The Strongest Student of the Weakest Academy

The crater smoked where the patron god had been slammed into the white stone.

Dust and divine fragments still drifted upward.

Aestrea stood at the edge of the impact zone, his long black hair swaying gently around his shoulders, with his blood-red vertical slits glowing dangerously.

The mysterious black energy continued to radiate from his body, in slow pulses warping the air itself.

"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHH!"

From the depths of the crater, a furious growl rose.

Valthor, the patron god who had been slammed against the ground, pushed himself up, his whole body trembling with unrestrained fury.

He was two times Aestrea’s height, with robes condensed stellar light billowing wildly.

"You insignificant worm!" he shouted coldly, filled with rage, his voice shaking the entire arena.

"I am Valthor, Second of the Council! How dare you lay your filthy hands on me?!"

Three distinct auras exploded outward from him at once.

First came the Authority of Eternal Dominion, causing golden chains of absolute command to lash out like living serpents, whipping toward Aestrea in a split-second.

Second surged the Authority of Stellar Annihilation, blazing orbs of condensed star-fire that formed instantly above his head with a roaring, each one crackling with the power to erase realms.

Third ignited the Authority of the Void ... black rifts tearing open around him with wet, tearing rip sounds, hungry mouths that sought to swallow Aestrea’s very existence into nothingness.

"Die, you filth! Feel the weight of true divinity!" Valthor roared again.

All three authorities converged on Aestrea in a single strike.

FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Chains whipped forward with ear-splitting cracks, star-fire rained down, and void rifts yawned wide with hungry swallowing noises.

Aestrea didn’t move as his Chaos Energy would do the job for him.

The black energy around him simply existed.

Ping, ping!

The golden chains touched the edge of his aura and dissolved into harmless sparks.

The star-fire orbs flickered and collapsed inward, their destructive potential sucked back into primordial chaos before they could even fall.

Pop, pop, pop!

The void rifts stuttered, then snapped shut, unable to consume what had created them.

"Impossible!!! My Dominion Chains have bound gods! My Stellar Orbs have annihilated realms! What trick is this?!" Valthor’s eyes widened in disbelief.

Before he could react, Aestrea appeared directly in front of him inside the crater.

CRACCK——!!!

His fist drove upward in a simple, brutal uppercut, the impact lifting Valthor’s body off the ground and slamming him back down into the stone so hard that fresh cracks spiderwebbed outward for fifty meters in every direction.

BOOOOOOOM!

"Ghhhrk! You... dare strike me?!" Valthor gasped, golden blood spraying from his lips as he staggered, trying to stay upright.

"I am the Second! I have crushed planets with a single thought! You are nothing but a fucking lesser go—"

—THUMP!!!

Aestrea stepped in and punched him squarely on the solar plexus, folding him in half.

"Kurghhh!"

Golden blood erupted from Valthor’s mouth as his ribcage caved inward with an audible crunch.

Swish!

Valthor swung wildly, trying to grapple his throat.

"Get off me, you filth—!"

WHAM!

Aestrea caught his wrist, twisted, and drove a knee into the elbow joint, shattering it directly.

"My arm!!! You will pay for this insult! The Council will—!" Valthor howled in pain.

CRACK!

Aestrea met his desperate headbutt with his own forehead.

"Urghh!"

Valthor reeled backward, dazed, blood pouring from a split brow.

Aestrea didn’t let up.

Snap!

A vicious kick to the side of Valthor’s knee dropped him to one leg. An elbow strike to the temple followed, ringing his skull like a bell.

"Grrrr..."

SWOOOSH!

Valthor tried to blast him point-blank with a condensed sphere of stellar annihilation.

Aestrea caught it in his palm and crushed it.

Then, he backhanded Valthor across the face so hard that several of his teeth flew out in a spray of golden ichor.

"Pathetic," Aestrea muttered in a disappointing tone.

"You summon three authorities at once and still can’t even touch me. Second strongest? You’re an embarrassment."

Those words directly wounded Valthor’s pride.

"Embarrassment?! I have lived for a million years! I have slain primordials! You think your cheap tricks make you my equal?! I am Valthor! I will tear your soul apart and feed it to the void!" Valthor spat a mouthful of blood and teeth.

He tried one last desperate surge.

KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM————!!!!!!

All three authorities flared to their maximum, his body glowing with overwhelming power as he lunged forward in a final, all-out charge, the air screaming around him.

THUMP!

Aestrea simply stepped inside his reach and slammed an open palm into his chest, the force driving Valthor straight down into the stone again, embedding him deeper into the crater.

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!

The entire arena floor buckled under the impact, stone exploding upward in a fountain of white shards.

"U-ugh... c-cough, cough!"

Valthor groaned, trying to rise once more, body trembling with exhaustion and rage.

"This... cannot be... My authorities... they are the pinnacle of creation... You are a fraud... a lie... I refuse to fall to the likes of you—!"

He attempted to summon his own domain.

The air around him began to distort with a low whirr, a vast sphere of stellar chains and devouring voids starting to manifest, ready to trap Aestrea inside.

Aestrea vanished and reappeared right in front of him, their faces inches apart.

His blood-red slit eyes still glowed coldly as a black energy surged violently around his form.

"Cancel."

Valthor’s domain never formed.

The gathering energies simply winked out of existence, nullified perfectly at the conceptual level.

