I regressed and became the Sword Ice King

'I've never liked that golden prick.'

Javier folded his arms as his gaze traced Jane's movement, his lips curled downwards while his eyes narrowed.

'Compared to the other righteous fools of the Great Families, this one actually acts like the arrogant bastards that they are…'

His lips formed a thin line as a deadpan expression encroached on his face.

He glanced away, an image of a certain white-haired flashing through his thoughts.

'Never mind, there's one that takes the icing on the cake.'

"You think he caught on?"

His ears twitched slightly as he glanced up at Yon Duke, their gazes meeting at one point. A sigh escaped his lips as he rubbed his temples, fatigue laced at the crux of his eyelids.

"Please, not now, Yon Duke. We've come this far now. You seriously think one of them is enough to ruin our plans?"

"Well…perhaps if it was someone else, but Jane Lucia is one of their smarter members."

The cohort nodded silently in agreement as their gazes unconsciously shifted to the golden-haired boy who stood at the stairway.

His arms were folded, his eyes shut behind his lids and his head tilted slightly downwards.

Suddenly, he released his arms and brought them together, clasping his palms together in a silent prayer.

The movement sent a chill down their spines as they looked away. Their attention was now fixed on the Lecturers who were now inside the Class Hall.

Gregory hummed slightly.

"Do they even have a plan? Time is ticking and if Jane gets even a slight suspicion before it sets off, then matters could get dicey."

Javier scoffed as he looked away.

"It doesn't matter to me if they succeed or not. What matters is our part in the redemption of our kind. Simply trust in the process for now, then we shall do as we please if things turn south."

A moment of silence resumed between them as they retreated to their thoughts.

The hum from the chattering of the students lingered in the air, filling the silence with juvenile energy.

The stale air and clumped space crawled on their skins, a tingling sensation filling the tip of their fingers.

With a yawn, Aurora and Lucy glanced around, familiar faces catching their attention.

Side eyes weaved past them, continuously in disharmony as the hum began to ascend into something more.

Just then, a whisper reached their ears sending a flinching jolt through their bodies.

"They're the ones, right?"

"Hah….the ones we're planning on capturing?"

Aurora tilted her head in confusion, her gaze darting about the sides as she walked around in a single spot.

Her cohort glanced at her with intrigue, their expressions laced with confusion and startlement while they let her commence her act.

Aurora gasped as she turned around, her gaze meeting that of many others whose attention seemed to be fixated on them. Like a star show in a circus, they grabbed attention that oozed both good and bad intent.

At every side, and every corner, her gaze would land on another's, a swirl of motion cascading around her in blurs. Twisting and manifesting in shapes that haunted her.

With a slight grunt, she was suddenly yanked by Yon Duke, his eyes narrowed to a slit.

"What's wrong, Aurora?"

She gasped for a moment, her chest rising and falling as she breathed in slow breaths.

"They, they're Watching us?"

She replied, her statement twisting into a question that puzzled even her.

Her brows arched as Javier spun his head around.

His lips curled deeper and his eyes shut as a heavy sigh escaped his lips. He opened them as his gaze met Jane's, tension hanging in the balance.

For a moment, Javier lost himself in the depths of the golden pupils that shimmered in the darkness.

A golden light pulsating with such holiness that it shuddered him, sending pulses of doubts within him.

It pulled him in, calling him into its godly sanctuary, reaching with benevolent arms towards his cold-stone heart.

In a shudder, he glanced away, his lips quivering for a few moments as he placed his palm over his face.

"He knows."

The cohort glanced at him in unison and then at the golden-haired boy.

He was still in the same position with the same posture. Arms together and body tilted forwards, but his head was facing them contrary to his body.

And he simply stared.

"Wha– What makes you think so?" Gregory asked.

"He's using a stigma. Look at the left side of his neck, and you see the golden tattoo. I don't know what god it is, but it's surely going to be a problem."

Glancing at his neck, what revealed itself was a golden ibis bird, wings spanned across while a quill's feather was held neatly with its right leg.

The sight deepened their confusion as they looked away.

"What is that? I've never heard or seen that one."

"That's the thing with the Lucia household. Their abilities are as absurd as the number of gods they serve."

Javier sighed inwardly as he glanced at the door to the Class Five Gold classroom.

The Lecturers, whoever they were, had made use of the room to decide what they did next– a form of counsel, but only temporary in its trying times.

'Katherin had inferred they would do this and added it to the plan, mid-way.'

The manner of communication so far had been fixed to letters, teleporting letters sent from Katherin to her students who bore her insignia.

In this manner, she was able to telepathically and physically communicate with them.

