Chapter Twenty Eight: Academia Must Move Forward

After my brutal clash with Eldraneel, I collapsed where I stood. My body felt like a shredded ragdoll, nerves screaming in agony, vision fading to a crimson haze. This time, I was barely conscious—just enough to summon Rai as I lay sprawled on the blood-soaked ground.
I never thought a god would sink so low as to deceive me. But in the end, it was all just a matter of pride.
I lay there, breath shallow and trembling, contemplating my miserable defeat. Unable to move even a finger, I could only drown in the bitter taste of helplessness—until a familiar silhouette cut through the darkness.
A gentle warmth enveloped me as a soft voice broke the still air.“For gods’ sake, must you always end up badly hurt?”
LV.
In a way far gentler than the sudden, almost violent manner she usually entered me, LV knelt and carefully gathered my mangled body into her arms. Her embrace was deliberate and slow, a protective cradle rather than a fusion of power, until she finally dissolved into me.
Her strength had not yet reached the level needed to summon objects directly from the gods’ realm. Instead, she linked her essence with mine, her energy intertwining with my own, and drew forth two potions of Rai. I could feel her own body burning and battered as she worked, but she never faltered.
When I came to, a faint pulse of life returned to my limbs. By the time I opened my eyes fully, I was already back in my chambers, lying flat on my bed, my head pillowed on LV’s lap. My body still ached with a sour heaviness.
“I see they almost got you this time,” LV murmured softly, her fingers sliding tenderly through my hair as I blinked up at her calm, otherworldly face.
“Hmm… I still have much… to learn,” I replied quietly, my voice a low rasp.
Her injuries had already healed, and mine too—at least on the surface. But because of the vicious blow I’d taken to the head, a dangerous instability lingered deep within me.
This is the human part of me I hate most. After consuming Rai, it should have been as if that attack never happened. Yet… some stubborn fragment of me remains undeniably human.
Now… about Eldraneel.
Even though he managed to cloak himself during our fight, right now I can read everything about him with perfect clarity.
You might wonder—what becomes of a defeated god? The answer is cruelly simple.
In my battles with the gods, only I risk death. When a god falls, they are not killed. Instead, they lose their standing in Heaven and are stripped of their rank, reduced to nameless, powerless deities.
Ha’e’rrut and Wa’e’rrut—once formidable—are no longer even considered gods in the heavens. Worse still, they must bear the shame of their humiliation and answer to their clans for the disgrace.
Eldraneel knew that humiliation well. Once, he was a higher god—the lowest tier of that exalted rank, but even that made him far mightier than any middle or lower god. After a devastating defeat, however, he was stripped of his title and powers, reduced to a mere servant god.
A higher god stripped of his rank falls to the strength of a low god. But a lower god stripped of theirs? They are nothing but dust.
Eldraneel clawed his way back to the middle ranks through relentless struggle, only to be defeated again. And yet, after another desperate ascent to middle godhood, he was tempted with a poisonous bargain: end me, and he would be rewarded with the rank of a higher god once more. That was the reason behind his attack.
The other god who accompanied him—Tagreander—was also a middle god. Unlike Eldraneel, however, this was her first defeat.
Tagreander possessed two terrifying abilities: Fire and Pause. Her fire was deadly, but her pause ability was far more horrifying—it could freeze an opponent in place for as long as she desired, leaving them helpless while her flames consumed them.
After learning this, a cold realization struck me. The force that halted my movements mid-battle was hers. The rings on Eldraneel’s arms? They were infused with her power.
Tagreander herself required no rings. All she needed was a single resonant sound—a pulse of divine vibration—to lock an enemy’s body in stasis in less than a heartbeat. Eldraneel merely borrowed that ability. Because of this, my movements were slowed rather than instantly frozen. If she had been my opponent, I would have been stopped cold from the start.
LV faced her first. Zinertia and Cracker clashed against Tagreander’s relentless firestorm. Powerful as those abilities were, they carried a fatal weakness: they could be overwhelmed by infinite, ceaseless attacks—and Tagreander’s fire was exactly that.
Unlike Eldraneel’s borrowed tricks, Tagreander’s flames demanded immense energy. But for a middle god, that cost was meaningless.
Here’s how LV’s battle unfolded.
Tagreander repeatedly froze LV’s movements, then seared her with merciless waves of fire. LV, bloodied and scorched, read the rhythm of the assault. After enduring devastating burns, she coated her entire body with Zinertia, creating a shimmering barrier. Using Cracker as a diversion, she unleashed her full combat skill—breaking through the fiery onslaught, countering the pause, and finally striking with Zinertia to end the fight.
All of this played out before I even faced Eldraneel.
“Your fight was… too easy,” I said, still resting my head in LV’s lap.
“What are you saying? Do you have any idea how hot her ‘Hell Fire’ attacks were?”
Hell Fire… huh?
Oh, that reminds me—I almost forgot to explain how I defeated my opponent.
As Eldraneel prepared to finish me, an idea sparked through the fog of pain. I no longer had the strength to attack outright, but then a memory surfaced—when LV had once used her energy to heal Lami after we rescued her from those traffickers.
