Somewhere in the Holy Capital, in the Aurora Academia Grounds.

A young girl of around fifteen years old was waiting by the door of a lecture class in one of the numerous lecture classes of the Aurora Academia.

Ana was the name of the girl. She was dressed in the Academia uniform, as was everyone else in the area, but if there was one thing that stood out about her, it was that she was wearing the male version of the uniform rather than the female. The only difference between the two would be that one had a pant and the other had a skirt on the lower half.

Ana felt more at ease in a pant than a skirt, so since there were no rules forbidding it, she settled with this style. As such, she struck a distinctively boyish look, especially with her short blue hair.

Ana wasn't just passing through. She was here because she needed to talk to someone she shared a dormitory with about something important that couldn't wait, but unfortunately for Ana, the one she was looking for was still in the middle of a lecture, and no matter how bold she was, barging into a lecture in this prestigious academy was something she would never dare to do. As a result, she was forced to wait for that individual.

Knocking impatiently with her foot on the ground, she began to lose patience.

Deciding that waiting at the doorstep without doing anything wouldn’t do her anything good, Ana settled into wandering around to forget her frustration and impatience.

Following the same and long corridor on which the doorstep was, she was led to an outdoor area, a sort of garden. Being new to the Academia, there were a lot of areas she hadn’t visited yet. Though she didn’t have any particular interest in something like a garden, this was far better than waiting all alone at a door step for a lecture that only God knew when it would end.

Just as Ana was about to release her frustration, she was interrupted by someone in a hurry who stumbled or hit her. At that point, it was the same to her.

"I’m sorry," the boy immediately apologized. Without glancing at her or even elaborating any further, he continued on his way.

"Wait here, you-" Ana started, but she stopped the moment she saw the uniform the boy was wearing.

Ana remained silent as the boy continued his journey toward the outdoor area, where he summoned a strange red sanguinal magic that, in its turn, summoned a blood chariot, on which he rode before casually flying away in front of a large crowd.

It all happened within the span of a few seconds.

There was a reason why when Ana saw the boy, she didn’t say a word,

Though all the Aurora academia’s uniforms look the same, the color depends on the faction the student is in, Ana’s uniform was green, just like most people around this corner of the Academia ground, and she was part of the noble faction, the most common one of the four great factions. Like most of those within this faction, she was the daughter of what one might call a "nobody," someone without great background.

The boy on the left was dressed in a white uniform, indicating that he was a member of the Leading Faction, most likely a prince or the son of a big shot, with whom Ana would prefer not to deal with.

But still, Ana still thought that she deserved better treatment than that. He did apologize, but still…

"Just because they were born under a better star shouldn’t excuse that behavior. Where did manners go in this day and age? "she thought to herself.

In truth, Ana realized that a person like the boy earlier didn’t own her anything, she understood that very well, and knew her place, and so did the people around her who witnessed what happened.

But he didn't know his!

"Besides, what was that silver haired dady’s boy doing in this place anyway?"

These quartiers were for people like Ana, those of the Noble Faction, a quartier which, as far as she remembered, was untrodden by those of the top brass.

Still lost, in her head, Ana didn’t notice that a lot of students came out of the corridor she came from, until someone called her full name.

"Oh, if this isn’t my beloved Analyse. A boy behind her announced his arms wide open.

At the hearing of the voice, she immediately backed away from that person.

"Don’t you dare touch me!" Ana roared with a straight up disgusted face.

Behind her was a boy with chestnut hair, wearing the same uniform as her, and holding in his hand what looked to be an instrument for painting. He was not alone for at his side were two of his fellow classmates.

This boy’s name was Xavier. He was the one she was waiting for at the classroom's door.

"Hi," one of the roommates ventured, but he was thoroughly ignored by Ana.

"That’s super cold. We’re roommates, aren’t we? "

"Exactly, which is why I’m here."

"Huh?"

Still maintaining a safe distance from him, she murmured.

"What the hell did I just see this morning!?"

"This morning? What could this be? "

"Don’t play dumb with me, I’m talking about that!"

"That?"

Her face puffed red.

"Aaaaaaargh, …. Okay you win. This morning, when I woke up to get some water, I saw a naked man wandering in the middle of the night, then disappearing into your room.

"Oh, that."

