This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist-Chapter 1202: Divine Game, Divine Instruction 16

"So? You still haven’t answered Mistblade’s question. Are you satisfied now?"

The question was meant for Maple Syrup. Rita kept her face blank and continued dismantling and recombining sigils.

Unbelievable. She came over just to stir things up.

Maple Syrup clearly understood that this goddess was here for entertainment. She replied coolly, "Then are you satisfied?"

The silver hair resting on Rita’s shoulder shifted slightly. Deceitful Bloom turned her head toward her instead and redirected the question.

"What do you think? Am I satisfied?"

The counterquestion carried a soft danger, like a sigh brushing against the ear.

The sigil in Rita’s hand detonated under Ash Cinders’ red threads. She simply dispersed it, raised her right hand high, and turned toward the far end of the table.

"Teacher, someone is interrupting our studies."

Deceitful Bloom: "......"

Foolishness: "......"

Even Maple Syrup’s perpetually cold expression cracked for a second before smoothing out.

"This is guidance," Dawn Cicada corrected.

Rita shot to her feet. If Deceitful Bloom hadn’t moved back in time, her chin would have been slammed by Rita’s shoulder. Rita stood on her chair and pointed dramatically.

"Teacher! A teacher from another class is disrupting my learning!"

Foolishness nodded solemnly. "That is indeed inappropriate. Deceitful Bloom, what do you say?"

Deceitful Bloom gently unhooked a strand of silver hair that had snagged on Rita’s belt. "How was I supposed to know she’d start playing dirty?"

It wasn’t really dirty. Rita simply matched force with force. If threatened physically, she retaliated with leverage. If provoked verbally, she answered in kind.

The faint helplessness on Deceitful Bloom’s face faded. She walked toward the end of the table, signaling she would not disturb this model student any further.

Once she left, Rita sat back down.

After that brief interlude, all the students refocused.

The first hour of sparring ended. Everyone had barely met the required benchmark.

Both gods could see that toward the end, the students had quietly helped each other pad their scores. One or two points at most. Neither Foolishness nor Deceitful Bloom had any real intention of reassigning students, so they chose not to intervene.

Before the next round began, Foolishness added an incentive.

"In this round, the top performer may ask us one question. About Starsea, Quiet Mountain, the Bell. Advanced knowledge. Secrets. We will answer."

Every student’s eyes lit up.

Rita had questions too. How to upgrade divine talents. Where the gods’ burial ground lay. How to face the third toll.

The clock face on the table began ticking again. New sigils rose.

This time, everyone was visibly more intense. While dismantling and stealing fragments, they actively interfered with each other.

Sea Pony, clearly under orders, drifted beside Fury Prayer’s head, eyes gleaming. It was waiting to sabotage at a critical moment.

Nivalis and B80 followed suit, perching on Ash Cinders’ shoulders.

Ash Cinders sighed. "Rita, we’re on the same side. Don’t fight dirty."

"Okay," Rita replied.

Ash Cinders nodded approvingly and refocused on her apprentice’s sigils. Five red threads extended from her fingers, dancing in the air. Without looking up, she said to the two little creatures, "You heard that."

"We heard," they replied, without moving an inch.

A few seconds later, as small hands suddenly covered her eyes, Ash Cinders understood.

"You’re very Lightchaser sometimes," she muttered to Rita.

Rita completed an attack and replied, "If you said that in front of her, she’d think it was a compliment."

Ash Cinders laughed softly. "That’s true."

As she spoke, she grabbed the dragon’s tail and the robot’s antenna, spun them a few times, and tossed them away.

"So where is she assigned?" Ash Cinders asked. "I didn’t see her in the battlefield chat. Maybe I missed it."

"I’m still trying to find out," Rita answered.

Dawn Cicada inserted herself into the conversation while countering Mistblade’s red threads.

"I can find out where she is."

Rita didn’t hesitate. "What’s the condition?"

Dawn lowered her gaze. Her expression was tense, stubborn, resolute.

"When you clash with her, don’t use Dawn and the Vineborne as leverage."

The moment she finished, Deceitful Bloom’s voice cut in, cold.

"Beacon Cicada."

She was angry enough to use her full name.

Dawn ignored it.

Rita deflected Ash Cinders’ red threads and, in the middle of the chaos, turned to examine Dawn Cicada carefully.

There was surprise in her eyes. Almost curiosity. As if seeing her for the first time.

Dawn’s jaw was tight. Her lips pressed thin. She knew her words would anger Deceitful Bloom, yet she said them anyway.

On the surface, she seemed to be speaking for Deceitful Bloom. In reality, she was lowering her own side’s stance. That would naturally draw the goddess’s displeasure.

But Dawn Cicada could not tolerate it. She would not allow herself or the Vineborne to be anyone’s weakness.

They were meant to be Deceitful Bloom’s pride.

She insisted on saying it. And she insisted on saying it in front of her.

Her pride mattered more than whether Deceitful Bloom was pleased or hurt.

As for Dawn and the Vineborne’s safety, that was not what she feared. As long as Rita still had her reason, she would never truly go that far. That would mean extermination level hatred. And after what Dawn had witnessed aboard the war cruise ship, she knew Rita would not cross that line.

Rita stared at her for several seconds before looking away.

"It seems Wrathful Moon never truly understood you," she said.

At the mention of the artifact that had once left her, Dawn frowned slightly.

"So? Do you agree?"

Above Rita’s head, Flower Crown Murder had returned at some point and was circling directly overhead, as if awaiting a command to descend.

Rita glanced upward and sighed. "What do you think?"

"I’d look down on you," Dawn snapped.

Deceitful Bloom’s languid voice followed, stretched out deliberately.

"Wise choice."

Rita rubbed her temples.

You two should just fight each other.

The hostage was begging to be released and not used as leverage. Meanwhile, the opponent insisted she not let the hostage go.

Because she still wanted to keep playing the game.