I am the Only Son of Nyx

Chapter 183: Joint Sparring Session

"Go on," Bree stared at Kai flatly. "Tell me what you said to Barbara."

"It went better than expected, to be honest," Kai said and down as Bree. Dorian and Byran turned to face him. Curious as to what went down as the Auric Cabal looked awful earlier. "What do you want to hear first? The good news or the bad news."

"I’m surprised that there’s even the good news," Dorian snorted.

"Give us the good news first," Bryan chimed. "I don’t think I’m ready for the bad news."

"Alright," Kai nodded—and crossed his arms, "the good news is that we don’t need to worry about the Auric Cabal for the time being. No need for us to be on guard. Just focus on avoiding Chester and the Ichor Legion like the usual."

Dorian and Bryan exchanged a look and then celebrated.

Out of all the things that could happen with this confrontation, this one was the heaviest.

Being hunted down by the two strongest groups is scary.

"And the bad news?" Bree asked, tilting her head slightly out of curiosity.

"The bad news is that I’m going to duke it out with Barbara in the Dragon Ring Tournament. If I lose—I’d kneel to her. Become her attack dog. And will hand over Bree to the Auric Cabal, which means the Ambrosia Pact would probably be disbanded."

"Huh, that’s not too bad," Bryan tapped his chin. "That’s more like a you problem."

Dorian smacked the back of his head hard, "Stop spouting nonsense. If someone messed with one of us, then they messed with all of us."

"I was only kidding, you girly-man!"

"Girly-man? I looked like this because of a mutation, you piece of shit. In other words—I’m a disabled person!"

"Disabled my ass."

"Come here, you da—"

As the two were quarrelling, Kai glanced at Bree and saw her staring at him unblinking.

He scratched the back of his head and smiled apologetically, "I know that I made the bet with you on the line without informing you. It’s solely my mistake. I was caught in the moment and didn’t feel like backing down.

"I... I can talk with Barbara again and tell her that you didn’t approve." He added.

Frankly, using Bree as a bet didn’t sit right, especially since he didn’t tell her about it first.

But it was Barbara who brought Bree into the bet, not him.

Seeing that Bree was still not answering, Kai drew a deep breath.

"Bree, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have used you in the bet against Barbara. I know it might make it seem like you’re my possession. But trust me, it wasn’t my pla—"

"Don’t apologize."

Kai paused; the words cut him off suddenly.

He blinked as he frowned to realize that she was staring at him intently; her gaze locked onto his with a fire that made his stomach tighten. Considering what he did, he had expected her to be angry. Really angry.

And he had already prepared for it.

Steeled himself for the cold shoulder or the quiet disappointment.

But this look she was giving, he didn’t understand.

"I should," He pressed onward, frowning. "It wasn’t right. Using you like that; putting y—"

Bree’s index finger pressed against his lips, silencing him mid-sentence again. The touch was soft but insistent, and it sent a wave of confusion through his already tangled thoughts. Kai looked at her, really looked at her, and what he saw made no sense at all.

Her chest heaved erratically, rising and falling with breaths that were deeper and heavier than any mild anger should produce. Her face was flushed, a deep beet red that crept from both of her cheeks down to her neck.

And her skin radiated a warmth he could feel even from inches away.

Below, she was biting down on her lower lip a little; her teeth sinking into cherry flesh.

It was a sight that stirred something in his chest he couldn’t name.

But it was her eyes that confused him most; they held no trace of the anger he had braced for.

No sharpness nor the glinting fire a mad person would possess.

Instead, her eyes gazed at his eyes and then to his lips with something that looked almost like longing. The heat coming off her body wrapped around him, and Kai’s mind stuttered, caught between the apology he thought she deserved and the bewildering reality of the girl standing before him.

Kai could not tell if she was furious or something else entirely.

"Meet me in the backyard before the second class. I’m going to be mad if you don’t."

"O-Okay?"

Once she said that, she turned away, leaving Kai completely stunned.

Out of everyone in the Ambrosia Pact, Bree was the one he couldn’t read the most.

Her emotions are erratic, making it hard for him to predict what she is thinking.

Soon, the sparring session started.

As it turned out, the bald professor was late to address their sparring session—the first time since the start of their lives in the academy—due to the arrival of a batch of freshmen from another academy that was going to join their sparring session.

Freshmen from the Ourania Academy.

Each one of them wore a pale blue uniform with the crest of a celestial bird.

