Chương 3: Adversary of God

Shun Aoyama blinked, staring intensely at the translucent window floating before his eyes. His brow furrowed as he tried to decipher the metrics blinking back at him—Strength, Agility, Aether.

'Synchronization: 21% — Initial Sync' and 'Status:'… something? What does that even mean? The grand hallway stretched endlessly ahead, lined with towering pillars and massive crimson tapestries depicting ancient, mythic wars where crowned figures held blazing swords toward a dark horizon. The air smelled faintly of heavy incense and cold steel, like a cathedral built entirely by warriors. Aoyama glanced sideways at his classmates.

They walked in a fractured cluster of panic and confusion, still unable to process what they should do next. Some whispered frantically, others stared blankly at their floating status windows as if staring harder might suddenly unlock hidden subtitles, while a few muttered quietly to the faint, disembodied voices echoing inside their heads. We all still don't get it. He exhaled slowly, adjusting his posture. Alright. If I don't take the lead here, nobody will. Slowing his pace, he turned around to face the group.

"Everyone, listen up," he called out, forcing a steady, reassuring confidence into his voice.

"We stick together, keep calm, and figure this out as we go." Several students nodded instantly, visibly relieved to hand their terror over to someone else's judgment. A few, however, just rolled their eyes in annoyance.

"We… we can really trust you?" a girl with short black hair and glasses asked, her voice dipping low with anxiety.

"Better than panicking," Aoyama replied, flashing his confident smile. Next to him, Kaito Yagami—a boy with sandy blonde hair who looked like he regularly rehearsed cool expressions in a mirror—crossed his arms, a smirk playing over his lips.

"Fine," Kaito said, tossing a heavy hand over Aoyama's shoulder.

"But if we die, it's on you." Leadership was a heavy cloak, and for most, it was far easier when someone else carried it. While no one wanted the burden of all these lives, the moment the class president they all 'relied' on stepped up, the rest simply pushed their own weight onto him without much thought. While the students offered small, fragile cheers of relief and continued walking, Aoyama subtly looked past them.

His gaze traveled toward the rear of the formation, locking onto the boy with black hair who walked in absolute silence. Asakura Syo… Aoyama narrowed his eyes, a flicker of deep distrust crossing his features. Great. One other weirdo we can't read. Along with him… His eyes shifted slightly to the left, landing on another solitary figure. Shinra Noa.

The knights led them past suits of plate armor polished to a mirror sheen, past brilliant stained-glass windows casting fractured rainbows onto the cold marble floors, and beneath heavy banners embroidered with golden royal sigils. Beside Aoyama, Souka Tanaka tugged repeatedly at her hood, her long brown hair hiding half her face. She stared relentlessly at the ground, as if making eye contact with this foreign world might solidify it into a permanent nightmare.

Meanwhile, Riku Valan, tall and muscular, puffed out his chest and stared at his status window with a smug certainty of what he was destined to become. Aoyama tightened his jaw. He didn't understand Aether or Synchronization yet, but if he wanted to protect his classmates, he had to start thinking fast. … The massive doors to the grand royal hall groaned open just as the group of students and their teacher approached. The silver-armored knights filed in first, creating a rigid pathway for the teenagers to follow.

As they stepped into the vast space, Noa instantly noticed something off. The red-haired knight, Darius, and the golden boy, Aoyama, were both subtly cutting their eyes toward him. It was as if the other thirty-odd students had completely ceased to exist, leaving only the three of them locked in a silent, tense vacuum. The hell? What did I do? Noa clicked his tongue, throwing one eyebrow up in sheer irritation. The hall unfolded before them like a throne room pulled straight from myth.

At the far end, elevated on a high stone platform, sat King Manus upon a throne carved from dark stone veined with heavy streaks of gold. Authority draped the monarch like a physical cloak, so thick that the very air seemed to bow in his presence. Nearby stood Elear, his twisted wooden staff resting calmly against the floor like a scholar who had already calculated the outcome of the entire play.

