"Guhyak!" The language teacher screamed, clutching her head in pain, crouching to the floor, her screams shocking the students to alarm. Seeing her, the students rushed towards her, concern plastered across their faces.
"Get…back…get…ba…ck…" Faint murmurs echoed from the language teacher, the contents being incomprehensible to the students who surrounded her, trying to help her regain balance. Jyorta stood among the crowd, his eyes vacant, a devilish grin plastered across his face. Standing opposite to him—the language teacher kneeled on the ground between them—Laila happened to notice his expression when she tried to call for the teacher from a nearby class, rooting her to the spot in shock.
Just when she broke out of her stupor, Laila noticed Jyorta facing her, a happy expression akin to a caged beast regaining freedom etched on his face. Suddenly, followed by a powerful shriek, the language teacher flailed her arms, sending the concerned students flying away from the impact.
Students standing at the outer circle stumbled on the nearby tables and chairs, scrapping their knees and arms. The unfortunate ones hit their heads on the edges of the furniture, making them fall unconscious. The ones on the inner circle, consisting of Laila, Jyorta, and a few other unfortunate students felt the brunt of the impact, feeling their bones creaking while their organs felt damaged.
Laying atop an unconscious student, Laila clutched her left hand, controlling her tears that spilled out amidst her pain, the pain of having her arm broken. She winced in pain, looking at the language teacher in fear. She noticed Jyorta had fallen atop a table, his legs barely touching the ground while his head rested atop the backrest of a chair.
Traces of blood leaked out of his mouth, his face twisted due to the pain, a small depression evident in his chest region, the place that suffered the brunt of the impact. His eyes blurry, Jyorta looked at the shadow that loomed before him, the visage of the language teacher barely present.
She seemed to have grown a head taller, her face filled with blisters that continued to solidify, shaping into marks that covered her face, changing her structure, adding to her defences. The tips of her fingers elongated, the nails and the part below it fusing into one entity. The length of her arms increased while her legs turned into two stumps, the muscles across it fattening up, filled with explosive strength, ripping her lower garment to shreds.
Her eyes were filled with a crazed sense of desire, one filled with cravings for food, dilated into a scaly pattern, multiplied into two. The language teacher had lost control, having her ego destroyed and assimilated by the Wisdom Parasite in her, giving it full control over her body.
'This mutated body is lacking in the mental department, making even simple thoughts taking five times longer than normal to process. If not, I would have tried to make this my main body.' The subsoul thought, swiping its claws at the door, closing it shut to prevent the sounds from leaking out.
Though, judging by the commotion that had happened, the other teachers would have been alerted long ago, giving the subsoul a sparse few seconds to enact its plan to fruition. Not intending to take any chances, the subsoul controlled the mutated body of the language teacher, arriving before the body of Jyorta, ignoring his pleas of help.
Straining its claws, the subsoul sent it reeling into the stomach of Jyorta.
"Nooooo!" Laila shouted, spitting out a mouthful of blood that had collected in her throat, disregarding her injuries as she stood up, rushing to the help of Jyorta. The mutated language teacher paused for a second, straining her ears to hear the sounds echoing beyond the classroom.
"Damn you!" George shouted, anger clouding his face, having suppressed his fear. He rushed at the mutated language teacher, jumping at her arms, intending to strip them away from Jyorta.
"Hehehe," The mutated language teacher lifted her right arm—the one that had impaled Jyorta in his stomach—bringing with it a severed spinal cord. Jyorta's body flinched in reflex, having long lost consciousness from the pain. With a flick of her fingers, the piece of spinal cord smacked George in his face, suddenly making his lose balance.
"Aaargh!" George shouted; the only thing he could do after having his limbs perfectly severed from their sockets. The mutated language teacher threw George's severed right arm towards Laila, the impact making her lose consciousness. Noticing the condition of Jyorta by making use of her senses, the mutated language teacher sported a grin on her face, jumping to the back of the classroom and engaging in slaughter.
With a bang, the door to the classroom shattered, allowing the Principal to enter, her face mixed with a sense of fluster and anger. Looking at the messy state of the classroom, at the severed limbs of the students scattered all across the area, the Principal screamed in anger, pouncing at the mutated language teacher.
With a punch, she flattened the mutated language teacher's head into meat paste, her second punch breaking the chest region. Followed by that, she rained down 5 punches, smashing down the body of the mutated language teacher into a pool of blood. In the meantime, the Vice-Principal waved his hands, creating a formless force that lifted all the students and their respective remains, carrying them outside the classroom.
Making sure to treat them with care, the Vice-Principal hurriedly inspected their conditions, his face turning sombre the more he inspected. At the end of it, his expression was distraught, looking like he had encountered his worst nightmare. The other faculties, lead by the PT teacher had already formed a barricade, creating an enclosed path from the classroom to a secluded room, shielded from the eyes of the regular students.
