"Amazing!"

"She can actually defeat Abel, who has fulfilled the requirements to graduate?"

"This is insane. Even with all that armor, it’s not enough to stop her."

"The Queen has returned!"

The students cheered. Ellia had just won against Abel despite all odds. In addition, Abel was the leader of the Phoenix and Dragon Society. This meant the reputation of the club would be diminished further.

Abel gritted his teeth. He couldn’t imagine himself losing, yet this was exactly what had happened.

Ellia looked down at him. She was grateful to Auric. If not for the Artificial Heart, she would have had a hard time using the World Cataclysm. This ability was simply too powerful and difficult to control for someone at her level.

Besides, Auric was the one who allowed her to enter the ruins to get all the artifacts and beast essence needed to get stronger. Without all that, Ellia would still be too weak to compete with Abel.

Ellia said, "Now, as agreed, you are to drop out of this academy. You should have graduated when you had the chance, and now you’re left with nothing."

Abel waved his hand. "That’s impossible. We have no such agreement!"

The students from the Phoenix and Dragon Society were dumbfounded. They had witnessed the agreement, but it was true that other than the picture of her talking to Abel, there was nothing that could be used to prove that the agreement actually existed.

It was just a verbal agreement.

On one hand, they had seen how pathetic their leader was. On the other hand, they couldn’t admit it in front of so many people.

People were confused and wondered what was going on.

"What’s this?"

"Is there an agreement between them?"

"Are they betting on something? I heard Ellia mentioned Abel dropping out or something."

Opinions were mixed. They thought Abel had to fulfill his promise. At the same time, there was indeed no proof. Ellia might be saying it out of spite.

William thought this was an opportunity. He could take control of the club and drive Abel away before making himself the club’s president.

It didn’t matter whether there was an agreement or not. Once the members lost trust in their current club president, Abel had lost.

For Abel, this was a life-and-death matter. If he dropped out of the academy, he would end up quitting the club. In that case, he would have a hard time borrowing the power of the club.

All this time, he had managed to gather all the elites and use their connections to resist the Lightning Emperor.

The moment he lost all that support, the Lightning Emperor would swallow him in an instant.

That was why he had to deny it.

Unfortunately for him, Ellia had come prepared. "Thank you... for being the person I thought you were."

Ellia took out a voice recorder and played it.

"I challenge you to a duel!"

"There is simply no reason for me to accept your challenge!"

"So, if there’s a reason, you will accept? Then I can give you a reason. For this challenge, we will place a bet. If you win, you can get what you’ve wanted all this time. If you lose, you’re going to drop out of Grand Magica College. If you don’t dare, then leave. It’s so embarrassing."

"Fine."

"Then, I will wait for you at 12 p.m. tomorrow at Arena 1."

Abel tried to steal the voice recorder from Ellia’s hand, but the one who stopped him was not her but Principal Fernandes himself.

"This matter will be investigated fairly." Principal Fernandes had spent two weeks away from the campus as promised to the Lightning Emperor. When he returned, he heard about the challenge. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

He held his promises in the highest regard, so if there was someone who tried to take back their words just because they lost, he wouldn’t let him go.

Ellia nodded. "Thank you, Principal. I’ll take my leave first."

The people finally saw Abel’s true color. The members of the Phoenix and Dragon Society lost their trust in him. All of them looked at him with scorn while also trying to hide their faces from all this embarrassment.

"..." William had mixed feelings about it. The Phoenix and Dragon Society would no longer be the top club here. A lot of members might leave because of this incident. He just didn’t expect that Ellia would expose him like this in front of everyone.

At this rate, the Phoenix and Dragon Society would have a hard time reclaiming their number one position.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t her or Auric’s problem.

When she walked back to the corridor, Auric smiled and took out a towel from the Space Storage. "Congratulations."

"Thanks."

"So, you bet something like that? What are you going to give? Yourself?" Auric asked.

Ellia smiled playfully. "Jealous?"

"Now that you ask that question, I can see that you must plan to give him a company or two in case it doesn’t work out. Clever." Auric had realized that Ellia worded the bet cleverly.

What Abel thought he wanted was Ellia. What Abel really wanted was the marriage with Ellia so that his family could rise in status. That was right. As long as his family could level up, it didn’t necessarily require her to marry him.

Ellia replied, "Money can be earned again. I would rather throw away my money than my future. That’s how I’ve been living all this time."

Auric couldn’t deny it. That was why she refused to be buried because of her talent and came to this city to find a way to evolve.

"Still, are you going to kill him?" Ellia asked. "No, I should ask you, ’Do you want to kill him?’"

Considering Abel plotted against Auric and forced him into a fight with Simon and caused all this mess, it was normal for Auric to want to kill him.

"I do. It’s just..." Auric looked up. After seeing what happened to the Lightning Emperor, he understood that fulfilling his own principles didn’t require him to do everything with his own hands.

"You scared? If you’re scared of his family’s retaliation, you don’t have to. I’ll handle his family."

