As the abomination smiled, swinging his fist at Jack’s face, a rush of divine magic flooded from his side. His eyes barely moved, seeing Lydia jump on a table while students were still in class, she burst through the door and swung her sword, only the window’s glass between her and the abomination, and he could feel that he had to run.

Divine Cleaver Lydia’s swing destroyed the whole wall and the students were blasted back to the inner wall, gasping for air as they saw her fly away to the edge of the garden, pushing the abomination with her blade.

“What was that?!” A student cried.

“Don’t move!” Jack shouted at them, “A monster infiltrated the school, wait for your teacher to come back.”

“Jack?!” Those were his classmates, “What are you doing there? The light poles aren’t a toilet, you know that?”

“Wait, is that armored girl the monster?” Another gasped.

“Shut up! And no, that girl is my wife; I’ll cut you apart if you insult her again.” Jack jumped away, using his strings to swing from one light pole to another.

One of the students approached the shattered wall, staring forward as dust and debris slowly fell, “Wife? That was a paladin smile, what do you mean a wife?” He sighed. They had heard the chairman’s warning earlier and so they did expect some noise, but not like this.

The abomination landed on the ground, rubbing his head. “That hurts, a paladin’s smite, how annoying.”

“The first swing is to protect.” Lydia said, walking toward him with divine magic burning from her shoulders. Protection was her first oath, and it was fulfilled by protecting Jack and getting the abomination away from the other students.

“I can tell, that you aren’t supposed to exist in this world.” She stabbed her sword into the ground, cracking the garden as divine flames burned from the cracks. This was her oath of balance, preventing those who would harm the harmony of the world from existing.

“A creature like you must’ve harmed thousands of lives. That is the case isn’t it?” She glared at him with a golden spark burning in her eyes.

“Indeed, I pride myself on my achievements. Even if it activates your oath, I’ll never claim to be less efficient than I am.” He smiled, his thin and pale body growing larger, burning with a dark green eldritch magic.

As confident as his roar seemed, he was still worried that he was facing a three-oath paladin. While most mortal classes draw power straight from Aria, the archon of the overgod, paladins draw extra power from their god on top of that, making them more dangerous.

The problem with a paladin is that their power relies heavily on their faith in their god and that god’s willingness to provide them with power. The more the paladin’s goal aligns with their god, the more power the god will give them to achieve it.

Judging by the divine power leaking off Lydia, he could tell that the god behind her was one of the latest things he wanted to deal with at the moment. The previous queen of the heavens and the shining starlight of the world, the one and only glory that never fades, the one above all else and the third strongest of the gods, the one his kind dubbed the world mother.

Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun, dusk, and dawn, his eyes stole a glance at it shining in the sky and he could feel the warmth. That was her, the literal sun-given life. Out of everyone’s reach, shining and disappearing at her own whims, and everything in the mortal world owes her their life.

Lydia…that thing is an abomination… natural born enemies of this world. Amaterasu’s voice boomed in Lydia’s head. I’ll grant you as much power as your body can handle, so send him back where he came from.

Lydia’s divine magic spiked higher than it was ever before, and everyone started panting as the temperature started rising beneath the sunlight.

The sun turned red in the sky as Lydia took a step, the ground beneath her feet burning as her blade turned golden.

The abomination smiled, realizing that Amaterasu was going after him without hesitation. It was the overgod’s orders after all; kill abominations on sight unless they were within one of his seals.

He roared and lunged forward. “You might be the vessel of a god’s power, but you’re just a weak mortal.” She’ll die with a sufficient injury.

Lydia swung her sword, and he lifted his arm to block her attack. But the impact pushed his arm back into his face and smacked him into the forest like a ball hit with a baseball bat. Divine magic flashed as that was a Divine cleaver

Lydia stared at her blade for a second, realizing that she couldn’t cut through the monster’s skin. That made it clear that he has a way to resist divine magic, this wasn’t the first time he faced a fight like this.

