(Nava's POV)
One more month has passed, and this specific month was superb. Just three days ago, Lan visited St. Freya High and said he had been given a vacation because there were currently no missions for his squad. A vacation? For Lan? I almost choked on my coffee. That guy is a workaholic. I introduced Lan to my students, and though they aren't fighting today, their progress has been immense. It's been really rewarding to see them grow. Lan is far more knowledgeable about Schicksal affairs than me, so when we met Kiana, he was quite surprised, though not overly so. He's getting better at hiding his reactions. I had to personally calm him down when we met Raiden Mei, explaining that the Empress of Thunder is a different, residing personality. He's still giving her the side-eye, but he's trying to be polite.
Now, Lan and I will hold our personal test to determine our current combat level. We will fight Kiana, Raiden Mei, Bronya, and Fu Hua simultaneously. A two-on-four battle? Sounds like a challenge. Lan and I are cleared to use our full power and gear. I heard from Aunt Rosy that with my gear and personal strength, I could rank at low S-rank, but that was four months ago, so I don't know my level now. Maybe I'm even stronger? With all his gear, Lan is essentially peak A-rank. He's strong, but he tends to underestimate himself. And we certainly can't underestimate our opponents: Fu Hua will use her formidable Stigmata power, and Mei will fully awaken the Empress of Lightning inside her. Kiana and Bronya will start as support, but knowing Kiana, she won't hold the line for long. She's too impulsive.
(Omni POV)
The St. Freya Arena
Inside the vast combat training room, the heavy energy barrier shimmered to life, sealing the combatants within. Principal Theresa and Himeko stood ready in the observation deck, their expressions serious as they prepared to judge the chaotic spar. This was more than just a friendly match; it was a test of their abilities.
On the left side, ready for the impossible task of a two-on-four battle, stood the challengers. Leading them was Nava Arragon, the transmigrator, encased in a gold, mechanized knight armor. Her golden, mechanical wings folded against her back, and her rainbow crystal gauntlets shone like captured light. Her left hand gripped a simple wooden staff, its tip adorned with a single, vibrant leaf—a deceptive piece of equipment. It looked harmless, but I knew better.
Beside her, Lan Yuan, the archer of Freedom, stood mounted on a phantom mechanical horse that flowed from his armor. His face was concealed by a bluish mask, his expression unreadable. His arms held the icy bow Solstice, which hummed with pure Honkai energy, and the bluish-orange longsword remained sheathed, a testament to his confidence in his ranged skills. He looked calm, but I could sense the tension in his posture.
Facing them stood the formidable opposing team. Raiden Mei, the Empress of Thunder, allowed the electric wings to fully manifest, her purple hair crackling as her Herrscher form solidified. She was radiating power, a force of nature barely contained. Beside her, Fu Hua—a master of martial history—floated slightly above the ground, her mind already deep in concentration as she activated the boundless psychic power of the Fenghuang Down. She was a picture of serene focus. Behind them, Kiana Kaslana stood ready with her dual guns, a nervous excitement radiating off her, and Bronya Zaychik commanded her massive, grey robotic platform, its colossal cannon aimed and locked. A formidable team, indeed.
Himeko's voice boomed over the speakers, excitement barely contained: "START!"
The confrontation began not with a charge, but with an instant, blinding strategic move.
Nava vanished. Her acceleration, enhanced by her gear and the sheer force of her Destruction Stigmata, bypassed human sensory input entirely. She was not running; she was teleporting via sheer velocity. Her target was not Fu Hua, but Bronya, the long-range anchor. Take out the artillery first.
Fu Hua, however, was already anticipating her. A colossal, invisible wave of psychic pressure slammed into the space Nava intended to occupy, forcing the S-rank contender to break her trajectory and materialize fifty meters away. Damn it, she read me like a book. Fu Hua had calculated her move based on memory and probability, effectively using the entire battlefield as an extension of her mind. She's always been a step ahead.
Simultaneously, Lan faced the other three. Mei, fully awakened, moved first, unleashing a devastating sweep of lightning from her blade. Kiana, ignoring her support role, sprinted directly at Lan with guns blazing, intending to draw his focus. Bronya's cannon roared to life, firing a hyper-velocity round aimed precisely at the mechanical horse Lan was riding. A coordinated assault, designed to overwhelm him.
Lan, the ultimate master of Freedom, did not waste energy on defense. He let the lightning pass inches from his mask—his Honkai resistance shrugged off the residual energy—and met Kiana's charge with a chilling counter. He summoned a volley of six ice-tipped arrows from Solstice, splitting his aim between Kiana and Bronya. Kiana tried to dodge, but the force of the arrows was too great; one arrow slammed into her armor, sending her spinning and crashing into a collapsed barricade, temporarily neutralizing the threat. Ouch, that's gotta hurt. The remaining five arrows slammed into Bronya's robot platform, forcing the mech to divert power to repair the critical crystallization on its surface. Nice shot, Lan.
Mei, seeing her two allies neutralized or delayed, roared, focusing her full Herrscher power onto Lan. Lan returned fire, summoning a massive ice vortex that spun rapidly, intercepting and neutralizing Mei's lightning strikes in a dazzling explosion of steam and frozen shards. It was a dazzling display of power.
The battlefield was now simplified: Nava vs. Fu Hua, and Lan vs. Mei. A test of skill and strategy.
I, frustrated by the psychic tether Fu Hua had placed on the arena, decided to brute-force the problem. She's making it hard to move freely. I engaged Fu Hua, launching a flurry of twenty-four Renewal Taekwondo kicks in less than a second. These were not mere physical attacks; they were focused beams of destructive Honkai energy channeled through pure footwork. Fu Hua blocked them with the discipline of a thousand years, using her staff to leverage her balance and control the flow, but the sheer power was overwhelming. With every strike, the crystalline floor beneath Fu Hua cracked, demonstrating that I was using my S-rank power not just on my opponent, but on the very foundation of Fu Hua's control over the battlefield. I'm breaking her game.