Darius signaled with a sharp hand gesture, and his escort knights smoothly dissolved into the ranks guarding the perimeter of the room. Darius walked up the steps, taking his place beside Manus.

"I suppose you have organized your thoughts," Manus said, his calm voice echoing off the high stone walls.

"If so, we will now begin the rank assessment of you all." Just as Darius warned, there is something deeply off about this group… Manus thought, recalling the knight's words from earlier. Well, the device from Thalaor will strip away any lies. Takeda Nahori stepped forward, kneeling stiffly before the platform.

"Your Majesty," the teacher asked carefully, his voice shaking, "what exactly do you mean by an assessment?"

"We will be collecting data on your Skills, Attributes, etcetera," Elear explained, stepping forward.

"Once we determine what each of you is best at, you will be divided into appropriate roles for your training." See our abilities? Noa's throat suddenly tightened. A bad feeling crept up his spine like cold fingers. What if it shows I don't have a system like the rest of them?

"This particular device is an upgraded version of our previous model, successfully enhanced thanks to the materials provided by Sir Darius," Elear continued, gesturing toward a knight who carried a sleek, metallic contraption with a swirling crystal embedded in its center.

"It is now fully capable of reading even your Essence Fragments. You are the very first group to utilize it within our kingdom." Shit…! Noa's purple eyes widened. It just had to be upgraded when we came here?! He darted his eyes around the perimeter, desperately looking for an exit, a blind spot, or any viable escape route if things went completely south. But reality was cruel. The knights surrounded the otherworldly students like an unbroken ring of steel, leaving absolutely no gaps.

His only option was to play along, follow the rhythm imposed upon him, and pray for a miracle. But miracles don't happen that often. … One by one, the students were called forward. Each time a hand touched the crystal pedestal, a translucent display mirrored their statistics into the air above the device. Gasps, low murmurs, and sudden bursts of nervous laughter filled the hall as secrets were laid bare. A few exceptional results—like Aoi's, Aoyama's, and Hana's—drew satisfied nods from the king.

Elear methodically scribbled the results into a heavy ledger, while King Manus watched the parade unfold from his high perch. Three-quarters of the class had passed through when Elear called the next name. It was Noa's turn. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Noa exhaled a breath he didn't realize he was holding. He walked toward the assessing crystal, keeping his steps unhurried and loose, though his heels felt incredibly heavy against the cold stone.

If the worst happens, I'll smash through one of those windows, he thought, calculating the distance with a final glance. No. Against this many trained knights? I'd get skewered in seconds. He stopped before the pedestal and placed his bare palm flat against the cold crystal. [Name: Shinra Noa] [Race: Human] [Age: 17] [Affiliation: Otherworlder] [Titles: —] [Essence Fragment:???] [Synchronization: —] Attributes • Strength: 15 • Agility: 10 • Endurance: 8 • Aether: 7 • Intelligence: 4 • Authority:???

• Existence: 10 Skills — Locked — W-why the hell isn't it showing— CLING! A bright, lethal flash of steel erupted right beside Noa's head just as he was staring at the blank attributes on his assessment window. In that microsecond, instinct entirely overtook conscious thought. Rather than pulling away, Noa violently ripped the heavy crystal device from its stone pedestal and smashed it directly against the incoming blade.

The crystal shattered in a blinding burst of light, disintegrating into a shower of glowing fragments with a sharp, resonant Crack! The sheer force of the impact barely managed to alter the trajectory of the descending sword. But 'barely' was still a losing margin. The razor-sharp edge kissed his flesh, slicing cleanly across his elbow. Fresh, crimson blood splattered across the white marble like ink spilled on a sacred scroll.

Noa threw himself backward, his boots skidding across the floor as he clutched his bleeding arm and glared at the assailant. Darius stood in the space Noa had just occupied, his sword held in a rigid, lethal stance—a posture meant for fighting a boss-level calamity, not a high school student.

