Fake Professor, Misunderstood As Strong - Chapter 71

Nothing more than a Pawn…
“I will make sure that you die here today…”

Tears of blood flowed from Abella’s eyes as her hatred for Nathan was so strong that even the space-time fabric was trembling due to her anger.

Abella waved her hand, and just when she was about to cast another spell, something unexpected happened.

Abella suddenly found herself standing on the same altar that she had asked her summoned beasts to build.

“What?”

The magic circle on the altar began to glow dark red, as if made of blood, before Abella could understand what was happening.

Abella glanced all around her, and she also saw Shin and Thomas, who were standing right outside the altar’s protective barrier.

She glanced at the sky and sensed that the death cage was still intact.

‘What’s going on? I clearly planned that I was going to die in that cage, and then I would have escaped with my soul. But right now I am outside the death cage with my real body?’

Abella was the one who cast the death cage, so she can sense that the cage is still intact. She can also sense that Nathan is still trapped in there, but only she exited that place without dying.

‘How is this even possible-‘

Before Abella could understand what was going on, she felt an immense gravitational force weigh down on her.

Abella was caught off-guard, and even her mana barrier broke apart under that immense gravitational force.

She collapsed on the ground, and even moving her fingers became impossible.

‘M-my magic… my magic isn’t working!? Wh-what the heck!?’

Not only wasn’t Abella able to move her body, she wasn’t able to control her mana either.

As if something were interrupting her mana, Abella had lost the ability to use magic, and now she was nothing more than a helpless ordinary girl who was stuck at the center of the altar.

*Step**Step*

A humanoid figure made of dark mist and miasma appeared on the altar and walked slowly over to Abella’s side slowly.

The voice of that being’s steps felt so heavy and intimidating that even Thomas and Shin could feel it from outside the barrier.

As a result, they both backed away from the altar, ready to run away at any time.

The humanoid figure made out of dark mist didn’t seem to care about the two thoughts; it was only interested in Abella.

Abella knew that figure all too well, as she had seen him countless times by now.

This entity is none other than the cult leader of the False Dome himself.

‘No this is just a shadow of his… His real body isn’t here…’

Abella had many questions in her mind, but due to that immense gravitational force, she was having difficulty even breathing; there was no way to speak.

The cult leader squatted down near Abella, and a sweet yet creepy voice rang out from the dark mist.

“Ah, my sweet and silly Abella… You fell for this silly trap… But, oh well, you haven’t been very smart since childhood; you were always like this…”

“You focused on your goals so much that you forgot about the things around you…”

Hearing that familiar yet intimidating voice, Abella’s eyes widened in sheer shock, and she uttered it with great difficulty.

“R-Rahnan? H-how can this be!? T-this is impossible!!”

Despair, shock, etc.—many complicated emotions appeared on Abella’s face at that moment.

She couldn’t accept the fact that what she had been chasing for so long was already so close to her, yet she never noticed it.

Not only did Rahnan make her accept the darkness, but he also sent her on various death missions when he knew all along that all she wanted was to meet him and confess her love to him.

But Rahnan kept watching her go down the path of darkness silently, never doing anything to save her.

Many questions flashed through Abella’s mind in that one moment, but all she could say was,

“W-why!?”

Rahnan stretched out his hand and wiped the tears from Abella’s eyes.

The dark mist over his face condensed, and a humanoid face that resembled Rahnan appeared.

But unlike the Rahnan that Abella knew, the current one had a creepy smile hanging over his face while he was wiping her tears.

“Well, you see… I have hated you for a very long time, Abella. A very long time…”

At that moment, Rahnan told Abella the real truth…

Not only was Abella favored heavily by Nathan, but she was getting a lot of resources from him for free, and Rahnan was jealous of it all.

He had to always put on a good senior façade whenever she came looking for him.

Nathan even warned Rahnan several times to keep his lowly talent in mind and stay away from Abella.

“Every time I looked at your face, I felt like skinning you alive and boiling you in hot oil! I hated you to the core!!”

But Rahnan didn’t have the power to go against Nathan, and he didn’t dare harm Abella under Nathan’s watch.

When Nathan finally carried out his sinister plan to send Rahnan away to the fifth seal.

Rahnan found his chance, and he left his human identity behind.

He worshipped the demon god and established the cult that became famous as the ‘False Dome Cult’.

