BAM!
BOOM!
A deafening explosion ripped through the arena, shaking the ground beneath my feet.
Like the brute she was, Freya launched herself at me, her fist tearing through the air like a meteor, aimed straight for my face.
In that instant, I had two choices.
Block with my Wakizashi—but knowing her monstrous strength, the blade would shatter if I didn't have enough momentum.Ditch the blade and take the hit smartly.
I chose the latter.
In a split second, I unsummoned the Wakizashi and summoned the Spartan shield right in front of me. Curling into a fetal position, I braced for impact.
CRACK!
Her punch connected, sending a shockwave through my arms, and in the next moment, I was about to be hurled 300 meters like a cannonball.
As I spun mid-air, the five throwing spears that had been hovering and lined up behind me were now within reach.
I grabbed each one, hurling it straight toward Freya.
But to someone like her—a simple spear was nothing.
With her inhuman reflexes, she would swat it away effortlessly, barely giving it a glance.
However—I wasn't just throwing a spear.
I was launching a death projectile.
Because the moment the spear left my hand, I teleported it into the sky—above the clouds.
Then, as it plummeted downward, I chained teleportations, accelerating its descent over and over, stacking its momentum and velocity to the extreme.
By the time it came screaming toward Freya, it was a force of nature, a projectile capable of turning mountains to dust.
Her instincts screamed.
She dodged.
Barely.
Had she not been trained for years, she would have been impaled, obliterated by the sheer kinetic devastation.
But I wasn't done.
I couldn't waste time waiting for the impact.
Still 200 meters from crashing, I adjusted mid-air.
Plan in motion.
First—I summoned the Claymore, thrusting it into the ground before impact.
Using the hilt as a stopper, I let my momentum whip my body around, shifting my weight onto my hands.
Then—I slingshotted myself forward.
Straight toward Freya.
Mid-flight, I unsummoned Claymore and hurled a Wakizashi at her, a mere distraction.
As expected, she deflected it upward.
Now.
While she was distracted, I summoned the Labrys—a hammer of destruction ready to smash her into the ground.
But Freya wasn't that easy.
She slammed the ground with her right fists, sending a shockwave through the terrain.
The sheer force disrupted my landing, causing a thick cloud of dust to erupt around us.
I couldn't see.
But neither could she.
Or so she thought.
Freya, expecting me to use the dust as cover, launched a devastating punch into the cloud. The wind pressure alone tore through trees in a straight line.
She must've thought she got me—because my Labrys flew out of the dust, embedding itself into a distant tree.
But she was wrong.
Because I had already left.
Tempestus Lumens—my secret ace technique.
Before the fight, I bookmarked Wakizashi that I threw earlier, solely into one of the pages of the Codex nexus.
And the moment she struck—I teleported to its location- Tempestus Lumens.
Aether surged.
The Wakizashi, Switch Places with me
But that was fine.
Because in the same motion—I pulled the Claymore, hovering over my left shoulder.
And with one powerful downward slash, I swung it straight at Freya.
She wasn't prepared.
Not fully.
Her body instinctively moved to harden her defenses, but there wasn't enough time. She knew it—this would leave a mark.
And yet—
Just as my blade was about to connect, her mouth opened.
"LION'S ROAR!"
BOOOOOOOOM!
A shockwave erupted from her, an explosion of force radiating outward in a 100-kilometer radius.
Everything blurred.
My eardrums screamed.
The sheer pressure of sound disoriented my senses.
Before I could even register the pain—I was gone.
When my vision cleared, I was no longer on the island.
I was back in Grandfather's room.
I tried to stand—but I staggered.
My ears were ringing.
My head felt numb.
Even though I wasn't hit directly, the aftershock of her attack had left me dazed.
Just as I was catching my sight, the air shifted. From the corner of the room, a familiar figure stepped out. It was Freya, her posture as proud as ever, her lips curling into a smirk that seemed to say, "You could never defeat me." But as she looked at me, something unexpected happened.
"Impressive, young master." Her voice rang with sincerity, a strange contrast to her usual bravado. "I'm impressed."
Behind her, my grandfather emerged, his broad shoulders and marine-like presence filling the room. His marine haircut and the wrinkles on his weathered face told the story of countless battles, and the scars on his arms were badges of honor.
He was an imposing figure, even in his favorite Hawaiian shirt and beach shorts. You could hear the clack of his favorite Japanese sandals as he approached, the sound echoing in the quiet room.
"Impressive, Ryuji," he said, clapping his hands slowly, almost approvingly. He had a way of speaking that made every word feel like a judgment, and when he spoke, I knew I was about to be measured.
"Tempestus Lumens? Is that what you call that technique?" he asked.
I nodded. "Yes, but the toll it takes on your body is quite severe."
His sharp eyes narrowed as he considered the impact. "Almost 60%? I doubt that is just from the Lion's Roar. I'm sure I saved you before the impact could reach you."
"It takes about 20% of my energy each time," I replied, still irritated by his comment, as if somehow I had done something wrong.
"A trash technique," Grandpa muttered, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
I gritted my teeth but held my tongue. "The distance is 20 meters max... but I'll improve with more training," I responded, my words tight with frustration.
"Not bad," he said, a hint of approval in his tone. "But how did you figure it out?"
I took a deep breath, steadying the swirl of thoughts crashing inside my mind.
"I realized something strange about the training room," I began, my voice low but steady. "At first... I couldn't tell if it was real—or if it was something projected from somewhere far beyond our reach."
