt a slight relief. He had visited the archive room before to retrieve data and knew the main computer’s location.

When firing the atomic beam, he had been careful to aim away from the main computer. Whether anyone got hurt was beyond his consideration.

Terrorists didn’t need discussing, and he felt no need to show mercy even to his school’s students. After all, people must always pay for their own mistakes.

Of course, if conditions allowed, he still hoped to capture his school’s students alive.

“Ku-Kudou… why are you… still here?”

The speaker was Mibu Sayaka.

Blood splattered her white uniform skirt. Her hands and face also bore bloodstains.

Though her speech was halting, her ability to speak at all proved her resilience.

If an inexperienced student had come, they might have fainted from fear at the sight of such a bloody scene.

“You!”

The person who had been sitting at the chair copying data stood up, disengaging the safety of an automatic pistol and preparing to shoot Kousen.

*BANG!*

Another bright green beam shot from the muzzle of [Night], this time hitting the terrorist’s heart with precision.

Dropping the pistol, he clutched the hole in his chest, as if still wanting to say something.

But his empty eyes, the blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, and his slowly collapsing body proved his life had ended, leaving no room for words.

After all, when entering, Kousen hadn’t planned to leave everyone alive—that would be too troublesome. One was enough, which was why he was so decisive in taking a life.

Stepping forward, he activated [Flash of Time] again.

This time, the distance covered was greater than during his fight with Tatsuya. After all, [Flash of Time] was fundamentally a technique akin to teleportation.

The version used against Tatsuya was a simplified one, relying purely on physical techniques.

The true [Flash of Time] required dispersive magic to open a vacuum channel between points, then used a unique strength technique to traverse it instantly, creating the illusion of teleportation.

Standing in front of the central console, Kousen crouched and destroyed the storage device still plugged into it.

Sayaka could only stare blankly at everything happening before her. The other two terrorists, intimidated by Kousen’s killing aura, didn’t even dare make a sound.

“Mibu-senpai, wasn’t your goal to improve the treatment system for Second Course students? Can you explain why you’re here now?” Kousen said coldly.

He would decide how to handle her based on her response.

The previous issue of occupying the projection room could be treated lightly, as if it were nothing. But the current situation was entirely different.

Stealing valuable magic data from Magic High School was a full-fledged crime, subject to trial in a military court.

However, since he knew her and she was a student at this school, and her impression on him yesterday wasn’t too bad, he would consider whether to use his influence to save Sayaka.