At that moment, I thought: If positive energy can heal, what would negative energy do?
Though I wasn’t certain of the outcome, I gambled. Using my last scraps of strength, I launched weak, feigned attacks while channeling a massive surge of my negative energy toward him.
Normally, any god would detect such a force instantly. But to Eldraneel, I was already a dead man. I concealed the energy within harmless slaps, making sure he never sensed it entering his body.
My negative energy—fused with Zinertia—crept into his essence, devouring every last fragment of him from within until there was nothing left.
That was one nasty god.
I drifted into unconsciousness in LV’s lap immediately after, and when I finally awoke, it was already afternoon of the following day.
When my eyes fluttered open, Hinata was by my side. LV was nowhere in the room.
“Infinity… are you okay? There were a lot of earthquakes yesterday. Were we under attack again?”
“Something like that,” I answered lazily.
Because LV and I always fought in isolated fields, humanity remained blissfully unaware of the chaos we unleashed. Even if we had battled in the city, it’s not like the media is functioning anymore.
…Why is Hinata wearing girl’s clothes? Oh… so that’s why.
“So… umm… what do you think… of my dress?”
He—she—stood and twirled in a full circle. This was the first time I’d ever seen him in girls’ clothing. Why didn’t she wear them all the time?
I stole a glance as she spun, then looked back up at the ceiling. “What do you want me… to think?”
“You know…”
She climbed onto the bed and slowly crawled toward me as I lay still, staring upward.
“I look like a girl now, right?”
Her face hovered inches above mine. Truthfully, she had always looked like a girl—she’d just never worn the clothes to match.
“Infinity…”
She leaned closer, something unspoken flickering in her eyes—until the door knob rattled.
With godlike speed, she sprang off the bed and turned away, feigning innocence.
“Naum~? How are you feeling?”
I shut my eyes and answered with a thought.Amira… I’m still mad at you… for slapping me.
“B-But… it caught me by surprise,” she stammered shyly, looking away as she lingered at the door.
I’m still… angry.
“I-It was your fault, but… to show how sorry I am, we made some food for you.”
The promise of food snapped me upright.
“Well, I guess… I can forgive you, since you are… weak.”
“I should be the one saying that, but I guess it’s alright,” she muttered, cheeks flushed.
Hinata opened the door, and together we walked downstairs toward the dining hall.
On the way, I couldn’t resist testing Amira’s sincerity. “Amira… if you’re truly sorry… then let me see your chest.”
“No!!!” she shrieked and bolted ahead, while Hinata trailed behind with a faint, conflicted frown.
I could easily know anything I wished to, but I chose not to dwell on human peculiarities.
GROOOWL.
As we neared the dining hall, my stomach roared like an angry beast.
But when I saw the table, my face froze.
What stood before us looked like something only aliens would dare to eat.
“Is this… the food… you all cooked?”
I already knew the answer, but a sliver of hope whispered otherwise.
“Yes! And we went all out!”
All out?
It would take me three hours to cook a proper meal for myself. I wasn’t sure I could wait that long. Summoning food from outside would anger them, and besides, every restaurant in Academia was closed.
A few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have cared what they thought. But now… things were different.
“Let’s eat…”
We all sat at the table and began to taste the feast.
“Uaaah!!”
Amira gagged almost immediately, spitting what little she’d swallowed back onto her plate. Hinata followed with a strangled cough, her face contorting.
The dish Lami ate looked slightly different from the others—she must have prepared hers separately.
“I can’t believe humans cooked this,” Amira gasped, snatching a cup of water and gulping it down.
“But… we already cooked everything in the kitchen because we thought it wouldn’t be enough for Infinity,” Hinata wailed.
I understood. They had spent all morning cooking to please me, only to create something inedible. Now, they had nothing left to eat.
Well, I only wanted to fill my stomach. Taste was irrelevant.
MUNCH. MUNCH.
“MOORE!!”
I devoured everything on the table with merciless efficiency.
Apparently, they had prepared enough to fill the table three times over. A wise decision.
The more I ate, the hungrier I became. By the time I finished, the last scrap was gone and the others stared at me in stunned silence.
I wasn’t foolish enough to eat all that while fully tasting it. I had blocked both smell and taste, focusing solely on consumption.
Growl!
Their stomachs rumbled in protest, but there was nothing left.
“I guess I can… help you out.”
With a thought, I summoned an entire convenience store’s worth of food into my castle’s food chamber, visible from the dining hall.
It would take a while to prepare meals from those supplies, so…
Summoning!!
This time, I summoned an entire dining table—freshly laid and still steaming—from a mansion in another city. I would later send some of the ingredients I had summoned so their owners could cook again… and of course, I would repay the store for what I had taken.
The world outside had fallen into chaos because of the gods, and Academia stood at the heart of that storm.
I can’t allow humanity to live in fear like this.I have to do something.
“Wow!! Infinity, teach me how to summon things like that!” Hinata begged, eyes sparkling with awe.
Yeah… right.