The underground chamber continued repairing itself while Noctis remained seated across from Valdred, and the room did not fully settle even after the holy residue and abyssal traces from the earlier demonstration dispersed from open sight. The damaged wall where the gathered holy power had struck still carried branching lines of pale-gold stress beneath the surface stone, and the old repair formations embedded inside the structure moved through those fractures in slow pulses, closing one layer of damage only for another deeper seam to brighten briefly before darkening again. Dust loosened from the upper edges of the chamber drifted in thin streams whenever the hidden ventilation currents moved through the room, and several particles floated through the blue flame-light along the walls before settling across the floor near Valdred's chair. The relic barriers around the alcoves remained more active than before, their translucent surfaces tightening and dimming at uneven intervals as though the chamber itself continued verifying whether Noctis intended to release another impossible affinity from the same hand that had just produced holy power and abyssal power within minutes of each other.
Valdred sat with one armored hand near the base of his glass, though he had not drunk from it again since the abyssal energy demonstration. His fingers rested lightly against the crystal rim, producing a faint clicking sound whenever the armor edge shifted. The sound was small enough to be covered by the rotation of the dimensional maps above the table, but Noctis noticed it because Valdred had otherwise kept himself extremely controlled through most of the meeting. The Vice Principal's eyes still moved occasionally toward Noctis's hand, not with fear exactly, but with the wary attention of someone who had already watched an assumption fail too many times in one conversation and did not trust the next calm gesture to remain ordinary.
Noctis leaned back into the chair with the relaxed posture of someone who had already moved on from the matter. The empty abyssal bloodwine glass rested loosely in his right hand while his left hand idly turned one of the small metal formation tokens Valdred had used earlier to adjust the battlefield projections. The token rolled between his fingers, caught the blue light, and tapped softly against his knuckle each time he flipped it. Several mission records remained open in the air between them, showing Holy Church warfronts, contribution categories, target rankings, and deployment windows scheduled across the next several days. Noctis's attention moved through the information without the same boredom he carried when the Academy mentioned ordinary enrollment functions. Battlefields, soul collection, contribution points, forbidden trials, relic access, and the Demon Crucible were all tangible enough to matter.
Valdred eventually pushed one projection slightly aside, causing battlefield routes to fold inward and settle near the left side of the table. "The first battlefield expedition available to you should open within several days if the military department approves your participation without further review. Given the Principal's earlier decision, they will likely hesitate but not refuse."
Noctis watched the smaller projection rotate near the table's edge while the glass shifted once in his hand. "They still want to review me after what happened two days ago?"
"They want to survive whatever happens after sending you somewhere," Valdred replied, and the faint scrape of his armor against the chair followed as he adjusted his posture. "There is a difference."
"That sounds like paperwork."
"It is paperwork written to prevent disasters."
"Still paperwork."
Valdred's gaze lingered on him for a moment, and for the second time that meeting, Noctis saw the Vice Principal look as though he wanted to argue but had decided the argument would exhaust him more than the answer was worth. The chamber's blue flames steadied a little as the repair formations inside the damaged wall completed another cycle. A faint pulse ran through the stone and traveled beneath the table legs, making the empty glass near Valdred tremble once before going still.
Noctis set his own glass down and shifted his weight slightly, resting one elbow against the chair arm while the battlefield projection cast a faint red glow across the side of his face. "Are you busy tomorrow?"
Valdred's hand stopped near one of the projected mission seals. He did not freeze dramatically, but the pause was physical enough that the floating seal continued rotating without his fingers completing the adjustment. His eyes lifted from the projection to Noctis. "That depends on why you are asking."
Noctis looked at him as though the answer should be obvious, then shrugged lightly while the edge of his coat shifted against the chair. "I wanted to spar."
The repair formations continued pulsing through the damaged wall, the blue flames continued burning, and the dimensional maps continued rotating above them, but Valdred's attention remained fixed on Noctis while the meaning of the request settled across the chamber. The Vice Principal had spent the meeting discussing relics capable of assisting godhood, watching Noctis reveal Sanguinastra and the Blood Dominion Core, seeing him wield holy energy inside an abyssal Academy chamber, witnessing abyssal power form in the same hand moments later, and hearing him casually ask about killing the Pope. Now Noctis wanted to use the next day to spar with him, as if a Demon Demi-God Vice Principal was simply a convenient training partner available between mission briefings.
