All the students lined up as the tournament finally came to an end, thousands of them waiting in rows for their teachers to arrive. The air was tense anticipation, pride, frustration, exhaustion It all mixed together like static in the atmosphere.
Ava stood beside Dallas in the crowd.
"I'm mad I lost my last match," Dallas grumbled, crossing his arms. "But at least I didn't get eliminated right away. But you? You made it to the top 20. You're one of the strongest kids in this entire school now. And you get first pick to select your team."
He sighed dramatically. "Guess you're probably gonna pick people way stronger than me. I'll probably never even see you again."
Ava smirked. "Don't worry. You're safe with me. I did say I wanted you to be my right-hand man."
Before Dallas could respond, the teacher's voice boomed over the arena.
"Out of 20,000 students… only 15,000 survived! And only a few reached the finals—the Top 20!"
Murmurs erupted through the crowd.
"You each will pick your squads of four first,your teams. These will be the ones you go on missions with, train with, and attend class with. After the top 20 choose, the remaining students will be assigned into groups of four by the teachers based on performance."
The teacher raised his hand.
"Each of the top 20 will represent a section of the school. You will each serve as class president of your section. The school grounds are divided into twenty sectors… and eventually, the top 20 will face each other again in another tournament."
A hush fell over the arena.
"Top 20 students step forward."
Ava and nineteen others approached the front. One by one, each student began calling out their squad members. Groups of four formed quickly.
Eventually it was Ava's turn.
He spoke clearly.
"Dallas. Star. Demeter."
As Ava spoke, Lunark Vail watched from above, every eye on his body open, every mouth whispering in unison:
It's him. It's him. It's him.
The teacher clapped his hands. "New squads, listen up! Your first day of class begins tomorrow. You are dismissed!"
The newly formed team stood together. Dallas was the first to break the silence, grinning wildly.
"I'm so excited to be part of a team! I can't wait to start doing missions!"
Demeter nodded. "This wasn't the plan for this year… or the team I expected. But whoever you are, Ava you're strong. Defeating Tavius the way you did? Impressive. I'm excited too." She and Dallas shared a high five.
Ava gave a small, even smile. "He was a worthy opponent. I respect that. But you three proved yourselves. I needed people I could trust in a fight, and you were the best choices."
Star uncrossed her arms and met Ava's eyes. "what you did to Tavius is going to eventually wear off, right? He is not going to be stuck like a statue forever. He might be a jerk, but he is still important to our people on my planet."
Ava shrugged. "He will be free soon."
Star sighed and looked away for a moment. "I just want to apologize for his temper earlier. He is kind of a spoiled brat. If I were you, I would watch your back. Even though you beat him, he might try something."
"I'm not worried about him," Ava replied. "Why are you even with someone like that?"
Star's eyes narrowed. "Just because you're the team leader doesn't mean you need to know everything about my life."
She grabbed Demeter's hand. "Come on. Let's go."
She glanced back at the boys. "We'll see you in class tomorrow."
Star and Demeter walked off. Dallas and Ava headed toward the dorms.
That night, Dallas slept soundly.
Ava did not.
In the darkness of his room, Ava sat in a meditation stance, gathering every fragment of energy he could. His black halo adorned with demonic horns slowly materialized above his head.
"Omnipresence."
A domain of existence unfolded around him, stretching farther and farther… until his presence filled an entire section of the school grounds. And then he moved.
He appeared inside one of the highest buildings on campus. In front of a massive desk covered in documents.
Photos of Lunark Vail covered the desk, followed by images of the Dark Lord, each one captured from different battles, different realms, different moments in time. Ava sat in silence, flipping through the paperwork with calculated patience. His eyes scanned every page like a blade gliding across flesh.
What realm does he live in? What reality does he rule?
What are his weaknesses? How large is his army? How deep does his influence go?
The deeper he read, the more the truth unfolded. There were documents on the students where they came from, their power levels, bloodlines, and hidden abilities. There were files on the teachers, their histories, their loyalties, even the secrets they tried to bury. Ava turned another page… and then he found it.
The Dark Lord has seized 95% of the Shadow Omniverse.
Infinite hyperverses are already under his command.
Ava's gaze hardened, but he kept reading, refusing to miss a single detail.
And then he saw the title.
Project: Take Over the Omniverse
A faint chill rippled down his spine, though his face remained calm.
So this is his ambition… I wonder if my father knows about this.
