Chapter 114: Back to School...
The transition from the blood-stained waste of the Abyssal Trench back to the modern campus of Ares Academy was obvious.
Zen walked through the gates of the campus with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. The simple, matte-black iron ring Nyx had given sat snugly on his finger. The runes etched into the metal hummed quietly, compressing his Low A-Rank mana pathways down to a faint, unremarkable D-Rank.
To anyone walking past, he was just Zen: the F-Rank underdog who had somehow survived the recent anomalies and levelled up to Mid D-Rank.
Maya walked beside him, looking exhausted. Her eyes were rimmed with dark circles, but the tense, terrified posture she had held in the imperial pavilion was finally starting to melt away.
"Zen..." Maya murmured softly against the quiet hum of the campus. "Are we... are we really back?"
"We are," Zen replied in a voice calmer than it had been in weeks. He looked down at her. "The Trench is behind us. You’re safe here."
Maya stopped, turning to face him. Her large, expressive eyes searched his face. "I was so scared, Zen. When the sky opened up, and those things... those monsters spawned. I thought I was going to die. But more than that, I was terrified that they were going to take you away. The way those women... those Goddesses looked at you. It felt like they wanted to tear you apart just to keep the pieces."
Zen felt a strange, unfamiliar warmth pulse in his chest. Unlike the chaotic fire of monster cores or the cold logic of the Aether fragment, this feeling was something entirely human.
In his past life as the First Mortal Ruler, he had been surrounded by worshippers, generals, and enemies. No one had ever worried about him simply living. Maya had liked the original, clumsy, weak Zen... the boy who had nothing to offer.
Even now, knowing he was different, her only concern was his safety.
"They won’t take me, Maya," Zen said, reaching out to gently brush a stray lock of hair from her cheek. His touch was light compared to the dominant, crushing grip he had used on Lyra just hours before. "And I won’t let them touch you. You are my anchor. Remember that."
A soft flush crept onto Maya’s cheeks, and she nodded, a small, genuine smile finally breaking through her exhaustion. "Okay. I trust you."
The tender moment was violently interrupted by a loud, panicked gasp.
"Zen! Maya! You’re alive!"
Jax came sprinting down the hallway of the dormitory wing, his academy uniform disheveled and eyes wide with disbelief. He skidded to a halt in front of them, his hands flying to Zen’s shoulders.
"I’ve been messaging you for days!" Jax babbled. "You just ghosted everyone after the holiday. Then I heard Val picked Maya up, and you three were all just... gone. The forums were going crazy, saying you were swallowed by a Fracture Zone! And now you both just walk back in like nothing happened?"
"Calm down, Jax," Zen said, swatting his hands away. "Val’s family had a situation. Maya was needed as a healer. I was already with them. Communications were restricted."
"A situation," Jax repeated flatly, staring at him. "A situation. That’s all you’re giving me." He looked at Maya. "Maya. Blink twice if you need rescuing."
Maya pressed her lips together to suppress a smile. "I’m fine, Jax. I promise."
Jax exhaled, his gaze dropping back to Zen. He squinted, sensing that something was off. Zen stood differently now, and the air around him felt heavier and more settled.
It wasn’t the jittery, nervous energy of an F-Ranker anymore; the invisible pressure rolling off him was quiet yet dense, like a stone wall where there used to be paper.
"Wait." Jax’s eyes narrowed. "Are you... are you radiating D-Rank?"
"I had a breakthrough while I was out," Zen said simply. "High-stress environment. It happens."
"D-Rank?" Jax stared. "You went on holiday and came back D-Rank? That’s it? That’s all I’m getting?"
"That’s all you’re getting, Jax," Zen confirmed.
He stepped past his still-sputtering roommate and entered his dorm.
He turned to Maya before shutting the door. "Go get your room settled. You need rest."
Maya gave a small nod, shifting her healer’s staff on her shoulder. "Don’t stay up too late."
He watched her disappear down the corridor before closing the door.
Zen sat at his desk and booted up his streaming interface. The "Ghost Scrapper" channel was still flagged as offline, but the community forums were active.
Thousands of comments from viewers who had caught the C-Rank clear wondered where the streamer had gone dark. A lot of people assumed he was dead.
Good, Zen thought. ’Let them think that.’
A familiar system interface flickered at the edge of his vision and then went dark again.
’Strange,’ Zen thought to himself. The system had been like that since the Anchor Paradox triggered.
Before he could dwell on it, the academy’s emergency siren wailed loudly, accompanied by a booming, magically amplified voice.
