At the gate connecting the two worlds.
Angelina hovered high in the air, looking down at the defensive position below—trenches, protective walls, machine guns, and tanks forming a fortified line.
Locking onto the locations of armed helicopters and fighter aircraft at the airfield, she dove down at high speed.
Multiple red-and-black magic circles unfolded before her. Red light flared within them.
Boom!Boom!Boom!Boom! ...
Six consecutive red beams blasted down toward the ground.
Four armed helicopters were destroyed on the spot.
"Enemy attack!!"
Hearing the explosions and seeing the firelight, the soldiers sounded the alarm. Sirens instantly rang throughout the entire special zone.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!!
Anti-aircraft guns and all kinds of firearms poured a storm of bullets toward Angelina in the sky.
Boom boom boom!!!
Bullets struck her one after another, but all were blocked by a red barrier.
In the next instant, red beams continued to rain down. One armed helicopter after another, along with fighter jets, were blown apart.
"How is this possible?!"
The modern soldiers were utterly horrified.
Earlier, when fighting sixty thousand—then three hundred thousand—troops from another world, their shields and armor had been no tougher than paper in front of bullets.
He knew magic existed in this world, but this was far too outrageous!
Instinctively, he emptied the magazine of his rifle. Just as he was about to swap in a new one—
A silver-white armored figure with a halo above its head, golden wings of light on its back, and a golden sword in hand stabbed forward from behind.
Bang!!
The soldier's chest was pierced straight through.
He lowered his head in disbelief, staring at the golden blade that had pierced his heart and passed through it, before collapsing to the ground.
The other soldiers watched in terror as dozens of flaming archangels descended from the sky.
They opened fire, but their bullets couldn't harm the enemies at all.
These Flame Archangel summons, though merely cannon fodder, possessed extremely high damage reduction unless struck by specific materials.
With ordinary firearms, it would take over a dozen people focusing fire for quite some time to eliminate a single one.
Angelina lowered her altitude and flew close to the ground, summoning Flame Archangels while bombarding targets with magic—destroying armed helicopters, fighter jets, tanks, armored vehicles, and other assets of the modern army.
She used the base's buildings to reduce the area she could be focused on, minimizing her mana consumption as much as possible.
Her current mana reserves weren't high, and her level wasn't either. Otherwise, a single super-tier spell would have cleared the field.
Even so, she had extremely rich combat experience against this kind of modern military.
In past exams, she often had to rely on herself alone, using limited power to solo at least eighteen hundred fully armed modern soldiers—roughly a regiment.
With ten thousand here, she couldn't wipe them all out in one go.
But retreating safely shouldn't be a problem.
The modern army, which had always crushed otherworldly cold-weapon forces, finally experienced what it felt like to be crushed.
The reaction speed of ordinary soldiers was completely unable to keep up with Angelina.
Just as Angelina was wreaking havoc, a high-speed spinning black axe-spear flew toward her back.
Angelina sensed the attack behind her.
She whirled around and caught the flying black axe-spear with one hand.
A girl wearing a black Gothic lolita dress rushed up in front of Angelina and kicked out at her.
"Get lost!"
Angelina swung the black axe-spear she was holding.
Bang!!
The girl was smashed away, flipping several times in midair before slamming into the ground.
Seeing the girl sent flying, Angelina frowned. The feel of this native's body in her hand didn't resemble that of an ordinary human.
An ordinary human would've been shattered to pieces by that blow.
A powerful individual from this magic world?
She didn't seem all that strong!
I'm down to half my mana. Time to retreat.
Angelina didn't hesitate. Holding the weapon, she turned and flew away.
Even if the opponent was weak, Mom had said not to get dragged down by enemies that looked weak.
"Don't run!"
Seeing Angelina retreat, the girl clutched her abdomen and forced herself to stand.
She wanted to give chase, but that blow had directly broken her bones.
Her body was still regenerating.
She could only watch as the enemy's back quickly disappeared.
The girl scanned her surroundings—ruin everywhere, corpses littering the ground, mechanical wreckage scattered about.
Inside the base, soldiers were still fighting those strange armored creatures.
What kind of goddess had crawled out of nowhere?!
The girl was utterly confused.
After Angelina left, she and the soldiers in the special zone worked together to eliminate the rampaging Flame Archangels.
Before they could even catch their breath, another group of Flame Archangels appeared in the sky—this time clad in green armor, with flaming wings of light on their backs and flaming swords in their hands.
Angelina appeared again, together with Wendy, who had just arrived.
After a brief moment of panic, the modern soldiers of the special zone assumed full battle readiness.
