The first wave of evacuation had already swarmed off from the Castles as the artificial island of the Infinite Academy started falling from the sky. Though without any information relayed about what was happening, the only thing in the air besides the chariots was a sense of panic.

“Here! We have people trapped in here!”

“Help! I…I can’t move!”

“We need more char…chariots! Wait…I think…normal chariots also work now!”

And when the first individual used their own Chariot Cast, the rest followed. Each of the students from all around, regardless of who they are or which college they are from, started evacuating everyone away from the academy itself.

They all felt the moment when Mus unleashed his Melodic Disruption, and more than a handful of weaker students couldn’t even withstand the initial onslaught from that far away, let alone be able to think and move rationally in the aftermath.

Then, they saw the castle of the kings and queens explode, leading to only more chaos and dread as the fates of their countries leaders became unclear. Though from the looks of the swarms of golden chariots flying in all directions around them, those leaders instead did what they were known to be doing best during times of crisis.

Getting the hell out of there.

“Gods, do not bargain.”

Principal Khan reiterated, activating all of the Casts which were encoded into each of the individual sand grains before Mus and Mila were bombarded with a blinding amount of Casts all compounded at the same time. There were bouts of shock waves, surging dragons made out of fire and ice, tornadoes that brought along shards of rocks, poisonous gases, toxic haze and more.

Then, as Principal Khan turned his head down, trying to use the first batch of Casts to revitalize the Cast behind the propulsion of the island, Mus’s screech tore through the Casts he had just applied as Mila dropped down onto the ground with her hands glowing red like molten lava.

“Tsk!” Principal Khan dashed back, avoiding Mus when he unleashed a Crackling Snap at point blank range.

“Arcane Protection!” Principal Khan said, turning the back of his wrist to face Mus as he landed a hard kick onto the surface of the blue shield, the sound of a drumbeat rocking in the background as Mus slammed his feet down and in.

However, as the shield contorted, instead wrapping around Mus’s ankle like quick sand and locking him in place as the Principal conjured up yet more offensive Casts around his body. Though Mus created yet another shield with his voice just as fast as the instant it took to activate the offensive Casts for Principal Khan.

He let out an audible sound of frustration as Mus’ shield shoved his own Arcane Protection aside and freed his ankle once again. However, even as he deflected Mus’ attacks further, Mila was running rampant down near the ground, her glowing hands and feet interacting with the earth itself as she started tearing apart Khan’s strengthening Casts with her own attacks.

However, right as Principal Khan was about to attack Mila, Mus intercepted, peeling away for her as each of them fulfilled their tactical roles in this plan. Now, the ball is in Principal Khan’s court, and he had been in enough battles to know what’s a losing one. Though ever since he reached the heights of becoming a Heavenly Pillar, defeats had been mostly unheard of.

“You want to save everything, don’t you.” Mus asked, reaching out with his hands towards Principal Khan, “Hand over your key, and we will leave here and never return.”

“I will not sacrifice everything to save just one thing.” Principal Khan stood steady, though his eyes were wavering. For all of its good and faults, the infinite academy was still decades of his life, the products of all of his hard work! He…he cannot let it all go away…

“Go!” Noland Khan said, throwing a single grain of sand as it grew from the moment it left his finger, “Just know that you have made an enemy of one of the Ten Heavenly Pillars.”

“I had also made allies of a few.”

The grain expanded into a tiny statue of a man holding up a book overhead and Mus grabbed onto it and immediately dashed away, taking Mila down on the ground in the process.

Then, Noland Khan’s own body dropped down onto the ground, his hands fully reached out as he sensed for the spanning structure Casts that had been imprinted into the floating island ever since the birth of the Academy itself.

Worse yet, the actual island itself had started to break apart from the inside, now no longer held together by the pressure from the propulsion Casts blasting away Wave in all directions outward.

With a quick calculation in his head, Khan realized that it would be far more efficient to simply evacuate and save everyone. He turned hands upside down, morphing all of the pre-made Casts forcibly into chariots of various shapes and sizes, and, for the first time, invited everybody in.

“The Principal…the principal is here to save us!” Some of the students sprinted into the chariots nearby as it lifted off. Then, Principal Khan himself turned around, summoning his own Casts before trying to track down the Wave of those invaders, only for them to have gone too far away to be detected.

“Have we gone far enough?” Mila asked as Mus practiced a single phrase back and forth. Then, he eyeballed the distance before giving it a shrug and a harmonic hum, the concentrated beam shoving through the air like a rocket as it expanded in size with the distance traveled, eventually pushing on the side of the free-falling island as it started gliding towards the nearest continent, a port city in the Ethereal Realm.

