Primordial Heir: Nine Stars

Having also killed three orcs she earned 15points thus bringing their total tally to 361 Points. First place. Still tied at the same place in their little game.

Khione’s expression remained serene. She sat motionless in the branches of a frost-covered tree, wings drawn inward, her breath slow and even, she was using her breathing technique to purify the chaotic prana. Purified Prana flowed gently back into her core, replenishing the well she had emptied in her last assault.

Nero did the same, miles away—seated atop a blackened stone outcrop, flames pulsing faintly beneath his skin. He drew in slow, rhythmic breaths, his body steaming with residual heat. Not resting—just recharging.

It was just past noon when they moved again.

Time to hunt.

Her wings flared silently, propelling her into the air. The forest stretched below like a frozen sea—branches crusted with rime, leaves brittle with frost. She didn’t walk. She glided. Every movement was weightless, every shift calculated.

She found her first group near a ravine—three orcs gathered around a fallen tree, snarling and trading guttural words. Before they could react, a dense mist blanketed them, thick as smoke. Vision failed. Heat dropped.

And then came the frost.

Puchi!

One was impaled by a descending spike of translucent ice, driven clean through its back and into the earth.

Another froze mid-swing—literally—his stone axe locked in mid-air as frost encased his muscles.

’’Oink!”

The third tried to run, only for Khione to descend behind him and place a single palm against his back. Ice flooded into him, silencing his heartbeat in seconds.

’Not bad, I shall continue this way.’ her icy blue eyes were frosty than usual.

She moved with inhuman quiet, covering miles in moments, her wings beating only when needed. Each encounter was brief, merciless.

Two more orcs were discovered in a ruined shrine, kneeling beside a cracked stone basin.

She entered unseen through a skylight of shattered leaves. Ice formed silently at her fingertips—shaping into twin needles, each as fine as glass and twice as sharp.

Shk! Shk!

One needle entered the base of a skull. The second drove through the other orc’s eye.

Thud! Thud!

They slumped soundlessly. Their bodies froze before they even hit the floor.

Five kills!

25 points earned. She continued her hunt.

The next orcs she encountered were tougher. Dressed in worn out armors but it was armor nonetheless. Besides the three orcs were smarter.

She didn’t waste spells. She used terrain. She lured them toward the river and sealed off their retreat. Then she dropped the temperature to sub-zero, flooding the area with frozen mist so thick they couldn’t even see their own hands.

They swung wildly.

She struck precisely.

Their blood crystallized mid-flow.

’’My luck is not bad.’’ she remarked as she set trap for the next orcs.

The ninth orc fell to a trap—a sheet of razor ice she conjured across the forest floor. As it ran at her, it hit the surface at full speed and slipped. Before it could rise, Khione glided over it and drove an ice blade into its heart.

It was nearing evening when she killed her tenth orc.

The final kill was the cleanest.

An orc scout standing watch on a cliff. She rose behind it, invisible against the sunlight, and released a single shard.

The shard entered the base of its neck and exited through the mouth, flash-freezing its brain in an instant.

The corpse never even had time to fall—she froze it in place.

In just five hours she killed ten, earning fifty points. Total Tally [511]

She said nothing. Felt nothing.

Just turned and vanished into the wind. Maybe she could hunt some more.

°°°

Meanwhile, on the other side, Nero wasn’t idling.

He rose with the afternoon sun at his back, casting a long silhouette across the scorched underbrush. The smoke-stained forest pulsed faintly in the heat rising from his skin.

Where Khione was stillness and silence—

Nero was pressure.

Relentless. Building.

Like a forge seconds before eruption, well a forge he had total and complete control over it.

His ominous crimson eyes narrowed as he spotted them: four orcs in a clearing, hunched over a carcass, tearing into it with savage glee.

’’Oink!”

’’Oink!!”

They laughed and snarled, oblivious to the shift in the air—the subtle change in temperature that preceded fire.

They didn’t feel the heat until it was too late.

Nero stepped forward, slow and sure.

Flame gathered around his sword.

It didn’t explode outward. It condensed—tight, coiled, and purposeful. The metal began to glow with a furious red-orange hue, the very air around it warping with rising heat.

He invoked his Law of Fire, not as a reckless blaze—but as a finely honed weapon.

A blade sculpted from will and flame.

Though his swordsmanship lacked the flourish of a master, it didn’t need to impress.

It was refined. Functional. Brutally efficient.

A style built for him—and no one else.

He crossed the final few steps into their midst.

’’Oink?!”

One orc raised its head, confused.

’’!”

Another began to turn.

Too late.

One swing.

Swoosh!

The blade cut through the air like a scythe through dry grass—trailing a thin arc of fire in its wake. The impact wasn’t just physical; it was elemental.

The force of the blow detonated in a burst of compressed heat.

CRACK!

Bones shattered beneath the pressure.

Flesh blistered and blackened in an instant.

The worn armor warped and split.

The orc in the center died mid-breath, its chest erupting in flame before the sound could leave its throat.

The next tried to raise a weapon—but its limbs had already begun to char.

The fire had spread through the air itself, dancing along the particles of ash and oxygen Nero controlled.

Another cut—this one low and brutal—swept the legs out from beneath two more.

They hit the ground already burning.

The final orc made it two steps before Nero’s palm thrust forward, fingers curled into a sigil.

A sphere of compressed fire surged outward.

FWOOM!

The blast struck with the concussive force of a furnace venting its soul. The orc’s body lifted off the ground and slammed into a tree with a sound like wet stone.

When the clearing stilled, nothing remained but smoldering husks, limbs twisted, smoke curling from what had once been living flesh.

Four orcs.

Dead in under few minutes.

Nero stood in the center of the destruction. His sword still glowed faintly, fire coiling down the length of the blade like a satisfied serpent. His breath was steady. His eyes didn’t waver.

He didn’t gloat.

Didn’t pause.

He moved on.

Because this wasn’t over.

Not until he was ahead.