"The plot has begun earlier than usual," Eve replied, smoothly ignoring the domestic bickering.

"So, I decided it was time to officially introduce myself to my champion and his group."

Kai instantly scoffed, crossing his arms to defend his brother. He wasn’t about to stand by and watch Aaron chase after someone who clearly didn’t want him. "You just said you weren’t his, but now he’s suddenly your champion?"

"This is an entirely different issue," Eve replied, shooting Kai a brief, dismissive glare before turning her attention completely back to Zeke. Her eyes narrowed as she evaluated the atmospheric shift around the room. "You found a way to elevate his talent? It seems I’ve lost one of my primary bargaining chips."

Zeke let out a dramatic gasp, looking around the room as if trying to locate a hidden culprit. "How do you know it was me? It could have been a sudden, majestic gust of wind. Or maybe he just had an incredibly relaxing shit and boom—there it was."

Eve’s face remained a mask of angelic dignity, but the microscopic twitch in her brow showed she had almost completely rolled her eyes.

Aaron stared at her.

He quickly turned his gaze toward Zeke, then darted his eyes toward Yeon. Hold your man.

My man? Yeon’s eyebrow raised.

Yes, hold him! Aaron’s eyes pleaded.

Yeon let out a soft sigh, quietly amused by Aaron’s frantic silent communication. She delicately cleared her throat—a crystal-clear, universal signal meant for Zeke to behave.

"So, what other bargaining chips do you actually possess right now?" Zeke asked, steering the conversation back on track.

"None," Eve replied smoothly.

"Oh. Oh, really? After maintaining that massive, holier-than-thou attitude this entire time, you honestly possess absolutely nothing else besides the ability to elevate raw talents?" Zeke questioned, an amused smirk playing on his lips.

"I possess high-tier items," Eve countered coldly.

"What specific rank?"

"At the very least, A-Rank. And at most, S-Rank."

Zeke blinked, staring at her flatly. "Are you perhaps poor?"

"I do not exactly see you actively wielding an S-Ranked item," Eve retorted, her eyes narrowing. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

"Because I simply do not need them. I am not pathologically dependent on external items; I prefer to accomplish things with my own hands,"

Zeke stated, waving a hand dismissively.

"Says the man currently carrying a sword on his waist," Eve pointed out.

"Are you trying to win me over as an ally right now, or are you just trying to piss me off?"

Zeke deliberately chose not to violently shock her by revealing the reality that his casual everyday clothing was rated at EX-Rank, and that his main sword was similarly an EX-Rank artifact. And not to brag, but his personal dimensional inventory was literally overflowing with high-grade items ranging across the entire spectrum from F to SS.

He was undeniably, obscenely wealthier than she could ever comprehend.

"Can you please stop behaving like a literal toddler for once in your life?" Yeon interjected, stepping in before Aaron could give her another pleading look.

These two genuinely possess a strange, chaotic chemistry, Yeon thought, slightly entertained.

Though, to be entirely fair, Zeke possessed a bizarre, magnetic chemistry with practically every single living soul he encountered. So much for his grand claims of being a deeply reclusive introvert.

"Fuck you—oh, wait, no, no, no. I didn’t mean it like that, Yeon," Zeke quickly backpedaled, turning toward her with a deeply fawning, overly apologetic smile.

Eve observed the display quietly. "It seems I do not actually need to waste my efforts winning you over. I simply need to win her over instead."

Zeke’s head snapped back to the angel, his expression flipping instantly to cold indifference.

"STFU."

"Did you seriously just verbally spell out S-T-F-U?"

Anton burst out, completely unable to contain his laughter any longer.

"What? It is significantly quicker than actively saying ’shut the fuck up,’" Zeke justified defensively.

"You are so incredibly corny, man," Anton wheezed, shaking his head.

The members of the Class of Weirdos merely stared at the unfolding interaction. At this point, they finally understood the fundamental rule of their professor’s social circle: you quite literally had to be unhinged just to survive around him.

Wait, a collective thought suddenly dawned on the students. Does that mean we are crazy too?

"What exactly do you want from us?" Jude asked, his voice dripping with an immense, profound exhaustion.

Everyone seemed to want a piece of them these days. Such were the endless, tedious woes of the talented.

"I need your group to win this war," Eve stated plainly. "I need to ensure a victory where I possess a significant amount of direct influence over the choosing of the winner."

"So that you can personally siphon a massive stake of Providence because your chosen Champion succeeded?" Kai asked, his tone sharp.