He rose from the chair and began searching the room more thoroughly. Shelves lined the walls, filled with spellbooks bound in ancient runes, potions glowing with forbidden energy, scrolls sealed with divine wax, artifacts humming with dormant power. There were maps of worlds no mortal had ever named, diagrams of war strategies across layered realities, records of massacres carried out in silence.
This wasn't just an office.
It was the mind of a conqueror.
And yet, something else caught his attention hidden blueprints detailing research into erasing causality, bending dimensional law, and enslaving higher beings. Ava's eyes narrowed.
This wasn't war. It was preparation for total cosmic domination.
Then
He felt it.
A presence approaching the door.
Cold. Sharp. A gravitational force of authority.
"It's him," Ava whispered. In an instant, he vanished without a sound.
Lunark Vail entered the room with the calm of a man who feared nothing. His steps were steady, his expression unreadable as his eyes swept across the office. Everything was precisely as he had left it. The desk was clean. The shelves were untouched. The air was still.
To anyone else, the room looked perfect.
But Lunark Vail was not anyone else.
His gaze drifted slowly… and stopped.
A single pen lay on the floor.
Not on the desk.
On. The. Floor.
"…Someone was here," he murmured, voice barely above a whisper. "And not just anyone. I can feel it."
He extended his hand. The air stirred. A strand of hair pitch black rose gently from the carpet into his palm.
He stared at it for a long, silent moment… and his eyes widened.
"…That kid. Ava?"
His calm expression darkened into a deep frown.
"But how? The teachers' dorms and offices are protected by layered magic and advanced technology. Time manipulation, reality warping, divine abilities, teleportation, phasing none of it can bypass these defenses."
His fingers tightened around the strand of hair as the atmosphere around him trembled.
"Unless…" His voice dropped lower. "Unless another teacher let him in."
The idea lingered in the air like poison.
A traitor among us…?
He turned slowly, scanning the room as if the walls themselves might answer him.
"No one can breach these rooms," he said quietly. "So how… did he get in?"
Ava deactivated his Omnipresence reappearing silently.
Ava materialized in front of the fountain and finally exhaled, his demon halo fading away into the air.
That was too close.
He stared at his reflection in the water, expression calm but his thoughts were sharp and cold.
I can't afford to fight the high-level teachers. I can't clash with the Dark Lord's soldiers… or his army. Not yet.
If I make one wrong move, even a single teacher here could kill me.
His fingers curled slightly.
I have to stay hidden. I have to suppress how strong I really am. At least until I get my full strength back.
The fountain continued to ripple as the night air grew heavy around him.
Until then… I move in the shadows.
Before he could move, the fountain's water exploded upward, a living wall that twisted and braided itself around him. He was trapped inside a spinning, translucent prison. He floated there, bewildered, hands at his sides, watching the world through a lens of rippling blue.
From beyond the liquid cage came ragged footsteps. Tavius appeared first bruised, blood-slick, returned to human form his squad clustered behind him like a pack. Star ran up, voice frantic. "Stop! Just get over it. You lost. It's okay."
"Get off me," Tavius spat, shoving her away. He barked orders to his friends. They began to chant, draw sigils in the air, weave sealed techniques. Binding runes braided into the water prison. Dozens of small, magnetic wards snapped into place around Ava, strings of magic tightening his form. A dozen spectral masks magical barriers materialized and began to hum.
"Look at you now," Tavius sneered through cracked lips. "Trapped. I said I wouldn't give up my place. When we kill you, someone will take your seat in the Top Twenty and that someone will be me. My father will be proud. I am a king. And you? A weakling from Earth." He produced a tarnished medallion that pulsed with a sickly light. "This does more than make clones. It strengthens me."
He conjured a dagger of condensed water, a needlepoint comet, and hurled it with cruel precision.
Ava watched it arc through the prison, heart kicking. This is bad. All these seals these layers of magic I'm pinned. Panic skittered along his nerves. He could feel the runes trying to map him, to freeze him where he floated.
He inhaled once and his power awakened.
Golden light blazed across his eyes, divine and geometric, as Tenshi no Me unfurled.
In an instant, his vision transformed.
The world was no longer a landscape of matter and space.
It was threads.
Life strings.
They stretched through everything living and unliving, past and future, existence and nonexistence woven through reality like endless rivers of light. They weren't just in front of him. They were everywhere. Surrounding him. Layered beyond depth. A cosmic web revealed only to his gaze.
And every person… every creature… every soul… had one.
These were not normal strings.
They were hyperversal life strings each one containing infinite parallel worlds, every possible version of a life, every decision, every outcome, every birth and every death.
