Most of the prisoners in Black Prison were utterly vicious.
Making them repent was harder than climbing to the heavens.
But if all one wanted was to make them beat their chests and bitterly regret their actions, there was a shortcut—for instance, letting those desperate lives glimpse a spark of hope, then snuffing it out.
Just like now.
As the Black Prison World revived, the prisoners exiled outside Black Prison Castle gradually began extracting wisps of magic from the air, restoring their increasingly withered bodies. If this continued, it would not take many years for these prisoners, once stripped of their power by Black Prison, to slowly regain their strength.
That was hope.
Hope granted to them by fate and the world. The school saw it but did not directly deprive them of it.
Yet it gave them improper ambitions.
They thought that with the little strength they had temporarily recovered, they could escape this enclosure and gain greater freedom. Thus, when Caitou Kai shattered the crystal wall of the Black Prison World, countless prisoners rose in response, hoping to make up for their regrets from the last Black Prison Battle and, like Behemoth and its army of prisoners, leave this place and continue chasing their dreams of power.
But they had clearly overlooked the difference between the two "prison breaks."
For example, last time, aside from the prisoners' internal uprising, there had been a vast Demon Allied Army outside Black Prison to support them. Last time, Black Prison's guards had not possessed every advantage of timing, terrain, and unity, and could only hold out within the castle. And last time, the one who ultimately led Behemoth's armies away had been a being who had only just advanced to Ancient One.
The consequence of blindly copying the past was plunging