"....?!"

​Carl, Grace, and Philip were completely stunned, their breaths hitching in their throats. There was no surge of spirit energy, no martial action, no incantation. The twenty mutated zombies just dropped dead before them, hitting the linoleum floor with hollow thuds like puppets with their strings violently cut.

​’Big sister is getting more powerful,’ Carl thought with a small, knowing smile, adjusting his grip on his assassin’s dagger.

​’Wow! When can I become like Senior sister?’ Grace thought in sheer awe, her dark eyes wide as she clutched her high-class staff.

​’The Captain is this powerful, although they’re just Lv10 to Lv20 monsters, but killing with a single glance, this is too overpowered,’ Philip thought in shock, a deep mix of surprise and disbelief warring in his mind. The absolute efficiency of the slaughter defied all established combat logic he knew.

​Mirabella heard each of their thoughts clearly, courtesy of her passive mental skills. Her expression remained perfectly flat, an impenetrable mask of cold authority, as she stepped past them and reached the hallway window. She stared down at the sprawling school field. Down in the chaotic melee, Hitachi was gracefully cutting through the horde, his striking red eyes shifting into his kaleidoscopic Celestial Eyes to track the enemy movements. Austin, Aurelia, and Rose had joined him, forming a tight defensive perimeter, but the undead zombies just kept increasing, pouring in from the shattered campus gates. She could also see vicious, green-skinned goblins and other grotesque monsters joining the fight, drawn by the scent of living flesh.

​’I am the only Lv400 in the three academics... In short, I am the only one whose level remains unchanged, everyone else has this debuff. The longer the battle, the weakest they become, not to mention fatigue,’ She thought, calculating the inevitable collapse of her team’s stamina. Earth’s lack of ambient spirit energy was a parasitic vacuum. She calmly placed her left tattooed hand against the reinforced glass.

​BAM!!

​The glass shattered outward in a violent explosion of jagged shards, stunning the three students behind her yet again.

​"Let’s go."

​Defying gravity, she floated out of the window, hovering effortlessly in the polluted air, her black overcoat snapping in the wind. Carl, Grace, and the hesitant Philip immediately jumped out of the three-story building, using their agility stats to land safely on the ground.

​"THE CAPTAIN IS HERE!!!!"

​Carl yelled the moment his boot touched the ground, his voice magically enhanced, reverberating all over the school grounds and echoing off the ruined concrete structures.

​The mindless zombies and bloodthirsty monsters all paused, their primal instincts suddenly overridden by an overwhelming aura of dread. They turned around, fixing their dead and glowing eyes on the group of three, and the floating figure above them.

​"Let’s go!"

​Hitachi ordered instantly. Without a second thought, he leaped backward, disengaging from the frontline. Austin, Aurelia, and Rose followed his lead in perfect synchronization, all retreating back, easily escaping the tightening encirclement.

​TAP!

​They lightly landed in front of Carl, Grace, and Philip, kicking up a small cloud of ash. They nodded respectfully at Mirabella, who was hovering silently in the air like a descending deity.

​"Only a late God level stage fighter above could fly... With the captain here, we don’t have to worry about these things." Rose said, holding her glowing staff tightly, her voice laced with immense relief.

​Mirabella hovered in the air, her striking blue eyes staring down at the hundreds of monsters gathered before them. The oppressive weight of her suppressed Lv400 aura leaked out just enough to terrify the horde. Even the mindless monsters were hesitant, trembling on the spot, none daring to move a single inch forward.

​"Pathetic."

​The word cut through the apocalyptic silence like a blade of ice. Mirabella stretched her hand toward the massive swarm, her deep blue eyes glowing with a sinister, ethereal light. With a mere thought, she activated her dark skill: Blood sucker.

​BOOOOM!!!!

​An invisible, catastrophic force smashed into the frontline of the monsters. There was no flash of light, no elemental explosion. But before the eyes of the completely stunned Students, the entire horde—hundreds of zombies and goblins—just dropped dead on the ground simultaneously. There was no physical wound, no cut, not even a trace of residual spirit energy in the air. Their life forces were simply deleted, 100% of their health instantly siphoned away.