"Why don't you possess our god's gift?" the knight demanded, his voice dropping below freezing.

"You must be an evil fiend." What the hell are you even talking about? Noa thought, a dark, volatile annoyance rising up to drown out the throbbing pain in his elbow.

"I don't fucking know, you stupid motherfucker!" Noa snapped, his filter completely evaporating as he barked right back at the commander, entirely done with playing the polite guest.

"Go ask that god of yours if you want answers so bad!" Behind him, terrified screams erupted from the student body all over again, mirroring the chaotic panic from when they were first summoned into this world. Noa shot a glance toward King Manus, hoping for a sliver of royal intervention, only to find the monarch watching the violence with absolute indifference. The king didn't have any intention of stopping Darius. He either implicitly believed the commander's story or he wasn't surprised by the outcome at all.

So you knew this was going to happen from the very start. Noa bared his teeth.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Nahori shouted, his voice cracking as he stepped forward.

"Mr. Nahori," Darius said, keeping his blade locked on Noa, "when you arrived, every single one of you received a blessing from our god, did you not?" He gestured aggressively toward the ruined pedestal.

"And as you can see from that result… he did not." A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the teacher. Cold sweat dripped down Nahori's cheek. In their minds, a god did not make mistakes. Which meant only one logical thing to the natives: this boy was an enemy of the divine.

40 minutes earlier, [Warning! Danger to host detected!] Huh? Aoyama had stared at his private screen, having quietly cast his skill [Threat Detection] on Noa while they walked. As I thought, something is wrong with him… If the system flags him as a fatal danger, does that mean he's going to kill us all? He tried to mentally probe the interface for details, but only silence followed. … It's not responding? Some of the others said their systems answered them directly. Is mine different?

Resting a hand under his chin, Aoyama made his decision.

"Um… excuse me," he called out aloud, injecting a polite, harmless tone into his voice as he looked at the escort guards.

"Can I go to the bathroom?"

"You need to go now, Aoyama?" Kaito asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Haha—yeah, bad timing!" The laugh came out a fraction too bright, too rehearsed. … Two knights escorted him down a branching corridor. Halfway there, Aoyama stopped dead in his tracks, his casual demeanor instantly vanishing into a dead-serious expression.

"I need to speak to His Majesty," he told the guards.

"It's urgent." The two knights had exchanged a brief, knowing glance, immediately recognizing the look of a calculated informant.

"…Follow."

Present,"Even your own friends understand what you are," Darius whispered. What…? Noa scanned the ranks of his classmates. Some faces held sheer terror, others deep confusion, but the rest… they looked relieved. Aoi's eyes were trembling violently as she stared at him, but Aoyama stood near the front, a faint, satisfied smile playing on his lips.

"Don't you remember how creepy it felt just being near him?" someone whispered from the crowd.

"His eyes…"

"It all makes sense now, doesn't it?" The familiar, hateful, terrified murmurs began to build behind him, echoing the exact same toxic social isolation Noa had endured back in Japan. They hadn't bullied him back in their old world because they were terrified of him, and that bruises pride. But now, safely sheltered behind a wall of royal steel and armored knights, they finally had a righteous, consequence-free excuse to purge him from their lives.

There was no law in this world to shield him from their malice, and the few classmates who actually shrank away from the looming bloodshed simply chose to stay silent, paralyzed by their own consuming terror.

"What are you guys saying?! He's your classmate!" Nahori yelled at the students, his own world shattering around him.

"Teacher," Aoyama said, stepping up to rest a comforting hand on Nahori's shaking shoulder.

"He's dangerous. When I used my skill, it confirmed it as a threat. And now we know why: he doesn't carry the god's gift." So you systematically screwed me over, Aoyama, you absolute motherfucker. Just because I didn't get the same shiny toy you did? Noa clenched his fist around a jagged shard of the broken crystal he still held, the sharp edges slicing into his palm. You… SWOOSH! Darius lunged forward without another word, his blade cutting a lethal arc toward Noa's neck.

