Primordial Heir: Nine Stars

The thunderous applause from the walls of Frostfall faded behind Elysia Raizen like a forgotten echo. She walked through the newly unsealed city gates with the same measured, unhurried pace with which she had approached the battlefield. The citizens who had witnessed her one-woman stand against the horde watched her pass with a mixture of awe and terror, parting before her like water before a ship’s prow. She offered no smiles, no words of reassurance. The mission was complete. The threat was neutralized.

In the spartan command quarters assigned to her, she was methodically cleaning the immaculate blade of her sword when a subordinate, a young lieutenant whose hands still trembled slightly from what he had witnessed, entered and saluted sharply.

”Lady Elysia,” he began, his voice tight with a new, different kind of tension. ”An urgent communication from the main family. It’s about... your brother.”

Elysia did not look up, her focus on a nonexistent smudge on the steel. ”Barak? What foolishness has he gotten himself into now?”

”Not Barak, my lady,” the lieutenant clarified, swallowing hard. ”It’s Nero. Intelligence confirms it. He has... he has Awakened a second Law. The Law of Lightning.”

The soft cloth in Elysia’s hand stilled. For a long moment, the only sound was the howl of the northern wind outside. Then, a sound escaped her lips that was as rare and sharp as a diamond forming under pressure: a laugh. It was not a laugh of joy, but one of cold, calculating triumph, a mirror of the booming, acquisitive laughter her father had unleashed upon hearing the same news. It was the sound of a strategist seeing a game-changing piece fall perfectly into place.

”A second Law,” she murmured, the words tasting of destiny. She sheathed her sword with a definitive click. ”Unprecedented. His value is now absolute.” Her golden eyes, which had been cold with focus, now glinted with predatory intent. ”Prepare my transport. I return to Constel immediately. My father and I must… discuss the reclamation of our lost asset.”

The subordinate bowed and turned to carry out her orders. Elysia’s mind was already racing, plotting the steps to bring Nero back into the fold, to secure his unparalleled potential for the glory of the Raizen name. To destroy any who stood in their way.

It was then that the sound came—a deep, resonant, clanging alarm bell that shattered the brief post-battle peace. It was the city’s highest alert, signaling another wave, likely larger, breaching the distant barrier.

A flicker of pure, unadulterated annoyance crossed Elysia’s flawless features. It was a delay. An inconvenience. An insectile buzzing that sought to distract her from a matter of world-altering importance. This mundane chore was now beneath her.

Her body tensed, and with a sound like the sky tearing in half, she vanished from the command room. She did not run for the gates. She became the storm itself. Outside, the citizens of Frostfall saw a single, colossal bolt of blue and black lightning spear from the heart of their city, arcing over the walls and slamming into the frozen plain beyond with cataclysmic force.

The second horde was indeed larger. A seething, monstrous carpet of chitin, muscle, and rage, led by a pair of hulking, troll-like creatures wielding trees as clubs.

Elysia landed in the center of the advancing tide, the impact cratering the ice and vaporizing a dozen monsters instantly. This time, there was no calm analysis, no graceful dance. This was a purge, fueled by impatience and simmering fury. She was a goddess annoyed by gnats.

She didn’t bother with her sword.

Her arms spread wide, and a Storm of a Thousand Thorns erupted from her. Thousands of needle-thin projectiles of black lightning shot out in every direction, each one homing in on a monster’s core. The front ranks of the horde simply disintegrated into clouds of black ash, the dark energy unmaking them so completely it was as if they had never existed.

One of the trolls lumbered towards her, roaring, its tree-club raised high. Elysia didn’t even grant it the honor of a dedicated technique. She simply pointed a finger. A thick, continuous beam of concentrated blue lightning, hot as a star’s core, lanced out and struck the troll in the chest. It didn’t pierce; it erased, burning a clean, sizzling hole straight through the beast’s torso. The troll took one more confused step before its upper and lower halves separated and crashed to the ground.

The second troll, enraged, charged. Elysia Flash Stepped directly in front of its face, so close she could see the confusion in its beady eyes. She placed a single, open palm on its forehead.

”Annihilation.”

A sphere of absolute blackness, silent and lightless, bloomed from her touch. It expanded to engulf the troll’s entire head before collapsing in on itself. Where the head had been, there was now nothing. The headless body swayed for a moment before collapsing.

The remaining monsters, their primal instincts screaming of an apex predator they could not comprehend, tried to flee. Elysia would not allow it. This annoyance would be thoroughly, completely erased.

She rose into the air, blue wings flaring with angry, incandescent power. She raised both hands to the sky, drawing in the chaotic energy of the storm she had become. Above her, the clouds swirled into a massive, black vortex shot through with veins of her dark lightning.

”Heaven’s Cleansing: Final Judgement.”

She brought her hands down.

From the vortex, a rain of destruction fell. It was not water, but a downpour of black lightning—each drop a spear of pure oblivion. It was not a targeted strike, but a blanket of eradication that covered the entire remaining horde. The plain was illuminated in a strobing, negative light as thousands of bolts hammered into the ice, each impact silencing a screech, unmoving a body, purging the land of the infestation.

When the last bolt fell, the silence was absolute. The entire plain had been scoured clean, the ice melted and refrozen into a smooth, glassy sheet. Not a single fragment of a monster remained.

Elysia descended, her feet touching the glazed ice without a sound. The blue wings vanished. She didn’t even glance at the pristine, empty battlefield. Her work here was done. The annoyance was gone. She turned, her dark red armor stark against the blank canvas of her destruction, and began the walk back to Frostfall. Her mind was already miles away, in Constel, focused on the only thing that truly mattered: the weapon, the asset, the brother who belonged to them, and the absolute necessity of bringing him home.