Chapter 462: The Heavens Shall Fall (III)

The Divine Academy sat at the upper tier of the realm’s central district, its spires visible from most of the surrounding territory on a clear day, which it always was because the academy maintained its own atmospheric conditions and had done so for longer than most current gods had been alive.

I landed at the main gate with four minutes to spare.

The courtyard inside was busy.

Students moving between buildings, clusters of conversation near the announcement boards, the general organized chaos of an institution preparing for something large.

The competition announcement had drawn more foot traffic than a normal academy day, which meant the walkways were full and the noise level was something I had to consciously decide not to have opinions about.

I had made it approximately thirty meters past the gate when…

“AESTREA!!!”

I didn’t stop walking.

The footsteps behind me became faster as the person in question suddenly started running.

Twaack!

A hand landed on my shoulder and spun me around with more force than was necessary.

Kael.

He was grinning with every single tooth he owned, silver hair disheveled in the way it always was, his academy uniform sitting on him with the energy of something that had given up on being neat approximately ten minutes after he’d put it on.

His eyes were bright and slightly unfocused in the specific way of someone who had been excited about something for long enough that the excitement had stopped being about any one thing and had just become his default state.

“YOU’RE HERE,” he announced, as if this were information I didn’t have.

“I’m here,” I confirmed.

“I thought you weren’t coming!”

“I said I’d be here.”

“Yeah, but you say a lot of things—”

“Kael.” Tyrian appeared at his left shoulder, stepping around him.

He was taller than Kael by half a head, dark-haired, with the kind of composed expression that suggested he had, at some point, decided to be the reasonable one in this friendship and had been paying the price for it ever since.

He looked at me, then at Kael, then back at me with an expression of mild suffering that had clearly been running for some time.

“Ignore him. He’s been like this since this morning.”

“I have NOT been like this since this morning—”

“—You ran into a pillar.”

“That pillar was in a weird place—”

“—It’s been there for six years, Kael.”

“The academy MOVED it—”

“—The academy has not moved anything.”

Kael turned to me with the expression of someone seeking a fair witness. “Aestrea. Don’t you think that pillar is in a weird place?”

“I’ve never had a problem with the pillar,” I replied.

“You’re both against me.” He pointed at me.

“We’re not against you,” Tyrian patiently explained.

“The pillar is simply stationary, and you walked into it.”

“Because it’s in a WEIRD—”

“Kael.”

“—PLACE.”

Tyrian closed his eyes briefly before opening them.

Turned to me with the expression of a man returning from somewhere he visits often and doesn’t particularly enjoy.

“The announcement is in twenty minutes. They’ve posted the preliminary bracket near the east hall.

“Have you seen it?” I asked.

“I looked.” He paused for exactly one second. “Your first opponent is from the Celestial Dominion.”

“Name?”

“Seran Voss… He went six years undefeated.”

Kael pointed at me again with renewed energy. “THAT’S the one I was trying to tell you about this morning—”

“—You were telling me about the pillar this morning.”

“BEFORE the pillar—”

“—You led with the pillar, Kael.”

“Because the pillar HAPPENED first—”

I started walking toward the east hall.

I started walking toward the east hall.

Both of them fell into step beside me immediately, Kael on my left still gesturing about the sequence of morning events, Tyrian on my right with his hands clasped behind his back and the specific posture of someone who had accepted his situation.

“Six years, huh?”

Honestly, I have never heard about him. He must have died during the wars in my past reincarnations… or simply was not a very well-known god.

“Indeed. Not a single loss! Four of those opponents were ranked in the top twenty of their respective factions. He ended two of those matches in under a minute,” Tyrian confirmed slighly.

It seems that I got a good opponent, but well… it’s not like he’s going to be strong enough to defeat me.

At this point, only a few prestigious people in each faction should be paired with me in actual power.

“He’s also,” Tyrian added, with the tone of someone delivering information they find mildly interesting, “reportedly never fought anyone from the academy before. He specifically requested a top-five-ranked opponent.”