"All students, instructors, and staff are ordered to assemble in the main plaza immediately. Repeat: assemble in the main plaza for an emergency assembly."
Jax stuck his head into the room, looking terrified. "Oh no. This is it. The Void is attacking the school. We’re dead."
"It’s not the Void, Jax," Zen said as a bad feeling settled into his gut.
He stood up, adjusting the suppression ring on his finger, and walked out into the corridor.
The main plaza of Ares Academy was packed with thousands of students, all whispering in hushed, anxious tones. The sky above was a dull grey, but the atmospheric mana was strangely dense, humming with an authority that didn’t belong to the academy’s staff.
At the centre of the elevated stage, Dean Alaric stood looking unusually stiff, his hands clasped behind his back.
The old A-Rank combat instructor looked like he had aged five years since Zen last saw him.
"Silence!" Dean Alaric’s voice boomed across the plaza. "As you all know, the continental borders are experiencing an unprecedented surge in Void anomalies. To foster stronger ties between the Domains and to share elite combat tactics, the High Council has approved a special student exchange program."
Dean Alaric paused, clearing his throat.
"We are welcoming a group of elite transfer students from the highest academies of the other Domains. They will be joining our first-year classes. Please welcome them."
The crowd watched curiously as five girls stepped onto the stage.
Zen’s jaw tightened as he stared in total disbelief.
Val stepped out first, or rather, she was the one in front because she had apparently shoved her way to the front of the line backstage.
She was wearing the standard Ares Academy combat uniform, though she had loosened the collar and tied her red hair back in a messy ponytail. On her nose sat her suppression glasses that compressed her S-Rank presence down to something that read as mid B-Rank, also adding to her disguise as "Val."
The moment she hit the stage, her crimson eyes swept the crowd and locked straight onto Zen. A brief, triumphant look crossed her face before she visibly reined it in, because to her left, Aurelia was already standing there with a smile.
They had clearly already had words backstage. Several of them.
Aurelia stood beside Val in her gold-trimmed Crown Academy uniform, carrying herself with pride. The sapphire necklace around her neck was actively suppressing her presence to mid B-Rank.
She was smiling the way empresses smile when they are seriously considering a coup. Her amber eyes skimmed the crowd for exactly one second before finding Zen, and the smile became something far more dangerous.
Then came Lyra. She wore the deep purple uniform of the Aether Domain, her long silver hair braided neatly over her shoulder. She wore a simple silver ring on her finger that completely masked her spatial mana, presenting herself as "Lyna."
She adjusted her own simple glasses as she scanned the stage.
Then Selene stepped forward, dressed in the pristine white robes of the Sanctum and carrying a silver rosary to suppress her Saintess aura.
She had clearly been crying quietly backstage, probably from the shock of seeing the others, but had pulled herself together.
When she turned in their direction, she’d clutch her rosary so hard the beads clicked together, shooting death glares at them before locking her silver eyes onto Zen.
Finally, Nyx stepped onto the stage, wearing the dark, customized uniform of the Omni Academy, a dark obsidian choker suppressing her presence. She looked bored, but there was the hint of a smile on her lips.
’Well, well,’ Nyx thought to herself as she looked at her rival Goddesses. ’Seems everyone had the exact same idea.’
"Aria from the Crown, Lyna from the Aether, Val returning from an extended holiday, Selena from the Sanctum, and Nora from the Omni Domain," Dean Alaric announced. "They will be integrated into the first-year tracks starting tomorrow."
The plaza erupted into a frenzy of excited whispers.
"No way..." Jax breathed beside Zen, forgetting to close his mouth. "Five of them. Five. And... they are all looking right at you. Zen. Zen! Why are all five of them looking at you like they want to either kill you or adopt you?"
"They aren’t looking at me, Jax," Zen muttered, turning the ring on his finger absentmindedly.
Standing in the crowd, Zen narrowed his eyes. The Goddesses had bypassed his ultimatum, each acting independently to corner him. They hadn’t broken his rules; they were careful not to use their full power or reveal his identity.
Instead, they had simply disguised themselves, suppressed their cores, and enrolled in his classes.
’If they are all here, who did the leave their various domains to?’ Zen thought to himself.
As the assembly ended and the crowd began to disperse, Val stepped down from the stage, walking past Zen’s row.
She paused for a fraction of a second, her shoulder brushing against his, and whispered in a low, teasing voice: "I told you I’d follow you."
Zen watched her walk away but said nothing.
’If you want to play at being students, Goddesses,’ Zen thought, ’then let’s play.’