The plain trembled with the deep, rolling rhythm of war.
Drums of Essence pounded through the soil—each strike answering another in a relentless heartbeat that vibrated up through every boot and every bone.
Light bled through the seams of Myra's ruined armour, pooling inwards into every crack and dent like molten fire refusing to die.
Radiance swirled along Eryndor's own armour in living streams, trickling through every carved motif, rising and falling with his steady breath, his planted stance, his unshakable will.
"Myra," he said quietly, voice cutting clean through the chaos. "Get back to the Sword Sisters—now."
She hesitated, shield arm hanging limp, pain etched across her face.
Eryndor stood between her and the advancing horde, spear held loose but ready in one hand. Black-tar blood slid down its edge and dripped steadily into the churned earth, hissing where it touched.
I must save my strength for the enemy commander.
"Commander!" a booming voice thundered from within the swirling dust.
The enemy laughed.
A deep, ugly sound—wet, grinding, carried on the hot wind like something rotten dragged across stone.
A massive axe rested across the Gorgur General's shoulder. Even beside the brute's enormous frame the weapon looked obscene, its edge chipped and stained from a hundred kills, the haft wrapped in ragged chains that clinked with every heavy step.
Wind rolled between them, dragging curtains of dust and ash across the blood-soaked field.
Then motion exploded.
Metal met storm.
The axe fell—speed shocking for its size, the blade whistling as it carved a vertical arc that split the air itself. Eryndor deflected with a precise upward flick of the spear, the impact ringing like a struck bell.
He pivoted on the ball of his front foot, weight shifting smoothly, and lunged. Metal shrieked as the spear point curved mid-thrust. Light itself twisted and refracted along the shaft, reality bending for a heartbeat as if the world had agreed to step aside. The point slid around the brute's raised guard and tore a deep gash across its face, black blood spraying in a hot arc.
The General reeled back, roaring blood into the air.
Light obeyed Eryndor's will without question.
His weapon—The Eclipser—commanded it.
A spear born to shape, fold, and refract illumination; to change its path as easily as thought itself.
"GAH—RAARGH!" the General howled, charging forward with ground-shaking steps.
The axe came again in a whirlwind of hacking force that ripped open the earth wherever it missed. Eryndor met each strike with effortless precision.
CRANG!—horizontal block, weight dropping low, spear shaft absorbing the blow before he riposted in a lightning flash.
CRUNCH!—sidestep, rear foot driving into the dirt for torque, low lunge that carved through muscle.
WHSSH!—full spin, boot planting hard, rupture of muscle and bone as the spear tip found a gap.
Sparks bloomed in perfect rings each time the spear met axe. The air warped around them, distortion halos chasing every swing. The ground was no longer ground—just molten slag cooling too slowly, steam rising in angry plumes.
The Gorgur General fought with raw, unimpeded brute strength, pain only feeding its rage.
Eryndor fought with absolute calmness and surgical skill.
Brute force against perfect control.
He moved like water against stone—yielding, redirecting, unbroken—even as the land disintegrated around him. Muscles coiled and released with perfect economy, breath steady, eyes never leaving the enemy.
He dodged with a low spin, bringing the momentum into a high spin kick—driving a boot into the giant's gut with a solid thud of impact, and sent the brute skidding back through the dirt in a long furrow.
Then the world ignited.
KZZZSHH–BORRWW!
A column of white fire tore through the plain as the Light-Engine's beam went critical, scattering in wild bursts that scorched the battlefield into sheets of molten glass. Dust and ash swallowed everything in a roaring storm.
Eryndor's stance barely shifted against the sudden shockwave, his arm came up to shield against the fire and dust. His gold and radiant hair fluttered in the wave of force.
When sight returned, an entire regiment had vanished—only shadows burned permanently into the soil remained. The smell was wrong. Ozone and cooked sand, thick enough to choke.
Did it go critical?
A shadow lunged through the smoke—axe first.
Eryndor caught the blow on the spear shaft, arms flexing hard, but the impact hurled him backwards. Boots carved deep trenches through the earth before he arrested his momentum with a sharp twist of the hips and planted stance. He reset instantly, spear spinning once in his grip.
Across the haze, a deep voice rumbled with mocking glee.
"Zsheems lyke yur shoota jus' exploded."
A hulking outline pushed through the falling dust, jagged teeth split by a wide, bloody grin.
"Now dis iz where it getz ugly fur yous."
The brute raised its axe and pointed. A purple Shard socketed in the axe-head pulsed, beaming with corrupt Essence.
"Colossal Decree."
VORZZZ!
Instantly Eryndor's body sank. Crushing weight slammed down on every joint and muscle; even the air felt thick and heavy like syrup. His limbs turned sluggish, as if his own strength had doubled back on him.
Before he could counter, a shrill whistle cut the haze—
Jaws exploded from his right. Fangs clamped around his torso with bone-crushing force. Armour screeched as the Chain-Wyvern dragged him sideways through the ground, earth erupting in clods and sparks. Scales scraped, pressure mounted, ribs creaking under the bite.
Calmness.
Spear retracted in a flash of light.
A yellow shard clung in his fist.
Then, Reactivation.
"Hundred Spears."
Golden light detonated, its light cut through the gaps of the Wyvern's maw.
An explosion of radiant spears burst forth, piercing the wyvern from within, snout to tail in a rapid chain of impacts—each lance punching through scale after scale with wet, tearing sounds until the beast's roar fractured into a static screech. It bled pure light from a hundred wounds and collapsed in a rain of gore, crashing into the earth and skidding to a brutal, smoking stop.
Eryndor rolled clear, recalling his weapon in a smooth motion.
Still the world pressed down—too heavy, too slow.
The ground trembled again.
