[Seraphina's POV]
Two days earlier, when the entrance exam began, I had sworn this silent oath: I would slaughter every monster in my path and seize my place in A-class. Not for glory alone - but to finally force Father's indifferent eyes to truly see me. Let the man who always measured me as "adequate at best" bear witness to excellence he never imagined from his daughter.
Of course, my team complied. Not from respect for my leadership, but because the Aldenwald name carried weight even here. A word to the proctors, a carefully placed threat about their families' positions, and suddenly their objections died in their throats. What did their cowardice matter? If we nobles didn't wield our birthright without hesitation, who would maintain the proper order? Let the commoners grovel for survival - my station demanded nothing less than total domination.
With that conviction burning in my chest, I approached the newly assembled group that day. My demand was simple: we wouldn't merely survive the exam - we would hunt down every monster in our path. Their horrified expressions almost amused me. Did they think this was some peasant's test of endurance?
To my satisfaction, we've performed remarkably well since. The initial resistance - the widened eyes, the muttered protests about "unnecessary risks" - faded quickly enough. No threats were required. Either they recognized the superiority of my approach, or they understood the futility of opposition. Their eventual obedience proved satisfying either way.
We rested that night with the satisfaction of three orbs already secured between us—half our goal achieved. With just two more monsters to slay the next day, passing the trial seemed assured. The others slept soundly, their confidence buoyed by our success.
But dawn brought unease.
At first, everything proceeded smoothly—until the cracks began to show.
"Adrian," I said, my voice cutting through the morning stillness, "must we waste another hour on these Spider-wasps? Where's the thrill in slaughtering the same dull creatures?"
A beat of hesitation. Then, with a tension in his jaw that betrayed his true thoughts, he acquiesced. "Of course. The southern route should offer fresh prey."
His compliance was too quick, too practiced—the voice of a man who knew better than to argue with a duke's daughter. The others exchanged glances but stayed silent.
I pretended not to notice.
After all, what did their reluctance matter?
After pushing deeper into the trial grounds, we found our prey - a Shadow-sword. The classification burned crimson in my memory: A-rank. Just one of its obsidian orbs would catapult our standings into the top tier.
The name hardly did it justice.
Before us stood a nightmare given form - a humanoid void where darkness bled like wax from a melted candle. Its silhouette constantly rippled, edges dissolving and reforming as thick, tar-like shadows dripped from its form. The only distinct feature was the weapon in its grasp - a katana forged from pure absence, its blade drinking the light around it.
We launched our assault without hesitation. Adrian and the others fanned out in practiced formation, their diversionary strikes forcing the creature's attention outward - exactly as planned. This left the killing blows to me.
I struck like alternating sword strikes - first from behind in a flash of silver, then materializing before its grotesque face for the finishing arc. No common mercenary's tactics these; a noble's blade demands honorable confrontation even in ambush.
My weapon answered each movement with radiant defiance, its polished steel singing through the shadow-stained air. The Aldenwald crest - a black rose wrought in onyx along the fuller - seemed to drink in the darkness around us. Let this wretched creature understand in its final moments exactly whose hand brought its demise.
Victory came swiftly—within hours, the shadow-sword fell to my blade. By midmorning, its orb pulsed in my palm, as we retreated to a nearby area to recover.
Without much delay out of nowhere the earth trembled as a minotaurous charged from the tree line, its bull-like nostrils flaring with rage. Sunlight glinted off its sweat-slicked brown hide as it lowered its horns—each one as thick as a man's thigh—and barreled toward us.
Territorial. Obsessive. The trial's overseers had clearly programmed it to view the orbs as offspring. And now, by sheer misfortune, we'd chosen its nesting ground to rest.
The minotaurous' charge never landed.
A deafening crash split the air as something slammed into the earth right below it like a fallen star hitting the ground. Dust and debris erupted, forcing us back as the ground fractured beneath the impact.
When the haze cleared, a grotesque parody of an angel got revealed, its obsidian wings stretching wider than two grown men standing end-to-end. The creature loomed over us, its form radiating wrongness—every feather seemed to writhe like living shadow.
And in its clawed grip, a student dangled by the throat, his feet kicking uselessly in the air.
It wasn't choking its victim.
It was presenting him.
The rumors I had hear a while back came rushing—this was him. The weakling baron's son with that unkempt black hair, the one even the dormitories had rejected for his pitiful status. My lip curled instinctively. Everything about him repelled me—his low birth, his shameless persistence in attending this academy, the way his very existence seemed to mock the natural order.
Disgust warred with duty in my chest.
I loathed him.
But I loathed disorder more.
And this... this abomination defying our world's hierarchy was the greater offense. My hand tightened around my sword's hilt. However worthless that boy might be, allowing such a creature to mock noble authority was unthinkable.
I was unaware that this was the point where the day would take a grueling turn.
The fight had begun, we were mere toys worth nothing in it's crimson eyes. We weren't able to land a single shot, I was reduced to a mere plaything just wondering around behind it, without landing an attack. The frustration built up like a volcano in my head.