​"This?" Hitachi and everyone were dumbfounded, their combat auras flickering out in pure shock.

​’What sort of crazy Ability is this?!! She doesn’t even need to fight!’ Hitachi thought in absolute disbelief, his Celestial Eyes frantically trying to process the non-existent energy signature of the attack.

​’Am I seeing things? Aren’t these the same monsters I was going all out with? They’re more than two hundreds!’ Aurelia yelled inwardly, her knuckles turning white around her weapon.

​’What the?! She didn’t even use a single spirit energy! Isn’t this cheating!!’ Austin thought, his jaw practically hitting the floor.

​’My father is right about Her, Mirabella can’t be measured with other students,’ Rose swallowed lightly, a cold sweat breaking out on her neck.

​’I am seeing this again, but I’m still shocked,’ Phillip thought, shivering, while Carl and Grace simply smiled with immense, fanatic pride.

​Mirabella folded her arms gracefully across her chest, her face utterly flat, her dark overcoat moving softly in the dead wind. She pulled up her personal interface:

​{Health Points: 1,892,681,581.}

​’I will keep Siphoning still I get to hundred billion... Then trillions, I will grow to the stage that everything will fall under my control,’ She promised herself, her ambition as boundless as the Abyss itself. She moved her cold gaze to the ruined, skeletal city ahead.

​’I am back to Earth, but why don’t I feel nostalgic?’ She thought, analyzing her own lack of emotional attachment to her supposed homeworld. Pushing the thought aside, she lowered her gaze to the destroyed main gate, seeing Precious, Daniel, Casey, and twenty more students from the Dragon Academy nervously entering the blood-stained school grounds.

​"All of you, clear the school, Kill as many monsters as you can... In one hour, I need all of you back here. Make sure not a single monster survive." Her voice commanded absolute obedience. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

​"Yes!!"

​The seven members behind her nodded instantly and moved swiftly back into the dark depths of the school to hunt down the stragglers, while Mirabella gracefully landed in front of the large team that had just arrived.

​Mirabella moved her piercing blue gaze over them, assessing their condition, then tapped her Galaxy bracelet. She stared at the high-resolution holographic map projected before her, a sudden, deep frown marring her flawless face.

​[-50,000 points.]

​As the Captain, she possessed the administrative clearance to see the real-time team score. The penalty was brutal: -5,000 points per death. Which meant ten of her members had already been butchered in the ruins of New York.

​’Our of 250 students, we already lost ten... This won’t do,’ She thought, her eyes narrowing dangerously at the unacceptable loss. She looked up at Precious, who was leading the reinforcements.

​"Lead them all to the school, help and clear it of monsters." She ordered flatly.

​"Yes!" Precious nodded enthusiastically, turning and leading the large group toward the main buildings.

​"Come on!! Let’s get some kills and points!!" She yelled, trying to rally the troops, but the new students’ stunned, wide-eyed gazes were entirely fixed on the hundreds of perfectly intact, dead monsters littering the school grounds like a carpet of corpses.

​Mirabella ignored their awe, her attention laser-focused on the holographic map. There was a tight cluster of ten green dots trapped in one spot downtown, desperately heading toward the school’s rally point. However, a massive, flashing icon—a red skull with two jagged swords crossed behind its back—was rapidly moving straight toward those ten green dots.

​’This is a world Boss,’ She thought, instantly recognizing the apocalyptic threat level.

​Without a moment of hesitation, her figure blurred. The space around her folded inward, and she vanished, teleporting away with a sharp crack of displaced air, completely stunning the twenty students who had just arrived.

​"This?"

"Where is the captain?!"

"Wow, the captain is too great!!"

​They all exclaimed in a chaotic chorus, whipping their heads around and moving their bewildered gazes all over the empty courtyard where their Empress had just stood.