"Indeed."

"We were already fully intending to win this war," Jude pointed out coldly. "Your assistance is entirely redundant."

"It was not," Eve countered. "If I did not actively lend my divine aid beforehand, I would not possess a legal, systemic stake in the total Providence gained upon victory."

"If we win, Heaven as a whole would naturally gain the resulting Providence, would it not?" Kai questioned, leaning forward. "Are you not an official angel representing Heaven?"

"The Providence gained through a blind, unguided victory would be generalized, funneled directly into the broad development of Greater Heaven," Eve explained patiently. "Champions are specifically chosen by individual angels to establish a personal, localized stake in that general pool. That direct pipeline of Providence is what allows an angel to actively evolve. My current ambition is to ascend from my status as a base angel into the rank of a Principality."

"A Principality?" Aaron repeated, blinking. This was the first time he was hearing of her angelic hierarchy.

"Are you stupid? I explicitly introduced the various angelic ranks to you months ago," Zeke sighed, rubbing his temples.

"I know what a Principality is," Aaron mumbled defensively. "I just... I didn’t think she was considered a base angel."

"That’s quite right. You certainly don’t exude the aura of a mere base angel," Micheal added, his serene smile never wavering.

"Hmph."

Eve snorted softly. In an instant, she unleashed her angelic restrictions. A magnificent, blinding pair of pure white wings violently unfurled behind her back, and a warm, heavy golden light completely enveloped the entire living room.

"Well, would you look at that. It appears I was mistaken," Micheal murmured, his smile remaining perfectly intact despite the divine display.

Eve stared at him, her face an unreadable mask as she smoothly retracted her wings, the golden light snapping back into her form.

"Okay," Zeke suddenly spoke up, drawing everyone’s attention. "We’ll officially allow you to maintain your stake in whatever Providence we win, or however that systemic mechanic functions."

The entire room turned their heads to stare at him in shock.

"Do your necks not hurt at this point? You guys have been turning and twisting your heads like owls all day long," Zeke sighed, rolling his eyes before continuing. "Look, the exact moment we accepted her initial help with Aaron, the system already legally granted her a stake in our Providence. And beyond the mechanics, she genuinely helped us. I make it an absolute point to always pay back exactly what I owe—regardless of whether it’s good or bad karma."

"That actually makes perfect sense," Jude noted, nodding sagely. "You are pathologically petty."

The rest of the core group nodded in solemn agreement.

Zeke rolled his eyes. "However, you are going to have to do significantly more than what you’ve already done."

Eve’s eyes narrowed. "What exactly do you want?"

"You’ve successfully trained Aaron. Now, I want you to thoroughly train my boys and Kai," Zeke said, pointing a finger directly at the Winchester brothers.

The twins were Nephilims. And while they naturally possessed the absolute highest latent talent for the divine arts within the group, they currently knew absolutely zero practical divine magic. The same issue applied directly to Kai.

Eve stared coldly at the Winchesters. "I cannot."

"You cannot, or you will not?" Zeke asked, his voice dropping an octave.

"I will not," Eve stated firmly.

"I see."

In that precise microsecond, a suffocating, baleful aura exploded from Zeke’s form.

The temperature in the room plummeted. The walls, the floor, the very air itself felt as though it were violently contracting, compressing the massive living room into a claustrophobic, microscopic box.

"It seems like I’ll be having cooked bird meat for dinner today," Zeke murmured.

And although angels had long since transcended the biological necessity for oxygen, Eve suddenly felt an absolute, primitive terror seize her core.

The phantom breath within her lungs felt as though it had been violently severed. It felt as though she were actively suffocating to death.

Zeke’s personal friends and the terrified students of the Class of Weirdos were explicitly shielded from the direct brunt of his killing intent, but the sheer atmospheric overflow alone was enough to make their bones tremble.

If Eve did not immediately agree to his terms, Zeke was fully prepared to execute her on the spot. He would slaughter her, harvest her divine magic repertoire using his [Predatory Mimicry], and utilize [Divine] alongside the copied traits from the Nephilims and his [Grand Archmage] trait to manually teach the boys himself.

He could technically just copy her skills while keeping her alive, but if she was fundamentally incapable of putting aside her systemic prejudice against the Nephilims, it meant she was a ticking time bomb. It meant she was an untrustworthy element who would gladly slaughter his students the moment his back was turned.

And as he had just stated: he always paid back his karma.

She wanted to lazily reap the cosmic rewards of Providence without putting in the actual labor?