Valdred coughed once into his fist, not because dust irritated his throat, but because the motion gave him a moment to arrange a refusal that would not sound like fear. Armor shifted across his shoulders as he leaned back slightly, and the chair beneath him creaked under the controlled movement. "Tomorrow will be difficult. I have reconstruction reviews, administrative sessions with the military divisions, several post-incident reports, meetings with the residence authority council, and a closed discussion regarding battlefield deployment approvals."
Noctis listened to the full list while one finger tapped twice against the chair arm, each tap soft but distinct in the chamber. His expression did not change much, though Valdred saw the understanding arrive almost immediately. The explanation was too long to be merely scheduling. It was an organized escape route disguised as official duty.
Noctis clicked his tongue lightly.
The sound barely crossed the table, yet Valdred heard it clearly through the chamber's low hum. He looked at Noctis for several seconds with the same expression he might have used if a restricted relic had suddenly insulted an elder council member. The sheer casualness of it struck him harder than the request itself. Noctis was sitting inside a high authority chamber beneath the Demon Realm Academy, surrounded by sealed relics, damaged sovereign-grade walls, unstable battlefield projections, and enough political weight to bury several departments, and his response to a Vice Principal declining a spar was the same faint tongue click a street delinquent might make after being denied entry into a tavern brawl.
Valdred's thoughts tightened around the conclusion before he could stop them. This young monster was more of a lawbreaking hooligan than most humans the Academy fought on the warfronts. Worse, he had the strength to make the hooligan behavior an institutional matter.
Noctis noticed Valdred staring and raised an eyebrow slightly. "What?"
"Nothing," Valdred answered too quickly, then reached for his glass even though he did not drink from it. His fingers touched the rim, stopped, and then lowered the glass again.
The Principal's voice entered both their minds before the small silence could settle further. It came with faint amusement, calm and old, threading through the chamber without disturbing the physical formations. "If you are looking for a sparring partner, Noctis, why not spar with me instead?"
Valdred's posture destabilized immediately. The chair scraped back across the stone as he stood too quickly, several floating mission projections distorting from the pressure fluctuation released through his armor before he lowered himself onto one knee against the chamber floor. The impact of armored metal against stone echoed through the room, and the blue flames along the walls bent inward for a moment from the abrupt shift in his energy.
"Principal, please reconsider," Valdred said, his head already lowered.
Noctis stood at almost the same time, but for the opposite reason. The chair behind him shifted back with a softer scrape as he rose, and the faint boredom that had hovered around him when Valdred rejected the spar vanished completely. His eyes sharpened with interest, and the air around him tightened just enough that the relic barriers along the walls brightened once in response. "You'll spar with me?"
Valdred's head lifted sharply despite still kneeling. "Do not encourage this."
The Principal's amusement deepened through the mental link, and the chamber's old formations seemed to steady around that presence as though they recognized the voice better than any authority seal. "He asked for a spar. It would be impolite to ignore such enthusiasm."
Valdred lowered his head again, his voice losing some of its administrative polish as genuine distress entered it. "Principal, the Academy was only recently rebuilt after your last manifestation. Several eastern lecture towers still carry reinforcement lattices from that incident, and the old military arena required complete reconstruction. The institution cannot afford another pressure collapse."
Noctis, who had already leaned slightly forward with interest, paused when the words reached him properly. The excitement across his face shifted into confusion while he looked from Valdred's kneeling posture to the damaged wall still repairing itself and then toward the deeper direction where the Principal's chamber existed far below. "Wait. What happened last time?"
The Principal gave a small cough through the mental link, the kind of sound that seemed less like embarrassment and more like amusement being politely covered. "Perhaps another day."
Noctis did not let the matter pass immediately. "No, now I'm curious."
Valdred remained on one knee with one armored hand braced against the floor, and the joints of his gauntlet clicked softly when his fingers tightened. "The last time the Principal manifested physically, the pressure release destroyed approximately half the Academy's upper structures before the stabilizing formations could redirect the force. Several districts collapsed outright. The Academy survived because the manifestation lasted only briefly, and because the Principal withdrew before the old foundations failed deeper into the institution."
Noctis's expression changed slowly while the scale of that explanation moved through him. The room remained active around him, the repair formations continued sealing the wall, the maps above the table continued turning, and the blue flames continued burning with steady light, but his attention narrowed toward the idea of someone whose mere manifestation could level half the Academy. The Principal had not attacked. Had not fought. Had not released a named technique. According to Valdred, simply appearing had been enough.
