Chapter 113: Departure to the academy
Ascendant Academy....
The final point differentiating the mortal Crusade from the Ascendant Crusade. A brutal battlefield disguised as an academy.
This was exactly what the Nexus had told Ayla about that mysterious place when they spoke inside the infinite white expanse.
None of the common humans inside the lower sectors of the Crusade knew that there even existed such a place or such a high tier division. They were completely unqualified to know anything about this hidden layout.
The average rankers and the citizens back on Earth merely believed that their Crown ranked powerhouses and the ascendants above them were just fighting somewhere deep inside the untamed zones of the Spire.
They had absolutely no idea that those high level elites had left the mortal world behind entirely.
Only a very select group of human powerhouses knew about the existence of this higher plane. Sarah happened to be one of those many select individuals due to the high standing of the Vale lineage.
However even she had no complete or accurate idea about the true nature of the Ascendant plane or the inner workings of the academy.
She just knew the basic legends passed down through the military command. She knew that every single person who went there and managed to return came back with a level of power that was completely beyond comparison.
Because the destination was called an academy Sarah naturally assumed that its structure would protect her daughter in law.
She truly believed that Ayla’s physical safety would be fully granted by the institution rules.
Ayla didn’t even try to correct her thoughts or say otherwise. She completely swallowed her words even though she wanted to tell her that the Ascendant Academy was actually a hundred times more dangerous than the wildest untamed lands surrounding the Solgrace barracks.
She chose to stay silent simply because explaining the true horror of that battlefield might cause her mother in law to nag her even more than she already was now.
"You must promise me to keep your shield skills active at all times" Sarah said as she walked beside Ayla along the snow covered garden path.
She was adjusting the collar of Ayla’s dark fur coat for the fifth time in ten minutes.
"Do not trust any of the upper tier students from the other races. Especially MEN! They are all greedy political vipers who will try to use your talent to secure system resources for their own factions."
Ayla let out a soft huff her vertical golden pupils tracking a falling snowflake. She felt a deep sense of helplessness and mild annoyance because she was being forced to answer with so many human words.
Speaking so much thoroughly bored her primitive monster brain stems.
"I can protect myself" Ayla muttered bluntly trying to keep her response as short as possible. "The other students are not a problem for me."
"I know you are a very strong girl" Sarah continued without missing a single beat completely ignoring Ayla’s short tone.
"But strength is not the only thing that matters in the higher world. You need to eat proper meals at the academy cafeteria. Do not skip breakfast just because Kenji is not there to force a spoon into your mouth. If I find out that you are starving your body again I will personally pull strings with the logistics department to travel up there and check on your room."
Like she could came to academy as she wishes. Ayla rolled her eyes inwardly.
"Okay" Ayla replied her voice completely flat. She just wanted the conversation to end so she could start her journey to the sleepn.
But Sarah kept talking about clothing choices sleeping schedules and the proper ways to avoid annoying men for another full hour until Ayla’s mind felt completely numb from the verbal assault.
The next day arrived far too quickly.
One could not enter the boundaries of the Ascendant Academy if they did not possess the official physical token.
Ayla had the heavy golden token that had been given to her directly by Nexus.
This morning she stood in the center of the artificial garden courtyard. The winter wind was blowing heavily under the glass dome and a weeping Sarah was tightly hugging her chest.
Her mother in law was holding three separate silk towels in her hands using them alternately to wipe the endless stream of tears pouring down her cheeks.
Ayla rolled her eyes toward the gray sky in complete disbelief. Her mother in law had been crying for the entire morning without a single pause and she was still continuing to do so right now.
Ayla genuinely wondered how a human being’s tear ducts could possibly last this long without drying up completely.
She calculated that with the pure volume of tears Sarah had wasted over the past few hours a small swimming pool could easily be formed in the middle of the courtyard.
Luckily the personal guard Martha was smart enough to understand the growing helplessness and lethal irritation developing in the daughter in law’s locked expression.
Before Ayla’s tail-wagging curiosity could turn into an urge to delete the crying human Martha stepped forward from the shadows.
She reached out her hands and pulled Sarah softly to the side breaking the suffocating hug.
"Miss Sarah we must let her depart before the system gate coordinates shift for the day" Martha murmured in a low respectful voice.
Ayla looked at her mother in law one last time as the space between them cleared. Even though the human woman was incredibly annoying and talked far too much Ayla found that she genuinely liked her company over the past two days.
Because of Sarah’s loud dramatic warmth the sharp deep pain caused by Kenji’s sudden absence had lessened considerably within her mind.
Ayla found herself giving Sarah a very soft genuine smile. It was the exact same type of smile she always reserved for Kenji.
It carried the exact same deep primitive meaning to her monster brain stems. She had officially accepted Sarah as someone special to her territory someone she would not eat for traits.
Then she raised her pale right hand and forcefully crushed the golden token in her palm.
Crack.
The heavy metal shattered into fine golden dust. A blinding column of majestic golden light instantly erupted from the floorboards wrapping completely around her small form.
Within a single microsecond the spatial parameters rearranged themselves and Ayla completely disappeared from the Solgrace sector leaving absolutely zero tracking signatures behind.
The moment Ayla’s physical form disappeared from the courtyard the emotional expression on Sarah’s face completely changed.
The dramatic weeping and the helpless motherly tears vanished instantly as if they had never existed in the first place.
Her eyes turned biting cold sharp and focused like two frozen daggers.
As her aura shifted the localized temperature inside the artificial garden dropped rapidly.
The intensity of the snowflakes raining down from the high glass dome increased tenfold turning into a heavy blinding blizzard that covered the green bushes in a thick layer of ice.
"Young miss..." the guard Martha paused her body tensing as she sensed the sudden terrifying mana pressure radiating from her master.
"Martha it has been far too long" Sarah said her voice completely losing its soft maternal warmth. It was now steady cold and filled with a lifetime of military authority.
She looked toward the primary command tower of the fortress a dark smile playing on her lips that thoroughly terrified the old guard.
"The bureaucratic idiots in the high command have already forgotten why my family is called Vale. They think that because my father is asleep they can treat our lineage like an empty asset."
"Miss you cannot do this" Martha stopped her voice shaking slightly as she tried to warn her.
"The central government will notice the movement. They will...."
"The government will do what?" Sarah asked turning her cold gaze toward her trusted guard.
"Blackmail me like they always do? With what exactly? Kenji has already gone into the hidden system lines. Now Ayla has departed for the Ascendant plane too. Who is left here in the lower sectors so they can hold me back?"
A sharp lethal glint passed through Sarah’s eyes as she clenched her fists. "And what about Damien?"
Martha’s eyes opened incredibly wide her breath catching in her throat. "You mean..." She swallowed hard trying to process the strategic gravity of the statement.
"Yes" Sarah answered her tone carrying an absolute unyielding certainty.
"Damien is already coming here. And I am damn well going to claim the heads of those political bastards who tried to sell out my family to the Ghouls."
Sarah turned her body around facing the winter wind. As her mana surged outward to its maximum limit her standard civilian winter dress began to warp and shatter.
The fabric melted away into bright particles of light replaced instantly by her legendary set of snow white armor.
The heavy metallic plates clamped securely around her torso her greaves and her gauntlets humming with a dense energy.
A strength entirelly bypassing Diamond escaped her body.
She stood in the center of the heavy blizzard looking like a majestic general ready to initiate a total purge of the sector.
’When my children finally return from their trials’ Sarah thought her gaze locking onto the horizon where the transport lines shone.
’I swear on my life that I will make this whole place a much better one for their children to run around safely.’
