Orion's wry smile returned, a subtle curve of his lips that held a universe of amusement. He let his hand fall from its suspended offer and instead placed it gently on Terra's shoulder. The touch was light, yet it felt as solid as bedrock.
At this stage, his System no longer technically required a kiss to initiate a bond, but the ritual was an experience—and observing the unique reaction it elicited—was a pleasure he would never willingly forgo.
He leaned in, his movements fluid and unhurried, capturing Terra's soft lips in a kiss that was both gentle and profound.
A tangible current, a spark of pure, conceptual Aether, arced between them. It was a sensation beyond physical touch, a resonance that vibrated deep within their souls. In the unseen architecture of the world, a new, indelible link clicked into place, weaving their fates together.
When Orion pulled back, a silent cascade of iridescent notifications scrolled through the vast theater of his mind's eye, the System's cold, analytical text a stark contrast to the warmth of the moment.
[Progenitor's Legacy System has evolved. New bond data synthesized.]
A faint, prismatic light, invisible to all but his enhanced senses, flowed like a river from Terra's being into the swirling vortex of his Aether Core.
[New Talent Detected: Adamantine Creation (High-Tier)]
[Analyzing Genetic Markers... Deconstructing Foundational Principles... Fusing Talent into Host's Aether Core...]
[Fusion Complete. Talent Acquired: Diamond Manipulation (Tier 1)]
[Aether Core Purity Enhancement Initiated: 50% distributed to Host, 70% distributed to Terra.]
Orion felt the new power settle within him, not as a foreign entity, but as a truth he had always known. It was a sense of unyielding structure, of perfect crystalline form, a conceptual understanding of permanence and absolute durability.
This power was wholly different from the fluid, life-draining cold of Elysia's ice or the radiant, explosive energy of Lisanna's light; this was a power of substance, of an existence so absolute it could not be broken.
Yet, far more amusing than the acquisition of a new, foundational power was the reaction blooming on Terra's face.
Her typically clear, almost unnervingly focused gaze had gone soft and slightly unfocused. A faint, charming blush, as delicate as a sunrise, colored her cheeks, a stark contrast to her usual impassive expression.
"Welcome to the team, Terra," he said, his smile widening into a grin.
Terra blinked slowly, her mind gradually returning from a place of warm, tingling sensation she had never known. She nodded, her lips parting as she stammered, "Oh... wow. Uhm, that actually felt... really good. Can we do it again later?"
A brief, stunned silence descended upon the room, so thick it felt like it could be cut with a knife.
It was shattered by Elysia, who, spurred by a sudden, sharp wave of possessive jealousy, rose with the deadly grace of a stalking predator. She glided to Orion's side, her fingers wrapping firmly around his arm, her touch as cool as her glare.
"You are truly ignorant," she stated, her voice tight and laced with the frost of noble indignation, "and astonishingly bold for your very first real meeting."
A delightful giggle, like the chiming of tiny, golden bells, echoed from Orion's other side. Lisanna appeared in a flicker of light, her movement too swift for the eye to follow, and playfully took his other arm.
"Hehe, you'll need to wait your turn, cutie," she chirped, her luminous eyes sparkling with a dangerous mirth.
Terra just curled her brows in genuine thought for a second, processing their words not as a social challenge but as a simple logistical problem. She shrugged. "Oh, well. As long as I get mine, right Orion?"
Orion simply let out a low chuckle, a profound feeling of amusement washing over him. These days, he thought with an inner sigh of contentment, were about to get very, very interesting.
...
Hours bled into one another, each moment in Cascadia charged with the electric tension of a world being remade.
Lyra strolled through the opulent, sun-drenched halls of the Wintercroft manor, her footsteps utterly silent on the marble floors. A fine sheen of sweat coated her skin, the pleasant, humming aftermath of a brutal, self-imposed training session that had left a corner of the estate's grounds a cratered wasteland. Her power thrummed beneath her skin, a caged beast of pure vibration, refined and deadlier than ever.
She was ready. Ready to test her new limits by kicking her brother's ass. It was their tradition, their own violent, affectionate language that transcended words.
She spread her Aether Senses, a ripple of imperceptible energy expanding from her like a silent shockwave. Instantly, she located the signature she had known her entire life—the deep, complex, and ever-expanding hum of Orion's Aether Core.
But as she honed in on his location near the designated training facility, her brows curled in curiosity. Woven into his overwhelming presence were three others. Two were familiar: the sharp, crystalline cold of Elysia's aura and the deceptively warm, radiant glow of Lisanna's.
