Saint Academy

Cheers still echoed across the Saint Academy Arena like thunder trapped in glass.

The banners of Team 11 fluttered in the wind, crimson and gold, as confetti rained from the upper platforms. Holographic doves circled above the stage in perfect synchrony, basking in the triumphant roar of the crowd. Students and instructors alike stood stunned, jaws slack with disbelief. Team 11—underdogs, rejects, misfits—had just done the impossible.

Zeke stood tall, his jacket half-burned, arms crossed like a flame-forged champion.

Amara dusted blood and dirt from her coat, though her lips curled in the rarest of smiles.

Damien Gray exhaled quietly, eyes lifted to the sky as the words "Champion" burned across the sky.

This was the moment. The one they'd bled for.

Then the light died.

The doves froze mid-flight—glitched—then shattered into pixelated dust.

The holo-screens flickered erratically. One by one, the cheering drones short-circuited, their lenses cracking.

From the center of the stage, the tournament platform cracked down the middle with a low, seismic groan.

BOOM.

The sky split open.

No lightning. No thunder. Just a shrieking rip—like reality itself had been torn apart.

From above, a crimson sigil ignited in the clouds. It spiraled like an eye, ancient and seething, casting a blood-red hue across the arena.

The cheers turned to screams.

> "Saint Academy Security Breach. Protocol Omega. Level: BLACK. Repeat—LEVEL BLACK."

Students fled in all directions as warped beasts began materializing on the outer field—some winged, others crawling, all impossibly grotesque. Hulking, armored figures stepped from portals veiled in obsidian smoke—faces hidden, Divinity warped beyond recognition. These weren't rogue mages. These weren't rebels.

They were Warlocks.

And they came prepared.

A colossal Warlock general hovered above the arena stands, black coat trailing like funeral ash behind him. His voice wasn't loud—it was precise, like a blade whispering before it cut.

> "Let the Sanctified bleed. Let the righteous choke on ash."

He raised his hand—and the stadium's energy shields imploded with a deafening crack, bathing the campus in chaos.

---

Zeke's hands clenched into fists, fire already roaring around him.

Amara's eyes glowed with data runes, instantly calculating threat trajectories.

Damien turned slowly, feeling something stir within him—not panic, not fear—a pull.

Like the Void itself had just blinked awake.

> "No…" he whispered, staring up at the swirling sky sigil.

"This isn't over. It just started."

The tournament stage collapsed behind them as Warlocks surged in with black Divinity blades and corrupted familiars. Damien stepped forward, eyes narrowing, pulse syncing with something dark and ancient rising in his blood.

Saint Academy had crowned its champions.

And now the crown was burning.

Location: Saint Academy's Arena Courtyard – Minutes After Invasion

The podium was in flames.

What had once been a place of glory was now reduced to a battleground of smoking debris and broken sigils. Scorch marks carved through the marble floors. Ruined banners fluttered like torn wings. Confetti still drifted through the air—mocking, festive, out of place in the nightmare now unfolding.

Amara's breathing came in shallow gasps. Her hands trembled slightly, not from fear—but from depletion. The tournament had taxed her mentally, her Divinity near burnout.

> "There are too many of them!" she hissed, backing toward the outer wall of the arena as she fired off a beam of calibrated data-light, cutting through a warlock's conjured flesh golem. "They're coordinated—this isn't just an attack, it's a calculated operation!"

Zeke stood in front of her, shoulders heaving, arms smeared with blood—some his, most not. He was running hot, too hot, flames still licking from his elbows. His breath steamed like a dragon's as he punched another corrupted warrior in the chest—bones shattered audibly.

> "Let them come!" Zeke roared. "I've still got fire left!"

He did—but not much. His Uriel ascension during the final match had drained him, and it was showing. Each movement was a little slower. Each strike cost more effort.

Across the courtyard, Damien ducked under a blade of withering darklight, spun low, and drove his fist into the attacker's stomach. The warlock convulsed, their body consumed by a surge of purple-black void energy.

Damien didn't pause. He couldn't. His legs screamed, his arms trembled. His soul ached like it had been cracked and stitched back together hours ago—and now it was breaking again.

He stumbled over a fallen student—one of Theo's teammates—and yanked him back to cover.

> "Everyone form a perimeter around the injured!" Damien shouted, dragging the groaning Uriel-rank into Amara's field of protection.

Across the field, Cassia Mourn spun her spear in electrified arcs, sending pulses of thunder crashing through oncoming witches. She fought like a storm—but her movements were dulled. Her thunder was stuttering.

> "We're running out of gas, damn it!" she shouted. "Where the hell are the instructors?!"

As if on cue, Headmaster Elijah Solen dropped from the upper deck, a flash of golden-white sigils erupting beneath his feet. His cane twisted into a radiant staff, and with a single slam into the ground, a holy shockwave expelled a ring of warlocks from the inner courtyard.

> "All surviving students fall back to the inner corridors and defensive channels!" he bellowed, voice magnified by divine amplification. "Faculty and enforcers—safeguard the Eastern and Southern wings! We hold this academy until the last breath!"

Damien turned to Zeke and Amara, blood streaking his face. "We can't retreat."

Amara glanced at him. "If we die here, our win means nothing."

Zeke's fists reignited. "If we run now, we lose more than a fight. We lose our fire."

