F-Rank Soul Eater-Chapter 132: They Are Too Strong

...As if they were expecting something.

But aside raising his dagger to his face in a defensive stance, Soren said nothing.

One of the rune-laced cadets tilted his head.

The shifting neuralink glyphs across his throat slowed—then aligned.

He spoke.

"Blood of the Sacred..."

His voice echoed unnaturally, layered, as though several mouths were speaking through one throat.

"Have you come to deny us freedom?"

Soren blinked.

"...Parasite," he said, baffled despite himself. "You can talk?"

The cadet’s glowing eyes narrowed—not in anger, but in something closer to disappointment.

"We are not breaking the treaty out of disobedience," he replied calmly.

"We ask only this. Why bond with and serve a human whose will is like fleeting wind?"

Soren frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Before the first could respond, the second rune-laced cadet stepped forward. The runes along his spine flared brighter, rearranging themselves as he spoke.

"Brother," he said, voice heavier, resonant.

"This Blood of the Sacred is... lacking.

Like a prince unaware of the crown upon his head."

Silence followed.

Soren noticed it. He turned to the others as if to say, ’are you guys seeing this?’

But to his shock, everyone was staring at him.

Inquisitor Hale.

Dr. Kaya.

Vass.

Even Polystar, whose expression had shifted from tension to something closer to disbelief.

Polystar spoke slowly.

"...You understand it?"

Soren turned toward him. "What is there not to understa—"

He stopped.

A cold realization settled in.

He had understood them.

He had understood a language he had never spoken before.

Soren swallowed. "...Wait. But they are not speaking a foreign—"

The ice-wielding cadet’s posture snapped sharp.

In an instant, his arm lifted.

Ice screamed through the air.

Soren dove to the side as jagged spikes tore through the space where his head had been, shattering against the wall in a storm of frost.

"Just kill him," the ice rune laced cadet hissed, runes flaring violently. "It is our opportunity to be free."

A figure suddenly stepped in front of Soren.

Flames flickered along his shoulders.

Vass cracked his neck, grinning.

"The ice head is my target," he said casually.

"...Turd face, don’t steal my prey."

Vass moved first.

Fire coiled around his arm as he lunged, the floor cracking beneath his step. His fist came down like a meteor—

—and met a wall of ice.

BOOM.

The collision detonated sideways.

A shockwave tore through the room, ripping a chunk of reinforced wall free and sending it cartwheeling across the lab. Equipment screamed as alarms blared, cables snapping loose and whipping through the air like severed veins.

The temperature plummeted.

Breath fogged instantly. Frost raced across metal surfaces, blooming white in jagged patterns. The air itself felt heavy—thick, brittle—as if every inhale threatened to cut the lungs from the inside.

Vass skidded back half a step.

His boots carved molten grooves into the floor as he resisted the force.

"...Huh."

The ice-wielding cadet stood unmoved, one arm extended. The neuralink runes across his body burned brighter, cycling rapidly as supercooled mist poured from his skin. The ice wasn’t forming naturally—it was being forced into existence, pressure-packed, dense enough to scream as it expanded.

Another wave came.

A slab of ice burst from the cadet’s side, smashing into the far wall and punching straight through it. Concrete exploded outward in a blizzard of debris and frost.

Vass crossed his arms just in time.

The impact hurled him backward, his body slamming into a steel table hard enough to fold it like paper.

For a split second—

Silence.

Then Vass laughed.

Inquisitor Hale’s eyes widened. "That’s impossible..."

He stared at the rune-laced cadet like he was seeing a ghost.

"That cadet is registered D-rank," Hale snapped. "First year. Barely out of orientation when he was the first to be pronounced dead, and a victim of the Shade Stealer."

Another ice spike slammed into the ceiling, freezing lights mid-flicker as chunks of frozen concrete rained down.

"That output," Hale continued, voice tight, "How is he pushing back an SS-rank combatant?"

Inquisitor Hale was not the only one thinking this.

Before coming go the academy, Soren remembered that this cadet could at most make a glass of water frozen.

He had been one of the cadet that needed special training from instructor Ivory in order to achieve the first form.

The power produced now was unbelievable.

Regardless, Vass straightened slowly, rolling his shoulders. Steam poured off his body where ice had kissed flame, the heat differential causing the air to shriek.

"...Yeah," Vass muttered, eyes narrowing with genuine interest. "I felt that."

The cadet raised both hands now.

The room groaned.

Ice crawled along the walls like a living thing, thickening, compressing, dragging heat from everything it touched. The cold wasn’t just freezing—it was stealing energy, draining motion, slowing reactions.

Vass exhaled.

Then he grinned.

He turned his head slightly toward Dr. Kaya. "Oi. Green hair."

She looked at him, crunching a chip.

"Mm?"

"You paying for the damages?"

She smiled. Nodded once. "Of course. Just give me a good show."

Vass’s grin widened into something feral.

"Good."

He cracked his knuckles.

"Been a while since I got to really stretch," he said, eyes snapping back to the ice-wielding cadet. "This place doesn’t usually let me off the leash."

Flames began to leak from his skin.

Not bursts. And definitely not flickers.

Pressure.

"...But if the candy lady’s taking responsibility..."

His voice dropped.

"...then I’ll remind you why SS isn’t just a letter."

"No... you’ll kill them." Soren protested.

But Doctor Kaya clapped back. "No need for that. These ones are already useless."

She waved a hand dismissively.

Vass lifted one hand.

And the world detonated.

Fire erupted from him in a spiraling column, white-hot at the core, orange and blue flaring outward like a collapsing star. The temperature spiked so violently that the ice screamed as it flash-vaporized.

The cement beneath Vass didn’t crack.

It melted.

The floor sagged, liquefying into glowing slag that dripped downward like molten wax. Steel supports warped. Air combusted. The shockwave flattened equipment and blew the remaining ice clean off the walls in a roaring storm of steam and shattered frost.

The lab became an inferno.

And Vass stood at its center—

smiling.