Saint Academy

The wind was soft the morning after the semi-finals. A gentle breeze flowed through the Academy grounds, brushing across the broken tiles of the coliseum where the battle between Team 11 and Team 12 had reached its explosive conclusion. But there was no peace. Not really. Only the silence that followed a seismic shift.

Whispers traveled like wildfire.

"He vanished. I saw it. Damien Gray was gone..."

"It was the Void... It had to be. No one just disappears like that and comes back punching Theo Shaw across a battlefield."

"Zadkiel rank, and he beat a Uriel? What the hell is happening?"

In the mess halls, classrooms, dormitories, and shadowed corners, students speculated, instructors whispered to each other with brows furrowed, and the academy buzzed with hushed reverence and shaken disbelief. Damien Gray—underdog, scholarship kid, mocked for his low rank—was now something else.

Something... unclassified.

---

Zeke Alastair leaned back in the grass outside Dorm C, hands behind his head, lips curled in a smug grin.

"We did it," he said to no one in particular. "We actually did it."

Amara Veyne stood nearby, arms folded, her glasses pushed slightly up the bridge of her nose as she stared off toward the training fields.

Damien sat on the ledge of the stone fountain in the courtyard, legs aching, knuckles still bruised, eyes half-lost in thought.

Amara finally turned toward him. "Alright, Gray. No more dodging the question."

Damien looked up, confused. "What question?"

She stepped closer. "What happened to you when Theo dropped the Celestial Archon Descent on your head? One second you were there, the next..." She snapped her fingers. "Gone. Not even residue or particles. That wasn't a teleportation we're trained in. That wasn't normal."

Zeke sat up, watching intently.

Damien sighed. The weight of what had happened was still sinking into his bones. But he nodded.

"When that thing came down on me," Damien began, voice low, "I was on the verge of being completely obliterated. I thought I was finished. But in that moment, something inside me... opened."

Amara didn't blink.

"I don't know how, but I managed to teleport. Not here. Not anywhere on this planet. To another plane entirely. The Void."

Zeke's brows rose.

"You went into the Void?" Amara asked, voice tight with awe and concern.

Damien nodded. "Yeah. It wrapped around me. All darkness. Silence. Cold... but somehow... peaceful. A voice spoke to me. Not a whisper. A real presence. It told me I had fully awakened my Divinity... but only a small part of my connection to the Void had been unlocked."

He clenched his fists. "The voice warned me. Said my body couldn't withstand the Void for long. Even if I use my ability to teleport there again... it would take a massive toll. So I came back. Just in time to finish what Theo started."

Amara lowered her gaze, digesting every word. "So you're Void-touched now... even if just partially."

Damien nodded. Zeke exhaled slowly.

"That's damn metal," Zeke muttered. "But also kinda terrifying."

---

Meanwhile, in a towering dome near the edge of the campus, behind mirrored walls where students weren't allowed, five figures watched recordings of the battle on looping projectors. No words were spoken, only silence and grim observation.

But no action would be taken yet.

---

Two days passed before the finals would be announced. During that time, the Academy carried on with an energy unlike anything it had seen in decades. Students trained harder. Everyone talked about the finals, but only one team was on everyone's lips.

Team Eleven.

"Did you hear? Damien Gray might be a Classless Divine!"

"Void affinity... they haven't recorded a student with that in centuries."

"He stood toe to toe with Theo and won."

"Zeke's a monster too. And Amara? She's probably the smartest student we've ever had."

The trio had gone from underdogs to legends overnight.

Even Theo Shaw, silent and recovering from the blow Damien had landed, didn't walk the halls with the same arrogance. Word was, he hadn't spoken to anyone since.

---

The night before the final round announcement, Damien couldn't sleep.

He tossed in bed, thoughts racing. Eventually, he sat up, rubbing his eyes. The room was dark.

He reached for his holopad to check the time but instead found... nothing.

Silence.

He wasn't in his room.

Damien blinked.

He stood in the center of the Academy library, lights dimmed, shelves infinite. All the ancient books, archives, systems, relic tablets, and more surrounded him.

"How did I get here..."

A flicker of Void light shimmered at the corner of his eye.

The gate swings both ways.

He turned—but nothing was there. Only shadows. Whispering books. Cold air.

He turned back toward the large stained glass window at the end of the hall, etched with the image of a Saint holding back a tidal wave of darkness. His reflection in the glass didn't quite match him.

It was him—but the eyes were pitch black. Behind them, stars moved. The Void.

Damien staggered backward, blinking again—and now he was back in bed.

Sweating.

Heart racing.

---

The next day came with a flourish.

Holograms lit the air, projecting into every hallway and building. A voice boomed.

"Saint Academy Final Combat Tournament. Final Round: Judgment Crucible."

Students froze. Gasps. Cheers.

"The final trial shall pit the two strongest teams in a divine urban simulation! Victory will not simply belong to the strongest... but to the most complete Saint team. Combat, tactics, moral choices, survival. Everything will be tested."

Team Eleven. Team One.

Ronan Varell. Calliston Drae. Thorne Kaol.

Versus

Damien Gray. Amara Veyne. Zeke Alastair.

The world is watching.

As the Academy roared with excitement, a low hum of something darker echoed far below its foundations.

Far away, deep within the forgotten woods beyond the Academy borders, in a cave laced with runes older than the Saints themselves, a circle of hooded figures watched.

"The Void is stirring," one witch whispered.

"The key is born," murmured another.

The leader, a woman with silver eyes and bone bracelets around her wrists, smiled faintly.

"Then it's time."