The demon god gave him immense power, and the very first person that Rahnan chose to corrupt was Abella herself.

He waited till Abella became mentally weak from searching for him, and then he seized the moment and corrupted her with miasma.

“I was gloating at your misfortune! I took great pleasure in destroying the talent that the old fox held so dear!

But Abella still had some use.

She became a Grade 1 mage, and Rahnan waited for her soul to get fully corrupted to bring out the full potential of her darkened soul.

When Rahnan said all this to Abella’s face with the same creepy smile on his face, Abella could only feel immense despair.

From the start to the end, she was just a mere pawn that was dancing in the palms of others.

First Nathan exploited her talent to the limit, and then Rahnan gloated on her misery as she searched for him wholeheartedly.

Rahnan’s words ultimately caused Abella to lose her sanity, as he cruelly stripped her of her life’s sole purpose, causing her soul to become completely tainted with miasma.

“In the end, all I would say to you is that you were nothing more than a disposable pawn, Abella…”

Rahnan got up and kicked Abella to the side, then placed his hand at the center of the magic circle.

“The ritual to summon the incarnation of a demon god needs many souls… You worked hard to collect them for me, so I praise you for that…”

“But this ritual still needs the fully corrupted dark soul of a grade 1 individual to fully activate it…. And yeah, that’s the real purpose of why I let you wander around freely for so long…”

The creepy smile on Rahnan’s face became even wider.

“I have waited for a long time… I waited for the perfect opportunity to appear in front of you to finally push you to the depths of corruption… And now you are nothing more than an empty vessel of pure despair…”

Rahnan’s words carried so much cruelty that even Shin and Thomas felt a chill run down their spines after hearing all this.

They had never thought that such evil schemes were involved in this incident.

Their foreheads were already covered in sweat while looking at Abella, who was lying down like a dead body with endless despair in her eyes.

It was clear from a single glance that her ‘will’ had already been broken and her existence was already tortured beyond measure.

…

Rahnan didn’t care about all that; he imbued a bit of his own mana in the center of the altar, and then the circle finally activated.

First Abella’s darkened soul was sucked out of her body and used to activate the summoning ritual, and then those ten thousand souls were used to carry out the actual summoning ritual.

Rahnan glanced at the sky and mumbled.

“That old fox has been trapped in the death cage by you, Abella. I really appreciate all that you did for me… I will remember you as long as I live… Thanks for working so hard for my sake…”

Now that Nathan was out of the picture, there was no one who could possibly interrupt the summoning ritual.

Only half an hour is needed now.

In this half hour of time, the altar will refine all of the ten thousand innocent souls and then turn them into power that will condense into the form of the incarnation of the demon god.

The incarnation will then take Abella’s soulless body as its vessel and will put it to good use.

Rahnan wasn’t going to let even Abella’s dead body rest in peace; he had already planned everything out over the years.

He wanted complete revenge from Nathan and Abella.

Seeing his revenge turn into reality, Rahnan couldn’t help but smile creepily.

“Finally, my dreams are turning into reality… All thanks to my benevolent god…”

While the Alter continued to refine those souls, Rahnan brought out a smartphone from his dark, mist-like body and then pressed a few buttons on it.

“Good, I have sent the details… All I need to do now is wait… Soon, the whole world will find out how big of a hypocrite the person they love actually is…”

Rahnan had already collected a lot of evidence against Nathan, and he was ready to ruin his reputation in the human world.

If he had only killed Nathan, then people would have still continued to think of him as a great hero, as they already have a statue of him in the national hero memorial.

But Rahnan knew all this, so he chose the other way.

Not only did he subtly persuade Abella to trap Nathan in the death cage, but he also made the decision to destroy Nathan’s remarkable reputation.

‘Calling me ‘trash’ and ‘talentless’ was your biggest mistake, my dear teacher…’

…

…

Author’s Note.

Some people were complaining that the story seemed too dark and that everyone seemed like a villain, so let me clarify.

This novel is tagged ‘dark’, and the setting of this world is in a world that is filled with ‘cruelty and misery’.

You can become another’s pawn without even noticing. If this story is too strong for your pure heart, I recommend going to my other novel; that one is more lighthearted.

But if you like stories that depict the cruelty of a world corrupted with power and demons, then this is for you.