Water flowed quietly.
Fish and shrimps swam, seeking food in the corals and the seabed.
It was very peaceful.
A lonely carp spotted a small worm wriggling between two rocks and prepared for its feast. Half way, it widened its eyes and suddenly turned around, disappearing as fast as it could.
A few moments later, a large group of novarians cut through the sea at high speed, exuding a bloodthirsty aura. They didn't even try to hide, rushing into the water, led by the novarian chief.
The chief had gathered every the novarian able to fight, forming an unstoppable army as they headed toward the spatial channel.
Quickly, they reached the area. The channel was literally at the edge of the divine realm, leaning against the spatial barrier, which showed visible cracks for hundreds of meters in the air.
The deepest part of the surrounding sea was only fifteen meters.
After a few moments of looking at the scene, the novarian chief organized them into a semicircle. From the seabed to the surface of the ocean, the novarians were divided into small teams, completely surrounding the canal.
There were 49 apprentice novarian warriors and 485 mortal novarians. The chief split them into 49 small teams, each one led by a first-order novarian and made of ten mortal novarians, including at least three true believers.
The chief himself would manage the situation overall and only intervene if things get out of control. As the countdown approached zero, Liam quickly sent another prophecy to the novarian chief. Motivated, the chief quickly encouraged the troops.
"Children, the intruders are about to arrive. The great Lord of the Deep Abyss is watching us. We must show our strength and courage and paint the sea with the blood of our enemies."
The novarians were excited since the tribe chief's mobilization. Even if their formation was far from perfect, their morale was at the top.
Liam had long adapted to the novarians' style. Forget about formation; just splitting them into small teams was already itself an achievement.
He brought out all the fighters of the tribe.
Only young and the old ones, whose combat power was limited, remained.
He didn't know the scale of the upcoming war, but he didn't want to sacrifice hundreds of novarians as mere cannon fodder.
Although the test may normally not be too dangerous, it wasn't without risk either. If he wasn't careful, his losses could become disastrous.
The nearly one hundred young novarians remaining at the camp were his lifeline if ever things go out of control.
Many students had accidentally caused huge losses to their people and never recovered. They couldn't become demigods before entering the university and ended their lives in misery.
Meanwhile, the spatial channel began to ripple. Quickly, a dozen figures were ejected from the channel. Some landed in the water, while others fell a few meters before entering the sea.
Liam glanced at the invaders and nodded, confident.
They were dolphin-men, averaging one meter seventy. Their hands and feet were webbed, a fin protruded from their backs, and their noses were elongated.
They had smooth, gray skin, without scales, hair, fur, or eyebrows. Each one had a small bone spear in their hands.
Among them, only three had reached the first order. In terms of difficulty, it was even easier than the weekly tests.
The lips of a dolphin-man curled as he smelled the sea.
"I smell food, a lot of food..."
On the other side, the novarian chief didn't waste time. He directly nominated about ten teams and sent them into battle.
"Charge! For the Great Lord of the Azure Abyss, eliminate the heretics!"
The confident faces of the dolphin-men suddenly froze as they realized they were surrounded by hundreds of enemies.
Yes, novarians were their food, but with such a number, hunters would soon become dishes on the table.
However, dolphins were among the most intelligent marine animals. Since they couldn't escape, they get closer, facing the hundred novarians arriving.
One of them raised his spear and shouted to the sky,
"We will fight to the death!"
The dolphin-men roared and charged the novarians.
A mortal novarian roared and lunged at a dolphin-man. The dolphin-man raised his spear and pierced the novarian's skull, spreading brain juice everywhere in the water.
Enraged, a novarian apprentice warrior used the Spurt of the Fish technique. Feeling the immense power flowing in his veins, he cut the dolphin-man in half at the waist, and then stepped back, making way for another first-order novarian.
This kind of scenario played out everywhere. Every time a novarian used the Spurt of the Fish, they made a single blow and then immediately stepped back, losing all their strength and drifting with the currents.