Reacting purely on survival reflex, Noa ducked, lunged toward the knight who had been holding the diagnostic device, and violently ripped the standard-issue sword from the man's sheath. He brought the steel up just in time to catch Darius's descending blow. The collision unleashed a heavy, concussive gale that rattled the tapestries. CRACK. A visible fracture webbed across Noa's borrowed blade. He instantly realized that one more direct clash with Darius would shatter his weapon entirely, leaving him defenseless.

Wait… before, my body could barely track his speed. Did I somehow get stronger over the last few minutes? He shook the thought away. Doesn't matter, I need to escape first! He braced himself for the follow-up strike, but it never came. Darius was suddenly forced backward, his sword clashing violently against a dark blade. A man clad entirely in black had materialized from the shadows, locking steel with the commander. RUN! Noa didn't waste a single heartbeat questioning his luck.

He pivoted on his heel and sprinted toward the towering stained-glass windows. He threw a quick glance over his shoulder; the entire royal hall had erupted into absolute chaos. A whole faction of black-clad assassins had seemingly materialized out of the shadows, fiercely ambushing the ring of knights that surrounded his classmates.

"Stop right there!" Just as Noa came within striking distance of the glass, a heavily armored knight cut him off, executing a blinding, vertical downward slash. Noa brought his half-broken sword up in a desperate, angled block.

"Gah—!" Blood sprayed from a fresh gash across his shoulder. White-hot pain flared through his senses. Shit…! This guy isn't as strong as Darius, but that first clash drained too much of my energy. The knight immediately recovered, resetting his stance for another strike. Noa's mind raced, eyes tracking the guard's movements. Left—no, right— CLANG! … clang-clang-clang! The two engaged in a frantic, desperate flurry of strikes.

Noa spilled blood with every passing second, minor lacerations blooming across his limbs where he was a fraction of a second too slow to block, the coppery taste of blood filling his mouth. The students watched in paralyzed horror as the frantic, ringing melody of clashing steel echoed through the grand royal hall.

Darius was completely occupied by a terrifyingly skilled assassin, King Manus was being shielded by a tight phalanx of personal guards, and their quiet, weird classmate was fighting a trained imperial soldier completely on his own. Noa, who had arrived in this world with the exact same baseline civilian body as the rest of them, was covered in deep gashes, his swordsmanship entirely unrefined. Yet, he was somehow holding his ground against a literal knight. CLANG!

The knight thrust his blade forward in a lethal lunging stab, but Noa twisted his hips, altering the trajectory of the tip by an inch. I've trained for years… yet this boy is still alive? The guard thought, quickly resetting his footwork to evade a wild, desperate counter-slash from Noa. His swordsmanship is a complete mess, but… something is off about it. Those bizarre, black and purple eyes were staring right through his visor.

The sclera was as dark as a withering, starless night, entirely dominated by the glowing, electric-purple irises pulsating in the center. Behind those eyes lay a void of absolute, unbridled fury—a terrifying wrath held back only by the cold, rational knowledge that he would die if he didn't break through this line right now. The soldier lunged forward one final time, tightening his two-handed grip for a finishing plunge. SWOOSH!

The knight's sword cut through the empty air like a sudden thunderbolt, but it met absolutely nothing. …!!? A trap?! Confused, the soldier's eyes darted downward. Noa had dropped into a fluid crouch, completely bypassing the swing. The jagged, razor-sharp tip of his cracked sword was held perfectly steady, pointed directly up at the exposed flesh of the knight's unarmored neck. Slowly, Noa lifted his chin, staring straight up into the soldier's trembling eyes.

His blood-stained face contorted, pulling back into a twisted, wildly unsettling grin that radiated pure, unhinged malice.

"Let's meet in hell, shall we?" PLSH—