The Vengeful Extra's Ascension

The world shifted the moment Albedo activated his Source Code, the blue of his eyes fracturing into an array of violet and golden colors as glyphs bloomed within his vision, spirals of runes, numbers, and radiant sigils overlaying the physical world like a veil peeled back from reality.

To Albedo, the Garden was now no longer alive, but instead was just a flood of written magical code. Every root, every leaf, every drop of dew was a glyph pulsing with intent, and corruption.

Using Source Code, he immediately could spot threads of Abyssal Power worming through the natural patterns like veins of rot, black and violet tendrils of forbidden code.

They pulsed in sync with the tremors beneath the soil, a malignant heartbeat trying to overwrite the Garden's will. It was the exact proof he needed to confirm that this phenomena was artificial, and forced.

He could see where the corruption clustered, beneath the roots of the Monarch, sigils layered like infections, crawling upward through the soil and spreading to every plant. Each rune was burning, shifting, alive in a language only the Abyss spoke.

"Wards are Collapsing!" Elara's hurried voice cut through his focus, and Albedo eventually tore his gaze from the runes.

"Albedo!" Miranda's voice cut through the noise. "Wards are collapsing!"

Around them, the students had formed loose defensive rings beneath the Monarch's canopy, the only sanctuary where the corruption hesitated to encroach.

Arannis's massive sigil still glowed across the ground, vines sprouting from its perimeter to hold back the onslaught, but cracks were spreading through it like fractures in glass.

Raphaeline had already moved with many of the others Professors, flying off to look for the precise source of this phenomena.

Everywhere else, chaos reigned.

Roots exploded from the ground, twisting into monstrous shapes, hydra-headed flowers with fanged maws, trees splitting apart as humanoid forms clawed free of their bark.

The Garden's beauty was dissolving into nightmare, an ecosystem tearing itself apart in blind, furious resurrection.

Lightning snapped through the fog as Zeus swung his Battle Axe, arcs of gold slicing through a vine as thick as a horse's neck. "They just keep coming!"

Elara's spectral wards flared, layers of green light blossoming around the group like petals. "These aren't normal plants, they feed on our magic!"

"Then stop feeding them!" Zeus barked, ripping his Axe free from the twitching roots.

A shriek cut through the air — one of the smaller students, caught by a whip of thorned ivy that dragged her toward a yawning bloom.

Before she could even scream again, a flicker of green intercepted it as Arannis unleashed another spell, the vine disintegrating into burning ash.

"Regroup," he shouted, his voice carrying the weight of command, "Demons, hold the ward. The others, focus on defense spells, no direct casting, it only strengthens them,"

Albedo raised his hand, runes spilling from his palm in fractal precision. Fractal Casting: Flare.

A spiral of blue fire burst outward, tearing through a wall of creeping brambles before they could encircle Saphira's position.

Saphira had been standing next to the tree the entire time. Instead of attacking the plants, she had focused her attention on the Weeping Monarch, her hair shimmering as she used her power to analyze the Monarch's changes.

"The Monarch is resisting," she murmured, her tone both reverent and mournful. "But it's losing a battle,"

Albedo stepped beside her, his vision still laced with Source Code's projections. "Someone's forcing the Cycle, Abyssal runes are rooted under the core. The corruption's rewriting the mana formations. If it spreads to the Monarch's heart, this whole garden will collapse into a singularity."

Saphira's eyes glinted with faint golden flame, "Then we stop it before it does."

Before Albedo could respond, a shudder tore through the clearing. The Monarch's roots flexed violently, and a massive bloom erupted near its base, towering above the group.

One of the flowers near the Monarch had transformed. Now, it was a maw.

A spiraling blossom of jagged petals like glass teeth, oozing black ichor, the scent of decay rolling from it in waves. Its core burned with crimson light, the same sigils Albedo had seen beneath the soil now etched across its flesh.

"Get back!" Arannis roared, thrusting his hands forward. His spell sigils detonated, releasing spears of silver-green energy that skewered the abomination. The blast tore chunks from the blossom, but it didn't die, it simply screamed, the sound vibrating through bone and air alike.

~FEED~UNMAKE!~

The voice wasn't physical. It bled directly into their minds.

Several students dropped to their knees, clutching their heads. Elara's wards flickered. Even Miranda stumbled, her eyes momentarily going glassy before she forced her focus back, dragging her magic into geometric stability.

The scream of the monstrous bloom hadn't even faded when the air distorted. A low hum — deep, resonant, unnatural, rippled through the Garden, shaking the roots beneath their feet.

The crimson runes crawling across the corrupted flora began to pulse faster, as if excited by blood.

Arannis turned sharply, his silver hair whipping in the heated air. "Stay back!" he barked, raising his staff.

