In a single instant, Rughsbourgh was rendered incapable of movement. Still, he was smiling. Death lurked at him from every angle his eyes could turn to.
Yet his eerie, emotionless smile never wavered. His eyes, even, never left the point they had originally fixed upon.
Northern staggered back, his eyes widening as he stared at the razor-sharp nails that Bairan had intercepted. He had been caught off guard and had never even seen the attack coming.
Which meant that if Bairan had not appeared to halt that hand, he most likely would have lost an eye to Rughsbourgh?
After all his boasting? All his preparations to welcome the source of his suffering?!
Northern was bitterly disappointed in himself. He had an excuse but refused to take it at all!
Rughsbourgh's return had nearly claimed his eyes right away!
He gritted his teeth internally, glaring at the man standing before him with that ominous smile.
Rughsbourgh looked so different from two years ago. It was, in fact, utterly impossible for him to have grown this much.
But Northern had long since abandoned normal reasoning since hearing that the young child had once been the Principal of the academy too.
So as startling as the new appearance was, it wasn't so surprising.
Annette was overwhelmed and confused. One moment, she was trying to console Northern; the next, a man was there. Barely a second had passed before the entire place was swarming with monstrous existences.
Entities that made her bones feel ice-cold in her body. The atmosphere was charged with such terror that she felt like she was shrinking.
Not to mention the man they surrounded—why did he suddenly feel like the most dangerous of them all?
Annette came from a renowned family. Before being banished, she had walked alongside many strong people on familiar terms, especially as a child. Even throughout her experience as a drifter, she had encountered countless powerful individuals—a few times she had even crossed paths with two of the princes of Reimgard.
And yet…
Never had anyone's presence threatened to crush her into a bloody pulp.
Something was terribly wrong, and she could feel it deep within her soul.
Vida behind her was trembling, her legs frozen despite wanting to retreat, afraid that she might make even the slightest sound in the desolate silence.
Eventually, the cornered man tilted his head slightly, surveying all that surrounded him.
"Intriguing. Void and Chaos. You accomplished this much with it. I don't think even the Chaos Prince came this far."
Northern's brows furrowed.
'He knows about the Chaos Prince?'
Of course he knew about the Chaos Prince. If he could discover it, then many other drifters probably had as well. And Rughsbourgh would undoubtedly know more than the top 10% of drifters did.
"Don't look so bewildered. Naturally, I had a vague understanding of the things Koll was plotting. And the Chaos Prince was common knowledge for everyone who has ventured into more than ten rifts. Maybe recent rifts are different, but back in those days, rifts were filled with ruins and hieroglyphs that revealed the history of the underworld to us. I suppose you know about the underworld too."
Northern remained silent, watching carefully and offering no response. The atmosphere felt frigid—too cold—despite the seemingly accommodating air Rughsbourgh wore.
Nebulous Lord growled, his sharp, slitted eyes blazing with white light.
The rest of them seemed to react as well. Then suddenly, in a blink, Rughsbourgh was standing before Northern alone, smiling.
"As I was saying… you have grown. Despite everything the dark continent might have offered to tear you apart, instead you tore it apart and rose above it all."
Rughsbourgh wore a smile, gazing at Northern like a creator admiring his finest creation with a satisfied grin.
Meanwhile, Northern was bewildered. He frowned, unable to grasp what had just happened.
Everything appeared exactly as it had been before. But all of his summons were gone—even Bairan and Revant. All of them had suddenly vanished.
And Rughsbourgh regarded him as if he hadn't just done something extraordinary.
At least he could sense their presence, so they weren't completely gone or dead. They were simply within his soul.
'How did he do that?'
"...look at you. The dark continent plan worked! Stars, I thought I was mad, that I was going too far!"
He smiled, gazing at Northern with gentle eyes.
"But seeing you comforts my soul. I was never wrong. The harshest battles indeed forge the greatest warriors. Look at you! JUST LOOK AT YOU!"
Northern scowled at the man, grimacing with such a dark expression that shadows seemed to coil around his face. He could almost taste the vile bitterness of disgust on his tongue.
"You are insane. You are mad. You are the most deranged being to ever exist. You set such a towering standard for madness that you make mentally deranged people seem sane."
He slowly rose to his feet, Annette and Vida watching him.
"You took hundreds of students, every year sent them to a continent swarming with monsters, tore them from their families, dumped them in a realm to suffer and die as though they were worthless livestock. You call that strength?! You made them suffer—people DIED!"
The veins on Northern's forehead bulged.
Rughsbourgh bore no particular expression. He simply looked down with a dark glare that made him seem like an ascended being judging those beneath him.
Then he grinned.
"You're angry? Good, good. Hold onto it—sharpen it. It means the lesson was seared into your bones."
He gestured vaguely.
"The students. Ah… yes. They did scream. They bled. They died…"
His grin widened, twisted and vile.
"Yet look at you… you crawled out. You survived. You conquered."
He leaned in slightly, his voice a dark whisper like corrupted gospel.
"Tell me, Northern: would you undo it? Would you trade the experiences for them? Would you let go of who you've become just to spare them?"
Northern glared at him as he continued.
"You call it madness. I call it refinement. You see ashes—I see forged iron. Consider what the legends gave us: peace that made men fragile, comfort that stole all will, a generation of soft clay pretending to be stone. I shattered the clay."
His gaze grew calm, soft…
"And what rose from it… was you."
He nodded gently, his lips turning downward with graceful indifference.
"I don't blame you. In fact, I expected you would hate me, curse me. That's how I knew it would work. Hatred is honest—it proves I cut deep enough. The world has no place for mercy, young man. I didn't prepare children to live. I prepared them to endure what should have destroyed them."
Northern glared at him, horrified by the madness Rughsbourgh was almost weaving into sense.
"You used us like animals. You butchered teenagers! There is no lesson in slaughter. You murdered people!"
Rughsbourgh smiled.
"Many were killed, indeed. You could call it slaughter, but there's another way to see it—sacrifice, more accurately. But let's not pretend you didn't benefit."
His voice grew distant, as if he were speaking across centuries of war and death.
"Every great nation was built on corpses. Every hero stepped over the bones of the weak. I merely stripped away the illusion that life was kind."
He looked at Northern with a tender expression and placed his hand gently on Northern's shoulder, dismissing the relevance of distance.
"Do not grieve for them. They are the reason you exist. And in the end, boy, I believe that made their deaths worthwhile."