The wind stung across Vastarael's face, but not painfully. Natalis held him by the arm like she was carrying a child, her four white wings outstretched in elegant strokes against the endless skies above the ocean. Denisia flew ahead, her eyes scanning the shifting waves below as the three of them approached the final ocean pillar. Compared to the chaos of earlier, this stretch of ocean was unusually still.
Vastarael exhaled slowly, his eyes scanning the horizon.
"You know, I could actually fly by myself."
"Then why am I holding you like a lost duckling?"
"I'm not wasting a single drop of energy unless I absolutely have to. I might have invented the Flight Mystic Circle when I was in hiding but still, not gonna use it if I'm being chauffeured by a literal angel."
Denisia snorted ahead. "Lazy."
"Strategic," Vastarael corrected smoothly.
They flew in silence for a few seconds, until he tilted his head toward them again, more curious now.
"So um... if you two are the rulers of heaven, who's managing Naranq right now?"
The twins shared a look. Denisia was the one who answered.
"Our sister. Heaven is once ruled by the Heavenly Mother. Or rather... she was. She's a Nexus. She was exiled out of Spheraphase too. Even though our sister rules it, the three of us are not powerful enough for us to fully manage it."
Vastarael narrowed his eyes. "So then... who's actually managing it?"
They didn't answer right away. Denisia smirked.
"The Throne."
"What?"
Natalis's wings beat twice before she explained, "The Throne is a sentient artifact, the very first one ever made in Spheraphase, crafted from the First Divine Metal before even the first era began. It's a living regent."
"And it rules Heaven?" Vastarael asked, genuinely baffled.
"Until the next Goddess ascends," Denisia said simply. "It sits on the highest spire of Naranq, unmoving but ever-seeing. It balances the laws of Heaven. The High Seraphs act as intermediaries, but the Throne is the real anchor."
"And you two... don't want that job?"
The two sisters laughed as if they'd had this conversation a thousand times between themselves already.
"Veneri, ruling Naranq means never leaving. Your divine body becomes part of the heavenly structure. You have time, sure, but limited freedom."
"Five hundred years of being watched by angels, stuck in palace courts, reading prophecies, and praying every hour..." Denisia groaned. "No offense to our ancestors, but we like moving around."
Vastarael's eyes widened. "Wait. Did you say five hundred years?"
They both nodded like it was nothing.
"You're literally half a millennium old?"
"Give or take," Natalis replied casually. "Time flows differently in Heaven. Or at least it used to. The Heavenly Mother and the Demon King, our parents, reset the flow of time between realms when we joined Minafallen."
Denisia added, "Back then, every day in Spheraphase was a month in Naranq. So technically, we were only in Heaven for about a year and a half down here. But we experienced five hundred years' worth of divine bureaucracy."
Vastarael whistled. "And you still wanted to study with us at the Academy?"
"Oh, we begged our parents for it," Natalis laughed. "You think we were gonna spend a sixth century debating the ethics of celestial ordinance enforcement?"
Vastarael couldn't help but grin.
"You know, sometimes I forget just how insane this generation is. We've got literal demigods, eternal bloodlines, angels, and elemental avatars all in one circle and everyone acts like it's casual."
"We are the Third Generation," Denisia smirked. "No one's got a normal birth."
They finally descended, landing on a floating stone just near the base of the final surface pillar. The skies around them were overcast, but not storming. The ocean itself was placid. The pillar towered high above, dark and seamless.
The three stood side by side, looking up at the final challenge ahead.
"So," Vastarael murmured, flexing his fingers. "No Divine Energy. No Mystic Tethers. No flying solo. Let's finish this properly."
Natalis cracked her knuckles. "Agreed."
Denisia agreed. "Time to end the test."
And without another word, the Sentina Erideae's third strike team stepped forward, toward the final key to their entrapment.
Hovering in the low skies above the quieting ocean, Vastarael narrowed his eyes. A dull throbbing radiated in his skull as his Mystic Eyes of Awareness activated. He stared through the gloom surrounding the third pillar, a floating monolith cloaked in thick sea mist. And there, embedded near its wide base like a beating wound, was a crimson crystal. Roughly five meters tall, its edges were cracked like broken glass and within it, slow ripples of energy swirled in chaotic patterns. He could see thin strands of energy tethered to the air around it, siphoning anything remotely mystical in nature.
"There it is, the siphon core. Crimson crystal, five meters tall."
Behind him, Natalis and Denisia both activated their Divine Gaze. Their crimson eyes lit up like twin moons, scanning and analyzing through layers of enchantment, structure, and space.
"I see it too," Natalis said grimly.
"But that's not all," Denisia added. "There's a swarm."
The mists shifted and suddenly, they appeared. Hundreds, if not thousands of humanoid figures, shadow-skinned and bone-armored, climbed along the pillar's surface like insects. Each one radiated pressure so dense that even the air around them warped subtly. All of them were Divine Ranked.
"Every one of those monsters is at least Divine rank," Denisia continued. "This pillar is corrupted."
Vastarael turned slightly toward them.
"You think it's the crystal?"
Natalis shook her head. "No. The entire pillar is compromised. Something burrowed into the metaphysical roots of it and seeded corruption."
"But we can purify it," Denisia affirmed. "Together."
"But there's a catch," Natalis added. "Purifying it... will destroy it."
"Which means," Denisia continued, "the second we're nearly done, Peroncerea has to give the signal. We only get one synchronized moment to finish this."
"Got it. I'll stall."
The twins flared their wings and shot skyward, positioning themselves above the pillar in a wide radius. They began to chant in an ancient tongue, a divine mystic circle forming behind them. Vastarael stood on the edge of the air platform and then without warning, he jumped. He soared upward like a cannonball of light, gravity bending beneath him as his coat snapped in the wind. He landed hard at the base of the floating pillar, boots cracking the stone beneath with a thunderous impact. Dust blasted out in all directions.
They were waiting for him.
The creatures turned toward him. Some had wings. Others had six arms. All of them were watching him. Vastarael exhaled through his nose, rolling his shoulders.
"So dramatic," he muttered, summoning Calimostria, his double bladed sapphire glaive. He spun it once in his hand and planted its end on the stone beside him.
"Alright, you beautifully mutated excuses for corrupted vacuums. Let's test a theory."
He leaned the glaive against his shoulder casually.
"You see, I've been thinking about my Time Divinity and whether I could tune my attacks for maximum environmental detonation."
One of the creatures stepped forward. They began closing in.
"So I figured," why not try it on some corrupted Divine trash?"
The creatures screamed. They rushed him as one. Vastarael smiled and his eyes flashed.