Chapter 233
Although the scene of torture and stripping was already enough to make him feel sick, at least Aldraya's life was still being held in place, and his head remained attached to his shoulders.
That was a gap, an opportunity that was still open.
A profound sense of revulsion struck Theo as he witnessed—perhaps even from afar sensed—the depraved intent and actions of Ilux.
The act of removing ninety percent of Aldraya's clothing was not merely an act of physical violence, but a perversion of the very core of a character Theo believed he understood.
For Ilux Rediona, in Theo's eyes, was not simply a rebellious student, but also the main protagonist of Flo Viva Mythology.
To see his own creation—who should have carried seeds of courage and a certain moral compass, even in a different iteration—fall into wanton depravity without the slightest justification made nausea surge within Theo.
'Primary Productivity is operating exactly as designed.
Silent, stable, without emotion.
And when Secondary Productivity opens, symbols lose their meaning.'
Beyond the domain walls isolating the existential battle between teacher and student, the wheels of the world continued to turn with ruthless indifference.
The Star Academy, long a beacon of knowledge and discipline standing in proud grandeur, instead became the most efficient and merciless stage of resolution in Theo's hands.
Once he decided to intervene, there was no pause for reflection or mercy.
His mind functioned like a supreme algorithm, mapping every life within the academy complex as a variable in a vast equation.
Those variables had to be eliminated not out of hatred, but because they possessed the potential to disrupt the constants of his plan.
The Primary Productivity he wielded did not manifest as a rampage of cosmic force, but as a stable, silent, and lethal erasure engine.
It operated with the precision of a surgeon excising a tumor, where even healthy tissue must be sacrificed if it obstructed the surgical path.
Grand corridors once echoing with discussion, training halls filled with spirited shouts, and classrooms heavy with dreams were, in a short span of time, transformed into empty mass graves.
Their function as places of growth vanished, replaced by their role as the final destination for nearly all who inhabited them.
Instructors and staff acting in the name of the institution approached the scene believing the academy's authority still applied.
They were not villains, merely executors of duty who trusted the system that had raised them.
That trust, however, was severed before it could crystallize into any coherent strategy.
Theo cut every thread of their coordination at a speed that surpassed survival instinct.
Every individual detected as having the capacity—or even the mere potential—to interfere with his plan was treated equally.
Neutralized.
There were no trials, no moral considerations of service or tenure.
Those eliminated might have been elite Lu Core experts, revered martial instructors, or the most brilliant Human Change prodigies.
Yet before the cold logic of Primary Productivity, they were all the same.
Numbers that needed to be reduced to zero.
In Theo's narrative, the Star Academy was a closed system that failed to detect the threat arising from within itself, and he appeared as the final correction, bringing no mercy with him.
The selected students, deemed talented or well-connected, were never given explanations.
For them, the end arrived abruptly, without warning and without meaning.
Within an objective framework of "telling," the event was nothing more than a cold statistic.
Ninety-nine percent of the academy's active population vanished in a consistent, cascading operation.
There was no heroic rebellion that succeeded, no touching moment of sacrifice.
There existed only an unbridgeable gulf between Theo's fully premeditated capacity and their efforts, still confined to the logic of conventional combat.
Primary Productivity ensured that every spark of resistance was extinguished at its source, turning the heart of education into a void that lost not only lives, but also its narrative pulse as a community.
The culmination of this resolution was a brief encounter with the academy's vice headmaster.
Hierarchically, that meeting should have been the ultimate confrontation, the final bastion of tradition and legitimate authority.
Yet it was precisely in that moment that all illusions of equal power collapsed.
Theo did not need to debate or negotiate.
When the vice headmaster attempted to marshal all of his authority and strength, Theo merely allowed his Secondary Productivity to ignite.
It was not an outburst of rage, but an expansion of control so vast that all of the opponent's abilities appeared obsolete and archaic.
The vice headmaster's defeat was swift and absolute.
Not because he was weak, but because the system he relied upon had already been removed from the chessboard by Theo.
That defeat marked the final point, the signifier of the Star Academy's collapse not merely as a collection of buildings, but as an authoritative idea.
For Theo, none of this was an episode laden with emotional weight.
He felt neither pride nor regret.
The memory of those events was stored neatly as a series of inevitable logical steps within a larger process of reconfiguration.
While Aldraya and Ilux were consumed by their private drama within the domain bubble, Theo had already completed his foundational work in the real world.
He dismantled all infrastructure capable of intervention, severed the chains of resistance, and ensured that the next narrative would unfold upon a stage he had personally cleared.
In the silence following that suppression, the message was clear.
What occurred was not uncontrolled chaos, but a regime change executed with the most ruthless precision.
A new beginning built upon sterilized ground.
"If anyone deserves punishment, it is indeed him.
Not because of who he is, but because of the impact he left behind.
An action remains an action, no matter how tragic the consequences that follow."
Back within the tense moment inside the dusty cave, Ilux's irritation boiled to the surface of his narrowed eyes.
Theo's arrival was not merely a disturbance.
It was a theft.
He had stolen the climax of absolute dominance, the dark pleasure already at the threshold, and replaced it with a humiliating interruption.
The rage that had previously been vented through wild elemental attacks now crystallized into a sarcastic, hatred-laced justification.
Ilux no longer looked at the limp Aldraya with lust, but with an anger seeking legitimacy.
With a voice sharp with venom yet striving to sound rational, Ilux began to speak, redirecting focus from his exposed depravity toward a narrative of justice and punishment.
He accused Aldraya, highlighting the fallen teacher's actions that had devastated much of the Star Academy's space.
Every word he uttered about the destruction of classrooms, corridors, and halls was an attempt to recast himself not as a violator or usurper, but as an enforcer of law, someone who merely wished to see the destroyer punished according to the scale of his crimes.
He painted himself as a party invested in the academy's order, as though all his prior atrocities were simply components of a greater judicial process that had been interrupted.
'One Point, Nine Acupuncture Nodes Completed.'
Theo offered no verbal response.
There was no rebuttal, no debate, not even a glance acknowledging Ilux's words.
To Theo, the self-justification spewed by his former student was nothing but empty noise, narrative clutter unworthy of attention.
His actions spoke louder, clearer, and more directly.
With a calm bordering on boredom, his right hand moved toward the hilt of the sword resting at his waist.
To be continued…