Seeing that the opponents weren't attacking, the commander of the special zone chose to send people over to negotiate.
This time, they weren't dealing with the royal aristocracy of another world, but goddesses wielding overwhelming power.
They didn't know what kind of goddesses these were, but their strength was undeniable.
The ten thousand troops stationed here had suffered over two thousand casualties in a single surprise attack by this goddess, with massive amounts of weapons and equipment destroyed.
You had to know—
Those same ten thousand had fought a three-hundred-thousand-strong allied army from another world and only suffered a few minor injuries.
"Why are you attacking us?"
Itami stepped forward to ask.
"Leave this world."
Floating in the air, Angelina didn't answer Itami's question.
"Go back. Our opponents aren't you. If you don't want to die, leave now. I'll only give you this one chance."
Wendy spoke up from the side.
"Who are you exactly? Why are you driving us away? And who are your opponents?"
Itami wanted more information.
"Human, you talk too much."
Angelina was displeased.
An invisible shockwave shot toward Itami. A figure appeared in front of him and blocked the attack.
"Rory, are you okay?!"
Itami panicked.
"Ara, what a short-tempered goddess."
Rory wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, her eyes fixed on Angelina and Wendy floating in the air.
A new kind of god—different from a god ascended from a demi-god like herself—had appeared?
Back in the special zone, she had already sensed that the souls of fallen soldiers hadn't passed through her to the chief god, but had instead been absorbed by the other party.
Why would such new gods appear in the world?
And it didn't seem to be just one.
Could it be because this world had connected to another?
"I don't want to waste words with you. You have thirty minutes. If you don't leave, you'll all die here."
"Wendy, go guard the gate first. Don't let the gods of the technology world come over."
Angelina said to Wendy.
In this world, the identities assigned to them were gods.
In this exam, their former god's-eye-view ability to gather intelligence had been disabled.
They had no idea what the situation was like on the technology world's side.
They could only control the gate first, then find a way to cross over and gather information.
What?!
Technology world!
Gods?
Itami was stunned. His world had gods too?
The gods of myth actually existed?!
"Alright, I'll go guard the gate."
After saying that, Wendy flew toward the direction of the gate.
"You're still not leaving? Say one more useless word and I'll kill all of you right now."
Angelina said impatiently. She didn't want to listen to the prattle of ordinary humans.
"..."
Itami opened his mouth, then, upon hearing the order from his superiors through the earpiece, led his team back toward the special zone.
From the air, Angelina watched as the modern soldiers of the special zone packed up their equipment and entered the gate passage.
In secret, she cast magic on a small portion of them.
Considering that this side still needed time, Angelina discussed matters with the other members of the same faction and chose not to wipe out the modern army stationed here.
If they exterminated them outright, it could trigger an even larger war by the technology world against the magic world.
Showing strength while still leaving room for negotiation was the best approach.
The main concern was preventing classmates from the technology world from taking advantage of the situation to cause trouble.
The technology world was a modern society. Launching a full-scale war wasn't that easy.
Even if those technology-faction classmates had already seized control of the ruling class.
Based on their analysis, the magic world was in such a miserable state that without their presence, the technology world would absolutely crush it.
To balance the combat power of both sides, the higher-ups had arranged things so that, in the short term, neither the individual combat strength nor the troop numbers of the technology world's students could increase too quickly.
Reality confirmed this judgment.
The technology world.
The Massive Electric Agency.
Raiden Mei stood with her arms crossed, looking down at the Titan mecha production line below.
Mobius walked up beside Raiden Mei. "Did you see the news?"
Raiden Mei's expression was calm, as if she already knew what had happened. "Something happened on the other side of the gate?"
"Yes. They moved fast."
Mobius sighed with emotion.
"It doesn't matter. This exam has only just begun. It's not time for us to act yet."
"At the opening stage, our technology faction already holds an overwhelming advantage. Right now, the humans of this world are still underestimating the magic world's combat power. Once they've been hurt badly enough, we'll step in."
Raiden Mei's eyes remained fixed on the production line below as a Titan mecha finished assembly.
The Titan mecha flickered, entered quantum stealth mode, and vanished from where it stood.
The technology world was a modern society. If they revealed themselves too early, they would easily become targets of every nation.
Of course, it wasn't that they were afraid.
They simply felt it was unnecessary.
When the magic world became a deeply entrenched threat—an external enemy the humans of this world could not eliminate—then it wouldn't be too late for them to act.
News that the army stationed in the special zone of the other world had been effortlessly slaughtered and driven back by a goddess shocked the Far East government.
What was going on?!
Weren't those medieval natives supposed to be nothing but livestock before their army?
