A hero stands on a mountain peak.

Before him is the extermination of humanity.

The young man looks into the distance, readying himself for what will be his final battle.

His panoramic view is flooded by the monumental numbers of the enemy. Fifteen kilometers from where he stands, more than three hundred thousand ecthroy form ranks, ready to wipe out the last army of humanity.

Their numerous legions are personally led by their prince and all six of his generals.

At the same time the young man looks back to see his human comrades-in-arms for the last time before the conflict erupts, seven inhuman assassins of the opposing army sneakily make their way towards the bottom of the mountain where he is.

Presented with what they imagine is a defenseless enemy, the assassins reach the mountaintop in a single leap, determined to remove the final obstacle to their Prince's ambition.

Jumping more than the 750 meters which comprised the mountain, they appear before the human leader in an attempt to end the war before the battle begins.

In the same moment however, half a dozen other humans appear from the side opposing the edge. Each with their own Celestial Beast.

In half a second, the ecthroy elite assassination squad of seven level 70 members is decimated.

The seven elite assassins, the Prince's best, were cut down instantly.

With their wills unshaken, the greatest of humanity's heroes, and their final hope. Each hero summons their soul companion, the Celestial Beast that is their other half.

Their spirits unfazed…

Two Dragons, one Strix, a Griffin, the World Tree, a Colossus, and a Nether Phantom, the humans march to battle.

They form a line readying themselves for the final battle.

In this desperate situation, the human leader laughs.

It's just so funny. Some of his comrades have arranged themselves in the same seating order they had back at the Academy.

Who would have thought that just a decade earlier...

Chapter 1 : The Academy Begins

7th of January 519, in a classroom somewhere the Central Continent:

Spade walked into his classroom ready to begin his 10th academic year.

Just like in every other year, he slowly breathed in, looked around, exhaled and walked to the back of the room. There, he would spend the rest of the year quietly ignoring classes.

Or so he thought.

There did not seem to be any major difference between this class and any of the previous years he attended this school. The chairs and tables were the same as last year’s. The classroom size was similar and it didn’t look like there were many new faces.

This was one of the perks Spade enjoyed from having studied all his life in the same school—by the 10th year of attending the prestigious ACSIL academy, there wasn’t much he didn’t know.

As everyone sat down and the teacher entered the room, the class began. Spade gazed at the teacher, to his surprise, he had never seen her before.

She looked like a young woman in her early thirties with blue eyes, light brown hair, a stunning figure and an even more stern look. After presenting herself, she started to take attendance.

Spade heard nothing but known names.

“Eleonora Solaris,” said Ms. Rias.

A short girl with emerald green eyes and green hair raised her hand and monotonically stated “present.”

“Eowyn of Durandal” continued Ms. Rias. She followed it by saying a second name, and a third, the one after that, and a fifth. In a class with 55 students the few new faces were instantly recognized.

“Whiitney Nisho”, a girl raised her hand and said in a very soft and cordial tone “present.”

…

This continued for about 2 more minutes. Nothing new.

Ms. Rias went about her task swiftly, ignoring students who tried to answer in a funny or provoking way. Spade could see that she was no pushover.

When there were only about 5 names remaining, she paused halfway through a name, immediately picking up from where she left with just a first name “Julius Francis”, she said. Another new student, a young boy with dark brown hair and light brown eyes repeated the routine displayed by the previous students and sat down.

There did not seem to be much to him, while he did exude a confident and dignified air, he did not particularly stand out.

Besides this hiccup Ms. Rias did not lose any composure, having solely looked up again when she had finished taking attendance—that and to look at Laurel Alf Spiritus.

Well, Spade did not blame her, after all anyone would be curious about the girl who had been described by the principal himself as the greatest talent of this country’s generation. Even though he did not know much about this classmate of his, he knew enough, she had been the first in class every year. If she claimed to be second strongest, no one would dare say they were first.

She was literally blessed by birth, having a Celestial Beast that could overpower anyone and anything. There were some negative rumors about her, however Spade did not pay much attention to them. After all, it wasn’t like someone with a Forest Nympha (Spirit) as her celestial beast needed any pity from someone like him.

As soon as Ms. Rias had checked the names on the attendance list, she took a deep breath and as words were to come out of her mouth—

The air in the room suddenly became cold.

Gusts of wind combined with mana were blasted everywhere. Tables and chairs were sent flying. The students didn't know what was going on.

