Legendary Architect of Apocalypse

"Do you know what reward I'm giving you?" Grey asked the young man who shook his head, almost drooling at the thought of the reward he was going to receive.

"This fool..." the woman in the back mumbled, as she looked at her batchmate with pity. "He's in for a world of suffering."

"How about a free trip to the Nightmare Realm for a week?" Grey asked the young man, grabbing his shoulder.

"Ha... haha... you're joking, right?" he asked as a wry smile appeared on his face. What kind of reward was this? It felt more like a punishment.

"Am I?" Grey smiled in response, but his smile felt slightly colder.

"Uh, now that I think about it, I have to prepare for my next class." He tried to free his shoulder, but the professor held onto his shoulder firmly.

"Don't worry. I will send someone to apply for leave for you. You can have fun without worrying about anything here," Grey opened a portal.

The moment that portal opened, a frightening aura spread out. Screams could be heard, coming from within the portal.

"Professor, wai-" The boy tried speaking, but before he could even complete his sentence, he was tossed inside the portal like a toy.

"You stingy professor!" The young man cried out as he fell inside the portal. The portal closed on its own, and with that, the screams and the terrifying aura also disappeared.

"I-is he dead?" One of the first year students asked, feeling a chill run down his spine. Was a senior killed just like that? They thought that Professor Grey was more easy going than Lilian, but he seemed to be even harsher.

"He isn't dead. Even if he doesn't seem like that, he's quite talented. He's like a cockroach that can survive anywhere. He will return in a week, perfectly fine," a reply came from the woman, who had come flying because of an explosion.

"Ah, should I have told him that I beat up a few from the Nightmare Tribe a few hours ago? They must be quite enraged right about now." The girl had just finished speaking when she heard the Professor thinking out loud.

The girl looked at him blankly. The Nightmare Tribe was dangerous in itself, but if they were beaten, the entire tribe would be infuriated, which made them even more dangerous. Was it really something he should have forgotten to consider?

"It seems like he's going to suffer more than I thought," she mumbled. "Well, he probably deserved it."

She began to rise in the air and flew back towards the building before the Professor noticed her. Just as she was about to slip through the grand entrance, an unseen force seized her, and pulled her backwards.

She landed with a thud before Grey, her composure momentarily shattered.

"Did you need something, Professor?" she asked, feigning innocence.

"Fix the gates before returning," Grey commanded, his voice being just as carefree as ever. "Oh right, the windows as well."

He didn't even wait for the girl to answer before gesturing for the new students to follow him, clearly impatient to move on. They had already wasted far too much time.

"But Professor, the gate wasn't broken by me!" The girl cried out, but her words fell on deaf ears and the Professor didn't react. "I know you can hear me!"

The Professor still didn't answer her. His fingers simply moved a little, and the girl was sent flying towards the door, as if implying that she needed to get to work.

The girl's face puffed up, as she watched the Professor leave. "It's not as if he is going to watch over me. I can simply sneak out and assign this task to some juniors. If they don't listen to me, I can always beat them up."

....

"Now, where were we? Ah, yes. This place is perfectly safe," he told the first year students, seemingly erasing the chaotic scene from his memory. "And your seniors are quite responsible... Well, most of them."

"Come along now, we have much to see!" He brought the children inside the building, and only then could they see just how grand this place actually was.

Elias walked inside the hallway, observing the surroundings. He could see paintings hanging on the walls. The paintings were also far from normal, as they seemed to be alive.

There were people depicted in the paintings, and he could see that the eyes of the people depicted in the portraits were moving, as if following him.

There were also a few paintings which depicted a man drowning, gasping for breath. The man was looking at him as if begging for help. Another painting depicted a person whose eyes and lips were sewn with blood-red thread.

...

Material Composition: Human (40 Percent), Painting of Imprisonment (40 Percent), Laws of the Painter (20 Percent)

Weight: 50 Kg

Material Stability: 90 percent

Extraction Possibility: Low Possibility

....

"'They are real people?" Elias frowned, able to see the material composition of all the paintings.

Normally, he was only able to see material composition of lifeless things, or beings who were merged into something through outside forces. The paintings looked far from lifeless, which left only one possibility.

Most of the material composition was the same, the main components being the Painting of Imprisonment and Law of the Painter. The only material that was different between these paintings was the subject inside them.

In most of the paintings, humans were the subjects. However, there were also a few paintings that had beasts, elves, or even some unknown beings that he had never seen before.

"What are these paintings?" he asked Grey, especially curious about the Painter whose law was used in these paintings as a component.

"They're works of art created by the Painter. They are beautiful, aren't they?" Grey stopped for a moment and looked at the paintings, seemingly appreciating them.

Elias also looked at another painting, which depicted a child crying next to his mother's lifeless body.

"You seem to have good taste in paintings. That one's called 'The Lost Child.' It's one of his best works." Grey appeared next to Elias and looked at the painting he was observing.