The Strongest Student of the Weakest Academy-Chapter 451: The Beginning Of The End [CXIII]

"It’s time..."

Aestrea muttered lightly, looking over the massive ascension gate that he had just opened for them.

The ascension gate towered before them, massive and radiant, its edges lined with divine texts that glowed dimly.

Golden light poured through the opening in rolling waves, carrying with it the distant scent of something beyond clouds and sky and mortal understanding.

The air around it hummed.

However, Aestrea didn’t have time to appreciate his beauty.

By now, the Primordial Court must have gotten a warning that it was probably him who had opened that gate.

But well...

He was already prepared for all kinds of ambush, but the first thing he wanted was to get them to safety.

He spoke to Christina and asked her to make an instant teleportation array so they could get away safely while he held the Primordial Court back.

"WOOOOOOO, OFF TO THE DIVINE REALM!" James shouted, throwing both fists into the air.

The energy around him cracked with excitement rather than fear.

"I can’t wait to see those goddesses~, hehehe..." he added with a shameless grin.

"Try not to embarrass us in the first five minutes." Derek chuckled beside him.

"No promises!"

A few others laughed at their words.

"...Aestrea, why do you look... hesitant?" Vivian suddenly asked, causing Aestrea to turn towards her.

He smiled lightly before planting a kiss on her forehead.

"It’s nothing, don’t worry about it."

Vivian narrowed her eyes in suspicion, but Aestrea ignored her gaze and gently tapped the Heavenly Swallowing Sword.

As if sensing the future fight, she quivered lightly.

As for Midnight... it continued as silent as ever.

’Yeah,’ he thought quietly.

’I know.’

Slowly, one by one, people began moving toward the gate.

The golden light swallowed them gently, pulling them through with that deep, resonant pull that only divine-tier spatial rifts could produce.

Aestrea stood back, watching each one of them pass through.

He was the last one standing on the mortal side.

He took one slow breath.

Turned to look back at the capital one final time, and then, he took his first step toward the gate.

"Wait!"

A familiar voice shouted, causing him to stop in his tracks.

Tap, tap, tap...!

Running footsteps.

Scarlet hair streaming behind her like fire catching wind, the dark red vest abandoned somewhere, her white blouse slightly disheveled, the small black ribbon at her throat coming loose.

She was breathing hard when she reached him, stopping just close enough that she had to tilt her chin up to hold his gaze.

Her orange eyes were wide and bright and terrified and certain all at once.

Her hands curled at her sides.

"I... gulp!" She stopped and swallowed hard.

Her chest heaved once before she spoke once again:

"I changed my mind."

Aestrea looked at her.

"Rose..."

"Don’t." She shook her head quickly.

"Don’t say anything yet, just... let me say it first." Her fingers trembled slightly before she pressed them flat against her thighs, forcing them still.

"You were right. About the café. About the fresh start." Her jaw tightened for just a moment.

"And I’ve been standing in front of my own café for the past hour telling myself that I was fine with staying behind and that I had everything I needed here and that I didn’t need to follow you like some..." She exhaled sharply through her nose.

"But the truth is..."

Her voice dropped.

"The truth is that I spent nine years building something beautiful so I wouldn’t have to think about what I actually wanted." Her orange eyes searched his.

"And what I actually want... is to stop being left behind."

The golden light of the gate washed over them both, slow and warm.

Aestrea was quiet for exactly one moment.

Then he smiled faintly and extended his hand toward her.

Rose stared at it. Her lip trembled once before she caught it between her teeth. Then she reached out, placed her hand in his, and held on.

His fingers closed around hers, and without another word, he walked her through the gate.

Swish...

The Divine Realm received them in silence first.

Then... a sudden pressure hit.

It descended like a collapsing sky, sudden and absolute and crushing, the kind of weight that had nothing to do with gravity and everything to do with pure, concentrated divine authority.

Several people around Aestrea instinctively dropped to one knee.

Others staggered.

James, for the first time since anyone could remember, had nothing to say.

They looked up.

The army filled the heavens.