Noctis rubbed one side of his neck, and for a moment his shoulders gave the faintest involuntary shiver. "Just from showing up?"
"Yes," Valdred said, and the answer carried the exhaustion of someone who had been forced to help manage the aftermath.
The Principal sounded entirely unbothered. "The old formations were weaker then."
Valdred lifted his head with something close to despair. "They were not weak. They were considered among the strongest institutional formations in the Demon Realm."
"They improved afterward."
"Because they had to be rebuilt."
Noctis looked toward the deeper underground direction again. Omni Eyes activated without a visible gesture, and layers of the Academy unfolded across his vision while the chamber remained still around his body. Formation channels became visible through the stone like glowing veins. Pressure routes extended downward through sealed corridors. Dimensional anchors held certain sections of the Academy in fixed alignment while hidden barriers overlapped far below the chamber where Valdred knelt. The deeper Noctis looked, the more the Academy stopped resembling a building and started resembling a buried sovereign mechanism wrapped around something too powerful to be housed normally.
Through those layers, far beneath countless seals and old formation walls, Noctis eventually saw a massive skeletal figure seated in darkness. It was enormous enough that the surrounding chamber seemed built around it rather than built to contain it. One skeletal hand rested near a gigantic black scythe embedded into the ground, and the weapon's curved blade rose beside the figure like a crescent of death carved from night-black metal. The figure did not move while Noctis observed it, but the pressure surrounding its stillness distorted even Omni Eyes perception, making the edges of the chamber bend and blur around it. It resembled a statue only in the sense that mountains resembled stone. The lack of movement did not make it inert. It made it worse, because the stillness felt chosen.
The skeletal figure's empty gaze seemed to turn toward him without the head moving.
Noctis closed Omni Eyes.
He sat back down slowly, the chair accepting his weight with a faint wooden creak while he kept one hand briefly against the armrest. "Yeah. Maybe another day."
Valdred visibly released a breath. His armor settled around his shoulders as he remained kneeling another moment longer, as though making sure the Principal would not casually renew the offer. The hidden voice laughed again in their minds, not offended, only entertained. "A shame. I was becoming interested."
"I like fighting strong people," Noctis said, leaning back into the chair while the last trace of Omni Eyes pressure faded from his gaze. "I don't like accidentally becoming the reason the Academy needs to rebuild half its buildings again."
"That would create paperwork beyond even my patience," Valdred muttered as he finally rose from the floor. The motion was controlled, but dust clung faintly to one knee of his blue armor, and he brushed it away with more force than necessary before returning to his seat.
The room gradually recovered its previous rhythm. The mission projections stabilized fully. The wall repair formations dimmed as they completed the outer layers of restoration. A relic barrier near the far alcove released a final pulse and returned to its normal containment glow. Valdred reoriented the battlefield mission records with a gesture, and the floating maps spread into organized categories again across the table.
"If you intend to prepare for battlefield expeditions while waiting for the Demon Crucible opening, you should visit the mission bulletin tomorrow," Valdred said, his voice returning to its usual measured tone though a trace of strain still remained beneath it. "The public boards list standard battlefield assignments, but the upper layers contain restricted commissions, faction-sponsored objectives, relic recovery opportunities, and high-risk contracts that provide additional rewards beyond contribution points."
Noctis looked at the projections while the chamber's blue light reflected across the table. "So not just killing Church members and collecting souls."
"That is only the simplest method." Valdred adjusted one section of the map, and several mission seals expanded into a vertical list beside the battlefield image. "A well-chosen mission can grant access to restricted archives, trial priority, sealed relic hints, or permission to enter locations that contribution points alone cannot open. If you want to reach the forbidden trials eventually, you should treat the bulletin as more than a task board."
Noctis's interest sharpened again, but he remained seated this time, watching the mission seals rotate while the lingering absurdity of the Principal's offer faded into practical planning. "Can anyone see the missions I take?"
"Some assignments are public. Others can be accepted privately through upper authority clearance." Valdred glanced toward him. "Given your current position, every faction will attempt to learn which missions you choose. Some will want to avoid the same battlefield. Others will try to follow you. A few may attempt to use your presence to their advantage."
