Chapter 91: Blinding Light of Nothing

The light blinded him, even though Steven had been running in the completely opposite direction.

The shockwave easily shattered his barrier, sending him flying forward through the corridor.

Flipping a few times across the ground, Steven finally came to a stop against one of the walls, leaving a crater inside it.

Lying against the wall, his gaze fell on the spot he had just come from.

Steven saw the front of the ship—or what remained of it.

It honestly looked more like a crater than anything else.

As if something had forcefully ripped the other side of the ship away, it had simply disappeared completely.

The rest of the still-standing ship began to crack.

The explosion had been much stronger than expected.

With a loud bang, the ceiling above him collapsed onto the ground.

But instead of stopping there, it crashed through the floor into the next deck, and then even further down.

Slowly daring himself to move, he could only feel a blinding pain in his back as he forced himself forward.

Looking behind him, he saw multiple steel

rods embedded inside the wall, now painted with blood from his back.

"FUCK!" He screamed as he fell onto his knees. Everything had gone completely wrong.

Not only had the explosion destroyed the boat, but Steven couldn’t feel Alem’s mana at all anymore.

Watching the ship slowly fall apart, the remaining floor beneath him began to split apart as a gigantic crack revealed itself.

In just a few moments, Steven watched it grow even further, spreading through multiple walls.

He could nearly see the backside of the ship from his location.

Stumbling backward, panic filled him as he realized what he had done.

This had all been his fault.

But even then, his mission wasn’t done.

He forced himself onto his feet.

His body felt like it was about to give up.

But he didn’t.

Using wind magic to fly over the destroyed floor, he slowly made his way toward where Alem had last been.

Not that there was anything left to see.

Rather, he was looking for whatever had been destroyed in the explosion.

And it wasn’t hard to find.

In the exact center of the crater, where water was already beginning to flow back in, there was a singular glowing light.

Flying through the air, he quickly managed to reach it as the water began to rise over his barrier.

He dove deeper until the light was nearly bright enough to blind him.

Opening his hand, he tried to grab whatever was in front of him.

But just as he was about to reach it...

It stopped completely.

The light disappeared into nothingness, returning the darkness of the night.

"What?"

He spoke despite being underwater, his barrier leaving him with only a limited amount of air to breathe.

Creating a small sphere of light magic in his hand, he searched for whatever had been there just a moment ago.

But there was nothing.

Only water.

Followed by darkness.

Moving out of the water, he tried to continue the search.

But the more he looked, the more hopeless it became.

It was as if there had never been anything there in the first place.

For a moment, Steven even began to believe that his mind was playing tricks on him.

Then another explosion went off behind him.

Steven quickly turned his gaze back toward the ship.

The runic machine room probably couldn’t handle this much damage. It was destroying itself in the process.

Turning his gaze one last time toward the ocean, Steven spoke in a whisper.

"I will finish what you couldn’t, Alem. I would’ve loved being your colleague."

Flying back toward the ship, he could see the panic spreading across the deck.

Students were running around without any idea where to go.

Even worse, the explosion had hit mostly the staff chambers, meaning there were barely any people left to take care of them.

"Ahh! Help me!" Someone screamed below him.

Steven instantly began descending, searching for whoever had called out.

"Where are you? Answer me! Help is on the way!" He yelled, searching through the debris for anyone who needed help.

"Help... me..."

The voice called out again, much weaker this time.

Steven could finally feel the person’s mana.

He was trapped beneath a gigantic steel pillar.

Grabbing it with one hand, Steven raised it into the air and stared at the person beneath it.

It was a young male student, barely an adult. His body was pierced by nearly a dozen steel rods.

The student stared at him in fear, his gaze already becoming unfocused.

"Hold on."

Steven dashed forward, grabbing the boy by the arm and pulling him out of the rubble.

The boy’s pained screams could easily have been heard across the entire ship if there hadn’t been dozens of others screaming around them.

"Please... I don’t want to die..."

The student spoke, his voice barely above a whisper as he stared at his wounds.

"And I won’t let you die."

Steven spoke.

But instead of instantly giving the boy medical attention, Steven focused on himself.

The mana in the air around them began vibrating.

He had lifted the seal from his own body.

Any movement he made now could easily become lethal to anyone in his path.

But at the same time, it would allow him to survive far more than he normally could.

With nothing more than a movement of his finger, every single steel rod flew into the sky, disintegrating into nothingness.

Even then, his body moved at the same time.

His finger drew a green runic symbol through the air.

The boy’s wounds began to heal at a visible speed as color slowly returned to the poor student’s face.

He had already lost consciousness from the pain.

But before even a single second had passed, Steven grabbed the student and threw him away from the ship, toward the water where an ice platform had already begun forming.

Watching the boy crash-land onto it, Steven had already found his next target.

There was no stopping him now.