He began tracing counter-seals in the air, sigils of brilliant emerald light forming like petals around him, but before he could complete the chain, a new glyph bloomed beneath his feet.

It was Abyssal black.

"Arannis, move!" Albedo shouted, but too late. The Elven Professor's eyes widened as the ground swallowed his spell, swallowing him with it.

The warp erupted, a column of swirling violet and black energy that roared like a hurricane. His barrier shattered, mana scattering like glass, and in an instant, the light of his presence vanished.

"Professor!" Celeste screamed, reaching out before Lilian yanked her back. The only thing left where Arannis had stood was a jagged crater, filled with flickering shadows.

Albedo's vision surged, Source Code fracturing to accommodate the sudden burst of data. He could still see Arannis's essence, fragmented, pulled into a collapsing dimensional fold. Abyssal magic. A precision strike, designed to isolate and consume.

"Damn it," he muttered, gritting his teeth. "He's been pulled into an Abyssal Sub-layer. They're trying to remove the stabilizers."

Saphira's head tilted slightly toward the distortion. Her pupils constricted into sharp golden slits. "Good luck here, don't die,"

She said, golden flame spiraling around her body as she vanishes in a flash of draconic light that burned away the residual Abyssal runes near the crater.

The group barely had time to adjust to the loss of all of their strongest combat power as roots the size of towers erupted from the earth, thrashing like titans.

Dozens of blossoms tore open in unison, each birthing an abomination, half-plant, half-creature, shaped like mockeries of beasts. Their forms shimmered with black mana, eyes glowing red from deep within the flesh of vines and petals.

Each one radiated power, Amethyst Rank at the very minimum. The students' mana signatures spiked in panic. Lightning, fire, earth, and wind spells detonated in panicked unison, a storm of raw desperation that did nothing but feed the Garden.

The monsters grew stronger.

"Stop casting blindly!" Albedo shouted, his voice cutting through the chaos like steel. "Pull back, form a circle around the Monarch! Shrink the perimeter!"

Zeus, already covered in sweat and blood, spun toward him. "We'll be trapped if we do that!"

"We're already trapped," Albedo snapped, his gaze hard, his Source Code flaring brighter. "We either hold here or get picked apart one by one!"

"You heard him! Move!" Celeste roared, and Fade also commanded her Elven group to follow the commands.

The group began to contract inward. Elara, Miranda, and a handful of other capable casters layered defensive barriers around the Monarch's roots, their magic flickering under the strain. The air grew thicker, the smell of ozone and burnt mana stinging their lungs.

Dozens of abominations converged as the Garden looked to be breaking apart, trees convulsing into tangled spires of thorns and petals melting into fleshy growths.

The Weeping Monarch's tears had turned black, dripping molten darkness that hissed when it touched the ground.

The abominations closed in, a wall of motion, vines lashing, claws tearing, their forms unstable, phasing in and out of focus like corrupted data. Their screams blended with the groan of the Monarch's roots as if the entire forest was howling in agony.

Albedo's hands moved faster than sight. Runes bled from his fingertips in fractal precision, looping, spiraling, colliding, thousands of micro-seals constructed in an instant.

"Fractal Construct, Defensive Web!"

A lattice of interwoven light surged upward, forming a dome of geometric sigils that shimmered like glass. When the first abomination struck, the air rippled, reality flexing, and the beast was hurled back, its corrupted mana dispersing harmlessly into sparks.

"Don't cast offensively," Albedo ordered, his voice taut with focus. "Channel into my pattern, feed only through the secondary arrays!"

Elara's eyes widened as she caught on. "You're redirecting our energy through a passive loop?"

"Exactly," he said, sweat running down his jaw, "Direct casting strengthens them. But indirect mana through coded barriers, "

"Starves them," Miranda finished, already shifting her spell pattern.

The barrier pulsed brighter, the color shifting from blue to gold, the runes rotating in synchronized motion. Every abomination that struck the shield met resistance it couldn't consume. Its tendrils burned, its aura destabilized.

Still, they kept coming.

Vines slammed down like falling towers, gouging trenches into the soil. The entire clearing shook, dirt rising like smoke. Zeus braced himself against a surge, cleaving a writhing root apart before it could crush two students.

"These bastards don't die!" he snarled.

"They're not meant to," Albedo muttered, his voice calm but edged with strain. "They're self-resurrecting mana constructs. They'll keep reforming unless the Abyssal source is cut."

He raised one hand, his left eye glowing with layered runes, the iris fracturing into concentric glyphs. His voice lowered to a murmur that almost wasn't human, the sound of logic itself spoken aloud.

"Source Code: Reversal Node."