Their existence and their nonexistence.
All in one strand.
And Ava could see them.
Touch them.
Control them.
His gaze found Tavius's life string bright, frayed at the edges, pulled tight with unresolved pride and pain. Ava reached out effortlessly.
The moment his fingers brushed it, the string responded like a living thing smooth as silk, sharp as wire.
With a precise, practiced motion…
He tugged.
Reality folded.
Bodies obeyed.
Swap. Shift.
In the space between heartbeats, he and Tavius traded places.
He reappeared at the point where Tavius had stood, solid and fast enough to catch Star as she slipped. The water dagger slammed into the thin air where Tavius had been and continued on, finding Tavius instead. He screamed; blood spat from his mouth as the blade carved through him.
Around them, Tavius's squad panicked. They ripped their seals in frantic disarray to free their friend. The water prison collapsed. Tavius slumped to the ground with a dagger in his chest; his friends scrambled to his side, shouting apologies and useless incantations.
Ava caught Star before she could fall, one arm slipping gently around her waist.
Her body jolted in surprise, cheeks flushing a soft pink as she instinctively leaned into him.
He held her steady calm, unbothered until the trembling in her legs eased.
He looked down at her.
"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice low and steady.
Star blinked rapidly, realizing how close they were.
"I'm fine," she muttered, face burning with more than just adrenaline.
Before she could step away, Tavius staggered back to his feet, glaring in disbelief.
"We… we switched places," he growled. "How did you do that? Why did our positions change like that?!"
Ava turned his gaze toward him, eyes glowing faintly.
"I already told you," he said calmly. "These eyes allow me to map existence and non-existence Hopf fibration, life-strings. That's how I"
"Shut up!" Tavius snarled, anger flaring like a live coal beneath his skin. He stepped forward, eyes burning with feral light, and then barked at his crew. "Give me your energy now! I am the future king of our planet. Obey!"
They flinched but did as he ordered, hands pressing to their own chests forcing their power through invisible funnels. One by one their life forces bled toward him, unwilling tributaries drawn to a throne he claimed with a shout. Tavius seized the medallion and pressed it to his palm. It drank from the offering, siphoning strength from his allies as they poured it; some came from the trinket, the rest from their reluctant gifts.
Pain eased like retreating thunder. Muscles filled, skin tightened, and a new edge cut across his features. His pupils narrowed to slits; flesh rearranged itself with a sick, animal clarity. Teeth lengthened into jagged, sharklike rows, and his eyes turned the color of warning lights. With a guttural bellow that warped the air, he lunged forward.
Star threw herself between him and Ava, voice breaking. "Stop it, Tavius! Don't"
He shoved her aside with a contemptuous shove and spat, every word soaked in venom. "You traitor," he said, cold and precise. "I don't care about you anymore, Star. You betrayed our people." His grin was a blade. "I can always find another queen to replace you. I will kill you and I will kill him, too."
Tavius exploded forward, body becoming a living jet of rage. He wasn't just fast he was beyond fast. With the surge of stolen power flooding his veins, his movement shattered perception itself.
He moved at immeasurable speeds, too vast to calculate, too violent to comprehend. The air didn't just tear it screamed. The battlefield twisted as he passed, the very fabric of 5th-dimensional space warping in his wake.
Ava slid between Tavius and Star, boots sinking into fractured stone as if the ground itself bowed to him. He caught Star's shoulder to steady her, then turned to face the charging boy and leaned in close enough that everyone could hear. "I don't like killing," he said, voice flat at first, "but when it comes to scumbags I make an exception." He let the last words hang, then continued, louder now, harder, the edges of his tone sharpening. "Some people deserve to die. Who else will cut down chaos made flesh? Who else will force chaos to bend?" As he spoke his eyes brightened, a thin manic glint surfacing beneath the calm, and the words came out with the calm cruelty of a judge delivering sentence.
A war of halves stirred inside him, a holy edge pressing against a demonic hunger. The demonic side answered first. Black and purple light coiled beneath his skin, lightning that smelled faintly of void and old thunder. His teeth lengthened, just enough to make his smile sharper
Energy crowned his hands, black and purple lightning dancing along his fingers like living onyx. He raised them and unleashed the Thunderbolt of Chaos, raw and jagged, a scream made manifest. The strike hammered into Tavius's chest with a force that tore the air apart. Light shattered across the field as Tavius flew backward, a spray of fractured brilliance and burning pain.
