Saint Academy

The sun rose behind a veil of smoke.

Ash rained gently over Saint Academy like black snow, a reminder of the warlock invasion that had shattered the sanctity of its ancient grounds. Craters marked the once-pristine marble paths. Trees were scorched, dormitories partially collapsed, and divine wards flickered with instability.

A broken silence ruled the academy—the kind that hung after mourning bells stopped tolling.

Zeke sat on the stairs near the old training ring, his shirt tattered, knuckles bruised, and one eye swollen nearly shut. He stared out at the field, watching other survivors gather debris and drag injured students to medical checkpoints. His flame had burned through half his reserves during the battle, but it wasn't exhaustion that weighed down his shoulders. It was the guilt of surviving.

Amara moved with mechanical precision.

She wasn't speaking.

Her normally sharp, calculating gaze was shadowed by something that had nothing to do with the light of the morning sun. Her hands trembled every time she tried to reactivate her wristband console—not from fatigue, but from the overwhelming noise in her mind. All her simulations, her formulas, her probabilities had not accounted for what had happened. She had failed to protect three first-years who had sought refuge near her during the battle.

She blamed herself.

Damien stood alone beneath a cracked archway, watching the aftermath unfold like a scene from another world. His body ached in places he didn't even know could hurt. His coat was singed, the Saint crest half-burned off. He didn't speak.

The Academy's large holographic projector flickered on, displaying the names of the fallen in glowing white script. A silent list that grew longer with each refresh. Students gathered around it, eyes locked, lips trembling. Every name was a wound.

Headmaster Elijah Solen stood atop the main library steps, hands behind his back, staring out at the devastation. His white robe was dusted in ash, his gaze steady but mournful. The battlefield had become a graveyard. Instructors and Saint medics worked tirelessly to stabilize the divine barriers and get injured students transported to recovery chambers in the lower sanctums.

Divine drones hummed overhead, releasing salve mists and barrier filaments to patch wounds and restore fragmented structures.

A temporary memorial had been erected at the center of the courtyard. A crystal statue, still glowing faintly with Saint energy, stood in the shape of a sword plunged into the earth. At its base were the words:

"To the unseen heroes of the flame."

Zeke approached it slowly, Damien and Amara flanking him on either side. None of them spoke. They didn't need to.

People watched them. Whispers passed from one student to the next:

"That's Team 11."

"They fought even after the tournament."

"They helped stop the breach."

"They survived."

But not all whispers were reverent.

"That Damien kid… he's dangerous."

"Void-user, isn't he?"

"How can he be trusted after what we saw?"

Zeke heard them. So did Amara. Damien just stared ahead, expression unreadable.

He wasn't sure what was changing inside him. He felt it—something vast, something old, brushing against his consciousness like a sea tide licking a cliff's edge. It pulsed now and then in the back of his mind, almost like a heartbeat out of sync with his own. The Void was whispering. But he didn't know what it wanted yet.

From afar, Amara watched the static distortions in the sky. Her goggles detected irregular frequency patterns. Something… or someone, was observing them.

She tapped her wristpad.

"Zeke, Damien… we're being watched."

Zeke cracked his neck and turned toward the sky.

Damien lowered his gaze.

He knew.

The quiet was about to be broken again.

The sun had barely broken through the clouded ash-laden skies when the silence of mourning was pierced—not by screams or alarms—but by the smooth, rumbling hum of something ancient and sanctioned: the unmistakable sound of Divinity-Propelled Hovercrafts.

From the western skies, five sleek, gold-and-onyx council vessels descended like divine blades being drawn from heaven itself. Emblazoned on their hulls were the crests of the Holy Council—the governing authority of all Saints. Each one shimmered with arcane glyphs, shields pulsing in rhythm with high-rank energy signatures. Behind them trailed silver banners that cut the sky in half.

Students and staff paused. Grieving stopped.

Even nature seemed to hold its breath.

---

In the rubble-littered central square, the surviving students had gathered for a quiet memorial, only for tension to ripple through the crowd like an unseen quake. A voice rang through:

> "By order of the Holy Council, Damien Gray is to be taken into custody immediately. Resistance will be met with holy force."

The announcement echoed from the leading hovercraft. The voice belonged to High Inquisitor Severand Kael, one of the Council's most feared enforcers. Dressed in midnight white, his trench coat snapped in the wind, revealing the Council Rune of Judicium across his chest. His face was lined with iron discipline. Cold eyes scanned the crowd like they were measuring souls.

Behind him stood six Council Custodians—each one cloaked, faces masked, armed with crystalline spears brimming with Divinity-imbued bindings. They radiated authority. Finality.

---

Damien stood silently at the foot of the cracked fountain, between Amara and Zeke.

Zeke clenched his fists. "You can't be serious… After all we just went through?"

Amara's voice was tight, controlled. "They don't care about what we've done. Only what we might become."

Several instructors stepped forward—some wounded, some barely standing—but all defiant.

> "You will not touch that boy," Instructor Rayne hissed.

> "The warlocks nearly ended us," Instructor Kaelion growled. "You didn't show up for that."

But the Custodians didn't move. They didn't need to.

Severand stepped forward, eyes fixed solely on Damien.

> "He awakened the Void," he said, voice laced with disgust. "Unregulated. Unauthorized. We are here to contain the anomaly."

---

The students stirred. Voices whispered, eyes widened. Some even backed away from Damien.

Void. The forbidden power. The feared myth. Even Saints spoke of it like a ghost story.