"Yes, that!"

Once a noble reaches 15, he is to leave his parents' side for the Aurora Academia. Depending on the young noble’s parents, there were many ways for a noble to be housed on the academia grounds.

For high-ranked nobles, royals, and those from the leading faction, most of them have literally a family castle or a mansion prepared for them.

But for those at the scrotum of barrels like Xavier and Hana, they have to share a small mansion which they use as a dormitory,,

The arrangement for them to share the same mansion was made by their parents, who happened to know each other, despite the fact that Ana and Xavier had never met before being here at the Academia ground.

So far, coexistence has gone well, between the two, at least until yesterday, when Ana woke up in the middle of the night in search of water and stumbled upon a naked man entering Xavier’s room.

This morning, in fear of stumbling upon that person once again, she bolted her way from the dormitory to the Academia.

So now here was Ana, in quest of an explanation for what she witnessed.

"What’s your explanation!?"

"Explanation?"

"Yes, I saw a naked person wandering in the middle of what I’m supposed to consider my house, so yeah, I think I do deserve at least a bit of an explanation."

Both stared at each other before, as he resumed his walk, "I’m an artist, a painter."

Being artists, it was Ana’s parents and Xavier's in common, Ana’s parents were authors and historical scribblers, while Xavier’s were painters.

"And?"

"I only paint naked people."

"You only paint… naked people?" Ana repeated.

Yes, I admit it was very inconsiderate of me, so next, I’ll close the door. You won’t no longer have to worry about naked people wandering through our mansion. " Xavier laughed.

"Are you trying to reassure me here?"

"Maybe I-"

A sudden noise cut their conversation short, in fact, it wasn’t just one of them, but several of them.

"What happened?" Xavier asked his friend, standing at his side.

For some reason, he and several people across the area suddenly came to a sudden halt, dropping on the ground what they were holding in their hands.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The boy's whole body was stiffened, and his expression was grim. Looking around, Ana found out that many were in the same state.

"Hey, Bart, what happened?" Xavier insisted.

"I don’t know, but something is heading here. Something dangerous. "

Just as the man was done talking, Ana felt something and immediately understood what the man, named Bart, said, despite how senseless it sounded.

Out of nowhere, she felt the frightening sensation of being a rabbit being trapped within the embrace of a snake.

How could she tell? She didn’t know how, but she felt exactly from which direction this was coming from the north.

"Hey! Where are you going, suddenly? "

Despite how much she was afraid, Ana bolted toward the northern part of the Holy City, closely followed by Xavier.

Glancing at the sky, she saw it darkening at an ominous speed, and soon a misty rain fell from the sky, but there was something extremely wrong with this rain.

"What’s this!"

It tastes extremely salty.

She had never seen or tasted anything like this.

It took them both around 20 minutes to reach the outskirts of the Holy City. That was how enormous the city was. In the distance, they saw the immense wall of the city, cornering the city.

At their side countless nobles from various factions, from various age groups, who most likely felt the same thing as Ana did , were heading for the same direction as them.

Each second that passed, Ana felt her heart throbbing even faster than it ever did before.

The earth shook, and the wind shuffled more violently, carrying a strange, salty, rotten scent with it.

There was still a distance between them and the wall, but from the top of it, they saw two strange seals being unleashed, causing a strange magical wall spat toward the sky and spreading across the length of the wall in both directions. A yellow red magical wall spread left, while a red one spread right.

Ana couldn't help but gasp at the sight of it. She was at a loss at first as to what that magic was unleashed for, but she soon realized that this had the objective of further strengthening the wall, and the surface covered by that magic was beyond what she could have ever imagined, as with both, they encompassed at least 20% of the Holy Capital City wall with their magic, just to say how immensely it was spread.

Soon, arriving at the wall top, Ana finally saw the face of the one who suddenly unleashed that magic.

Two people. A boy and a girl, both wearing the white uniform of the leading faction, and both no older than Ana was.

The boy was dotted with flaming red hair, which she recognized as the girl who stood with those of the royal family and the imperial familial during the entrance ceremony, while the boy, Ana , immediately recognized him upon seeing his silver hair.

It was the same boy as the one who hustled her without properly apologizing.

This magic was not unleashed by them alone but also by what shone brightly in both of their fingers, a ring that she recognized as a magic item.