What was with this goddess?!
Originally, the Far East government had already signed a series of unequal treaties with the otherworld empire, securing vast amounts of resources from that world for themselves.
The appearance of a goddess shattered their plans.
Out of fear of such a powerful individual lifeform, the upper echelons of the Far East government chose to send people to negotiate with this goddess.
A being that could slaughter freely within a heavily defended modern military special zone—if she entered a densely populated city in their world, she would be nothing less than a mobile, humanoid nuclear weapon.
What's more, if she carried out decapitation strikes, they wouldn't be able to stop her at all.
Before fully understanding the goddess's strength, weaknesses, and trump cards, the Far East government did not dare to take risks.
Coupled with continuous pressure from the major powers, the Far East government—originally intending to monopolize the otherworld's resources—chose to share that enormous cake instead.
They planned to let others test the combat power of those gods from the other world.
They had all watched the battle footage from the special zone.
When dealing with an individual who could massacre freely within a force of ten thousand modern troops, extreme caution was required.
According to analysis, killing a god would require cloud-explosive bombs, thermobaric weapons, or possibly even nuclear weapons to ensure total annihilation in one strike.
The magic world.
Compared to the stability of the technology world, this side was far more chaotic.
Empires, kingdoms, royal nobles—in the eyes of the magic faction's members, anyone useful was taken in, and anyone useless was eliminated outright.
Because they lacked artificial intelligence support, they couldn't do what they used to—kill everyone and simply install an AI replacement. Instead, they had to personally arrange people to maintain order and rule.
As for how to govern and control a medieval world, the academy had standard teaching templates for that.
Find a nation, then use overwhelming force to smash its capital, wipe out its army, and issue invitations to the nobles and lords afterward. Those who didn't come would be dealt with later. Those who came would be evaluated—if they were usable, they'd be kept; if not, they'd be executed on the spot.
The entire process boiled down to: decapitation, invitation, and taking them in as obedient dogs.
As long as one's own strength was sufficient, there was no need for convoluted schemes.
The empire.
Inside the imperial palace.
A pink-haired girl with her hair tied into twin buns stood with her hands clasped behind her back, gazing at the throne stained red with blood.
She turned to look at the soldiers around her, all holding weapons, their hands trembling nonstop.
"I might've killed a bit too much by accident."
The pink-haired girl tapped her finger lightly against her chin.
Yet none of the soldiers present dared to make a sound. All of them lowered their heads.
After all, the floor was still littered with the dismembered corpses of countless soldiers and ministers.
"Lady Sugar Goddess, the empire's first prince and second prince have fled with their followers."
A soldier rushed into the hall, dropped to his knees, and reported in a trembling voice.
"Oh, they ran away."
Matsuzaka Satou tilted her head.
"Yes, yes."
Cold sweat poured down the soldier's face. He didn't dare lift his head.
This goddess was simply a wicked god—brutal beyond reason.
"However, we captured Princess Pina."
The soldier hurriedly added, afraid that if he was even a moment too slow, he'd be torn apart and die without a whole corpse.
"Bring her in."
Matsuzaka Satou's tone was calm.
"Yes."
The soldier quickly got up and ran outside.
Before long, a red-haired girl in female knight's armor was dragged in by two soldiers and forced to kneel in the great hall.
Pina looked at the pink-haired girl standing before her—someone who appeared even younger than herself.
A powerful goddess she had never heard of before.
Recently, she had heard that many gods of unknown origin had descended, seizing territory across the continent.
She had only just established diplomacy with an otherworld nation.
"Hey, you know how to govern a country, right?"
Matsuzaka Satou only wanted to earn enough points and finish the exam as soon as possible.
She sized the girl up. Her looks were decent, but she felt no spark of interest.
So far, only when she was with little Griseo did she feel true satisfaction and joy in her heart.
The only problem was that little Griseo's mother didn't really approve of her living together with Griseo.
To be able to live with little Griseo, she came here to improve herself, earn points, and make it easier to persuade Griseo's mother in the future.
"I studied it."
Pina replied.
"Mm. Then from now on, you'll be the empress and help me manage this country."
Like many at the academy, Matsuzaka Satou had little interest in ordinary secular power.
"???"
Pina was completely dumbfounded. This goddess had just killed her father and ministers, then turned around and handed the nation's authority to her.
She really wasn't afraid…
Uh…
Fine.
The entire empire clearly couldn't oppose her anyway!
After realizing this, Pina felt even more confused. If she cared so little, why come down and make a move against mortals like them at all?
Matsuzaka Satou raised her hand, left her magical mark on Pina's body, and then departed.