"No. I’m just thinking... I don’t have to be the one who does it."

Ellia looked him in the eye before a small smile formed on her face. Auric had matured slightly. "All right then. Trust me in this matter."

"Mhmm..." Auric nodded.

...

As expected, the moment Principal Fernandes investigated this challenge, he found out that there was indeed such a bet for this fight. It wasn’t made public, but the existence of the bet was real.

Abel’s family might be wealthy, but the financial power that Ellia alone possessed was enormous. In fact, Ellia donated enough money to get three S-grade resources every year, while Abel donated nothing.

In addition to the fact that he valued a promise, Principal Fernandes forced Abel to drop out. As a result of this match, the reputation of the Phoenix and Dragon Society was in shambles.

William was scheming for this to happen so that he could become the president of the club, but sadly, his plan didn’t work the way he intended.

Meanwhile, Eric could finally be free from the conflict since it had been solved.

The moment Abel was forced to drop out, there was no member who sided with him anymore.

Without their support, the Lightning Emperor could finally make his final move.

...

Inside an alley, Abel’s body crashed into the wall before he fell onto his butt. Blood was flowing from his mouth.

He clutched his stomach, looking at the two people in front of him. The two were none other than Ellia and the Lightning Emperor.

All this beating was dealt by the Lightning Emperor.

Abel’s face turned pale. "Please forgive me. I promise I won’t do anything like this anymore. Please forgive me just this once..."

The Lightning Emperor looked at him with a cold gaze. He never thought that Simon would be manipulated by someone this pathetic.

However, Abel had lost all support. With the Lightning Dojo suppressing Abel’s family, the Lightning Emperor could kill Abel without anyone watching. Even his family wouldn’t dare to seek justice, as they were too busy trying to survive, not to mention Abel’s reputation had already become terrible on campus.

There was no one who could stop him from killing Abel anymore.

"Please... I will do anything, so please spare my life." Abel knelt in front of him. He even slammed his head on the ground, asking for forgiveness.

No, Abel sank even lower by licking the Lightning Emperor’s boots. "I will do anything. Please. I can give you anything you want."

"I only want one thing." The Lightning Emperor pointed his finger at him. "I want you to pay with your life."

"Aaarggghhh!" Abel was clutching his chest as lightning entered his body and electrocuted him from the inside. He felt like his organs started to fail and his cells began breaking down. His body was torn apart from the inside. "Nooo... Don’t kill me."

Abel kept asking for forgiveness, but the Lightning Emperor had no intention of doing so. In fact, he didn’t kill him directly. He used this lightning to torment him for the last two minutes of his life before all his organs failed, resulting in Abel’s death.

"Nooo..." Abel was crying.

Even the Lightning Emperor and Ellia felt second-hand embarrassment. They had never seen someone act so pathetically.

However, they were simply too pissed off at Abel to care about it.

Abel’s body gradually stopped moving as he took his last breath. Abel had died.

"To think that Simon was manipulated by this kind of man..." The Lightning Emperor bit his lip in regret.

Ellia said, "Please leave the cleanup to me, Lightning Emperor."

"Thank you..." The Lightning Emperor muttered.

"No, please don’t thank me. I’m just doing it because he pissed me off."

"No. I’m talking about the entire thing."

"!!!" Ellia was taken aback. She wanted to play dumb, but the Lightning Emperor continued, "I know that you do this in consideration of me as well. With his reputation ruined, I can kill this guy without any repercussions.

"No, not only him..."

The last part was the one that made her fall silent. She had indeed done such a thing to attack his family as well. For her, she wanted to remove the problems from the root so that she didn’t have to worry about their retaliation.

However, the fact that the Lightning Emperor thanked her for everything could only mean one thing. "You... want to destroy his family as well?"

The Lightning Emperor paused for a few seconds. "The debt of a father shouldn’t be passed on to his innocent child. However, the debt of the child should be paid by his father. After all, it’s his failure that caused the child to have that debt in the first place.

"I’ve paid the price for my failure to teach Simon... I’ve paid the price for Simon’s action... So, it’s time for his family to pay the price!"

Ellia’s expression turned grim. The Lightning Emperor wasn’t joking around this time.

She thought she had to do it because she wanted to prevent Abel’s family from retaliating. Ellia could fend for herself due to her background, but she wanted to remove them so that they couldn’t threaten Auric.

Since the Lightning Emperor wanted to do it personally, there was no reason for her to reject it.

"I understand. I’ll take care of the cleanup here."

The Lightning Emperor didn’t say anything else. He simply nodded and walked away.

Without the support of other wealthy families or elites, Abel’s family couldn’t withstand the wrath of the Lightning Emperor.

However, the people in this city weren’t aware of what exactly happened to them. They only knew that three days later, Abel’s family completely vanished from the city. People speculated that they had relocated to a different city, thinking that they were too embarrassed after Abel created that mess, so they wanted to move to a different city and start anew.

Only a few people knew that this family had died at the hands of the Lightning Emperor. No one said anything because they were aware of what had happened.