Kai wasn’t aware of their academy, but the number of remaining students from their academy almost matched the Eventide Academy. It meant that the Ourania Academy isn’t as weak as many of their students survived the Blood Rite.

Seeing the new faces, he recalled someone who had been on the back of his mind.

I wonder how Layra is doing right now. She promised to visit, but she hadn’t.

Almost two months have already passed since the Blood Rite, and Layra still hasn’t visited.

She’s a High Angel of Apollo, so she should be allowed to make a visit somehow. Kai wasn’t worried about how she fared at her own academy; she had solid friends and was widely liked. Anyone foolish enough to stand against her would likely be squashed.

Perhaps she was the Chester in her own academy.

Frankly, Kai wouldn’t be surprised if she did after what happened in the Blood Rite.

Did she forget about me already?

Kai smiled sheepishly.

He had only known her for days, so he wouldn’t be surprised if she had already forgotten about him.

Or perhaps she already has another man.

Either way, many things could happen, but it still stung to think that she hadn’t visited.

It was especially so considering she was the one who wanted that.

"Apologies for being late," the bald professor said, as he gestured to the batch of freshmen in pale blue in formation beside him. "For today, all of you are going to spar against these lovely students from the Ourania Academy. No winged-boot training today. Just sparring.

"Play nice, and wait for your names to be called as usual."

He turned towards the foreign students and gestured for them to sit around the arenas.

The freshman body of Eventide Academy was so starkly divided that the Ourania students had no choice but to occupy the narrow spaces between the factions. The forced mingling was a recipe for disaster.

Every point of contact between the two sides only bred fresh confrontation.

And it didn’t take long before the first friction happened.

Not far away, a handful of Ourania students approached the center seats, singling out the groupless ones with cutting words. They spoke harshly and with blatant condescension, as if they owned the ground they stood on.

As if this were their academy, not Eventide’s.

Some other Eventide students stood up and confronted them.

Arguments started, and there are more frictions happening across the cloudy expanse.

Fortunately, the bald professor stepped in and told them to sit down and be quiet.

Kai glanced to the left and saw an Ourania student leaning toward another Eventide student.

"Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Didn’t you hear the professor? Shut up."

"Come on, don’t be like that. I heard that you guys have a Lesser Angel—and he survived the Blood Rite. Is that true?’

"It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not."

"Hah! So, it is true," the Ourania student laughed heartily, finding it funny that a Lesser Angel actually survived. "That’s pathetic. How weak are you guys for a Lesser Angel to survive? For an academy with a dragon as its crest, I expected the students to be fierce, not wimps."

"Careful," the Eventide student stared at him sharply. "Keep running your mouth—and you might accidentally die here."

"Die? Get out of here! Not one of you could even kill a Lesser Angel, so don’t threaten me."

"If you’re really that confident, why don’t you challenge the Lesser Angel? He’s right there."

Kai locked eyes with the Ourania student and then looked away.

A deep sigh escaped him.

Being branded a Lesser Angel was like wearing a target on his back; trouble found him before he ever went looking. Even students from another academy had heard his name and wanted a piece of him.

It’s exhausting to be a Lesser Angel.

Not only is the Ourania student on the left, but there’s more staring at him from all over.

And the Eventide students were also mocked for not being able to kill him.

But oddly enough, though the stares from the Ourania students were hostile, the gazes he got from the Eventide students weren’t. Most of them seemed to be looking at him with something like anticipation.

Kai didn’t understand what they wanted.

It was then that he met with Chester’s eyes; he also had the same gaze as everyone.

"Lesser Angel Kai!" the bald professor called. "You’re up!"

Kai rose under the weight of every gaze in the hall and walked toward the center arena. Moments ago, he had been entirely confused as to what his fellow students expected from him. Now he understood; they wanted him to teach these outsiders a lesson.

They wanted him to show the Ourania students that killing him is not something simple.

Show them that it wasn’t luck that allowed him to survive the Blood Rite.

A lesson that all of them had learned already.

Perhaps, Kai had the Ourania students to thank for this. As Kai stood in the arena, watching his sparring partner, an Ourania student with long black hair and a nasty smirk stepped into the arena and stood across from him, he could feel a weight on his shoulders.

A weight that represented all the freshmen students from the Eventide Academy.

His fellow students who wanted him to humiliate the Ourania Academy.

And right now, he was happy to oblige.

"I’ll teach these fools how a real Angel fights," the Ourania student said as he went to his battle stance. "As a proper and kind Angel, I’ll help you, weaklings, by getting rid of a Lesser Angel bug."