"Welcome, students, to your first day in the Divine Demigod Academy," the headmaster's voice echoed through the grand auditorium.
"I am Sozin, your headmaster, and for the next three years, I will be responsible for guiding and shaping each and every one of you. I expect not only your best behavior during your time in the academy but also your unwavering dedication in order to achieve your goals. Your ultimate purpose here is to become one of the elite members of the Divine Enforcers."
"Each one of you was chosen by the Celestial Codex as Demigods from birth, and blessed 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 will be considered as a dishonor for a member of the Divine Demigod Academy!"
Hundreds of students stood in formation within the massive auditorium of City S, their eyes fixed on the imposing figure of the headmaster as he addressed them from the podium. The headmaster Sozin was an elderly man with white hair and a short white beard. He was wearing a pristine white suit, and in his left hand, he held a walking cane, gesturing it as he spoke to the students. Yet, from the way he was not bothered 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 lining up in the auditorium wore the standard Divine Demigod Academy uniform: a crisp white shirt and trousers, adorned with a pin on the left side of their chest, showcasing the Celestial Guardian that had chosen them.
Every one of the students present was a Demigod who had been chosen by the Celestial Codex before they were born and bestowed with divine blessings by a God.
Among the Demigods stood a boy with short black hair framing the side of his face and piercing black eyes. The boy was tall for his age and carried himself with quiet confidence. He had a handsome face with broad shoulders and a well-defined physique that made the uniform look far more impressive on him than it did on most of his peers in the hall. He wore a pair of black gloves that contrasted sharply against the white uniform, and a small circular tattoo on the left side of his neck to mark his presence as a Demigod.
His name was Azrael Mortis.
Azrael scanned around the vast auditorium while only half-listening to the headmaster's speech. Most of the students in the room were familiar faces since Azrael had been with all of them in the Demigod Middle School before they entered high school.
In this world, the Demigods served as humanity's main fighting force and were tasked with the protection of humanity from Daemons that escaped the Null Zone and invaded the mortal plane.
These Daemons were terrifying monsters that possessed devastating power, capable enough to level buildings and reduce entire cities to rubble if they weren't stopped quickly enough!
The Demigods from Divine Demigod Academy would go on to join the Divine Enforcers after their graduation and would be given a license that would allow them to fight against the Daemons.
While most of the Divine Enforcers only fought against Daemons that escaped through the Veil and leaked into the mortal plane, the more powerful among them were granted the rare privilege of passing through the Veil and entering into the Null Zone to fight against any Daemon that seemed on the verge of reaching 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 even qualify to enter 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 making proper preparations. If any Demigod tried to do something like that it wouldn't be less than a suicide; the Daemons would rip them apart in the Null Zone itself before they could even take a single step into that world.
Azrael sighed as he tried to listen to the headmaster once more, but it was just impossible to do so 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 felt nothing but a waste of time.
As Azrael listened to the headmaster's speech halfheartedly, he heard the murmurs of various other students who were also getting bored thanks to the speech and chattered aimlessly.
One of the boys beside Azrael boasted how he was going to have the highest potential among all the students while the one next to him snickered, saying that he would be lucky to even have a B-ranked potential.
To Azrael's left, a girl was anxiously whispering to her friend, confessing that she was scared about her potential and that she wanted to go to the washroom because her stomach was aching. Azrael couldn't even feel annoyed by the girl's actions—he understood all too well that her fear was justified.
The headmaster's speech was only the beginning of the ceremony. After the speech, each student would be asked to step onto the stage to have their Divine Potential measured.
Everyone in this world knew what the term Divine Potential meant. Every Demigod was born with a circular tattoo on the left side of their neck, a mark that they have been chosen by the Celestial Codex itself. After the child grows and reaches the age of one, the parents bring them to the Divine Church, where the child would be blessed by one of the many gods of their world.
The Gods give their blessings randomly and there was no way for a parent to predict which God their child would be blessed by! However, 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 and Ares, who were two of the most powerful gods in the world, had granted their blessings to millions of Demigods over the centuries. Meanwhile, lower-ranking gods like Charon or Hestia, who didn't possess as much power or prestige as the other gods, had only granted their blessing to a few hundred Demigods over the centuries.
But even among the Celestial pantheon, there were a few gods that everyone in the world was weary of: the gods of darkness.
Every parent's greatest prayer as they approached the Divine Church would be for their child to 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, the god of mischief and Horkos, the god of curses, were both feared and hated by everyone, and any Demigod who was blessed by them would be ostracized by the other Demigods because of their association with the gods of darkness. But there were two gods that stood above all and were seen as the true gods of darkness.
Hades, the ruler of the underworld and Thanatos, the personification of death.
To be blessed by any of these gods was the worst fate imaginable for a Demigod. If there was ever a Demigod who received a blessing from Hades or Thanatos, they would face public scorn, be exiled or worse.
There have even been rumors of parents who would kill their own children the moment they discovered that they were blessed by one of such 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. Still, those were just stories. There had never been an actual report of such happening!
The headmaster's voice finally shifted toward a conclusion after thirty minutes of uninterrupted speech.
"We wish that you will all bring us pride and many great memories over the coming years as you embark on your education, and I hope to see some of the greatest Enforcers of our time rise from amongst this young crop. And 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, eliciting a tired sigh from Azrael, who thanked his god that the speech was finally over. But the moment 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 have stiffened with nervousness.
The next event was going to be the measuring of potential.
The moment they had all been waiting for and dreading at the same time.
Azrael's gaze drifted around the room again, and this time, his eyes settled on some of the badges pinned on the chests of his fellow students.
The girl beside him had a lightning bolt carved into her golden badge, and the boy beside her had a trident engraved into his golden badge. All the students had various emblems representing their Celestial Guardian carved into their badges, and Azrael was no exception.
He then glanced down at his own golden badge.
A skull.
The symbol of Thanatos.