Apprentice warriors fared a bit better and could still swim weakly after the technique, but mortals were on the verge of unconsciousness.
Nevertheless, it was enough. Except for a few mortal novarians who died recklessly at the beginning, others became aware that they were putting their lives on the line and no longer blindly threw themselves at the enemy.
Puchi
The blade of a mortal novarian pierced an eye of the last dolphin-man, marking the end of the first wave of assault.
The novarians roared to the sky and waved their bone knives, celebrating their victory.
The novarian chief let them revel for a few minutes before calling them back to order.
"Well done, children. The Lord of the Azure Abyss is proud of you. However, these invaders were only the vanguard; the main troops are still in the spatial channel and will arrive soon."
Under the wise words of the chief, the novarians sobered from the euphoria of victory and became serious.
They took the fifteen corpses and put them on a small island near the battlefield, waiting for the next wave of invaders.
In the void above the domain, their god displayed a radiant smile.
If it were still last week, such an invasion would have been enough to kill more than twenty novarians if Liam didn't make a move. Even if he lost three mortal novarians, he didn't care at all.
The countdown continued going down, and soon it was time for the second wave of invaders to appear.
Again, the surface of the channel rippled, and thirty huge figures plunged into the seawater.
Most were around six meters long, but eight of them reached ten meters.
Compared to the small novarians, they were true giants. This time, it was giant demonic sharks.
There were 22 mortal sharks and 8 of the first order.
Although they were more numerous than the dolphin-men, sharks lacked their intelligence. As soon as they smelled the novarians, they scattered in different directions, attacking the nearest novarians.
The novarian chief chuckled at seeing this.
"One team per small shark, three for every big one. The rest stay with me and prepare to intervene."
"For the Lord of the Azure Abyss!"
The novarians roared and rushed to fight the sharks.
Once they closed in, mortal true believers used the Spur of the Fish one after another while apprentice warriors distracted the sharks.
The mortal sharks were instantly suppressed and played to death by novarians. It didn't take long for 22 huge bodies to float to the surface, belly-up.
For the first order sharks, it was more complicated. Not only had their size increased, but also their speed and body hardness.
Although mortal novarians left long bloody wounds on their bodies, it was only superficial.
On the opposite, the pain only made sharks even angrier.
A first-order novarian used the Spurt of the Fish and leaped, aiming for the shark's head.
It reacted quickly and dodged, but the attack still hit, cutting its right eye. The novarian wasn't satisfied, though.
He slipped to the blind side of the shark and attacked with all his might.
The bone knife sank deep into the shark's eye.
It struggled with all its might, but it was too late. A few moments later, its only remaining eye lost its brightness, and its body stopped moving.
The first-order novarian felt weakness assault his body, but smiled as he looked at the huge corpse of the beast.
"Watch out!"
The novarian suddenly heard his chief's cry and turned around. Instead of the envious looks of his comrades, he saw a huge mouth full of sharp teeth, but was too weak to escape.
The shark closed its mouth, leaving half a body whose upper part had disappeared.
The novarian chief arrived a few seconds too late. Furious to losing a capable subordinate, he pounced on the shark and, in a single stroke, split its body in half from head to fin.
While the beast's entrails spread in the sea, he looked around. Only three sharks remained, but each was besieged by a dozen first-order novarians.
A few minutes later, the last shark took a lance in the eye and gradually stopped struggling.
In the void, Liam couldn't help but sigh.
This battle should have been even easier than the previous one because the sharks acted individually, but due to a short moment of inattention, he had actually lost one of the tribe's few powerhouses.
In addition, nearly a half a dozen mortal novarians also lost their lives.
Nevertheless, it was a good reminder, for novarians as well as for him. As long as the enemy wasn't dead, one should always stay on guard.
Even so, while they cleaned up the battlefield and piled the bodies on the island, the general mood was still rather cheerful.