A second beast slammed into him from behind, throwing him across the field in a tumbling arc.
The Tyrant Champion.
Pressure and Essence shifted behind him.
This time he was ready.
He backflipped with perfect control, spear extending in a fluid line as he turned.
The Eclipser burned through rider and mount in a single straight lance of radiance, severing vital threads of life. Both went limp instantly and hit the ground in a tangled heap.
A massive axe crashed down towards his skull.
Eryndor caught it on the spear shaft, slid aside with a pivot of the hips, slashed a deep line across the Gorgur's chest that sprayed black blood, then kicked the brute back with a powerful thrust of the leg.
A sudden blinding flare ripped across the field.
The remaining Tyrant Champion's mutant beast stumbled—then turned its hate toward the source.
Myra.
The rider spurred forward with a roar.
"Myra!" Eryndor roared.
Light flared in his eyes.
"Spear Gra—"
A roar drowned him out as Essence exploded behind him, reality bending under a shards violet light.
"Colossal Reaver!"
Eryndor spun his spear into defence just as the axe met it. Impact like the fall of mountains. The world convulsed. Shockwaves howled through his arms, rattled bone and breath alike.
"Mhmf!"
The ground ruptured in a wide scar. Air became sound and fire. Everything behind him—men, monsters, earth—was erased in a single expanding wave of destruction.
Weapons locked in a trembling deadlock.
The Gorgur bellowed in triumph.
Beyond them, the last Champion charged straight at Myra.
"Grr—NO!" Eryndor roared.
And then—
He saw it.
Falling motes of starlight.
Tiny galaxies drifting through the smoke.
Heaven cracked.
The sky tore open as light ripped through haze and smoke.
A column of pure radiance crashed to earth like a falling sun. Light swallowed the field in an instant. Enemies fell silent, eyes lifted in sudden terror.
Above them hovered a figure—more divine than mortal.
Her presence melted shadow itself.
To her people she was the living constellation.
The Star of Dawn.
Auriel Dawnstar.
—— ❖ —— —— ❖ —— —— ❖ ——
Sound dulled.
Even the clash of weapons faded, replaced by the faint crackle of static in the air. Clouds convulsed overhead, light seeping through them like water through torn cloth.
Soldiers froze mid-swing, blades trembling in numb hands.
Auriel stood above the battlefield.
The breeze licked at her cloak, Essence glinting along its weave like drifting stars caught in silk.
Her Aura—a Celestial's Aura—was astronomical. It reshaped the atmosphere itself, as though Essence folded beneath her not from command, but from simple recognition and joy.
She did not need wings like her father.
The air became fathomless—less an element, more a memory—an idea that obeyed her thoughts with eager delight.
She looked down at the carnage.
Rage and hunger still churned through the monstrous ranks below, tearing through the land in a frenzy of blood and destruction.
Men and monsters killed and bled in equal measure.
No more…
Astral Weave.
"Constellation Fall."
Light burst into being above her—threads of radiance weaving together in intricate patterns, tracing invisible paths, interconnecting with one another in a living map of stars.
A full constellation of pure Essence given solid form.
Then, with a slight, almost playful flick of her finger, it fell.
The woven ornamentation of starlight descended at blinding speeds, ripping through the General, the remaining Tyrants and every Shard-Tusk Behemoth in its path. Each thread sliced clean through armour and flesh alike, leaving trails of dissolving light in their wake.
Beside her, a sword of light ten times her size materialised in a flash of brilliance.
"First Dawn."
The blade, as bright as a hundred stars condensed into one edge, plunged down from the sky, slicing the wind with a rising howl. It crashed like a meteor into the distant siege beasts. Radiant force detonated across the field in a silent white explosion. Only after a moment passed did the lagged sound and shockwave hit the battlefield.
The massive creatures were simply… gone, erased in a perfect circle of scorched earth and lingering motes.
After a moment passed, Auriel fell. As if the air itself had lost all sense of resistance and welcomed her descent.
The ground convulsed as a small meteor crashed, earth and dust erupting skyward in a perfect ring.
Auriel knelt amid the impact crater, her sword buried deep into the earth beside her.
Ahh~ I'm so cool when I land like this. Just like one of those heroes from the fairytales!
She rose in slow, deliberate motion, savouring every heartbeat of the moment for maximum drama.
She took in her surroundings as Sword Sisters and soldiers nearest to her dropped to their knees in waves, heads bowed, eyes wide with awe and relief.
Auriel was a beacon of hope, an awe-inspiring figure to everyone that had knelt before her. Her hair shimmered like strands of living starlight, shifting and sparkling in the wind with every subtle movement. Radiant armour gleamed with shifting auroral hues that danced across the plates. Her cloak drifted behind her like a living starfield, constellations wheeling gently within its folds.
The blade in her hand—Astralis Fragmentum—was a starborn weapon. Forged of rare stardust and fallen star fragments, it gleamed as though carved from the heavens themselves.
She was a vision born of the stars.
Eryndor stepped forward and knelt without hesitation. Myra followed, wincing through the pain but forcing herself upright to kneel next to him.
Auriel glanced at them both, then turned her gaze toward the distant chaos of war still raging across the plain.
"Eryndor," Auriel said, voice clear and commanding yet warm. "Gather the Sword Sisters and push to the front lines. Drive them back."
"Yes, Princess."
"Myra—return to the main camp. Wait for me there."
"Y-yes, my Princess…"
"The enemy Commander?" Eryndor asked, rising smoothly.
She glided a few inches above the ground, cloak flowing as if underwater, her gaze already turned toward the distant forests where the Gorgur forces pooled from.
"I will hunt him down myself."
She ascended in a single graceful surge, shooting into the clouds like a glimmering star returning to the sky where it had once fallen.