Ana did have some magic items in her possession, but nothing this powerful.

The moment she realized how powerful that thing was, she thought to herself how much she underestimated the power difference between those of the high-ranking nobles and the lower-ranking ones truly was.

Nobles, students, professors, and members of the clergy, including some of the city's highest-ranking clerics and paladins, arrived.

As bystanders were getting louder and louder as they got more and more crowded on top of the wall, a powerful earthquake reduced everyone to silence.

It was short, but it helped to restore the calm on the wall.

The rain got even more violent to the point that its saltiness would easily hurt one’s eyes if one weren’t cautious enough, especially with the raging wind.

Every glance was directed toward where the earthquake reverberated from.

Glaring, it was silent at first, but soon a strange noise could be heard from afar, northward.

"What is this thing!?"

How to describe it?

Like a bucket of water being suddenly poured into a small surface, a mountain-sized wave of opaque blue water flooded toward the Holy City, engulfing everything in its path.

It happened so fast. At one moment, it was still on the faraway horizon, and the next it was crashing loudly onto the magical wall, like a wave onto the shore.

The immense magical wall withstood the tidal wave, but the consequences were painfully felt. The wave crashed onto the magical wall like a mountain falling from the sky, causing an earthquake across the city. The edifices were the first to pay the price. Across the city, structures of all sizes here and there broke apart and collapsed.

The reactions of those on the wall were varied; some immediately retreated, fleeing as if it made any difference to their fate if those waters breached through the walls; others were completely frozen in place; Ana was one of them.

"Listen, everyone! I don’t know what this thing is, but it must not breach those walls. I do not know what your magic is, but do something! " The red haired girl maintaining the barrier shouted, her face beaded with sweat.

Awakened out of their trance, an enormous majority of those standing on top of the wall, especially those coming from the ruling faction and those coming from seven great families, spread themselves and their magic across the walls.

That being said, there was still a considerable minority that remained stuck, unable to do anything, not because they were cowering. They were; indeed afraid, but the true reason they didn’t was because they couldn’t.

Ana, one of those who couldn't do anything, realized why. She, like some of the others she identified, couldn't move a single muscle, most likely due to the reaction that thing elicited in them. She recognized that the majority of these people were water-elemental users.

Ana realized that this couldn’t be a simple coincidence, she already noticed it with how some people were completely oblivious to what she and the boy named Bart suddenly felt out of nowhere.

They were experiencing a tetanizing fear induced by their own magic, provoked by this thing.

As the nobles who were capable of moving around managed to somehow harmonize themselves to stop this thing, the blue water suddenly retracted a good several hundred meters away, giving most of the nobles a short moment of respite.

That’s it. Only a very short moment of respite for what happened next did make everyone’s heart skip a beat.

Backing off, the blue water at this point resembles an enormous mountain that completely overlooks the wall and its puny fifty meters of height.

From within that blue, a pair of glowing orbs could be seen.

Inexplicably, the immense mass of water started boiling down chaotically, causing a certain misty effect to spread around it, and soon, from the core of that immense mass of blue, emerged a creature that looked like it had emerged from the depths of hell itself, especially with disseminated mist.

It had no limbs, merely a long neck, which at this point could be assumed not to be a neck anymore but rather the remaining part of its body.

An enormous serpent revealed a part of its body from within the mass of water.

From spot to spot, its armored and seamlessly smooth scales were sometimes white, sometimes blue, teeming the back of its body with an endless range of fish-like spikes.

Domineering, the serpent, somehow lowering her head and especially her unfathomable and bestial gaze, swept past almost everyone standing on the wall, before stopping for the duo that spanned the barrier.

At that moment, many questions went through Ana's head, among which were "what was a creature like this doing on the human continent?" and "What should I do?", but she knew that there was no use to thinking about them, so Ana kept shutting them off.

If there was something she wanted to do, she didn’t dare to even bat an eye, for she felt that a single wrong move would ultimately cause her death, Ana was almost certain that everyone present was thinking the same as her, as no one was daring to move at all.

It was as if those massive, monstrous golden eyes had hypnotized them.

Today, Ana and everyone present experienced facing this giant snake and what it must feel like to be at the very bottom of the food chain.

It was domination in its crudest and rawest form.