After countless failed assaults - each attack as futile as the last - I saw the change come over it. That grotesque smile, once brimming with cruel amusement, had slackened into something far more dangerous, boredom.
The creature's grip tightened around the baron's son in rhythmic pulses. His screams came in broken intervals - short, wet gasps that choked off unnaturally each time, as if his body was forcing him to calm down.
With the frustration inside me blowing up, I was able to lead my group to land a blow, which someone, a person of utmost importance to the school used as a disguise to free the student while the entity was in the air.
It was none other than our school council president, a person that I have respected with my whole being.
That was also the reason why I had to stand there with confusion
'Why is she saving a mere baron's son when her body is in that condition!? She didn't even bat an eye to me the last time I had tried to talk to her.'
I couldn't stop thinking about it even among the chaos that was spreading as my group was attempting to land another hit.
'What's so special about him that she is putting her life on the line for him, when usually the she is so cold?!'
Amidst the thought the entity started to gather ether around the region, the dense green forest losing it's color by the second. It was apparent that what the president did not only injured the entity but also angered it to such extent.
The very next moment, the maelstrom of energy crystallized into a single, terrible point, aimed directly at the collapsed president who'd dared save that worthless boy. Every instinct screamed at me to intervene, but my limbs locked in place. That attack would atomize me on contact. I could already envision it—my sword shattering, my body unraveling into motes of light, my name reduced to another cautionary tale scribbled in some academy ledger.
I knew what I had to do, but I couldn't do it. I just watched as it released the attacked trying to avoid my gaze from it with guilt.
The world seemed to slow as he moved—that insignificant baron's son, sprinting forward with a fool's courage. No battle cry. No hesitation. Just his ragged silhouette throwing itself between the president and oblivion.
His head was severed in an instant. The cut was so clean that, for a fleeting second, it remained atop his shoulders—until gravity claimed it. The angel's grin widened as the lifeless head finally tumbled to the ground.
Then—relief. The president lived.
How... convenient.
That worthless existence had finally proven useful. Let the academy scribes record this moment—the day a baron's whelp died as he lived: beneath his betters, yet serviceable in the end. I will make sure of it.
'Now for the bigger problem, it will definitely continue it's attacks at the president so I must move her right away!'
I didn't hesitate—just bolted straight for the president, grabbing her before that thing could finish charging its next attack. Her body slumped in my arms, dead weight as I hauled her toward cover.
Then I made the mistake of looking back.
That bastard had already pooled another ball of ether, darker than before, the air around it warping like heat off pavement. My stomach dropped. But no, fear's for people who can afford to freeze up.
A noble doesn't get to hesitate.
The entity unleashed another devastating assault without warning - thousands of shadowy blades erupted in a deadly radial pattern. "Take cover! Immediately!" I commanded, my voice cutting through the chaos with trained authority.
The destruction that followed defied comprehension. Ancient trees that had stood for centuries were sheared clean through as if they were mere stalks of wheat. The once-dense canopy evaporated in an instant, the forest's upper reaches reduced to falling splinters that rained down like grotesque confetti. Sunlight - harsh and unfiltered - came flooding into the newly created clearing, exposing the jagged remnants of trunks that remained.
Through some miracle of positioning, the president and I had found shelter behind one of the bits of tree trunks that was left.
In a moment, it was clear what it was trying to do. Yes, it's motive wasn't to kill us outright but to enjoy the show as we get engulfed struggling by the storming monsters that had seen us in the opening.
It seemed to laugh at us, pointing a finger at us with a smile wider than I had seen on it yet while flying above.
What took us truly by storm wasn't the flood of monsters. No, that was too little of a shock compared to what transpired the very next moment.
The spot where the baron's son had fallen was now consumed by an abyss deeper than the entity itself—a void so absolute it seemed to repel the very concept of light. This wasn't mere shadow, but anti-illumination, a darkness that prickled the eyes and stole breath from the lungs. An involuntary shudder racked my body; my skin crawled as if the air itself had turned to ice.
Then—the angel's reaction.
All fury drained from its form, leaving only a grief so palpable it weighted the atmosphere. Its jagged wings slumped, the crimson tears now flowing unabated. No wails, no screams—just silent, world-ending sorrow etched into every twisted line of its being. I didn't need to understand its language to recognize anguish when it hung this heavy in the air.
With the sudden darkness unfolding, the monsters that were hurrying got took by surprise, they rushed in immediately at what they saw, their plan clearly to attack the blob of darkness enclosing the area.
The angel—that grotesque entity of shadow and malice—moved with startling tenderness. In one fluid motion, it folded itself around the orb, wings curving into a protective dome. Crimson tears welled from its hollow eyes, streaking down its twisted visage as it clung to the sphere.
A mother shielding her child.
A blasphemous parody of devotion.
The attacking monsters' claws and fangs found only its back, their fury absorbed by that shuddering dark form. Not one strike reached the orb.
What is happening?