Tavius hit the ground hard, coughing blood and broken breath. A great rent opened where his ribs should have been and he howled for more power. His squad scrambled, frantic and obedient. They chanted and reached for him, pushing their energy toward their leader as if prayer alone could stitch him whole.
Ava watched them with a stillness that made their panic shiver. He spoke once, quiet and absolute. "Stop. If you keep feeding him energy, you will die with him." Fear flickered across their faces. The rites broke. The flow of energy stuttered and then ceased. They stood frozen, guilt and terror in their eyes.
He stepped forward and loomed over Tavius as the demonic light pooled around his ankles and ebbed like a tide. Tavius writhed and spat, "Get away from me, you monster, you demon." His voice cracked with pain and rage.
"You are right," Ava said, voice low. "I am a demon, and I am proud of it. Chaos bows to me. I control chaos." He brought his foot down and planted it on Tavius's chest, not hard enough to crush, but hard enough to mark dominion. He laughed then, a dark sound that tasted of lightning. Black and purple arcs danced over his knuckles. "You are chaos itself. Chaos bows to me. Any last words, scum?"
Star's voice cut through the air like a blade.
"STOP! You don't have to kill him he's already defeated!"
The shout should have been nothing more than noise an irritation in the middle of his wrath but it struck something deeper. The sound didn't just hit his ears… it hit memory.
For an instant, another time bled into the present.
He heard his sister's voice cool, pleading, gentle.
"If you just choose the right path… Father will take you back."
Then another memory surfaced, older and heavier. His father's calm counsel words he mocked.
"Yes, you can control chaos. But do it with kindness. If you can stop someone without killing them, do so. You are too quick to kill."
At the time, he had snarled back, "You're too soft father."
But now… in the middle of the ruined battlefield… covered in blood and thunder…
Those voices echoed inside him.
And the rage
The pure, murderous urge
Thinned.
He felt the kill impulse fray. The demonic halo faded, the black and purple lightning slackened, and his laughter dissolved into a breath. Tavius lay unconscious, bleeding but alive. His squad milled about, hollow-eyed and shamed.
Ava stepped off Tavius's chest and took a few calm strides back, the demonic glow around him fading, his horn retracting as if nothing monstrous had ever been there. He looked down at Tavius broken, then at the terrified faces of his squad.
"Don't just stand there," Ava said coldly. "You'd better hurry up and heal him. He doesn't have long."
They froze shocked he was giving them a chance at all.
Ava crossed his arms. "I'm not going to kill him," he continued, voice steady but merciless. "But I'm definitely not going to heal him either."
That was all it took.
Tavius's friends lunged into action, scrambling to his side as panic replaced fear. Spells ignited. Hands glowed. Healing energy surged as they poured everything they had into their fallen leader, desperately trying to mend the gaping wounds before it was too late.
Ava simply stood there, silent and unreadable, making it clear his mercy was a choice not hesitation.
Star rushed to his side, her eyes scanning him anxiously. "Are you okay?" she asked, breath uneven.
Ava gave a calm nod. "I'm fine."
Behind them, Tavius groaned. He was slowly regaining consciousness, eyes unfocused as he lifted his head from the ground.
"Star…" he rasped, reaching weakly toward her. "Don't… don't leave me…"
Star turned to him no fear in her eyes this time. Only exhaustion. "After everything you've done to me? The way you've treated me? You were about to kill me, Tavius." Her voice sharpened, strength rising with every word. "I don't care what my parents think. I don't care what our people say. If that makes me a traitor… then so be it. I don't ever want to be with you."
Tavius froze, stunned and for the first time, truly speechless.
Ava glanced at Star. His tone softened slightly. "Do you need help walking back? We're in the same dorm anyway."
Star hesitated… then allowed herself a small smile. "I'd love that."
Ava nodded once. The tension in his shoulders eased. Star moved to his side, and together they began walking away from the battlefield leaving Tavius behind in silence.
High above, unseen by them… something watched.
A floating spell an ethereal orb laced with arcane symbols, its center a single demonic eye hovered in the air, observing everything with perfect clarity.
Far away, in a darkened chamber, Lunark Vail stood before a scrying mirror, arms folded.
"So… he called himself a demon," Lunark murmured, eyes narrowing. "And that energy… yes. Demonic."
He paused.
"…But there's something else. A holy power as well?"
A slow, dangerous smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
"A demon with holy energy… Interesting."
His gaze followed Ava and Star as they walked away together.
"I must watch this one… very carefully."