The Dean's question lingered in the air.
"What exactly are your plans from here?"
Zael remained silent for a few moments.
Truthfully, he hadn't thought that far ahead.
For months, his life had been a continuous cycle of survival, growth, battle, and more growth.
Camp.
The battlefield.
The invasion.
The mysterious caller.
Kael's erasure.
The hooded figure.
Everything had happened so quickly that he had never truly stopped to consider what came next.
Finally, he answered.
"Get stronger."
The Dean blinked.
Then laughed.
A genuine laugh this time.
"Of course."
Zael shrugged.
"It's the truth."
The old man nodded.
"I know."
His smile faded slightly.
"And after that?"
Zael frowned.
After that?
The question sounded simple.
Yet for some reason, he didn't have an answer.
The Dean seemed unsurprised.
"Most young geniuses are like that."
He stood from his chair and slowly walked toward the massive window overlooking the academy.
"For ordinary awakeners, strength is the goal."
"For true powerhouses, strength is merely a tool."
Zael listened quietly.
The Dean's gaze remained fixed on the city beyond.
"The Fourth Tier seeks a Law."
"The Fifth Tier establishes a Dominion."
"The Sixth Tier shapes a Path."
"And those beyond..."
The old man shook his head.
"Most never reach that point."
Zael's eyes narrowed slightly.
Another piece of information.
The encyclopedia had only revealed information up to the Fifth Tier.
Apparently even the system didn't hand everything out for free.
The Dean continued.
"Your growth is abnormal."
"Everyone can see it."
"The military sees it."
"The government sees it."
"The demons certainly see it."
He turned back toward Zael.
"But what concerns me isn't your power."
"It's your speed."
Zael remained silent.
The Dean sighed.
"A Level 100 Third Tier should not exist at your age."
"A student capable of killing an invading commander should not exist."
"Someone who can influence the outcome of a battlefield involving multiple higher-ranked entities should not exist."
The old man's eyes sharpened.
"Yet here you are."
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then the Dean suddenly smiled.
"Fortunately, that's not my problem."
Zael blinked.
"...What?"
The Dean returned to his desk.
"My job is to educate students."
"You're far beyond anything I can teach."
That answer surprised Zael.
The Dean opened a drawer and retrieved a small black envelope.
Then he placed it on the table.
"This arrived earlier."
Zael frowned.
"For me?"
"Officially, no."
That immediately made him suspicious.
The Dean looked oddly amused.
"Unofficially, yes."
Zael picked up the envelope.
No sender.
No seal.
No identifying marks.
Just a single name written across the front.
Zael Nightshade.
His instincts immediately screamed danger.
The Dean noticed.
"Interesting."
"What?"
"You sensed it."
Zael's eyes narrowed.
The old man leaned back.
"Open it."
Zael carefully opened the envelope.
Inside was a single black card.
Nothing more.
The moment his fingers touched it—
[Ding!]
A system notification exploded before his eyes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Hidden Quest Detected
Quest Name: Path of the Sovereign
Requirement: Accept Invitation
Difficulty: Unknown
Reward: Unknown
Failure: Unknown
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Zael froze.
The Dean's expression immediately changed.
"You received a system reaction."
It wasn't a question.
Zael slowly looked up.
"Who sent this?"
For the first time since the conversation began—
The Dean's smile disappeared.
And his answer made the room fall silent.
"I don't know."
A pause.
Then—
"And that's exactly why I'm worried."
The room fell silent.
Zael looked from the black card to the Dean.
"You don't know?"
The Dean slowly shook his head.
"No sender."
"No aura."
"No spatial signature."
"No delivery record."
"It simply appeared inside a sealed office protected by multiple Tier Five formations."
Zael's expression darkened slightly.
That wasn't reassuring.
At all.
The Dean tapped the desk lightly.
"If it were a curse, I'd know."
"If it were demonic, I'd know."
