Dead silence.

After the bone pillars were sent flying in a single direction, the Academy that once stood proudly lay flat. Those who survived the ordeal could only witness its destruction.

There were bloodstains. If not the blood, then the remains of those who were killed by the Black Shepherds were scattered around. If not for the blood and corpses, they would have been crushed by the bone pillars that are already gone.

All of them were lucky to be placed at the ground complex, where there was an open view from the roof, but anything else was a complete mess.

The Sorcery Academy of the Viola Family is gone.

The buildings in the distance had turned into ruins, and salvaging what remained of their long history was going to be difficult.

’Did someone even survive from those who were still doing the academy matches inside the versioned battlefields?’

Cillian thought inwardly, not knowing if the versioned battlefields could even withstand the bone pillars the moment they sprouted from the ground.

Imagine dying without ever knowing the reason why, with the last thing they remembered being the sight of bone pillars either sprouting from the ground or crushing them.

’Do I even have time to worry about that? That Captain is walking towards us!’

Cillian watched the Captain, the cause of this mess, walking towards their group with confidence.

Only then did Cillian remember the words of the White Shepherds he had met and how he concluded that they had messed up their plans. How these White Shepherds said they are frustrated and asking Cillian and everyone to finish up their job.

The real reason is definitely capturing Aster or killing him to get his Singularity Piece. But what if this bastard has another goal for coming here, and it has something to do with that Legendary Artifact that had the disaster level class to destroy a big academy?

’Did this guy go rogue?’

Even though it had nothing to do with the Artifact possessed by the Captain, Cillian was confident that these sheep serving under the organization had ignored the orders and just decided to do their own thing.

If it wasn’t just Captain, what about the Black Shepherds that appeared in the middle of the maze, killing everyone they met along the way?

It wasn’t hard for Cillian to think of the reason for their appearance, as he had already had an answer after only seeing it once.

’The portal that those White Shepherds used to leave. It’s probably their fault. I knew they couldn’t be trusted, but they decided to put some shepherds around for what? Because they felt like it?’

It was a totally messed-up way to think. Even if he’s wrong, the way those bastards think is not even human.

It was a reality check of the complicated thoughts of beings.

’Those shitty people. If your people messed up, why do we have to clean their mess!?’

Cillian was infuriated, not because of the reason behind it, but because he was involved in all of this and had to work hard to survive.

’I’ll do the self-reflection later on. We have this Captain to worry about. By the looks of it, he wasn’t the only shepherd who survived.’

Suddenly, the group saw the Captain’s face, which seemed beyond ecstatic. Having received a power-up in exchange for the lives he had taken, he wore a crazed grin that was very annoying to look at.

A few staggering, barely alive Black Shepherds started gathering around him when, all of a sudden, the Captain stopped walking toward Cillian’s group.

"Hey! Isn’t this enough?!"

The Captain suddenly started shouting out of thin air.

The few Black Shepherds, who were trying to form a group, looked at him with a confused look. Even Cillian’s group, which was watching, couldn’t help but question the sudden action of that particular Shepherd.

"Hey! I’ve been working with you for thirty years! I did every work you asked me to, but now I’m stronger and can do more for the organization!"

The Captain couldn’t stop blabbering before pausing.

"I want to be promoted!"

’He wants to be... promoted?’

Cillian’s face twisted in confusion.

The Shepherd of Creation indeed had a hierarchy amongst themselves. Mouthful Eye had already said so. And this Captain was working his ass for thirty years for them, and all he could do was become a lapdog to the White Shepherds.

He was bound to bite the hands of his owners.

’This fucker had really gone rogue because he wants to be promoted. What a bastard.’

Even the group was starting to think like Cillian because he revealed anything related to the Black Shepherds and only the black sheep. If they had all concluded the same thing, then it was a pretty fucked-up way to ask for a promotion.

Even so, after waiting for a whole minute, nobody answered.

"Give me my promotion!"

Captain, as if enraged, shouted and wailed, giving the nearby black shepherds a reason to stop gathering around him as they watched him turn into something else.

He was losing control.

"You Bastards! I did everything you asked! I’ve followed you every time you asked me to do! This is the only time I’ve gone out of order because it’s an opportunity to show how much I’ve grown!"

The Captain’s body began to twist and transform into a grotesque monster. His back got ruptured as massive bone pillars erupted from within, stretching outward like a warped spine. The skin of his face split apart, peeling back as it was replaced by a layer of exposed bone.

His entire body warped under the weight of bones that the Artifact contained, becoming something no longer human, turning into a monster held together by countless bones.

"That guy is a goner."

Mouthful Eye, who remained at Cillian’s shoulder, couldn’t help but comment, drawing the group’s attention as they turned to glance at him.

"Listen here, you all. I don’t know if it’s your first time witnessing a Ruiner losing control, but what you’re witnessing is just that. The Berserk State. I was quietly watching the whole thing to see the situation, and it looks like he assimilated with an Artifact, which is probably a bunch of Fragmented Pieces with different sequences."

Aster, who had undone his Sword of Wrath, with a few residues still flowing throughout his body, couldn’t help but ask in a nervous tone as he watched the Captain’s transformation.

"Is that even possible?"

Mouthful Eye carefully explained.

"It is, at least for a moment. According to what Cillian informed us, he had Pieces [Three] and [Five]. The Artifact, which is categorized as [Seven] from what he said to us, probably completes its sequences starting from [One]. So that Artifact probably carries sequences [One], [Two], [Four], [Six], and [Seven].

"However, that just won’t work because they are Fragmented Pieces. You see, it’s very hard to create an Artifact out of complete Pieces. Even if you did make an Artifact, you can only do it with one Piece at most, with one use. It will disrupt the powers after all. That’s why Fragmented Pieces, which are already broken, are used to create Artifacts because their powers aren’t as good as a complete Piece, unless it’s a Singularity."

"T-then, how did he manage to get an Artifact filled with those sequences?"

Vin couldn’t help but ask, and Mouthful Eye answered right away, his voice heavy.

"If we consider how these crazy bastards worked, then there are two things I could think of that this Captain did. He nurtured a Ruiner from the [First] sequence until the [Seven], excluding the [Three] and [Five] he had. Then once he was done nurturing them, he killed whoever this is."

"That doesn’t make any sense. If that’s the case, the nurtured Ruiner is definitely more powerful than him, even if it’s an Improper Ruiner. There’s no way the victim will just allow themselves to get killed."

Cillian asked in a confused tone, since every person is bound to struggle if they are going to see themselves getting killed.

This led to Mouthful Eye coming to the second thing he mentioned just now.

"This made me come to the second conclusion. He probably used a confused and innocent child, made this child eat the missing sequences he had all at once. You’re not going to be in a vegetative state at that point, you’re going to lose control. In fact, one had to be extremely lucky enough to become in a vegetative state if put in the same situation and spit out the Pieces without it becoming a Fragmented Piece. That Captain will be even more glad.

"But if that poor child indeed was forced to eat those Pieces, before it was about to lose control, which is more than he could handle, Captain had definitely killed it before it happened. Thus, those Pieces all merged and became one Artifact that contains those Pieces, and hopes he can assimilate with it. Yet doing that procedure is the very mistake he had made in the first place. Fragmented Pieces couldn’t be used again because they just can’t. That’s all there is. Even more so if they were made as an Artifact and made it as a pseudo-piece he lacked.

"The only thing you’ll meet by doing this method is death."