Amazel descends from the ashen sky, her bat-like wings folding as her boots touch the cold stone of the school's central courtyard. The institution looms around her, a collection of Gothic towers piercing the perpetual twilight, their silhouettes stark and imposing. Shadows seem to bleed from the worn, pitted walls, and the dim lanterns flickering in the corridors do little to push back the gloom. An unsettling energy, a mixture of stagnant magic and youthful rebellion, hangs thick in the air.
She raises her right hand, two fingers pressing against her throat as they glow with a viridian light. When she speaks, her voice, amplified by magic, does not just echo; it thrums through the very stone, a command that vibrates in the bones of every being within the walls.
"All students and teachers. You have one minute to assemble in the courtyard."
The result is instant chaos. Doors slam, footsteps pound, and a tide of confused bodies surges into the open space. Amazel's sharp eyes scan the crowd, her expression neutral. 'Some are still missing. Their defiance is noted.'
With a deliberate motion, she draws an ornate wand from a pocket dimension. Raising it high, she utters two words that suck the warmth from the air.
'Summon Spectrals.'
An eerie wail answers her, seeming to come from the shadows themselves. The lanterns flicker and die, plunging the courtyard into a deeper gloom. Students cry out, clutching each other in panic. Even the teachers pale, their attempts to calm the students feeble against the rising tide of supernatural dread.
From the deepest shadows, claws of solidified darkness dig into the stone floor. Deformed, shifting figures pull themselves into existence, their forms barely holding shape.
"Ayyyaaa!!!" "Aaahhhh!!! Mommy!!!"
Little students scream and cry in horror.Elder students and teachers try to calm themselves but no matter how much they show themselves as strong, from inside they are all scared to death.
Amazel approaches the lead specter. "Present every last teacher and student of this school before me," she commands, conjuring a small, pulsating orb of pure arcane energy. "In exchange, I will feed you this."
The specter drifts forward, its formless head tilting as it sniffs the intoxicating energy. Then, with a silent shriek, it shoots toward the school's main building. The other phantoms follow, a wave of terror flowing inward.
In a private chamber, a portly elf and an Aerynder teacher clink their glasses of wine. "Do you think we should go?" the Aerynder asks, a note of unease in his voice.
Bore, the elf, takes a long sip. "Why should we? Let the weak Arkdemon who can't control a single classroom parade her impotence. We answer to a higher standa—"
His words cut short as a claw of ice-cold shadow materializes from the wall, seizing both of their throats.
"Argh! Ahh! Help! Argh!"
The specters drag them, screaming and struggling, from the room. Their bodies bounce painfully off sharp corners and stone steps, leaving smears of blood in their wake, the spectral entities showing no more mercy than they would to livestock.
Across the school, the same scene plays out. The missing students and teachers are unceremoniously hauled into the courtyard, dumped at Amazel's feet.
"Good work," she says, and tosses the energy orb into a far corner. The specters fall upon it in a frenzy of ethereal hunger.
*Cough!!
The fat elf,Bore, staggers to his feet, his fine robes torn and bloody. He points a shaking, accusatory finger. "You! Bitch! Is this how you treat your colleagues and students?! I wi—"
"Shhh…" Amazel puts a single finger to her lips. A flick of her wand seals his mouth shut and freezes his body in place. "You, Mr... whatever. Explain your absence."
"Mmmph! Ummmph!" he grunts against the spell.
She waves her hand, releasing the silencing charm but not the paralysis. "I am Bore, Master of Biological Arts! I was engaged in deep study! I don't have time for the whims of an administrator who can't even remember her own staff's names!"
"Deep study?" Amazel's smile is a wry, dangerous thing. "Then enlighten us. How do Arkdemons, Angels, and Devils achieve flight?"
Bore smirks, sensing an easy victory. "A child's question. They flap their wings."
"You are... wrong," she says, her smile never fading. "The wings guide their direction. True flight is achieved by channeling and expelling energy through them." Her smile vanishes, replaced by a glacial stare. "What a profound shame. You fail to understand the fundamental mechanics of the very races you teach about."
Students and other teachers look at Bore and whisper amongst themselves.
Veins bulge on Bore's forehead. 'Crap! A technicality!' Humiliation curdles into spite. 'If you embarrass me, I'll drag you down with me.'
"Before you correct others, look at yourself! You can't manage simple paperwork! You can't maintain order! You are a joke of a principal!"
For a moment, silence reigns. Then, Amazel feels the last vestige of her patience shatter. The kindness Hecate identified as her weakness evaporates, flash-frozen by the glacial cold of the General she once was.
"Hmm… you are right. I was wrong," she says, her voice dangerously soft. "I was foolishly kind. I thought mercy might inspire responsibility. Today, I correct that error." She points at Bore. "I will purge this institution of all slackers and incompetents, starting with you."
"YOU BITCH!" Bore roars, finding his voice. "You can't! The contract protects us! You cannot fire anyone for three years! You can only issue warnings!"
Amazel's aura erupts. It is a physical weight, a pressure of ancient power and glacial cold that forces every single person to their knees. "Who am I?" Her voice is no longer soft; it is the cracking of a continent of ice. "I am Amazel, the Glacial Witch. Former Duke of the Underworld. General of the Stygian Legions. My authority does not come from a piece of paper. It comes from the Queen herself, and it is absolute."
She stomps her wand on the ground.
'Frost Burn.'
"Aaahhhh!!! My hands!!! Please save me! Please! I will do whatever you sa—"
Bore's terrified scream cuts short as ice envelops him,crawling from his feet to his head in an instant. He becomes a perfect, horrified statue for a single moment before shattering into a million glittering particles of ice.