Most novarians displayed a silly smile seeing the corpses of the giant monsters.
Only the novarian chief kept a gloomy expression.
At the same time, Liam noticed that three mortal novarians had managed to break the chains of their lineage during the battle, starting the long process of evolution.
There was still about forty minutes before the next wave, so he decided to organize a small ceremony. He sent a prophecy to the novarian chief, asking him to gather troops.
A few minutes later, the novarians were assembled, surrounding the chief and the three novarians evolving. These three, of course, didn't know what it was about and anxiously looked at the tribe chief.
He raised his hand and the commotion around quickly quieted.
"The Great Lord of the Azure Abyss has witnessed our battle. He has seen our bravery and courage. Therefore, he decided to reward three of our most deserving warriors."
As he finished his speech, the novarian chief knelt and began to pray. The whole tribe joined him, and the grating prayer chants of the novarians echoed in the demi-plane.
At the same time, a gigantic phantom appeared above the crowd, attracting the novarians' attention. Some even stopped their prayer and contemplated the majesty of their god before getting hit by their neighbor and resuming their prayer even louder.
The phantom waved its hand, and three pillars of light went down from the sky, covering the three fortunate ones. Immediately, their bodies grew at an eyed-visible speed. Their muscles swelled, and their scales became thicker and darker.
When the light disappeared, Liam's phantom had evaporated into the air, while the three novarians became fervent believers.
Likewise, dozens of pan-believers, witnesses to the almighty power of their god, progressed in their faith and became true believers.
Once the ceremony over, the novarian chief reorganized the defense teams and prepared to face the third wave of invaders.
Time passed slowly, and soon the spatial channel began to ripple again. Seeing what came out of the passage, Liam couldn't help but watch the scene, distraught.
…
Jupiter asteroid belt, school palace.
In a large office filled with antique furniture, the deputy director and many teachers were watching several dozen screens, displaying live the students' trials from the monsters' point of view.
They wouldn't bother watching all of them. Only the top ten of each class were on replay.
At that moment, a red indicator suddenly lit up on the deputy director's desk, attracting teachers' attention.
The deputy director couldn't help but sigh of exasperation.
"It seems that this year again, one of our students can't resist cheating."
With a flick of his wrist, the indicator went out, and the image on one of the screens changed, showing several dozen small videos.
The invading monsters came out of the channel and found themselves in the seawater, where they struggled with all their might but ended up sinking one after the other, drowning at the bottom of the ocean.
Every invading monster not only had sensors that allowed the teachers to understand what was happening, but also a small chip able to detect when the environment was so hostile that they couldn't survive.
In short, it was a cheat detector.
The deputy director manipulated his watch, and a holographic profile appeared in front of him.
"Mr. Alard, it seems that it's one of your students this year."
No one mocked him.
Every year, there would always be two or three smart-ass kids who thought they could fall between the cracks but ended up getting a one-way ticket to the worst ordinary class.
It could be said that every teacher had experienced this situation, and even if it was embarrassing, they had since a long gotten used to it.
Mr. Alard blushed slightly before clearing his throat.
"Well, it seems that I'll have to toughen up my teaching next year. Can you tell me which rascal it is?"
The deputy director nodded and projected the hologram in full view for everyone to see.
Mr. Alard frowned as he looked at the student's profile.
"Something wrong?"
The deputy director asked.
The teacher hesitated before answering.
"Well, it's just… surprising. This student comes from a family led by a true god. Even if he's not a direct heir, he should know that it's not possible to fool us so easily. Moreover, this kid is honest by nature. I really didn't expect him to do such a thing."
The deputy director seemed to hesitate. He then manipulated some holographic buttons on his watch and a holographic document appeared in front of him.
While he was reading it, his face became darker and darker. When he finished, his face was marked with black lines.
He closed the holograms and addressed the teachers.
"Follow me to the boarding room."
Immediately, he disappeared from the office, and the teachers followed short after.