The air flattened entirely, and the distortion vanished.

In that instant... Valthor finally felt true fear, and his massive body started trembling as he stammered.

"N-no... wait... mercy, I—!"

Before he could even try to beg him to let him live, Aestrea unsheathed the Midnight Sword in one fluid motion.

Shing!

The blade practically sang as it left its scabbard, sharper than any concept of sharpness should allow.

Splurt!

A clean, horizontal swing.

Valthor’s head separated from his shoulders in a perfect arc, golden blood fountaining upward in a dramatic spray.

The head flew high into the air, eyes still wide with shock and terror, mouth frozen mid-plea.

His headless body stood for half a second before it began to dissolve into shimmering wisps of divine essence, golden light mixed with threads of stellar power and void.

Fwoooosh.

Those wisps didn’t scatter.

They flowed straight toward Aestrea, to which he absorbed them, instantly feeling his power rising for a little bit.

His long black hair fluttered as the energy coursed through him.

The entire arena had gone deathly silent.

From the stands, shocked whispers erupted among the patron gods.

"Did... did he just...?"

"Valthor... the Second... gone in minutes?"

"Impossible... he was untouchable..."

Aestrea slowly turned toward the stands where the rest of the patron gods sat frozen in place.

Their faces, once arrogant and highly superior, were now filled with pure terror.

The being he had just executed in seconds was none other than Valthor, the second strongest among them all.

If Aestrea could kill him that easily, without even breaking a sweat, without needing his swords for most of the fight...

"Does anyone have more objections?" Aestrea’s cold voice resounded throughout the arena.

No one spoke at first.

But just then, a few scattered voices rose in panicked denial.

"We... we cannot kneel to an outsider!" one patron god hissed.

"This is blasphemy!" another snarled, though his voice cracked with fear.

Even the strongest among them, the one whose aura had once felt the heaviest, clenched his fists until divine blood dripped from his palms, but remained silent, eyes wide.

Aestrea’s gaze turned.

First to Seraphiel, who was still on her knees where he had left her, trembling. Then across every single patron god lined up in the stands before him.

"Kneel down."

The command was simple.

The patron gods frowned almost in unison, their pride flaring for one final moment.

"Never!"

"We are the Council! We bow to no one!"

But Seraphiel reacted instantly.

Without a shred of hesitation, she pressed her forehead fully to the cracked white stone, wings folded submissively behind her.

The hate that had once burned in her mismatched eyes had already vanished, replaced by something far more intense: pure, worshipful admiration.

The other patron gods hesitated a second longer, murmuring in outrage.

"Do I need to repeat myself?"

Aestrea raised his right hand and slowly traced the words in the air with his index finger, black energy forming glowing letters that hung suspended: "Kneel before me".

Swish...

With a casual flick, he sent the floating words soaring upward toward the sky.

"I said... KNEEL BEFORE ME!"

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!

A terrifying pressure descended from the heavens like the fist of the primordial void. It was not mere weight.

It was the conceptual force of the beginning itself pressing down on them, stripping away every layer of divinity and status until they felt exactly like 1✯ Early True Gods.

The patron gods’ pride shattered in unison.

Thud, thud, thud, thud!

One by one, their knees buckled.

Robes tore against the stone as they were driven downward. Wings, horns, halos, and ancient regalia pressed flat against the ground.

Their foreheads touched the arena floor in perfect submission, their bodies trembling under the overwhelming command.

They knelt as if worshipping their true emperor... the one who had reminded them, in the most brutal way possible, that there still was a being superior to them.

Seraphiel remained pressed down even lower than the rest, her body shaking not from fear anymore, but from ecstatic reverence.

"My lord..."

Soft, almost worshipful whimpers escaped her lips as she stayed perfectly still, completely surrendered.

Only then did Aestrea turn his gaze toward the elevated platform where the Creator Woman sat watching everything.

Shiver~

The moment Aestrea’s blood-red slit eyes locked onto her, she shuddered violently. A soft, involuntary sound slipped from her throat.

"H-haah~"

Her face flushed a deep, rosy crimson that spread down her neck and across her collarbones.

"W-what is this, ungh~"

Her breathing quickened, chest rising and falling rapidly. She crossed her legs tightly, thighs pressing together as if trying to contain something overwhelming.

She wrapped both arms around her shoulder, hugging herself while her body trembled, not from cold, but from a wave of pure, electric delight and ecstasy that she had never experienced before.

For the first time in her existence, the Creator Woman felt genuine attraction toward someone.

Her eyes remained fixed on Aestrea, unblinking, wide, and glassy with desire.

The powerful, ancient being who had orchestrated this entire arena, who had watched gods fight and die for her own amusement, was now reduced to a flushed, shivering mess simply by meeting his gaze.

She stared at Aestrea... his long black hair flowing like living night, blood-red slit eyes glowing with primordial power, mysterious black energy still radiating from every inch of his form, and something deep inside her awakened.

...Something akin to a need.

A worshipful yearning that made her bite her lower lip hard enough to draw a tiny bead of golden blood.

"Ugnh~, mhm..."

The entire arena remained deathly silent except for the soft, trembling breaths of the Creator Woman and the submissive silence of every kneeling god and goddess before Aestrea.

Aestrea stood at the center of it all, the root of chaos made manifest, his long black hair drifting in the faint currents of residual power.

Before him was a place...

Where Even Gods Kneel.