Primordial Heir: Nine Stars

Meanwhile, Elreth’s battle was a thrilling showcase of strength and courage. She faced the other Ouroboros knight as his body twisted and morphed into something fierce. Fur sprouted, his spine stretched long, and his hands grew into wicked paws with claws shimmering as if charged by wind. He transformed into a mighty lupine demon—a Werewolf-Demon with glowing eyes filled with fierce, but controlled rage.

Elreth didn’t react with fear, but with a big, joyful grin. This was her scene. An honest, gritty fight against a powerful, physical opponent. No ghostly tricks, no political games. Just fire and fang.

”At last, something I can actually hit!” she chuckled, twirling her spear, which erupted into a brilliant, roaring column of orange and gold flames.

The Werewolf-Demonized human charged at her, a flash of grey fur and slicing wind. Elreth met him head-on. Her spear spun into a whirlwind of its own.

Clash! Shriek! Hiss!

Flaming metal collided with wind-bladed claws, each hit sparking a tiny explosion of fire and air. She was putting on a brave show of struggle, but really, she was loving every moment of it, she was enjoying it, if you look into her eyes, focusing on them you could see a dangerous glint in them.

She allowed the demon-human to press her, defending with strenuous blocks against its wild, powerful swings. A gust from its claws cut through her uniform sleeve, drawing a thin red line. She grunted convincingly, skidding back in the dirt.

Seeing her ’weaken,’ the demon grew bolder, launching a frenzied barrage of slashes to overwhelm her. Yet, Elreth’s grin remained unchanged as she read its rhythm and tells—this was her dance.

After blocking a heavy blow that left her midsection open, she ’stumbled’—a deliberate, fluid spin. The claws missed her, passing through empty air where she had been. Now beside the demon, within its guard, her playful grin turns deadly.

”You’re fast,” she said, breath hot with excitement. ”But fire... is relentless.”

Instead of a wide blast, she concentrates her Samael flame—her royal birthright—into the spear’s tip. The orange fire blazes white-hot, so intense it warbles the surrounding air.

”Phoenix’s Final Dive: Piercing Sun.”

She thrust. It wasn’t your normal spear strike; it was a lance of concentrated solar energy. The attack moved in a straight, perfect, unstoppable line. It bypassed the swirling wind around the demon’s claws. It ignored the thick fur and muscle.

It pierced cleanly through the Werewolf-Demonized human’s chest, right where a heart would be.

The creature froze. A look of profound shock replaced its feral rage. It looked down at the glowing spear tip jutting from its chest. The white-hot fire spread from the point of impact, racing through its body along veins and sinew. From the inside out, the demonized human was incinerated.

’’!”

It didn’t have time to scream. It crumbled into a pile of ash and dissipating shadow, leaving the scorched, unconscious knight on the ground. Elreth stood over him, pulling her spear free, the white flame cooling back to orange. She was breathing heavily, sweat on her brow, but her eyes shone with the pure, clean satisfaction of a perfect victory.

At the same moment, Khione had finished her work. The rescued villagers were secure inside a thick, domed igloo of gleaming blue ice she had constructed—a formidable, temporary fortress. The corrupted monsters were all frozen statues or charred remains around Elreth’s perimeter.

But Khione knew the fight wasn’t over. The mastermind, the source of the oppressive, watchful darkness, was still here. Hiding. It was time to draw her out.

She stood in the center of the clearing, between the igloo and the two concluded fights. She closed her eyes, extending her senses through the mist she had been subtly thickening since the ambush began. She felt the residual heat from Elreth’s fire, the crackling ozone from Nero’s lightning, the cold of her own ice... and a single, perfectly calm, anomalous point of moving air. It was too controlled, too isolated from the natural wind. It was hiding in the mist, observing.

Her icy eyes snapped open.

She raised both arms, palms facing the sky. The temperature plummeted so fast that the remaining moisture in the air crystallized with a faint tinkling sound. She drew not on prana for a spell, but on the deep, glacial core of her power, the heart of the Undine winter.

”Enough turtling,” her voice echoed, cold and clear. ”Glacial Age: Revealing Frost.”

She didn’t attack a person. She attacked the concealment having checked the surroundings using her presence detection skill, and she would attack where she found an anomaly. She unleashed a wave of absolute cold in a perfect, expanding sphere from her body. It wasn’t a damaging blast; it was a wave of nullification.

Where the wave passed, the unnatural darkness clinging to the forest was ripped away, the light returning. The thick mist she had created flash-froze into billions of tiny, glittering ice crystals, hanging suspended in the air, and created a breathtaking, frozen fog.

And in that suddenly crystallized, glittering atmosphere, concealment became impossible.

A figure was revealed, standing on a high branch fifty yards away. The frozen mist outlined her perfectly—a woman with golden hair, wearing simple village clothes, her golden eyes glowing with a stormy light. The calm pocket of air around her was now visible as a distortion in the frozen latticework.

Subject #009, the Storm Mage, had been forcibly unveiled. Her observation post was gone. The shadows were gone. She stood exposed in Khione’s frozen, glittering world, her golden eyes locking onto the ice mage below. The hunter was now seen.

Even the expressionless subject #009 couldn’t help but show a surprised expression, as she hadn’t expected to be driven out so soon and this way, she had been outplayed, she seemed to have underestimated those three.

’’So you’re the one observing us since a while?” Khione asked while preparing to unleashed spell. This girl was dangerous, extremely dangerous, she wasn’t sure she could win, fortunately she was not alone, Nero and Elreth were present and was looking at the woman whose lips curved upward. Things have become interesting.