I glanced at him.

“He requested you,” Tyrian clarified. “By rank.”

“By rank,” I repeated.

“He doesn’t know your name. He knows your rank, and he requested the fifth-place student specifically,” he paused thoughtfully.

“Which suggests he either knows something about you, or he’s done enough research on the academy’s current roster to identify the fifth slot as the most interesting match available.”

“Or,” Kael offered helpfully, “he’s just really confident and kind of an idiot about it.”

Tyrian considered this.

“…Also possible,” he admitted.

Well… he should hope that he did his research right.

We reached the east hall.

The bracket board was surrounded by a cluster of students, most of them talking over each other, pointing at various matchups with varying degrees of distress.

I stepped past them without stopping, close enough to read the board in a single sweep.

The matchups were exactly where Tyrian had said they’d be.

My name sat at the top of the fifth-rank bracket.

Across from it, in clean official script, the name Seran Voss, followed by his faction affiliation and a small gold marker that indicated undefeated status.

Below that, in smaller text, a note that read: Opponent requested by name of rank. Match confirmed by both parties.

I looked at it for a moment.

He specifically asked for me… so he’s either very strong or he’s very stupid.

Those aren’t mutually exclusive.

“So,” Kael spoke from beside my left shoulder, reading the board with his arms crossed and his brow furrowed in the expression he got when he was attempting serious analysis.

“Six years undefeated. Requested you specifically. Probably thinks he’s going to make a statement or some shit.”

“Probably,” I agreed.

“You’re going to absolutely destroy him, right?”

“More than likely.”

Kael’s furrowed brow immediately transformed back into a full grin.

He turned to Tyrian.

“SEE. I told you he’d say that.”

“You told me he’d say obviously,” Tyrian stated.

“Same energy.”

“Completely different word.”

“TYRIAN—”

“It’s A DIFFERENT WORDDD!!!!!”

I continued looking at the board… specifically, the top of the board.

Rank one and rank two sat side by side in the bracket, their names printed in slightly larger script than the rest by virtue of their positions.

[Thaliel | Goddess of the Abyss | Rank One]

[Emyria | Goddess of Creation | Rank Two]

Kael appeared at my shoulder, following my gaze. His ongoing argument with Tyrian evaporated mid-sentence.

“…Oh.”

Tyrian stepped up on my other side.

A brief silence fell over all three of us, which was notable because a brief silence involving Kael was a rare enough event to mark on a calendar.

Thaliel had held the top spot for three consecutive years, a record no one had managed before her.

Emyria at rank two was, by most reasonable measures, the strongest student the academy had produced in a generation.

They were also, and this was the part that made the ranking situation considerably more complicated for me personally, completely and utterly devoted to Lunara.

The student council president.

Who was currently dating me.

Which they knew.

Which made every interaction with them almost a membership that I had not signed up for and could not easily sign out of.

“They’re going to be in a terrible mood today,” Tyrian said, with the tone of someone reading weather conditions.

“They’re always in a terrible mood,” Kael said.

“They’re in a specific kind of terrible mood when Lunara-related things are involved. Today involves a bracket that puts them in separate matches while Aestrea’s name is on the same board.” Tyrian paused.

“That’s a Lunara-adjacent situation.”

“How is that Lunara-adjacent.”

“Because everything is Lunara-adjacent to them, Kael.”

Kael considered this with genuine thoughtfulness for approximately two seconds.

“…Fair,” he admitted.

I looked at their names on the board a moment longer.

The bracket had Thaliel matched against someone from the Divine Concord. Emyria was matched against a Celestial Dominion representative on the opposite side of the draw.

Both matches were positioned to keep them separated until the later rounds, which was either deliberate scheduling on the academy’s part or a coincidence with remarkably good timing.

Either way, it meant both of them had time and energy to direct elsewhere between now and their respective matches.

I had a fairly specific feeling about where that energy was going to go.

“Aestrea.”

…Speaking of the devil.

Here are the lesbian ones.

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