My fists clenched without thinking, the memory of frustration flashing through me.
"So, I tried replicating it," I said, locking eyes with Grandpa. "I used the Codex Nexus—crafted my own version of the island, the one we always use for training. I mapped out every detail—down to the last grain of sand, every blade of grass, every scent carried by the wind."
I shook my head slowly.
"But every time I tried, it collapsed.
The projection would start to form…
Then erase itself.
Like reality was rejecting it."
Grandpa's eyebrow arched slightly, a silent signal: keep going.
"That's when it hit me," I continued. "The Codex Nexus can't create something that doesn't truly exist—not in the way the world defines existence. It can only summon echoes... of things already anchored to Gaia."
I paused, letting the weight of that realization settle between us.
"So, I changed my approach. I used your Codex—the bookmarked training room. I thought if I focused on your version, the original, maybe I could teleport into it."
A tense, breathless silence stretched out.
"But no matter how perfectly I focused—no matter how vividly I reconstructed every detail..." I said, my voice tightening, "I kept getting pulled straight back here. To your room."
I laughed under my breath, dry and hollow.
"It didn't matter how flawless the replication was. It wouldn't hold.
It wouldn't form.
Because…"
I looked up at Grandpa, the certainty burning clear in my eyes:
"The training room isn't from this world."
"It's from a different dimension."
It wasn't a place that could be simply summoned, copied, or imagined.
It was something deeper. Something older.
"A culmination of Aether," I said, my voice firm now. "A living imprint, woven directly into your Codex Nexus. That island exists because you anchored it—etched it into one of your Codex's pages, binding your Aether to reality itself. That's why you can summon it. Unsummon it. Even summon us through it, or be summoned back by it."
The room fell into a profound silence.
And for the first time, I saw it in Grandpa's eyes—not just approval...
Recognition.
A silent acknowledgment that I had crossed a threshold few ever reached.
Grandpa raised an eyebrow, the faintest smirk curving the corner of his mouth—impressed by my deductions.
I pressed forward, heart pounding:
"With that idea in mind," I said, feeling the momentum build, "I decided to try something else."
I took another breath, steadying the words.
"I followed the same principle. First, I needed a living weapon just like your Island Something Aetherborne—something with Aether already imbued into it. That's when I found your old armory. Every weapon there... they weren't ordinary—they were crafted with Aether from the start."
"Second, I realized that just like the island needed you to maintain itself, my living weapon needed a constant source of Aether too. That's when it clicked—our Codex Nexus isn't just storage. It's a volume of our own Aether, an extension of us. So In order to feed the living weapon bookmarked and sealed inside my Codex Nexus Page."
"That's how Tempestus Lumens was born—by binding a living weapon within my Codex Nexus, and sustaining it just like you did with the island."
I smiled slightly, the memory vivid.
"Tempestus Lumens."
The name itself seemed to hum in the air between us.
"It feels... different," I said. "Every time I use it, it's like I'm being pushed by pure momentum—like space itself is flinging me forward."
I grimaced, the aftertaste of failure still fresh.
"But it's still incomplete.
It drains about 20% of my Aether just to activate it once."
I tightened my fists again, not from fear—but from anticipation.
Grandpa nodded, his eyes thoughtful. "I see. But there's still something bothering you, isn't there?"
"Yeah," I replied, "I need to figure out how your Aether Watch never drops below 95%, even when you summon us—or when we're summoned by it."
Grandpa smiled slightly, nodding approvingly. "Not bad, Ryuji. You're getting sharper. Let me give you a hint."
He lowered his voice, as though revealing a secret. "The training room is my Codex Nexus."
The words hit me like a sledgehammer.
"Codex Nexus…" I repeated, stunned. "How did you make your Codex Nexus and the island? When did you create it?"
Before I could ask anything more, Grandpa vanished in a flash of light, leaving me standing there, speechless. A moment later, his voice crackled through the intercom. "Freya, patch him up and let him rest."
"Yes, master," Freya replied, her voice as calm and composed as always.
I turned to see her. Freya—One thing I liked about her was her smile. It was warm and caring, always assuring me that I wasn't alone in this.
She moved toward me and gently helped me sit down, her hands careful as they brushed against my bruised ribs.
"I'm proud of you," she said softly, inspecting my injuries with a tenderness that made the pain almost bearable.
"Your grandfather… When I first met him, he was just like you. That Codex Nexus of his was the same as you a book glowing in aether blue—it floated beside him like a loyal companion, always there, always ready. To be honest this is my first time hearing that his Codex Nexus became an Island,. An entire domain, built from his Aether. Maybe he reached a level of mastery we can't fully comprehend."
She looked me in the eyes, her voice filled with quiet conviction.
"But I know this, young master—you carry that same spark. One day, you'll grow your Codex into something even greater. Something the world's never seen. And when that day comes… it'll change everything—just like your grandfather changed mine."
Freya's voice was warm, steady.
Not just a caretaker's words—
But a believer's promise.
I nodded, allowing her to tend to my wounds. The exhaustion from the fight, combined with the toll of Tempestus Lumens, left me drained.
As I lay there, waiting for her to finish, my thoughts wandered to the homework I'd forgotten about—and the punishment waiting for me because of it. But for now, there was only sleep.
Freya finished patching me up, and as I drifted into a deep slumber, the weight of the day's revelations still pressed heavily on my mind.
🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋✦ AetherBorne: The Archivus Legacy ✦🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