Chapter 36 – The Gathering Before the Storm
Scene One: Arrival of the Foreign Champions
The Academy's skies turned gold with floating banners from distant nations.
Royal carriages drawn by elemental beasts thundered across the courtyard. Prideful steps echoed as students from rival academies disembarked—each team accompanied by their nations' finest knights, generals, and spirit-bound guardians.
Evan stood atop a balcony with Lilith and Tessa, watching the sea of unfamiliar faces flood the campus.
"That's the Drakos contingent," Lilith muttered, nodding toward a group of armored youths bearing obsidian crests.
"Dragonkin," Tessa confirmed. "That's the youngest prince of the Drakos Empire. He's said to have tamed a Storm-Wyrm at birth."
From the southern side came a caravan with towering sand beasts and fluttering banners of golden suns. A lone figure stepped out—barefoot, blindfolded, yet radiating pressure that made even Nex stir uneasily.
"The Oracle of the Sun-Blind Sands," Lilith whispered. "She's not even ranked… but rumors say her beast doesn't exist in this world."
And then the silence fell.
A single ship descended—silver, sleek, made entirely of spirit crystal.
From it stepped a boy with white hair and eyes the color of the void. No beast by his side. No attendants.
But every head turned.
Even Varion, watching from the shadows, narrowed his eyes.
"The Sleeper of the Northern Wastes," he murmured.
And he was here—for Evan.
Scene Two: Political Threads Tighten
Inside the Hall of Declarations, the Emperor's heralds stood beside representatives from all major factions.
Evan was summoned alongside Lilith, as both represented Aflety's top-ranked combatants.
A scroll was unsealed.
"By order of the Emperor, the next rounds of the tournament shall not only determine ranking—but ownership of relic beasts and access to God-Tier summoning trials."
Gasps.
Even nobles murmured in shock.
This was no longer friendly competition.
This was war-by-proxy.
Tessa whispered to Evan, "This isn't just about schools anymore… they're using us to settle old grudges."
He already knew.
Because seated at the end of the council room, hidden in plain sight, was a familiar crest—the black feather of The Black Nest—worn by a masked envoy now posing as a sponsor from the neutral kingdom of Varia.
Scene Three: Preparations and Uneasy Nights
That night, Evan sparred alone in the crystal gardens.
He didn't sleep. Couldn't.
Visions of the Beast That Should Not Be Named haunted his thoughts.
Every roar in the distance felt like a warning.
Every crack of magic like a heartbeat in chains.
Lilith found him, bruised and sweating, and offered a silent drink.
"They're all watching you," she said. "Even the gods."
Evan wiped his brow. "Let them."
She paused. Then, softly: "If you lose… I'll break the seal myself."
He stared at her. "You'd risk the world?"
"I'd risk everything," she said, "for you."
And in that moment, beneath the moons, two beasts curled around them—phoenix and basilisk—both divine, both restless.
Both aware of what loomed.
Scene Four: The Calm Ends
Dawn came with a blast of horns.
The tournament grounds expanded magically into a floating island above the campus—rings of stone and elemental fields forming in midair.
Thousands of spectators, nobles, kings, and even deities arrived to watch.
And as Evan stepped into the first arena, the wind carried the words of prophecy:
"The boy who awakens the slumbering void shall stand before chaos unbound."
The storm was no longer coming.
It had begun.
[End of Chapter 35]