Chapter 147: Casual Lucifer

I raised my head, already expecting to see that familiar face paired with beautiful silver hair.

Lounging lazily on the couch was Devil Queen Lucifer. She was dressed in a stunning, high-end crimson kimono embroidered with intricate silver spider lily patterns, her long, flowing silver hair catching the sunlight like liquid starlight. She held a cold soda bottle in one hand, looking down at us with bright golden eyes that sparkled with pure, unadulterated amusement.

"Yo!" Lucifer called out cheerfully, waving her soda bottle straight at me with a broad grin. "Hey there, Seth! You guys doing alright down there? Nobody got any scuffs on their clothes, right?"

I stood on the marble platform, scratching my cheek as a wave of awkwardness washed over me. Beside me, Chancellor Viviana slowly turned her head, looking at me with a genuine, speechlessly dazed flicker of shock in her eyes as she realized the Queen of the Underworld was greeting a brand-new freshman by his first name.

Viviana quickly turned back toward the floating couch, her posture stiffening as a dense, overwhelming aura of compressed aquatic mana erupted from her body.

"Devil Queen Lucifer..." Viviana spoke, her voice turning icy cold. "What is the supreme ruler of the Underworld doing inside the private airspace of Earth’s primary academy? Are you attempting to violate the Inter-Realm Non-Aggression Treaty? It will not reflect well on your domain if you launch an unprovoked intrusion."

Lucifer took a slow, casual sip from her soda bottle, leaning her chin against her hand as she looked down at Viviana like an adult watching a mildly annoying toddler.

"Oh, quiet down, little girl," Lucifer purred smoothly, a dangerous, teasing smirk touching her lips. "Are you squeaking at me? What’s the matter? Are you afraid I’m going to flatten this cute little floating rock of yours into ocean dust?"

Viviana met Lucifer’s golden gaze without flinching, her hand resting on the hilt of an ornamental rapier at her hip. "If you intend to bring war to Avalon, Chancellor Viviana will fight to her last breath to defend this ground."

Lucifer rolled her golden eyes, letting out a dramatic, bored sigh. "Ugh, you high-society diplomats are always so overly dramatic! ’Fight to the last breath’? Please! If I actually wanted to destroy this island, there wouldn’t be a fight at all. I would just snap my fingers, and your precious little castle would vanish from reality before your brain even processed the sound."

Viviana gritted her teeth, her knuckles turning white against her rapier hilt.

She didn’t argue, because she knew Lucifer was telling the cold truth. Against an ancient, primordial entity who ruled one of the supreme realms, the combined defensive arrays of Avalon Academy meant nothing. If Lucifer truly wished for their destruction, Viviana was completely helpless to stop it.

Seeing the suffocating tension building on the platform, and realizing that Chancellor Viviana was practically sweating blood while Lucifer was just casually messing with her for pure entertainment, I decided to step in.

I took two steps forward, stepping past Yoona and Val.

Behind me, my three girlfriends gave me flustered, confused looks, but I kept my posture relaxed, my hands casually tucked into my pockets as I looked up at the floating velvet couch.

"Hey, Lucifer," I called out, my voice smooth and unbothered.

Lucifer tilted her head, her golden eyes locking onto mine. "Yeah, kid?"

"If you can wipe out the entire floating island with a simple snap of your fingers..." I smirked dryly, "...why did you bother opening a massive spatial rift, summoning a mountain-sized arm, and slicing those eight stealth jets with a giant black scythe?"

I tilted my head, looking at her with a knowing grin. "Did you just want to show off?"

Silence. For one second, the entire landing platform went dead quiet.

Then—

"AHAHAHAHA!!" Lucifer threw her head back, letting out a booming, ecstatic burst of genuine laughter that echoed across the entire Eastern Wing. She clapped her hands together in delight, pointing her soda bottle straight at me.

"YES!! FINALLY!!" Lucifer cackled happily, her silver hair swaying around her shoulders. "Finally someone gets it!! You are brilliant, Seth!! Absolutely brilliant!!"

She wiped a tear of amusement from her eye, nodding enthusiastically. "I saw that giant scythe spatial attack in a video game three nights ago, and it looked so unbelievably cool that I’ve been dying to try it out in real life! I just wanted to replicate the move to aura farm in front of an audience."

I offered her a double thumbs-up, giving a dry chuckle. "Well, it worked damn well. I had front-row seats, and the aura farming was a solid ten out of ten."

"Right?!" Lucifer grinned brightly, standing up on her floating couch and giving me a dramatic, sweeping, and extraordinarily graceful bow. "Thank you, thank you! I aim to impress!"

Standing beside me, Chancellor Viviana stared at the two of us with her jaw slightly parted, her cold, authoritative posture completely shattered into microscopic pieces of bewilderment. She looked between the terrifying Devil Queen and me as if we were speaking a foreign language.

"So..." I asked, lowering my hands back into my pockets, "...what are you actually doing here, Lucifer?"

Lucifer sat back down on her couch, tossing her empty soda bottle into a tiny spatial pocket. She gave a casual shrug. "Well, after our awesome burger chat at the stadium yesterday, I had a feeling some jealous losers might try to mess with you on your way to school. So... I placed a tiny, subtle spatial tether onto your soul signature."

She winked at me, her sharp golden eyes gleaming. "When I felt a faint aura of death floating near your spatial coordinates outside the island, I used the tether to teleport right over. I couldn’t let my brand-new friend die so quickly, after all!!"

Lucifer’s gaze briefly drifted past my shoulder,

landing squarely on Yerin. The Devil Queen’s golden eyes flared with sudden, intense otaku excitement, clearly dying to sprint over and ask Nova for an autograph on her phone, but she visibly restrained herself, holding her tongue with impressive effort.

[SIMP!!!!]

’You don’t throw stones at other’s house when you live in glass one, Paige.’