Before they could argue further, a massive tremor shook the ground. The main archway shattered inward—and through it stepped a warlock titan, at least twelve feet tall, cloaked in crimson. Chains made of corrupted Divinity clanked with every step.

> "Saintspawn," it growled, voice like gravel grinding glass, "your resistance ends here."

The students froze.

Even the instructors hesitated.

Then a beam of compressed Divinity streaked from the sky—slicing into the titan's side and staggering it.

Four blinding figures dropped from the heavens, each trailing symbols of divine power and glowing saintly marks across their backs.

The Arch Saints had arrived.

The titan roared. The earth cracked.

And the true war for Saint Academy had begun.

Location: Saint Academy — Courtyard & Central Campus Grounds

Half of Saint Academy was gone.

What had once been sanctified marble structures and divine circuitry was now crumbling rubble laced with Divinity scars and dark miasma. The golden statue of Saint Mikael lay cracked at the chest, its wings severed. Smoke billowed from the eastern dormitories. Screams echoed through the fractured arena.

Amara leaned against a half-destroyed fountain, blood dripping from her cheek, her glasses cracked. Zeke stood, panting, his coat singed, half his shirt burned off. Damien clutched his left arm, pain radiating through him, yet his eyes remained locked on the four glowing silhouettes now descending through the smoke like angels of judgment.

> "Who... who are they?" Damien asked, voice ragged.

Zeke wiped soot from his brow and squinted through the dust. "The marks on their coats. Look—those halos and sword glyphs? That's the emblem of the Arch Saints."

> "The Arch Saints?" Damien echoed.

Zeke nodded slowly, reverent. "Seven of them. Second only to the High Saint himself… And they never show up unless the world's on fire."

Then, the smoke fully parted—revealing them.

The Four Arch Saints Present:

Arch Saint Seraph Dainn – Clad in black and gold robes, carrying a massive dual-bladed glaive humming with radiant plasma. A silent executor.

Arch Saint Revia Lys – Long silver hair braided with light-threads, floating in mid-air with dozens of glowing divinity runes orbiting her like satellites.

Arch Saint Kael Thornmere – Bare-chested beneath a white coat, wielding chained gauntlets forged from holy stars. Fists radiated searing flame.

Arch Saint Mireth Solari – A serene woman with eyes like twin suns. She held a quill-like rapier that rewrote reality with each stroke.

The invading warlocks froze. Witches hissed and shrank back.

> "Begin sweep formation," Dainn said coldly.

And then chaos erupted—but this time, in the Saints' favor.

Kael Thornmere lunged forward like a comet, slamming into the warlock titan with both fists. The titan roared, chains lashing—but Kael's strikes melted the bindings, turning dark matter into holy ash. A second punch shattered its ribcage.

Revia Lys raised a hand, and dozens of her floating runes formed a constellation. A dome of mirrored light enveloped a pack of witches mid-incantation, reflecting their own corrupted spells back at them, disintegrating their bodies in a storm of unfiltered backlash.

Mireth Solari walked through the battlefield untouched, her rapier slicing through incantations and illusions alike. Every stroke of her blade rewrote probability: blades curved away, explosions rewound themselves, curses dissolved mid-air.

> "We're witnessing Saints rewrite the laws of reality," Amara whispered in disbelief.

Seraph Dainn, ever silent, raised his glaive. From the sky descended a column of light like a pillar of divine judgment—The Seraph's Judgment. It obliterated a summoning circle that had been conjuring infernal beasts, turning the air to glass.

Damien could only watch in awe, his knees trembling from fatigue and adrenaline.

Even Theo, bloodied and silent, stared with slackened jaw.

---

Final Clash – The Fade

With most warlocks crushed or fleeing, a final cloaked figure emerged—a tall witch in a veil of black flame, speaking an ancient war tongue.

> "This is not the end," she hissed, standing on a floating shard of obsidian Divinity. "This was but a taste. The true Convergence has yet to begin."

Mireth's rapier pointed to the sky.

> "Leave now… or be unmade."

The witch laughed, then vanished in a whirl of untraceable spatial displacement.

Within minutes, the battlefield was still.

The enemy… retreated.

The air… was heavy.

And silence, thick as oil, settled over the broken ruins of Saint Academy.

---

Aftermath

Smoke rose in curls. Corpses—student, faculty, invader—littered the grounds. Medical drones buzzed in, scanning vitals and administering restoration fields.

Arch Saint Revia floated downward beside Damien, Amara, and Zeke. Her gaze softened as she regarded them.

> "You fought well," she said simply. "All of you."

Zeke's fists were still glowing faintly. "We lost people."

> "You saved many more," she replied.

Headmaster Elijah arrived moments later, flanked by injured faculty. He nodded toward the Arch Saints.

> "Saint Academy owes you once again," he said.

Dainn gave a curt nod. "We'll leave once containment wards are reestablished. But prepare your students, Elijah. This wasn't an isolated event. The warlocks are moving with purpose. This is the prelude to something far worse."

---

Final Image

Damien stood beside his team, overlooking the broken arena. What had once been a place of dreams was now a graveyard of hope.

His fist clenched.

The void stirred inside him.

> "That wasn't the end," Damien murmured.

> "No," Amara replied. "It was the beginning."