But the fourth... the fourth was an anomaly. It was an aura she had never sensed before, a presence that felt as dense and immovable as the heart of a mountain. It was solid, stable, and radiated a profound, unshakable stubbornness.
Pushing open the heavy, soundproofed door to the facility, Lyra blinked, her crimson eyes taking in the slightly bewildering sight before her.
In the center of the vast, reinforced hall stood the source of the new aura—a girl with deep hazel eyes and an expression of mixed curiosity and a slight daze. In front of her hovered a massive, crystal-blue diamond wall, its surface so flawless it seemed to drink the very light from the air, a monument to the concept of "unbreakable."
On the other side, Elysia and Lisanna were surging their Aether. Flickers of crystalline ice and tongues of solar flame danced and mixed in the air around them, a beautiful but deadly vortex of opposing elements.
The evidence of their assault was already there—streams of frozen fire and lances of hard light had burst upon the diamond shield, scoring its surface with explosive impacts. And yet, the shield didn't even ripple. It simply stood, absolute and utterly indifferent to their efforts.
Naturally, they were holding back, keeping their output at a high-tier C-Rank level for what was clearly an initial test. But seeing the utter lack of effect, they both narrowed their eyes, a silent, competitive agreement passing between them. It was time to kick things up a notch.
Lyra casually approached Orion, who was observing the test from the sidelines, his arms crossed and a look of calm, dispassionate analysis on his face.
"I'm out here busting my ass," Lyra said, her tone dripping with a mocking challenge that was their unique form of greeting, "and you spend your time picking up some random woman, eh? Kicking your ass is going to feel so sweet."
Orion snorted, rolling his eyes without taking his gaze off the unfolding spar.
"Someone seems to be forgetting," he retorted coolly, his voice calm but carrying its own sharp edge, "that the more women I bond with, the stronger I get. Which means the harder I'm going to kick your ass."
That silenced Lyra for a beat. She clicked her teeth, an expression of genuine annoyance flashing across her face before she, too, turned her full attention to the battle, a competitive fire igniting in the depths of her eyes. This new girl, at the very least, seemed interesting.
As the siblings observed, Elysia's silver-blue eyes narrowed into icy slits. The sheer, unyielding resilience of Terra's diamond shield was beginning to grate on her noble pride. She let out a soft, almost inaudible snort, and the air around her chilled by a dozen degrees.
"I will not deny it," she remarked, her voice crisp and formal, carrying the distinct cadence of a queen addressing a commoner. "Your Aether purity is top-tier among C-Ranks. I am quite surprised your name is not more well-known. One would think a Talent of this caliber would have been scouted by a prominent family long ago."
The words were a blend of compliment and interrogation, a subtle probe designed to unearth a hidden background. Terra, however, seemed to possess a conceptual immunity to social maneuvering. She let the condescension and the probing nature of the words wash over her completely, tilting her head as if processing a foreign language. The underlying meaning simply failed to find purchase.
She shrugged, a simple, fluid motion of her shoulders.
"Uhm, thanks, I guess," she replied, her tone utterly casual. "It's just how I've always been. So... are you going to attack again or not?"
Elysia's teeth audibly clicked together. Tch. The girl's infuriating simplicity was a weapon all its own, bypassing all conventional defenses. "Very well."
Her power surged, no longer restrained to a mere test. A greater, more oppressive aura of absolute cold exploded from her, a palpable pressure that would make even peak C-Rank Heroes feel the blood freezing in their veins.
The temperature in the training hall plummeted, and intricate lattices of frost spiderwebbed across the reinforced floor at her feet, a testament to her rising fury.
In her outstretched hand, atmospheric moisture was not merely frozen; it was violently compressed and conceptually refined. It coalesced into a magnificent spear of diamond-hard ice, a weapon forged from the very concept of winter's death. It shimmered with a cold, inner light, trails of sparkling frost swirling around its length like captured souls.
With a sharp, elegant thrust, she launched it. The spear tore through the air, leaving a shimmering trail of icy mist in its wake. The sound it made was not a whistle, but the low, soul-crushing groan of a glacier calving an iceberg the size of a mountain.
"Oh!" Terra's eyes, which had been placid moments before, lit up with a brilliant, unrestrained glee. A rare, genuine smile—the kind a child has upon seeing a truly magnificent firework—curled her lips as she surged her own Aether in response. "Now we're talking!"
Her Diamond Aether flared, gleaming with a dazzling, crystalline shine that seemed to absorb and refract the light in the room into a thousand tiny rainbows. It was a power of pure structure, of unbending order.