"How are they? How many survived?" The Principal rushed out, asking in a hurry. The PT teacher looked at the Vice-Principal using his Unranked Skill, 'Regen' to treat the survivors as he shook his head.
"Only three have survived, two boys and one girl. The condition of the two boys is critical, having multiple organ failure."
"Give me a minute, I'll summon a Ground Controller from the Medicine Corps right away." The Principal rushed to her office, hurriedly setting up a transmission, seeking for help.
The Vice-Principal used the shielded path, carrying the three injured students to the secluded room, using the Healing energy to prevent them from losing their lives immediately. As a Wave Controller, his Unranked Skill wasn't potent enough to regenerate vital organs at a desirable speed, making him use the energy to stop the blood loss, preventing the children from dying.
'The injuries of the girl aren't serious. She has some internal bleeding, but her life wouldn't be at any risk for at least an hour or so. That is more than enough time for the Tier 4 expert from the Medicine Corps to arrive. The problem is with the other two. One has lost all limbs while the other has a severed spine, dammit.' Sweat formed on the forehead of the Vice-Principal, making his eyelids tremble.
Having just returned from a battle in the Wilds, the energy present in his body was running at an all-time low, making it difficult for him to last further. The pale-blue liquid flowing out of him, the healing energy that prevented George and Jyorta from dying was flickering with instability, showing signs of running dry.
"Sir," Laila muttered, having woken up due to the pain, looking at the Vice-Principal with tears, "Please save them, please, please."
"I will definitely save them. Don't worry." The Vice-Principal replied, trying his best to mask his feelings of despair. He had already used up the last reserves of energy in his body, switching over to burning his muscle mass, stalling for time, keeping the healing energy active. As every second passed, his body was thinning, the rate visible to the naked eye.
The unconscious Jyorta opened his lips, muttering something inaudible, the only proof being the trace shaking in his throat region. For some reason, the Vice-Principal felt like he should listen to what Jyorta muttered. He immediately segregated a bit of his energy, amplifying the sounds that formed in Jyorta's throat.
"…ware…shik…be…ware…of…Kaushik…beware…beware…"
"Beware of Kaushik," Laila muttered, her eyes lit up in shock. Over the past few weeks, she had heard Jyorta mention the name 'Kaushik' numerous times, asking them if they ever heard of such a person. Seeing him ask in all seriousness, they even searched up the name over the internet, consulting with their parents or browsing through the books in their school library, finding no luck.
The fact that the name appeared once again, from Jyorta, after suffering made many alarm bells ring up in Laila. Moreover, the face that Jyorta made before the language teacher, moments before she turned into a monster was still vivid in her memory.
"…Kaushik…" Laila muttered the name, clenching her fists, etching the name to her memories, never intending to forget it.
'I don't know who you are, but I will make you pay for this. Just you wait!' Her thoughts were interrupted as the Vice-Principal fell down, crashing on the ground with a thud. His body looked a stark contrast to his former self, looking fragile, becoming skin and bones. He heaved ragged breaths, his eyes cloudy as despair clouded his face, lamenting at the fact that he hadn't managed to save them.
Suddenly, bright blue light, like the descent of a tsunami appeared in the room, seeping into the bodies of the three children and the Vice-Principal. In a matter of seconds, the Vice-Principal had recovered enough muscle mass to move around.
The door opened as the teachers appeared, swatted to the sides amid their fluster. An old woman with a hunched back, wearing the uniform of a nurse walked in. No one dared to meet her gaze as she closed the door, making the room turn quiet. The blue light filling the room intensified, condensed into a sphere of blue mass, looking like water.
Three streams appeared from it, each entering the bodies of Laila, Jyorta, and George respectively. The old woman focused her gaze on Laila, waving her hands towards her. Laila immediately felt something enter her broken arm, roaming across it, rejoining the broken pieces back to their original place. The muscles also parted way, adjusting to their original positions as a blue light seeped through them, mending all the cracks. In a matter of seconds, Laila had made a complete recovery.
The old woman then focused her attention on George, her eyes squinting a little. She hurriedly stopped his bleeding, healing the severed regions until skin regrew. Seeing that George's condition was no longer life-threatening, the old woman focused her attention on Jyorta, her face scrunching up.
She then focused her attention, trying her best to heal him. The Vice-Principal looked at the scene, a sense of relief plastered across his face. There was a mixture of fear and worship on his face as he gazed at the old woman, controlling his urges to kneel before her, lest he disturbed her concentration.
'Thankfully, Madam Mary appeared. With her presence, the three children will definitely survive.' The Vice-Principal thought, wiping the sweat that had covered his forehead.