"Your control is ancient, Fu Hua," I thought, my eyes glittering with pink power. "But Destruction always rewrites the script." A silent promise to break her down.
Fu Hua, recognizing that brute force would eventually crush her defenses, shifted tactics. She launched her strongest non-lethal psychic attack: a rapid-fire sequence of highly detailed, traumatic memories—of past failures, deep regret, and overwhelming pressure—aimed directly at my mind. She was targeting the soul, not the body, using her ability to overload my consciousness. A cheap shot, but effective.
I barely stumbled. Her memories are nothing compared to what I've been through. My transcended existence as a transmigrator, combined with my Stigmata of pure Destruction, acted as a shield. I didn't block the memories; I annihilated them. The painful images hit my mind and were instantly disintegrated by my inherent power, leaving me mentally clear, if momentarily annoyed. She's gonna have to try harder than that. I countered this psychic assault with a physical one, using the wooden staff to launch a concentrated, short-range blast of raw Honkai force that sent Fu Hua skidding back a hundred meters. Take that, old timer.
Meanwhile, Lan was pushed to his absolute limit by the Empress of Thunder. Mei was a tireless engine of destruction, creating a permanent dome of purple lightning that restricted Lan's ability to maneuver and utilize his full sense of Freedom. He was trapped in her storm.
Lan realized his goal was not to defeat Mei, but to out-concept her. His power was not just archery; it was boundless movement, an unburdened consciousness. He had to think outside the box.
He launched into an unprecedented display of skill. He stopped using his hands entirely. The Solstice bow began to float, controlled by his sheer will and Honkai energy. It was a sight to behold. Lan commanded the floating bow to fire a continuous stream of ice arrows that created a complex, spiraling barrier of perpetual motion around him, constantly deflecting Mei's lightning strikes and limiting her angles of attack. He was creating his own reality, a sanctuary of freedom within the storm. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time.
He then removed his longsword from his back—the dawn. This was his close-range deterrent. He began to run in impossible, non-Euclidean patterns, using his mastery of Freedom to bend his movement around Mei's linear attacks. His goal was to force her into a single, predictable line of attack. He was setting a trap, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Mei finally lost her patience. She soared into the air, gathering all her energy for a single, defining Herrscher slash—the kind of blow meant to cleave the entire arena in half. She's going all in.
Lan saw his chance. As Mei dove, Lan's mental control over Solstice intensified. The bow fired a single, gigantic, crystalline arrow of pure Freedom, aiming not at Mei's body, but at the nexus of the Herrscher energy at her core. The arrow wasn't meant to kill, but to imprison. It impacted the epicenter of her descent, forcing the Herrscher power to crystallize and lock down completely. Mei was forced to pull back the attack, her armor covered in fragile, rapidly-spreading ice. A brilliant move, Lan.
With Mei temporarily stalled, I delivered the final, decisive blow to Fu Hua.
'This is how things end,' I thought. Time to finish this.
I gathered the totality of my S-rank energy, concentrating it all into my right crystal gauntlet. This was the pure, unfiltered essence of my Destruction talent. I launched a singular, spiraling beam that was less a weapon and more a targeted conceptual eraser. It slammed into the already weakened Fu Hua, not causing physical damage, but utterly shattering the deep psychic well of her Fenghuang Down. Fu Hua gasped, all her memories and power temporarily receding, forcing her to fall heavily to the ground, unconscious. A clean victory.
With Fu Hua down, the Empress of Thunder, still partially encased in ice, saw the tide turn. Bronya's robot was too damaged to move, and Kiana was just now recovering. It was over. Lan, lowering the dawn sword, fixed his cold gaze on Mei.
Mei, recognizing the complete systemic failure and the overpowering strength of Nava, powered down her Herrscher form. Bronya, seeing the retreat, formally shut down her platform. They surrendered.
The barrier dropped.
Himeko lowered her speaker, her expression awestruck. "Sparring match concluded. Nava and Lan are the winners." The announcement was met with a stunned silence. We crushed them.
The sheer force exerted by the two mentors had momentarily silenced the arena. Lan and I, though heavily breathing, stood side-by-side—a pair of unstoppable forces who had proven that the gap between peak A-rank and S-rank, especially when combined with powerful gear, was too vast for the St. Freya team to overcome. We're a force to be reckoned with.
(Rosy's POV - Inside Grisha Adam's mind)
Rosy, standing next to Grisha Adam in a silent corner of the observation deck, materialized a scroll. Her thoughts flowed into his mind, a silent transmission of data.
Rosy: \[Narrative Synchronization: 99.8%. Lan's strategic use of projectile defense was innovative. Nava's power confirmed solid S-rank. The core objective of confirming their capability to handle a localized Herrscher event simultaneously was successful.] A concise and efficient report, as always.
Grisha Adam, watching Lan offer a hand to help Mei up, smiled—the innocent, gentle smile that concealed a universe of calculation. What is he planning?
Adam: "Perfection, Rosy. The chaos was necessary. We now know their true capacity for cooperation. The next step is to introduce the first true rival that forces them to operate not as a squad of individuals, but as a single, unified organism. Let the children have their moment. Send them the files on Schicksal's new recruit; we'll see if that sparks some motivation." A subtle hint of his future plans, a glimpse into his machinations.
The puppet master turned to exit the observation room, the sound of the subdued students and the victorious mentors a dull, distant noise to his ancient ears. He's always one step ahead, always playing the game.