When Lydia jumped after the abomination, she left a crater where she stood and Jack who was trying to catch up to her gasped. ^This isn’t her normal output. The divine magic is stronger than before and enchanting her physical abilities, which usually means she’s sustaining damage from that.^ He swung from some trees trying to catch up to her and the abomination.

The abomination landed in the middle of the forest and looked up, sweating. ^Paladins are the god’s vessels to fight in the mortal world without destroying it. This was the overgod’s rule after Tiamat and Zaleria nuked and destroyed the mortal plan in a fight, Zaleria isn’t even a god.^

Lydia fell toward him from the sky, swinging her sword. If a normal divine cleaver didn’t work, then she needed to draw more power. Solar Wind

The moment Lydia’s sword started moving, everything that’s metal in several kilometer radios moved with it, the temperature so quickly the forest burst into flames and a blinding flash burst out in a crescent shape, superheated plasma and magnetic waves moved fresh out of the sun’s crust up in the sky.

Everyone in the school watched and some even started prying, this made the difference between the gods and mortals clear. This whole world with everyone living in it from humans to bugs, to dragons and demi-gods, all would die in an instant if Amaterasu, the literal sun arrived, she wouldn’t even fight, the world would just evaporate from her heat.

****

The teachers were freaking out in the chairman’s office, “A huge burst of Amaterasu’s divine magic is detected in the forest, and the strange creature’s magic is slowly fading.” Lucia yelled.

“No **, look at that.” Another teacher pointed at the pillar of light burning in the forest. “Do you think the shockwave would reach us?” 𝐟𝐫eewe𝚘ve𝐥.c𝚘𝚖

Luckily, both the school and Croc City were protected by Betty’s barrier so they only cracked a bit.

“Another news! One of the signs in the hallways has disappeared! One of the creatures is dead; I’m sending the mage eyes!” She shouted.

They could see Gojo wiping his hands in the empty hallway with Maria sitting in the back, terrified. Strangely enough, the hallway looked spotless; there was no trace of a fight even starting.

Gojo burped, gently covering his mouth, “Excuse me.” But suddenly, his eyes shifted to glare straight at the mage’s eyes. “Teacher Lucia. No peeping, you pervert.” The signal vanished and the image cleared.

“Are you getting us the image or what?” One of the teachers looked at her, waiting for her to change the crystal from the monster location map to the mage eye feed.

“I’ve…lost signal.” She replied…. ^What did just happen? That was Aron’s older brother Jogo? Don’t tell me he’s also another monster…^ She wanted to cry.

Albeit Gojo was strong enough to end the fight without damaging anything, there was another person who managed to end the fight without the abomination getting detected, a creature that stood above everything else.

The moment the abomination clone was about to materialize in the school, it instead appeared alone in a white room. “Where am I?” He gasped.

“I faced one of your kind just a few months ago…” Sena sighed, sitting on a throne in the middle of the room.

Blood drained out of the abomination body and he paled as white as the snow, feeling as if his whole existence faded just by hearing her voice. He could never mistake that, and it was horrifying.

“Cain’s daughter!” He cried, jumping away looking for an escape route to warn the main body. But his head appeared sitting in her palm, severed cleanly at the throat.

^What’s this…I can’t regenerate… my energy is fading rapidly…is this death…^ His mind raced as his eyes looked at Sena’s passive face.

“Hohoho…” A faint giggle came from the distance, “That was a decent kill, but you took a bit too long to make it. He had time to realize he was in this white room before his death was engraved into stone.” Cain walked in leaning on his cane with a tall woman with black hair and green eyes by his side.

“Even mother came.” Sena stood, “It was a clean kill. He couldn’t escape anyway.”

Cain approached her and smacked her in the head with his cane. The hit didn’t hurt; it was more like a gentle knock. “This was a weak clone; the real body would’ve had a chance of escaping this cell you’ve made.”

“Not that he would’ve escaped.” Sofia said with a smile as she stood beside Cain, “Gracie is right outside waiting in the darkness. He wouldn’t have escaped.”