Noctis rested his chin lightly against his knuckles while reading the projected titles. "That sounds annoying."
"It is politics."
"That sounds worse."
"It usually is."
The answer came so dryly that Noctis looked at him for a moment before giving a faint smile. Valdred did not smile back fully, but his expression eased slightly now that the conversation had returned to matters less likely to collapse the Academy's foundations.
Noctis eventually stood and adjusted the edge of his coat. "I'll check the bulletin tomorrow."
Valdred nodded. "Do so with restraint."
Noctis looked at him.
Valdred looked back.
The chamber's quiet hum continued between them.
Noctis eventually shrugged. "I'll look at it."
"That is not the same thing."
"It is close enough."
"It is absolutely not."
Noctis gave a small laugh, and the sound moved through the chamber more naturally now that the pressure had settled. He turned slightly as Genesis energy circulated beneath his feet, and Valdred's eyes immediately sharpened because he recognized the faint change in presence before the movement began. Noctis did not open a portal or tear space. The air did not ripple outward in the familiar pattern of teleportation. One moment his body stood beside the chair, the next it vanished through a layered absence that passed through shadow, sanctity, abyss, and sovereign displacement so cleanly that the chamber formations only reacted after the transition had already finished.
Valdred remained standing beside the table, staring at the empty space where Noctis had been. The mission projections continued rotating. The repaired wall dimmed fully. The blue flames steadied. A faint pressure residue lingered near the floor and vanished before any formation could properly record it.
Far above, Noctis reappeared in the front courtyard of the manor as wind moved through the trees behind the estate walls. Loose leaves scraped softly across the stone path near his feet, and the mansion windows reflected the crimson sky while servants in the outer hall paused when they felt the brief pressure shift from his arrival. Bahamut opened one enormous eye from the rear grounds, recognized Noctis immediately, and allowed it to close again without lifting his head. The Primeval Sanguorath's breathing continued through the forested courtyard, heavy and slow enough to disturb branches near his wings.
Rengar appeared near the courtyard entrance moments later, his movement fast enough that one of the nearby servants startled and almost dropped a folded cloth bundle. He stopped several paces away from Noctis and lowered his head slightly, though his eyes remained on the fading residue around Noctis's feet.
"You returned quickly, Master."
Noctis glanced toward him. "Meeting's over."
Rengar looked at the space around him again, ears angled forward. "I still cannot follow that step."
"You will eventually."
Rengar lowered his head a little further, and the answer seemed to settle into him as instruction rather than comfort. "Understood."
Noctis began walking toward the mansion entrance while the courtyard resumed its quiet rhythm around him. Servants stepped aside. An escort bowed near the doorway. From the rear grounds, Bahamut's blood pressure circulated slowly beneath the trees. Noctis looked toward the upper halls where Kaeltharion's belongings still waited to be sorted and then toward the distant direction of the Academy proper, where the mission bulletin would be waiting the next day.
Deep beneath the Academy, the Principal's voice entered Valdred's mind again after the chamber had quieted enough that the only sounds remaining were formation hums, rotating projections, and the faint settling of repaired stone.
"What do you think of him?"
Valdred answered immediately, without the pause or measured wording he normally used for matters involving the Principal.
"An absurdly lawbreaking hooligan."
The words left his mind with complete seriousness. Noctis had occupied a sovereign manor, killed faction members, suppressed the Academy, forced upper authority intervention, identified the hidden Demon God Principal, revealed relics capable of assisting godhood, casually demonstrated holy and abyssal power inside the same chamber, asked how many contribution points the Pope was worth, requested a spar with a Demon Demi-God, and then considered sparring with the Principal before calmly deciding to postpone the destruction risk for another day. Valdred could think of many formal classifications for him, but none felt as accurate in that moment.
The Principal's laughter moved through the underground chamber with quiet satisfaction, old and genuinely entertained rather than mocking. "A fascinating assessment."
"It is an accurate one," Valdred replied while lowering himself back into his chair.
"Perhaps."
Valdred looked toward the place where Noctis had vanished. The mission projections still rotated there, casting red and gold lines across the repaired table surface. The Academy had no intention of removing Noctis anymore. If anything, the hidden authority beneath the institution had become increasingly interested in what he might become. That realization did not comfort Valdred. It made him reach for the abyssal bloodwine again, pour another glass with a steadier hand than before, and drink while the chamber's blue flames burned quietly around him.