Running for one’s life felt like a futile alternative.

For around a dozen seconds, she kept staring at the duo, but then raised her head and looked at her, as if its interest had shifted to something beyond and behind us, on the Holy City land.

Ana’s back suddenly straightened up at the sight of what; once again, happened next.

With an earth-sharking hiss, the serpent prepared itself to unleash an attack, as it opened its gluttonous mouth as if to swallow the world whole, revealing several rows of pointy teeth, and a very human-like tongue instead of a snake-like one. A cold mist even vaporized out of its mouth, while a water ball was formed between its jaws.

Though it looked breathtakingly beautiful, never before had Ana felt this threatened.

Ana’s body shivered, feeling as if the temperature had lowered twice or thrice the usual one.

At that moment, at that instant, Ana realized this was most likely the end for her.

She had never been a particularly avid believer, but at that instant, she found herself calling out for the help of every one of the seven, even Solomon the Loner's.

Ana, tried to close her eyes to cope with her incoming death, but even that, her body didn’t allow it.

The giant serpent let out a final hiss before unleashing its attack, but just as he was about to fire, a radiance in the sky interrupted the colossal snake's attack.

Just like the serpent, everyone around us glanced up high in the sky and saw shades of light beyond the opaque dark sky.

What was beyond it?

Ana couldn’t tell, but she was convinced that it wasn’t lightning, nor was it the sunshine.

It was hard to notice at first, but progressively, they became more and more apparent. Falling from the dark sky with crispy melodic noise, they were snowflakes.

A loud blast scattered the clouds, spreading in every corner a divine and blinding radiance.

Though staring at it was painful, Ana saw that beyond the blinding light, an enormous winged shadow was looming down toward the snake.

Soon the brilliance calmed down and the shadow was fully revealed.

Another giant creature.

Almost as tall as the serpent, on its back were two pairs of immense flapping wings, which at their flap sent out a powerful burst of wind.

With thick scales refracting light the same way a diamound would, and a sapphire-blue pair of horns crowning its head, that creature fit exactly what a dragon would expect to look like in every aspect. But there was a certain grace that this dragon had that no one could quite capture. It weirdly didn’t even feel out of place, especially with how it flapped its wings and approached the giant serpent.

To the astonished and frightened gaze of the onlooker, the two imposing creatures, instead of fighting to death as most would expect, somehow communicated, with grunts and growls that came out without even having to move their mouths.

None of those present knew what exactly those creatures said to each other, if they really did speak to each other, but what resulted from it was as clear as the sky on a sunny day. The immense serpent, with his attack still pending in its mouth, swallowed it whole with a single bit, before hissing at the dragon and retreating, just as it appeared out of nowhere, within the mass of water it came from in the first place, just like a turtle hiding behind its carapace.

Just as it arrived, the enormous mass left, circumventing the city wall, and headed south, flooding everything in its path.

Ana didn’t know where that thing was heading to, but if doom was the only thing that awaited everything on its path.

With the serpent gone, Ana and its brethren were still left with the colossal and entrancing creature that was the ice dragon in front of them.

Just like the snake, its gaze went from the duo, then to something beyond the wall.

It was weird, so weird that Ana couldn't believe her eyes, but the fact was that she could swear she saw that creature take a disgusted mug.

It sent yet another shiver down Ana’s back, but she sighs in relief when she sees the dragon, taking its lift following the giant serpent.

A few minutes went by and everyone was still frozen in place, then the barrier the duo cast shattered into a million shards like a broken glass-made object.

Ana, saw the duo giving in and releasing the pressure. The girl fell on all four, more than simply exhausted, but the boy straight up fell on his butt, then looked at his hands, shaking like most of those around him.

Though they both bravely held out and stood up against the giant serpent, they too, just like everyone around them from every faction, were afraid.

At these short moments, all the fear they felt put them on an equal footing.

Death didn’t care for the faction one belonged to. Death was unprejudiced.

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Primordial Water Elemental Dragon Vara, The Ocean Great Snake

Greedy and jealous by nature, the Great Serpent lusted after what she didn't have, carrying with her the entire ocean she had already declared hers.

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Primordial Ice Dragon Elemental Dragon Quiannis, The Dragon of Melancholy

Melancholy, the remembrance of one’s grievous wrong.