High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 1580: Chapter 324 Prelude to War

Dark clouds churned overhead, resembling waves of the ocean overturned upon the earth, suffocating and oppressive.

A pale white streak of light tore through the night, shredding the heavy black clouds and landing on the open ground before Black Prison Castle. Faintly carried on the wind was the heavy crackle of Guardian Knights as they swung their lances.

Far in the distance, specks of faint red light could be glimpsed, flickering in the darkness like meteors streaking across the night sky. Those were prisoners wandering through the Black Prison, secretly unearthing faint glows emitted by underground magma.

Su Shijun crossed her arms, standing before the enormous floor-to-ceiling window, her brows furrowed as she surveyed the monotonous and oppressive scenery outside.

The wide cloak cascaded onto the carpet, concealing her slender figure and blocking out two prying gazes.

Milton and William stood on either side behind the witch, earnestly trying to win her favor, entirely indifferent to her cold demeanor. For Su Shijun, it was a nuisance she could do nothing about—she couldn’t exactly pluck the eyes out of two Upper House Members of the Moon Council over such a trivial matter.

Compared to the buzzing cacophony in her ears, the witch was more attuned to the atmosphere in the Black Prison.

She constantly felt that beyond the darkness of this world, there was an inexplicable sense of constraint, awakening slowly and growing stronger as time passed.

The feeling was akin to a small insect trapped in a spider’s web.

From the moment she had arrived at the Black Prison until now, that sense of binding had grown increasingly intense.

Intense enough that the four fox tails trailing behind her had stiffened with tension, and the intuition ingrained in her as a Big Wizard screamed warnings within her mindscape, urging her to leave this realm—though the witch remained uncertain whether it was the Black Prison itself or the foreboding war about to erupt that had triggered this instinct.

”The calm before the storm,” she murmured.

Su Shijun sensed the heaviness in the air around her, clutching her cloak tighter as she subtly exhaled, her gaze drifting into the depths of the darkness with unease, her thoughts lingering on the dilemma back at the school museum.

She wondered whether the stray aura from another world had been sealed and if the lost students had found their way back to school.

The latter troubled her especially. After being conscripted by the school into the Black Prison, the irresponsible boy she had left in charge of Poseidon had inexplicably vanished into Dreamland at such a critical moment!

Whenever she thought about it, a primal fury swelled within her. She wanted nothing more than to lash him with her tail and slam him into the ground seventeen or eighteen times.

Preferably enough to shatter every bone in his body and knock out all his teeth.

With that thought, her mood brightened slightly, and even the oppressive sensation drifting in from outside the window seemed to lessen.

...

Unlike Su Shijun’s somber demeanor.

Milton Karen was preoccupied with strategizing how to win the favor of the goddess, standing just behind the witch and engaging in a ’pleasant’ conversation with William Tapott, both boasting of their valor and prowess in the Hunting Ground while flaunting their catches. They occasionally belittled each other with the hope of diminishing their rival’s standing in the witch’s eyes.

Yet Su Shijun remained indifferent, seemingly uninterested in hearing how Milton had hunted a magnificent Ao Yin during the Three Danger Mountain expedition and turned its fine feathered coat into a rare and precious cloak.

That was until he heard the witch’s low murmur: ”The calm before the storm...”

The vampire turned his gaze toward the window, sensing the thick weight in the air, and a faint realization dawned on him.

”Before the storm?”

Milton found himself silently grateful for the serious discussion he’d recently had with his father prior to entering the battle, enabling him to seamlessly continue the witch’s train of thought. Glancing at William Tapott’s slightly bewildered expression, a surge of pride rose in him, and he took a half-step forward, raising his wine glass ever so elegantly as he smiled reservedly: ”No, the storm has already arrived... But the raindrops are falling in places unseen, and the tempest rampages in realms unfelt.”

With those words, the vampire silently gave himself a grand mental pat on the back.

Such a splendid, poetic remark.

Layered with metaphor, parallelism, and allusions, the sentence transformed the grisly reality of bloodshed and violence into something as gentle and picturesque as a mountain spring—a delicate artistry far beyond what that foul-smelling wolf cub could hope to achieve. Thinking of this, pride deepened the blush that had appeared on the pale cheeks of the Upper House Member from Karen’s family, as though intoxicated by his own words rather than the wine in his cup.

William cast a gloomy glance at the smug vampire, unwilling to back down, and also took a half-step forward.

Su Shijun rolled her eyes internally.

But she caught the underlying meaning in Milton’s words. Grasping one of her slightly agitated fox tails, she stroked it in reassurance, furrowing her brow as she looked at the vampire: ”It’s already begun?”

Speaking, she instinctively turned her gaze to the bleak darkness outside, striving to expand her perception.

Yet no matter how she sharpened her Divine Thought into a thread and swept across most of the Black Prison, she found no trace of war unfolding. Neither above the clouds nor beneath the lava.

She did, however, disturb several prisoners lurking in the darkest recesses of the prison’s depths. Sensing the faint yet vast Divine Thought, they opened blood-red eyes and hungrily drank in the ripples of witchly intent carried on the frigid wind.

Su Shijun withdrew her gaze and returned it to Milton. ”The war has already begun?”

Her tone was loaded with skepticism, yet it elicited no pressure upon the vampiric gentleman opposite her. On the contrary, he seemed immensely satisfied with the look the witch had directed at him—a pure gaze tinged subtly with curiosity, akin to the exquisite, shimmering wine in his glass that radiated an intoxicating allure.

”We haven’t received any reports of battle opening,” William Tapott swiftly interjected, resolutely refusing to let Milton monopolize the spotlight. He bluntly questioned, ”If war has already begun, Shi Hui wouldn’t just leave us lounging peacefully in the lounge.”

Were it not for the rivalry between them, Milton might have gladly awarded the wolf cub a pound-weight medal for that line!

”Ahem,” the vampire cleared his throat softly, raising his glass, his face caressed by a genteel smile. ”You can’t really be faulted for that... You’re still young.”

He directed his words at Su Shijun with a dignified nod of his wine glass: ”Especially you, Su Su.”

Su Shijun snorted lightly, pressing down her second restless fox tail while silently vowing that if the vampire couldn’t offer a satisfactory explanation, she’d snap off his two little fangs!

”You’re still young,” Milton addressed her in a tone steeped in the intonation of an old-school wizard. ”You’ve spent most of your time in the Clean House and the laboratory, either cultivating or conducting research. I dare to guess—you’ve only ever read about warfare in books, haven’t you? Aside from the Wizard Education Publishing House’s *Grand History,* have you ever studied any other tomes on magical war?”

The witch cast a glance at the vampire.

Truthfully, most of her life had indeed been spent in study, and the few battles she had engaged in were either trivial skirmishes, where she thoroughly overwhelmed her opponents, or events accompanied by elders watching over her. The scales of combat had always been small, never rising to the level of war.

But such admissions of inexperience could not be shared among other Upper House Members.

”Fighting and killing is the business of brutes,” Su Shijun replied with a faintly proud tilt of her chin, revealing an elegant neck. ”The Elderly Ancestor said it was my duty to walk further and further down the wizard’s path.”