"Hello, students and welcome to your first day in the Divine Demigod Academy. I am your headmaster, Sozin, and I will be responsible for caring for each and every one of you for the next three years. I expect that not only will you be on your best behavior over the next few years, but you will also make sure to work hard in order to achieve your goals and become one of the elite members of the Divine Enforcers.
"Each one of you has been chosen by the Celestial Codex as Demigods from birth, and you have been granted blessings by the Celestials to aid you in your fight against the Daemons. Do not bring shame to yourself, your family, or to your Celestial Guardian by acting in a way that is not proper for a member of the Divine Demigod Academy!"
In a large auditorium in City S, hundreds of students were lined up, watching as the headmaster of the school addressed them from the podium. The headmaster was an old man with white hair and a short white beard. He was wearing a suit of pure white, and in his left hand, he held a walking cane that he was using to gesture to the students while he spoke. From the way he was not bothering to use it while standing, it was obvious to everyone that the cane was just for show, and he didn't actually need it.
The students that were lining up all wore the uniform for Divine Demigod Academy, a white jacket with gold lining over a white shirt and trousers with a pin on their left breast that showcased the Celestial Guardian that had chosen them.
Each and every one of the students present were Demigods that had been chosen by the Celestial Codex before they were born and blessed by a God.
Among the Demigods stood a boy with black hair that was short enough to frame the side of his face and piercing black eyes. The boy was tall for his age. He had a handsome face with broad shoulders and a well-defined figure that made his uniform look far better on him than it did on most of the other students in the hall. He wore black gloves on his hands that clashed brilliantly with the white uniform, and there was a small circular tattoo on the left side of his neck that depicted him as a Demigod.
This was Azrael Mortis.
Azrael looked around the large auditorium while tuning out the voice of the headmaster on the stage. Most of the students in the room were familiar to Azrael because he had been with all of them in the Demigod middle school before they came over to the high school.
In this world, the Demigods were the main fighting force for humanity, and they were tasked with the protection of humanity from Daemons that escaped from the Null Zone and leaked into the mortal plane.
These Daemons were terrifying monsters, and they possessed enough strength to level buildings and destroy entire cities if they weren't stopped quickly enough! The Demigods who graduated from Divine Demigod Academy would all joined the Divine Enforcers, and they would be granted a license and paid unbelievable amounts of money to fight against the Daemons. Most of the Divine Enforcers only fought against Daemons that escaped through the Veil and leaked into the mortal plane, but the more powerful Divine Enforcers were given permission to pass through the Veil and go into the Null Zone to fight against any Daemon that looked like it was about to reach the mortal plane!
Every student in the Divine Academy looked up to those Divine Enforcers who could enter into the Null Zone, but in order to qualify for entering the Null Zone, a Demigod needed to possess S Rank strength in both their mortal body and their God Aspect. The Null Zone wasn't a place where any Demigod could just enter without proper preparation. If a Demigod tried something like that, then they would be torn apart by the Daemons before they could even take a single step into that world.
Azrael Mortis sighed as he tried to listen to the headmaster once more, but it was just impossible to do that because of how boring the speech was. This was something they had all heard when they were graduating from middle school a few months ago, so hearing it all over again was just a waste of time.
As Azrael listened halfheartedly, he heard the voices of various other students who were also getting bored by the speech as they chattered aimlessly. One of the boys at Azrael's side spoke about how he was going to have the highest potential among all the students, and another boy that was beside him laughed and told him that he would be lucky to even have a B-ranked potential.
At Azrael's left, a girl was complaining to her friend that she was scared about her potential and she wanted to go to the toilet because her stomach was hurting. Azrael couldn't even feel annoyed by the girl's actions before he knew that it was justified.
The headmaster's speech was only the first part of the ceremony that they were going to be doing today. After this speech, the students were all going to be going up to the stage in order to measure what their Divine Potential is.
The term Divine Potential was common to everyone in this world. When a Demigod is born, they all possess a circular tattoo on the left side of their neck that shows that they have been chosen by the Celestial Codex. After the child grows up and becomes one year old, the parents take the child over to the Divine Church where the child is given a blessing by one of the many gods in their world.
The Gods give their blessings randomly, and there is no way for a parent to know which God their child would be blessed by! But there are some Gods that are far more powerful than others, and these powerful Gods are capable of granting their blessing to more Demigods.
Gods like Zeus, Posidon and Ares, who were three of the most powerful gods in the world, had granted their blessings to millions of Demigods over the past few hundred years, while lower-ranking gods like Charon or Hestia, who didn't possess as much power or prestige as the other gods, were only able to grant their blessing to a few hundred Demigods over the past few years.
But there were a few gods amongst the Celestials that everyone in the world were weary of: the gods of darkness.
Every parent's greatest prayer as they head towards the Divine Church is that their child does not get chosen by one of the gods of darkness.
The gods of darkness are gods that have been seen by every person as evil or unvirtuous. Gods like Loki and Horkos, who were the gods of mischief and curses respectively, were both feared and hated by everyone, and anyone who became one of their children was ostracized by the other Demigods because of their association with the gods of darkness. But there were two gods that were seen as the true gods of darkness.
Hades, the ruler of the underworld, and Thanatos, the personification of death.
Being blessed by any of these gods was the worst fate a demigod could face, and if there was ever a Demigod who received a blessing from one of these gods, they would face public scorn and ostracization. There have even been stories told of parents who would kill their children the moment they discovered that they were blessed by one of these gods, and when people took into account the fact that there weren't that many Demigods blessed by the gods of darkness in the world, there was a suspicion that there was some truth to the stories. But those were just stories, and there has never been an actual report of this happening!
"We wish that you would all bring us pride and many great memories over the next few years as you begin your education, and I hope to see some of the greatest Enforcers of our time rise from amongst this young crop. Now, I believe it is time for us to move on to the main event of the day."
The headmaster finally started to round up his speech after more than thirty minutes of nonstop talking, and Azrael sighed tiredly and thanked his god that the speech was done. But once the headmaster spoke about moving on to the main event, Azrael could literally feel the tension in the room rising by various degrees as all of the students seemed to lock up with nervousness.
The next event was going to be the measuring of potential, and this is what they had all been looking forward to and dreading at the same time.
Azrael looked around the room again, and this time, his eyes glanced over some of the badges on the chests of the students around him. The girl beside him had the image of a lightning bolt carved into her golden badge, and the boy beside her had a trident carved into his golden badge. All the students had various images representing their Celestial Guardian carved into their badges, and Azrael was no exception as the image of a skull stood out on his golden badge.
The symbol of Thanatos.