She slapped both palms against the inner surface of her shield. The wall in front of her shimmered, its internal lattice reinforcing several folds as the light within it grew more intense, more absolute, more real.
With a thunderous crash, the Ice Spear smashed upon the Diamond Wall.
'Bang!'
The impact was cataclysmic. A wild release of warring energies erupted from the point of contact—a deafening boom that shook the entire facility.
The Aether-reinforced floor beneath them didn't just crack; it pulverized, exploding upwards in a shower of dust and jagged metal shards. The air itself was torn into a chaotic whirlwind of razor-sharp wind and ice shrapnel that could flay a man to the bone.
Orion and Lyra stood their ground, raising their brows in tandem with mild curiosity. The violent, deadly shockwaves parted around them as if encountering an immovable cliff face, leaving them completely untouched.
The aftermath was telling. The powerful Ice Spear, an attack that could have flash-frozen and shattered a dozen high-tier C-Rank heroes, had not only disintegrated into a cloud of glittering frost, but its incredible kinetic force had merely caused a single, agonizingly thin crack to snake its way down the diamond shield's surface. Specks of residual, absolute-zero frost clung to the fracture, a testament to the sheer cold they had just endured.
Terra's gaze brightened with pure, unadulterated joy. "Woah! That was really cool! And I bet you're even stronger than that, right?"
Elysia's eyes narrowed further, the crack in the shield feeling like a personal insult etched upon her soul. Clicking her tongue in annoyance, she began to gather her power for an even greater assault. "This ignorant girl—"
"Let me take a crack at this, Ellie," Lisanna's voice purred from beside her, dripping with predatory amusement. She stepped forward, a mischievous, razor-sharp smirk playing on her lips.
Elysia huffed and crossed her arms, conceding the floor but watching with the intensity of a hawk.
Instantly, flickering light-flames howled into existence around Lisanna, her aura dramatically surging to match the power Elysia had just unleashed. The warmth from her power instantly sublimated the frost on the floor, replacing the biting cold with an oppressive, dry heat that felt like standing on the surface of the sun.
In a flash of golden light, she seemingly dissolved into pure photons, vanishing from sight by sheer speed.
An orb of incandescent, searing light-flames—a miniature, stabilized star—condensed in her palm as she appeared directly in front of Terra's shield. The unbearable heat caused the very air to shimmer and warp, threatening to melt the atoms themselves.
"Here!" Lisanna shouted, her voice laced with playful excitement as she slammed the miniature sun straight onto the already cracked Diamond Shield.
In response, Terra's eyes widened with even more delight.
"Wow!" she yelled, slapping her own palm against the shield to meet the blow, her Aether surging to reinforce the point of impact.
An equally thunderous explosion howled through the hall, a blinding flash of pure white followed by a shockwave of raw, thermal energy that cracked the tormented land even more severely.
Lisanna had already used the force of the blast to gracefully leap back, appearing right beside Elysia, her golden eyes widening slightly in fascination at the sight before her.
The Diamond Shield now bore a second large crack, this one glowing with residual heat, intersecting with the first frozen fracture. Specks of light-flaming wisps and lingering frost danced across its surface like warring sprites, a beautiful yet deadly tableau of elemental chaos. But it was still holding. It had not shattered.
Terra waved cheerfully at the two women, an excited, triumphant smile plastered on her face. "This is really fun! I think Elysia is still kind of weird, like those weirdo nobles, and you... Lisanna, right? You smile a lot, but you two are really powerful! Let's go again!"
A vein pulsed violently on Elysia's temple. "You..." she uttered, her voice a low, dangerous growl that promised a world of icy pain.
Lisanna, however, just let out a wry, breathless chuckle, shaking her head in disbelief. "She really doesn't hold back her words, eh?"
It was at this time that Lyra, observing from the side, snorted in mild amusement. The sound was dry, like stones grinding together.
"Just who is this ditzy girl?" she remarked, her gaze analytical and sharp. "She looks less annoying than the others."
Orion merely raised a brow, his expression unreadable. "Her name is Terra. My new bonded," he said calmly, his voice carrying an unspoken weight. "And I would suggest you temper what little patience you have when you speak to her. As you can see, she has her own pace."
Lyra scoffed, a flicker of raw defiance in her crimson eyes. "Is that so?" She took a single, deliberate step forward.
The air itself screamed.
She did not run or leap; she simply ceased to be where she was and appeared in a flicker of impossible movement, reappearing directly between the sparring trios.