Hundreds of them.

Winged figures suspended in the air above like a suspended storm, each one radiating divine energy that bent the light around them.

Four wings each, white and gold and bladed at the edges, spread wide and still.

Their armor was seamless and ancient. All of them had cold expressions, and their eyes, all of them, were fixed downward.

Fixed on... Aestrea.

The clouds beneath their feet had dissolved into nothing.

The space around the army’s edges seemed to blur and collapse inward, as if existence itself was being quietly erased to make room for their presence.

Then the leader stepped forward.

One step. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

A single step taken through open air as if the sky were solid ground beneath him. And where his foot fell, everything around it simply... ceased.

The color drained, and the sound hollowed out.

The very fabric of space around that footfall darkened and folded inward like paper being slowly crushed.

He was tall.

Ancient in the way that mountains are ancient, not in appearance but in weight.

Six wings framed his silhouette, the outermost pair so vast they eclipsed the light behind him entirely.

His gaze carried the particular coldness of someone who had not needed to raise their voice in a very long time.

When he spoke, it was not loud.

It didn’t need to be.

"Aestrea."

The name landed like a sentence being handed down.

"The prodigy of the Divine Academy," he paused slighly.

"On what grounds did you decide to interrupt our planetary domination... and kill one of our officials?"

The pressure redoubled, and several people behind Aestrea hit the ground. The teleportation array at the edge of Christina’s construct flickered under the strain.

Aestrea’s eyes narrowed coldly at this, leaking out a faint pressure that made everyone around him more comfortable.

The pressure on top of the instantly disappeared.

He turned, slighly just to look at his lovers and friends.

There was only fear and shock on their faces.

James and Derek had their teeth gritted as they glared at the people in the sky.

Lumi, Chaerin, Ruli, and Leaf were practically forming a circle around Aestrea as if to protect him, even though they were extremely weak.

Yara and Zeva surprisingly... didn’t have any thirst to fight, and simply looked at Aestrea with complicated expressions.

Violet and her mother... were extremely hesitant, and Alaine simply looked at Aestrea’s back solemly

Maya, Iris, and Lucas also looked quite troubled.

Mia and Maria stood with the other four little girls, close to Aestrea, but definitely scared as they had personally felt the terror of a true god.

Lilith, who was always lustful, seemed to have lost her lust as her tail curled ina down manner, as she bit her lip in agony.

Rose was standing completely still, her orange eyes fixed on Aestrea with an expression that understood, somehow, exactly what was about to happen.

Vivian was staring at him with an expression that wasn’t fear. It was more like the face of someone watching a decision be made and already knowing they cannot stop it.

Aestrea turned back toward the army and smiled.

He raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

ZOOOOOOOOOOOM...

The teleportation array detonated outward in a silent blaze of light, Christina’s construct activating all at once, sweeping everyone behind him up in a single, clean, instantaneous movement.

Voices erupted in the half-second before the light took them.

"Aestrea!!!!" Vivian’s voice was the first, sharp and furious and cracking at the edges.

"You absolute idiot!!!" Derek.

"DON’T YOU DARE!!!" James.

"...Master, why...?" Lumi.

"PAPA?!" Chaerin.

"Big Brother!!!" Ruli and Leaf.

"...Idiot." Yara.

"...You better come back to us." Zeva.

"Master..." Lilith.

"...Master, please come back safely." Alaine.

And Rose...

Rose said nothing, but in the last fraction of a second before the light took her, she reached out.

Her fingers stretched toward him through the collapsing air, open and trembling, not quite reaching out to him.

And then they were gone.

The divine array collapsed behind him like a breath being let out. The sky above was silent except for the sound of hundreds of wings holding perfectly, terribly still.

Aestrea stood alone at the threshold of the Divine Realm, two swords at his sides, one trembling with eager anticipation and the other perfectly silent, facing an army that blotted out the heavens.

He exhaled slowly through his nose and rolled his shoulder once.

And glanced back over his shoulder at the space where they had all just been, his expression settling into something almost fond.

"...I’ll see you guys in a bit."