'After I sent her the news of the Red Peacemakers suddenly changing their plans and attacking all students, she went along and amended hers as well…but will it be enough?'

Turning to his cohort, he nodded slightly.

"Let's go to the classroom. The Lecturers in there are no longer the same, but even that will be difficult for Jane to decipher."

Lucy tilted her head slightly in confusion.

"Didn't you just say that he already knew?"

"No, what I meant was he was suspicious of us. He's confident that we are not on their side, but whether or not he saw through the Lecturers is a whole different thing."

"Why does it matter if he knows them or not? The Mana Bombs are soon to set off. We only need to escape while the situation gets out of hand."

Gregory said with a hushed tone, their bodies surged with adrenaline as anticipation pumped within their vessels.

Their bodies could tell even before their brains had made a decision.

What came next was conflict.

In silence, the group of five glanced around the students, their eyes narrowed as they inspected the area.

Just as before, they all stared at them– Class One and Class Two. System users and Non-system users alike.

Suspicion brewed like ink in clear water, spreading venom in their bodies that surged power from within.

Javier scoffed at the sight, his thoughts reeling in, recognizing a few students.

'We've come this far with the notion that the Lecturers alone fill the ranks of our Cult…'

His brow furrowed as his head whipped to the door to the Gold class, aura erupting out of his body in a single wave.

His cohort did the same, bodies charging towards their targets in one synchrony. Their teeth bared, blood pumped, and bodies erupted with a surge of feral power.

"They're escaping! Get them!"

Jane's voice cracked through the air and in a flash, movements exploded like a race car on a race car track.

The air rippled as mana and aura erupted in a vibrant hue of colours. Energy cascaded through the air like a flowing rainbow, only this one didn't mean new beginnings.

In a frenzy, the students screamed as they rushed to each other, closing the distance between themselves and the cohort in a flash.

Class One students jumped into the air and grabbed Javier and his cohort, one by one, pulling them to the ground with a sudden shock.

The fall was followed by a sharp retaliation as the cohort screamed and fought with their fists, slamming and striking back in a fit of rage.

"Let me go, you bastards!" Lucy, the first to fall, cried out as the five students dragged her against the ground, pulling her away from the group as she fought back in futility.

Soon Aurora was grabbed, Yon Duke standing behind in protest.

He whipped back and pulled her arm just as a group of students, four familiar students, grabbed onto her other arm.

"Sophia! Zara! Stop this nonsense!"

Aurora cried out while Yon groaned as he pulled her away from them.

"Stop what you fucking traitor?!"

"Yeah! Jane told us you were part of this whole mess and it turns out he was right!"

Just then a group of males bulldozed into Yon with their shoulders, a tremor spreading through his body as he was whipped back with a terrifying force.

He fell on a group of students who grabbed him, locking his arms and legs and preventing him from further movement.

Fits of movement surged from his body in protest as he wriggled with waning effort.

He groaned, yelled, screamed and bit down on those he could, fury boiling in the depths of his eyes at the condition he found himself in.

With a click of his tongue, he whipped his head towards Javier who ran through the crowd.

"Javier!" He called out when a fist met the edge of his chin with a brutal twist, blood and saliva busting out from his lips as he groaned in pain.

Glancing up, his gaze met those of Ban Xen, a twisted enraged expression laced in his face as he suddenly landed his fist onto his face once more.

"Youuu–uuu eeevil bastards! Siii– iiding withhh ttthe demons!"

He said with quivering breaths as he slammed again and again, tears streaming down his eyes while his teeth chartered within.

Javier glanced back with weary eyes, annoyance crawling in his expression as he whipped his gaze away.

He groaned, images flashing through his brain in photographic surges.

'A part of the Cult stays in the students but Katherin had instructed in the past that I keep it hidden until the battle against the Devil King.'

A blur flickered past his peripheral as a group of students pulled Gregory with a snap yank, a loud cry of protest reaching his ears as he landed with a violent thud.

Soon, a swarm of second years had taken full control of him, ceasing his movements in the blink of an eye.

Javier watched it all in silence, his body moving with panicking speed while his insides churned at him from the sight.

He sucked in the air as he turned away and screamed at the top of his lungs.

"Oh, Brethrens of Mayura! Rise, we have come to proclaim our right"

Silence.

A sudden and bizarre silence overtook the room as he got to the door.

He reached out for the knob and grabbed it, halting in his tracks, his ears twitching for the signs, the signs that he so desperately wanted to hear.

A second passed, then another, and then another and soon, he was well past his anticipation length, saliva gulping feverishly down his throat.

He slumped his shoulder, anticipation dead, but then– all hell broke loose.