The courtyard is deathly silent, save for the terrified whimpers of the remaining staff. Amazel's gaze sweeps over them. She points to several others. "You, you, and you... are fired. Leave my sight before my mood changes."
They scramble over each other to flee.
She then turns her gaze to the injured students, who flinch as one. "You, I will forgive. Once. Challenge my order again, and do not expect mercy."
She raises her wand once more. "Creation: Fortress Walls! Creation: Earth Golems!"
The very earth trembles in response. Massive walls of granite and iron erupt from the ground, encircling the entire school with a resounding boom. Simultaneously, soil and rock gather, shaping themselves into a phalanx of spear-wielding soldiers, their eyes glowing with dull, obedient light.
Her voice echoes, final and unyielding. "New rules are now in effect. This is a boarding school. Work is assigned weekly. I do not care about your methods; I care only that it is done before the deadline. Teachers will also conduct research. Each month, we gather to share our findings."
A wicked smile finally graces her lips. "One last thing. Entry and exit are forbidden. However... if anyone successfully escapes, I grant them a hefty reward. Consider this a personal challenge."
A young Arkdemon student tentatively raises a hand. "M-Mom— I mean, Ma'am!" he stammers, earning horrified glares from his peers. "How can we possibly get past them? It's impossible!"
Amazel looks at him, her smile genuine for the first time. "It is meant to be tough. But not impossible. Use your knowledge. Use your wit. That is the only lesson that truly matters." With that, she beats her wings and ascends to her office, leaving a reformed and terrified school below.
---
The black phoenix soars over the jagged spine of the world, where mountains of pure white ice claw at the sky. His violet eyes, glowing with eerie light, scan the frozen expanse below until they find it: a lake of such startling, vivid blue it looks like a shard of fallen sky, a perfect mirror reflecting the desolate beauty of the South Pole.
"Acheron! Awaken!" Hades's command is not a request but a decree, and the land obeys. Snow slides from peaks in thunderous avalanches. The frozen surface of the lake shatters like glass. Then, the liberated water begins to churn violently, each drop flying upward to coalesce into a towering form a Titan with pale skin, white hair, and a face eternally cast in sorrow. This is Acheron, the river of grief, son of Night and Erebus.
He bows deeply. "An honor to meet you, Lord Hades. I am Acheron."
"You know me," Hades states, his voice a low rumble.
"Yes. My brother, Charon, delivered an oracle to me and my sister, Lethe. He foretold your coming and our purpose. I am grateful to be part of this grand design."
"…Hmm." A gesture from Hades's wing tears a portal of swirling violet energy into the air. Without another word, Acheron steps through, returning to the realm he was born for.
'Surprising. Charon is far more competent and proactive than he appears,' Hades muses. He turns north, where the lamentations of Cocytus call.
He crosses from the frozen continent to the chill ocean in a heartbeat. Suddenly, his senses scream a warning. He banks sharply left, a concentrated torrent of water slicing through the air where he had been, shearing a single black feather from his wing.
More watery lances erupt from the depths. Hades weaves through them with preternatural grace, then retaliates, unleashing a ray of dark blue flame from his beak. The beam pierces the ocean's surface, and where it strikes, the water turns instantly into a vast, rising cloud of superheated steam.
The sea answers with fury. The waves grow violent and uncontrollable, a mountain of water rising as something colossal ascends from the abyssal plains. The Kraken emerges, a living leviathan whose skin is like weathered seabed stone. Dozens of tentacles, each capable of crushing a fortress, coil and thrash. Its eyes, two red suns of pure malice, lock onto the black phoenix.
The tentacles shoot forward, whipping through the air with the force of a typhoon. Hades cloaks himself in twilight flame, his wing-feathers sharpening into obsidian blades. He dives, twists, and spirals through the onslaught, a master of aerial evasion. One tentacle comes too close, and his sharpened primary feather slices it cleanly in two. But before the severed piece can hit the water, it has already regenerated.
'As expected from the legendary beast Kraken,' Hades thinks, a sliver of respect in his cold mind. 'A protracted battle with a beast of this power would attract far more attention than I can afford. Discretion is the better part of valor.'
His form flickers, then vanishes completely from sight and sense.
The Kraken thrashes in confusion, its tentacles smashing a nearby glacier to rubble in its rage. It unleashes torrents of water into the empty sky, its furious roar—"KRAAAAAHHH!!!"—echoing across the southern ocean. Finding nothing, it sinks back into the crushing depths, leaving only tumultuous waves in its wake.
---
Orcanon kneels in the sapphire throne room. "Your Majesty, Hades... escapes the Kraken. He vanishes."
"Escapes?" Oceanus's eyebrows rise. He strokes his beard thoughtfully. 'This is unexpected. The Kraken's strength is equal to a mid God Chief. I hoped to gauge his power...' He lets out a long sigh. 'No matter. There will be other opportunities.'
The graceful Titaness Tethys enters, her milky skin and blue hair a vision of the sea's serenity. "What is it, Tethys?" Oceanus asks, his emerald eyes upon her.
"Your Majesty, Lord Pontus summons you."
Oceanus shoots to his feet, his composure broken. "What?! Lord Pontus calls for me?"
"Indeed, my lord. Lord Pontus himself."
'Pontus? He hasn't stirred from the abyssal depths since the war with the Sky... What could possibly warrant his attention now?' The possibilities, each more grave than the last, flash through his mind. He turns to Orcanon, his voice regaining its command. "Continue gathering intelligence!"
As Orcanon bows, Oceanus hurries from his palace, the summons of the Primordial Sea itself pulling him toward the unknown deep.