Among the screams from students and the blowing whirlwind in the closed room, Spade felt a weird pressure falling down on him. He could hardly move. Ignoring the urge to hide, he peeked from behind his desk at where his teacher once was.

The place where Ms. Rias had stood was now occupied by something other than her.

From what he could tell, whatever was in front of the board was not human. Well to be more precise, it was neither human nor a beast.

As if to prevent him from speculating any further, the feeling of uneasiness and heaviness left the students, the winds ceased and the creature spoke.

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“Alright students, I will now limit my aura, who can say what I have just done?” it said with a familiar yet powerful voice.

It was his teacher.

People were still gasping for air when a hand went up.

“Yes Laurel”, said Ms. Rias.

“You just underwent a partial transformation combining with your celestial beast to mutate your limbs and hair, right?” answered Laurel.

“Exactly”, the teacher stated unsurprised. “Everyone in this room has a similar power inside of you, a power which, as you already know, comes from the celestial beast you bonded with years ago.”

Obviously, Spade knew that, over the last decade students had been taught to use their mana offensively, defensively, and for mundane tasks. However, what they had learned thus far could not be compared with what he had just seen.

For a moment, Ms. Rias had turned into a beast, a divine-like force, her arms and legs became longer and coated in a gray fur, her eyes shone in an amber tone and she grew wolf-like years in her head.

She kept speaking in the same cutting manner “right now, with your current strength, you cannot do anything against me, a beast, or, or even the weakest of ecthroy for that matter, but that has to change. Our forces are being pushed back at every moment and we do not have the luxury of time. This is why I am here, I was brought by principal Aquila Flamesworth to train more magic knights. Starting today the other teachers and I will be teaching you everything we know. How well you internalize these concepts will soon be a matter of life and death.”

‘Life and death?!’ while Spade had heard that 10th grade was very different from the previous school years, what he had just witnessed was beyond any of his even wildest dreams.

The other students, apart from a couple few, had been left even more shook and dumbfounded than him.

This was surely not going to be a year like all others.

Half an hour later every student was sitting still with their eyes closed trying to do what Ms. Rias described as “communicating with the celestial beast.”

According to her, a good relationship with one's celestial beast’s allowed magic knights to unleash a greater percentage of their power, using mana to bring about transformations and other abilities.

Without knowing exactly what he was looking for, Spade closed his eyes and tried to follow his teacher’s instructions. It had been at least ten years since he last met this companion of his.

He had no recollection of doing so, knowing only that his celestial beast was a Northern Wood’s Fox because of his birth documentation.

In every country, one’s birth certificate would be updated after they went through the awakening ceremony to reflect the celestial beast that bonded with the person. This was usually done at the age of five, when children developed the ability to perceive and absorb mana, but history was flooded with records of geniuses who, like Laurel, found their celestial partners beforehand.

In any case, this was not working for Spade. As glad as he was to just sit with his eyes closed and pretend he was doing something, a part of him was eager to do the same he had witnessed.

He did not know why, but for the very first time in his teenage life, he felt excited.

After ten more minutes went by, students started to grow frustrated until a boy finally raised his hand.

Julius Francis, the new kid, opened his eyes and said “excuse me miss”.

As the teacher looked at him he said “what ought we to be looking for? Do you have any words of advice?”

Spade was a bit annoyed by Julius’ flamboyant way of speaking. Judging from his first name, he was probably from a noble house, only aristocrats had middle names and spoke in such a manner.

Even so, 2 minutes after listening to Ms. Rias so-called “words of advice” the first student broke through. As everyone else was concentrating, the student suddenly started to levitate about 30 centimeters above the ground.

Of course it was Laurel.

She seemed to be in some kind of trance with a pink mana aura revolving around her. While other students looked at her with admiration, Spade did not waste more than a second looking at her. In his estimations, what she had done was only natural, anyone would be able to do this kind of stuff if they had a legendary celestial beast as their partner.

Every celestial beast could be ranked according to their power, speed, strength, mana manipulation, rarity, and other characteristics. A celestial beast’s rank was usually identified through their name.

There were five different ranks: common, uncommon, rare, epic, and legendary. Usually the higher the tier the greater would one’s achievements be.

The same was true for beasts which were graded all the way from A to F.

As unfair as this may seem to those who are unlucky, the fact that only children below 7 years of age could be awakened made the selection somewhat more fair, as kids could not really distinguish between different tiers, usually leaving the selection to the beasts and what some considered to be “destiny”.