Did she truly believe that merely elevating Aaron’s talent once was enough to buy her a permanent free pass?

Eve’s mind was trapped in a state of sheer, unadulterated panic. She could not comprehend the reality of what was happening to her.

I am going to die?

Here?

Now?

And she wasn’t facing demise at the hands of the smiling monster, or the terrifying regressor, but at the hands of the Immortal. She had known he was strong, but she had never anticipated a horror of this magnitude.

Zeke stared down at her, his eyes entirely devoid of warmth. He was looking at her as if she were a mere ant—or rather, a helpless, fragile little bird trapped in a snare.

By cosmic law, angels could never be slain by entities structurally weaker than themselves. It was a perfectly fair cosmic analogy: a weak existence could never bridge the conceptual gap to harm a higher being unless caught completely off guard. Though that did not matter for angels, they could not be killed by weaker beings no matter what.

For equals, divine energy was a mandatory requirement to deliver a fatal blow.

But for an angel to feel the absolute, undeniable certainty of impending death? It meant the entity standing before her was conceptually superior.

Looking at her trembling form, Zeke’s mind had already drifted past the concept of her execution.

To him, the math was simple: if she agreed to train them, she lived. If she refused, she died. He did not care about any other variable.

He quietly reflected on the ironic fact that he had deliberately refused to rank up because he didn’t want his existence to become excessively bloated and powerful. Yet here he was, capable of effortlessly crushing an angel even while maintaining a numerically lower rank. Even if he stood completely still and allowed her to strike him, she would likely be fundamentally incapable of piercing his defenses.

Life is genuinely getting more boring by the day, he thought with a mental sigh.

"So..." Zeke said, casually resting his chin on the palm of his hand. "Any sudden changes in your philosophical thoughts?"

"I... I agree," Eve managed to squeeze out, gritting her teeth so hard they threatened to shatter.

"Magnificent!" Zeke clapped his hands together cheerfully.

In an instant, the suffocating, apocalyptic pressure vanished, instantly replaced by a light, airy atmosphere.

"That means we’ll have to introduce a few structural changes to the schedule. Or rather, Eve will thoroughly train you guys within the boundaries of your official military drills. I’ll personally relay the administrative changes to Nox."

Zeke stood up, casually walking past Eve and giving her shoulder a friendly, reassuring pat. "See you guys later."

He waved a lazy hand at the stunned room as he walked down the corridor. Micheal offered one last serene smile before gracefully following behind him.

"Jude," Anton called out, pushing himself off his seat and walking toward the exit as well. Jude quietly stood up, falling into step right behind him.

The members of the Class of Weirdos merely watched them leave in a stunned, catatonic silence. This... this is just considered a completely normal Tuesday for them? Then, their minds flashed back to the semester they had spent under his tutelage. He had always possessed an incredibly volatile, rapidly shifting mood.

The Winchester brothers were trapped in a complex web of emotions. Their professor had just casually threatened to slaughter an entity of Heaven purely to secure their personal growth.

They fully understood why Eve had initially refused; they had actively expected the rejection.

But they had never, in their wildest dreams, expected their professor’s violent reaction.

Now, they were officially slated to be trained by a literal angel of heaven. They didn’t particularly harbor a burning hatred for angels; they simply understood the systemic nature of the animosity.

They had been hunted by angelic lackeys, and they had stood face-to-face with an angel who desperately wanted to erase them from existence—only to be saved by a different angel.

Angels hated them, and they kind of hated angels right back. That was the baseline of their cosmic relationship.

But fuck the relationship. They were going to ruthlessly absorb every single scrap of knowledge this angel could possibly provide.

Aaron quietly walked over to Eve’s side, completely unsure of how to navigate the situation. His brother had just come dangerously close to turning her into angelic feathers.

"Are you... are you okay?" he asked softly.

"I am perfectly fine," she replied, her voice instantly snapping back to its default, emotionless frequency.

"Alright, leave her be for now. Come with me," Yeon said, standing up and gesturing toward Aaron.

She turned her eyes toward the rest of the group.

"Kai, take the twins and follow her outside. The rest of you, feel free to make yourselves entirely at home in the living room; it is only for tonight. By tomorrow morning, I’ll have your eccentric professor personally escort you to Nox. You don’t have anything else to do for the rest of the week anyway."

With that, Yeon turned and gracefully exited the room.

Eve stood straight, her icy gaze landing entirely on Kai and the Winchester brothers.

"Follow me," she commanded coldly, turning toward the door.