"Damien…" someone murmured. "Is it true?"

But Damien didn't flinch. He stared at the Council agents, not with pride, but with resolve.

> "I don't belong to your leashes."

Two of the Custodians began forming the Divine Shackles, blue bands of living light twisting into reality.

Zeke moved to block them. Amara followed.

> "You're not taking him," Zeke said flatly.

> "You'll have to go through us," Amara added, her voice calm but laced with deadly intent.

> "Step aside," Severand commanded. "You're students. Children."

From the shadows behind the fountain, a deeper voice broke the stillness.

> "And you're trespassing."

The crowd parted as Headmaster Elijah Solen stepped forward, his coat bloodstained but his spine straight. His silver eyes burned with restrained fury.

> "You come here… as my academy still smolders… to kidnap a boy who fought for us all?"

> "This is not a kidnapping," Severand said. "It is containment of a threat."

> "Then contain yourselves," Elijah said. "Lest you provoke something far greater."

The Custodians moved. Energy hummed. This was about to escalate.

And then Elijah reached into his coat and pulled out a sealed black envelope. The wax shimmered with silver flame. The Holy Crest burned on its seal, unmistakable.

He held it out to Severand.

> "Before you damn yourselves further, open this."

Severand frowned but took the envelope.

The moment he broke the seal… something shifted.

A pulse of Divine Authority flooded the air. Those with weaker Divinity fell to their knees. Some cried out.

Severand's eyes widened. His mouth trembled as he read the letter.

The crowd was silent.

The Custodians froze.

Then the High Inquisitor of the Council—feared across the Saint world—screamed.

> "What?! This can't be… HIM?!"

He turned to Damien, eyes now shaken.

> "You're under his protection?"

Zeke raised an eyebrow. "Who's 'his'?"

Amara looked at Damien with shock and surprise upon discovering who Damien's benefactor was. 

The headmaster didn't smile. He just whispered:

> "The High Saint John Davis."

A silence deeper than death.

Severand dropped to one knee.

> "Forgive us. The Holy Council will not interfere."

He waved a trembling hand. The Custodians lowered their spears. They bowed.

> "Release him," he ordered. "Immediately."

They did.

Gasps rang across the courtyard.

---

As the Council ships lifted off and disappeared into the clouds, the silence broke into stunned murmurs. Damien simply stood still, expression unreadable. But Zeke was grinning like a madman.

> "Bro… your benefactor is the strongest being on the planet?!"

Amara whispered, "Why didn't you tell us?"

Damien only answered with a tired shrug. "Didn't think it mattered."

Above them, the wind carried ash—and the whispered beginning of a new legend.

Damien stood in the middle of the Academy's shattered courtyard.

The breeze had settled. The ash was no longer falling. The blood had dried.

And the world… had changed.

Eyes were still on him—hundreds of them. Students, instructors, survivors. All watching the boy who had just been claimed by legend.

But it wasn't the same.

No longer was Damien Gray "the boy from Grayblock" or "the kid who awakened Void."

No longer was he the student who'd survived Theo's ultimate move, or the underdog who had outlasted Ronan Varell.

He was the ward of the High Saint John Davis—the one being even the Holy Council dared not cross.

No one spoke his name aloud, but it echoed in their minds like prophecy.

Damien. Gray.

---

Zeke stepped beside him, trying—and failing—not to look too smug. "Well… that was dramatic as hell."

Amara joined them slowly. She didn't say a word. Her expression wasn't one of fear or awe, but of deep calculation. Studying Damien again—but this time, not just as a friend or teammate… but as a variable.

The silence was shattered by the academy's emergency bell—its chime deeper than before, almost like it had aged.

Headmaster Elijah Solen approached Damien as murmurs rippled through the crowd. The headmaster's long coat trailed like a cloak of stormclouds, his face unreadable. When he finally stood before Damien, the world quieted once again.

The two locked eyes.

Solen leaned in slightly and said, just for Damien to hear:

> "The world now knows who stands behind you. But from here on, Damien… the weight of that shadow is yours to carry."

Damien didn't flinch. His expression didn't change.

But something in him—something invisible—shifted.

A seed of purpose. Of inevitability.

He nodded once.

---

Across the ruined walls of Saint Academy, drones began repairing with whirring magic-tech tools. Healers moved among the injured. Memorials were being raised where fire had scorched stone.

But even amidst the grief, one truth now soared above all:

Damien Gray had entered the stage not as a footnote—but as a name history would remember.

The academy had been scarred.

The warlocks and witches had retreated, but not before delivering a message.

Something was brewing beyond the veil of politics, beyond tournaments and rankings.

The Holy Council had shown its hand.

The Arch Saints had stepped out of legend.

The High Saint had moved without moving.

And in the center of it all stood a boy whose soul pulsed with darkness not born from evil—but from the infinite unknown.

The Void.

---

As night fell, and the courtyard began to empty, Damien sat alone at the edge of a broken fountain.

His fingers brushed the cracks in the marble.

Not long ago, this place had been a battlefield. Now, it was silent. Waiting.

He looked up at the stars.

And he wondered—not about his strength.

But about what would come next.

Far above him, in the clouds, something shifted. A faint distortion in the sky. A ripple no one else noticed.

But he felt it.

And the voice from the void returned, softer this time.

> "Awakened… but not yet Ascended. They will come for you. And when they do… choose what kind of shadow you will cast."

Damien closed his eyes.

And the wind answered.