"If it were from one of the major factions, I'd know."
His eyes settled on the black card.
"I know none of those things."
Which somehow made it worse.
Zael glanced at the quest notification again.
Path of the Sovereign.
Unknown reward.
Unknown failure.
Unknown difficulty.
The system almost never hid information without a reason.
The fact that everything was marked unknown was alarming.
After a moment, Zael stored the card inside his inventory.
Immediately, the quest remained.
Apparently simply touching it was enough.
The Dean noticed but didn't comment.
Instead, he changed the subject.
"How much time do you have left?"
Zael immediately understood what he meant.
"The battlefield?"
The Dean nodded.
Zael thought for a moment.
"Less than two weeks."
A shadow crossed the old man's face.
"That's what I feared."
Unlike the invasion earlier, there was no humor left in his expression.
Only seriousness.
"The Gods and Demons Battlefield is not a training camp."
"I know."
"No."
The Dean interrupted him.
"You don't."
Zael fell silent.
The old man stood again and walked toward one of the bookshelves.
After searching briefly, he retrieved an ancient-looking book.
Its cover was worn.
Its pages yellowed with age.
"This."
He tossed it across the table.
Zael caught it.
"The Battlefield Records."
Zael looked down.
The cover contained hundreds of names.
Most had been crossed out.
His eyes narrowed.
"What is this?"
"The names of academy students who entered the battlefield over the last three hundred years."
Zael opened the first page.
The first thing he noticed—
Almost every entry ended the same way.
Killed in Action.
Missing.
Presumed Dead.
Soul Destroyed.
Existence Erased.
His expression stiffened.
Page after page.
Name after name.
Geniuses.
Prodigies.
Monsters.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
A few survived.
Very few.
The Dean's voice sounded calm.
"Your generation sees the battlefield as an opportunity."
"Veterans see it as a graveyard."
Zael continued turning pages.
Some of the names had annotations beside them.
Future Tier Five.
Future Sovereign Candidate.
Possessed Mythical Talent.
Inherited Divine Bloodline.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
The pattern was disturbing.
Eventually, Zael closed the book.
The room became quiet again.
The Dean returned to his seat.
"You're powerful."
"Probably the strongest student this academy has ever produced."
Zael didn't argue.
At this point, denying it would be pointless.
The Dean continued.
"And that's exactly why your chances of survival are lower than everyone else's."
Zael raised an eyebrow.
That wasn't what he expected.
The old man laughed softly.
"Average soldiers are ignored."
"Geniuses are hunted."
That made far more sense.
The commander from earlier hadn't ignored him.
The hooded figure hadn't ignored him.
Night Sovereign certainly wasn't ignoring him.
The stronger he became, the more attention he attracted.
And on a battlefield containing gods and demons—
That attention would only increase.
The Dean folded his hands.
"So spend these two weeks wisely."
"Train."
"Prepare."
"Get stronger if you can."
His gaze sharpened.
"Because once you enter that battlefield, nobody can guarantee your survival."
Not the military.
Not the academy.
Not even the system.
Zael nodded slowly.
He already understood.
The invasion earlier had been dangerous.
The battlefield waiting ahead was something else entirely.
Then suddenly—
[Ding!]
A new notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
World Event Countdown
Gods and Demons Battlefield
Time Remaining:
13 Days 17 Hours 42 Minutes
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
For a moment, both men froze.
Zael because he had never seen the notification before.
The Dean because he immediately noticed the change in Zael's expression.
"System message?"
Zael nodded.
The Dean sighed.
"It begins."
Outside the window, the academy was still repairing the damage from the invasion.
Students were returning to classes.
Emergency teams were working.
Life was gradually returning to normal.
Yet Zael knew the truth.
Normal was over.
In less than fourteen days—
He would step onto the battlefield that had consumed countless geniuses before him.
And for the first time since his rebirth—
Even Zael wasn't entirely certain what awaited him there.