Chapter 52: ERIKSEN
Azrael looked at the mountain of books before him.
A muffled sigh escaped his lips unconsciously.
"This would take a while," he muttered beneath his breath.
As he said those words, he leaned further into the bed involuntarily.
Before long, he was asleep, eyes snapped shut.
A few moments later, the system’s facepalm emoji appeared in his peripheral vision, but it was not enough to wake him.
Time passed in a blink.
The system’s alarm blared in Azrael’s ears, jolting him awake.
He killed it before the noise could escalate another second.
"Did I fall asleep?" Azrael said, wiping his face with his palm.
[Apparently,] the system replied.
"And you could not wake me?" Azrael asked with furrowed brows as he straightened himself to rest against the headboard.
[As if waking you up every morning is not already enough,] the system replied.
Azrael sighed, then pushed himself off the bed.
He shook.hisnhrad slowly as he looked at the books he forgot to read.
"I will check them once I get back. I should get ready for class now," he muttered, heading into the bathroom.
His bath took just over five minutes and he was out.
"Good morning, my Lord," Clara greeted with a curtsy as Azrael stepped out of his room.
He nodded with a smile.
"How are you?"
He was already used to seeing Clara by his door side.
"I am well, my Lord," Clara bowed quickly.
She was surprised by the question.
Azrael nodded and took calm strides through the hallway.
Clara followed behind him with a matching pace.
Before long, he was outside the castle.
The suns had just begun to rise, their light barely touching the planet’s surface.
Azrael chose to walk, not bothering with his usual means of transportation.
Within the blink of an eye, two days had passed.
It was finally the sixth day. The day of the Dimensional Rift expedition.
The estate grounds were loud with the noise of the clan’s knight trainees.
At a glance, there were over a thousand of them.
These were the students being trained to join the Infernal Army on the Malvorin clan’s behalf.
Then, in a quieter corner, the students of the Nexus Convergence academy stood apart.
Their heads were held high.
Each of them was an asset to the clan, people who had a genuine chance of participating in the grandest event in the universe. They simply could not bring themselves to mingle with the knight trainees.
Most of them, anyway.
Azrael and Zephyr had already worked their way into the middle of a group of trainees and were bickering with them freely, unbothered by any notion of rank or class.
Just then, a single voice spread through the entire ground, reaching every ear at once.
"Are you ready?" The person said.
No greeting. No motivational speech. Just the question.
The murmurs died as everyone turned to look.
The silence barely lasted five seconds before it shattered like glass, replaced by a single topic spreading through every mouth on the ground.
"That is Lord Eriksen, the sixth child of the Patriarch," one of the knight trainees whispered to the person beside him.
"Is that so?" The person replied with a raised brow.
The first trainee nodded.
"Where do you live, under a rock? Who does not know Lord Eriksen?"
"Sorry, sorry," Azrael said with a smile, stepping back from the group.
The trainee looked at him, suddenly worried he had overstepped.
"No, I did not mean it as an insult, it was just a joke," he added quickly.
Azrael waved it off.
’Why are they all so formal?’ he wondered as he made his way back to where the other students were gathered.
The trainee clearly had no idea who he was talking to.
"I am the guide for this expedition to the Dimensional Rift," Eriksen’s voice cut through the noise again.
His tone was cold and detached, like he was addressing beings several tiers beneath his concern.
’I have things to attend to. Why do I have to explain all of this to these children?’ Eriksen thought, scanning the crowd.
"The rift is tier one, with the highest individual beast at tier five."
He paused, letting that land.
’What was the next part?’ He wondered, squinting slightly. ’Right.’
"The rift is divided into three rings. The first ring contains beasts up to tier three. The second ring contains beasts up to tier four, with a single tier five boss."
He stopped again, as if the weight of the next part could not share a sentence with the previous one.
"The last ring contains swarms of tier five beasts, with the possibility of encountering a tier six."
A long silence followed.
"Where you go is your own choice. It is not my concern."
"Let’s explore together," Zephyr proposed to Azrael.
"I would rather do it alone. It is freer that way," Azrael said with a shrug. "Besides, I do not want to accidentally kill you."
Zephyr’s brow twitched, his mind briefly going blank from what Azrael had just said.
"You think you can beat me?"
Azrael nodded with furrowed brows, as if the answer was obvious.
"Then let us make it a competition. Whoever collects the most cores keeps half of the other person’s," Zephyr said.
Azrael smiled.
"I do not really enjoy the idea of going around bullying people," he said.
"Are you in?" Zephyr asked again.
"Fine, but do not say I did not warn you," Azrael replied.
Eriksen stretched one arm outward.
Essence surged from the motion, wrapping around each student and trainee like a cocoon.
Before anyone could process it, their bodies lost all sense of weight.
In the next moment they were airborne, shooting into the sky in a streak of blue.
Under Eriksen’s guidance, they rose and flew.
Azrael looked around with wide eyes, taking in the world below him.
This was his first time outside the estate since the day he transmigrated.
And only one thought could surface in his mind.
Breathtaking.