“What now?!” Principal Khan cursed, surging up into the air as the vague dark outlines of the Eastern Continent came into view. He gasped, cursing before drawing out more and more of his own Wave into creating the thousands of more Chariots. Be it pets, animals, students, exiled, or whoever or whatever, he needed to get everyone off this rock.

The plaza was cleared of the students again and again as waves of Chariots lifted off, however, more and more seemed to have spawned out from nowhere, sharing only the same expressions of fear. Principal Khan looked through all of the faces when suddenly, he heard a familiar voice call out.

“Noland!” John’s weakened voice came through from behind, and a bloodied bruised Shaila helped move him out of a rubble. His ankle broke in their fall though he used all of his Wave to shield Shaila in the process.

“John! Get in!” Principal Khan quickly said, “Let’s…just get out of here now. We don’t have much time.”

Speaking of time, traveling briefly back in time to when Wu’s squad reunited when they had each defeated their assigned opponents. They were able to group up and recoup some of their strengths, though the effects of their fatigue were certainly noticeable.

However, Fatera, Lily, Braka, and Ver can mostly take care of themselves. Thanks to Lera’s healing Casts, the rest were able to at least return to somewhat of a fighting shape. Though as the floating castle exploded and the yellow tint from Principal Khan’s shrinking bubble vanished from above, every single one of them knew something was wrong.

It was so horribly wicked, that all of the Wave users around Wu let out a simultaneously pained grunt, with his own Void suit heating up.

“What…was that…?” Lera asked, a hand resting over her chest as Fatera shook her head with confusion. Augen’s face looked paler than before, and he dropped down low to the ground, lips mumbling something fast.

“No no no no…not like this not happening now it can’t be I thought we…”

“Augen! What is happening?!” Wu cut him off quickly.

“What…what I saw happened.” Augen said, turning towards Wu with a look of despair over his face, “The destruction of this place…the start of the end…it’s…it’s happening exactly as I saw it…”

“But you only saw flashes of details back then right?!” Fatera interjected, “We can fix this!”

That was when suddenly, Wu felt a strange lifting sensation as his weight started feeling lighter on the feet.

Oh no…Wu knew exactly what was happening, and he did not like where things are heading.

“I saw only flashes of this…” Augen grasped onto his head before making up his mind, drawing out his Forbidden Winter card, “I will…I need to see more!”

“Augen.” Wu said, grasping onto his hands as countless chariots whizzed overhead, “If you are looking ahead in time-”

“Not now!” Augen shot back, but Wu stood firm.

“Look to see how much time we have before we all free fall to our deaths.” Wu said, “Time is the single most important factor right now!’

“There are chariots here too!” Ver shouted, pointing to a handful of those that landed softly next to them in the grass.

Augen nodded his head, and he turned to Fatera who sprinted next to him and placed her hand over his body, transferring Wave to support his efforts. With the card floating in front of his face, Augen’s head rapidly cocked back as he activated his Forbidden Winter: Window of Burning Future.

To him, it was literally a future set ablaze. Sliding forward in the hazy passage of time, it didn’t take long before the headache started overwhelming his frail body. He grunted painfully, nearly ejected out of the Casts when Fatera knelt beside him and held him firmly.

He remained silent for what felt like an eternity as the rest of them waited on chariots, and when he pulled his head back with his skin pale like paper, his voice was trembling and weak.

“It’s…it’s crashing towards a city…” Augen said, “A port city out west, in the Ethereal Realm…”

Everyone turned their head towards Ver, who clenched her fist with her eyes bulged open.

“How much time do we have?” Wu asked rapidly.

“Minutes…we have minutes…” Augen said, slumping, “There…might be time to send out a warning…”

“A warning is not going to do anything…” Ver said through gritted teeth.

“No…” Wu scratched his head out of frustration. Countless thoughts raced through his head. PORA, their plan, Varous, Joseph and Jolyne, the college-less students, Ita and the Ville students, the other Illiol students…but right now, he must focus on one thing and one thing only.

Time.

It was as if he was back in high school physics class. Staring at the equation of motion, as only a cold hard answer remained in front of him. For what it was worth, they had failed. Joseph had failed, Jolyne had failed, every single one of the generals had failed. It was unbelievable, outlandish even, to think someone can overpower all of them, but none of that mattered now.

Right now, he needed to make a stand, and he needed to do…something. The energy of an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, and though the island cannot even compare remotely to the destructive energy of an interstellar object, the blow to the Ethereal Realm and the Eastern continent would be unthinkable.

Before saving the entire world, he needed to save this island and all those people in the Ethereal Realm. And to do that, he needed to fight against the critical factor of time.