There were gaps in this system, Spade for example, did not know what rank his celestial beast was. For although people had recognized his beast's species through an ancient book, there were no records of Northern Wood’s Foxes in the Central Continent in the last era.

Spade was still dwelling on these thoughts when five other students broke through and started to levitate.

Of the five, Martin Lardor had a red mana aura, Maaria Hellscavenger had a black and yellow aura, Eowyn a silver one, Fatima a purple one, and Julius Francis exuded an arctic blue aura.

Now Spade was getting eager. He closed his eyes hoping that he would see something, a fox, but nothing was happening.

When there were only four students touching the ground, it suddenly happened.

Without knowing how, he found himself in a forest, surrounded by trees, a gentle breeze blowing from the east. In the midst of thousands of trees he could distinguish a sort of path, from the looks of it, it had not been trodden on for a very long time.

Spade followed the path.

After walking for about two hundred meters, he arrived at a small forest clearing where there was nothing but grass, a large boulder. On top of it was a fox. Confronted with a three meter long yellow fox, Spade froze. He did not know what to do, he was anxious, being confronted with such a creature made him scared.

As he considered making a run for it, escaping this glade and the forest altogether, the fox spoke.

“Good morning child” it said in a calm and composed tone. Its voice was deep, firm but gracious.

The 15-year-old boy was panic stricken, nevertheless he managed to muster enough courage to reply.

“Hi” he uttered while trying to stop his legs from trembling.

The fox continued “even though we have known each other since you were young, I find a self-reintroduction to be appropriate seeing as you have probably forgotten me. I am Lucius, keeper of the Northern Glades and the Dragon’s Den, and your celestial beast, pleased to meet you.”

Spade’s tongue finally loosened, “nice meeting you, I am Spade, a student, uhhhh…what else…let me see, I am 15 years old and I am currently level 10.”

As he thought about what else to say, something caught his eye, behind Lucius a tail started to sway, but before Spade could proceed, two more tails went up and soon Spade could not count how many furry yellow tails there were. Lost for words he could only make sounds

“uhhh..aaaaa…whaaat i-i-is-is that behind you!?”

Lucius chuckled replying “I guess it really has been a while since you last saw me, my kind has nine tails, also, everything that you have said about yourself, I already knew. We celestial beasts can watch your lives unfold from within you, where we reside. So over the last 15 years I have been paying close attention to you. Not the best of students, or the most polite for that matter. Now that I think about it, I have a question, why do you, every time you go to the bathroom…"

“aaaahh!!” Spade interrupted.

“Stop stop, okay, I get it, you know me, now let’s stop with this.” Feeling more assured and perhaps a bit annoyed, he continued “I came here to become strong, please lend me your power so that I can transform like Ms. Rias.”

Without losing composure Lucius replied “first of all, I have already been doing that, why do you think that you are capable of manipulating mana of the fire element and produce basic attacks? Humans only have the capacity to absorb and release mana, altering its form is only possible because of us celestial beasts. Secondly, the only reason you are so pathetically weak is your own lack of effort and poor attitude. Finally, I ask that you do not compare me to that feeble smoky canine of your teacher. The only reason why you can’t compare to her is the monumental difference in your levels, not my problem.”

“What is your rank?” Spade promptly asked.

Judging from what Lucius had just said, he should be pretty strong. However, the fox’s answer did not please him.

“What an idiotic question! You humans love to categorize and group things. What you call rank is nothing more than a subjective metric that your race imposes on Beasts. Your kind measures a bird’s ability to swim and fish’s ability to fly, always wondering why they suck at it. As far as I am concerned you are not strong enough to know of my power. You would not be able to use it anyways.”

With his vexation gone, Lucius said “for now I will send you back, this is enough for introductions. The next time you will see me is when I can sense a positive change in you. If you think that you can get through life by simply being lazy you are wrong. It was good seeing you child, now go study and train hard and we will surely meet again when the time is right.”

As soon as his words were finished, Spade disappeared from the forest glades and found himself wide awake in the chair where he had sat in the beginning of the class.

He was happy, amazed, but also confused about what had just happened. He had finally met his celestial beast, and it looked cool, but “what did he mean by swimming birds?”

Spade could not get his thoughts right.

One thing was for certain, he would not be able to go back to his care-free life.