—POV Nyssara (minutes earlier)—
The sensation was… indescribable.
The beast—no, the man before her—was not human.
Though he looked, breathed, and moved like one, there was nothing "human" about him.
Just standing in his presence filled every cell in her body with a sense of primordial dread, as if all paths—her very fate—ended right there where he stood.
She couldn't blink.
Couldn't move.
Every thought of rebellion or retaliation came to nothing but the drowning sensation of death. Nyssara's blood felt as if it had frozen within her.
Her breathing came out in ragged, desperate gasps, so light she didn't even know if she was breathing. All she could do was use every ounce of her strength to hold onto the boy behind her.
The only source of warmth and strength in the face of the encroaching, roiling tempest before them. And that very same force of nature merely stood there, watching.
As if observing two shivering insects standing in the face of its silent, restrained fury. Every second Nyssara stared into those suffocating emerald eyes felt like an eternity.
Her expression was pale, her palms and face slick with sweat. Veins could be seen writhing and pulsing up her hands and arms from the strain of simply standing upright before the man.
She wanted to scream—to cry out to the others within the courtyard about the danger standing right there among them—but her voice had failed her. The muscles within her throat moved, but the sound simply would not come out.
It was as if the very presence of the man had stripped her of control over her own body. Her breathing grew fainter and fainter. The white screen within her mind grew larger as she began to lose consciousness.
As her control began to slip, she heard it.
It was a voice. Or maybe a whisper.
As soft as the rustle of wind.
'No…'
Nyssara almost couldn't hear it. She thought it was merely her subconscious's final throes. But the voice came back.
Steadier. Stronger.
'No…'
Faster. Louder.
'No.'
Until it had become an unholy roar within her fragile mind.
'NO!'
In that split second, the weakness—the fear, the rage and humiliation, the doubt and uncertainty—
It all faded away. Like ash from a sacrificial pyre, burning into the sky as an offering. All the feelings and emotions within her were sapped dry.
All she felt was… nothing.
Just an empty indifference that seemed to swallow everything within her. The man before her seemed to have sensed the shift as well, the scent of danger wafting toward him and causing his electric gaze to sharpen, the storm within his eyes growing darker and more swollen.
Nyssara's eyes began to refocus, her icy-blue pupils slowly starting to turn into an everlasting white. She could feel something within her bubbling to the surface. She didn't fight it, because the power rising within her was all she had to resist the man before her.
As the strange power began to stream through her meridians and veins, her eyes turned to the man with the calm indifference of a predator seeking unsuspecting prey.
"Nini?"
Just as her hand twitched, she felt a slight tug on the hem of her dress. The sudden, childish voice entered her ears like an explosive talisman.
She froze. The white within her eyes bled out just as quickly as it had come. The icy blue returned as some semblance of clarity followed with it. She didn't have to guess—she knew who it was.
Closing her eyes, she focused on that sensation. The feeling she had yearned for deep down, the warmth she had just learned to seek. She latched onto it like a drowning woman.
She opened her eyes again, finding that she now had some control over her movements. But before she could explore the reassuring feeling of being able to move again, a sharp voice, laced with what sounded like anxiety, broke through the fragile bubble they had been trapped in.
"Father."
—
If someone were to ask Vairon how to describe his relationship with his father, it would take him less than a second to respond.
Taut.
From the moment he had been old enough to form his own thoughts, he and his father had clashed. Whether it was their choice of drink, their choice of weapon— even Vairon's love for exploration and history was a point of contention for the senile old man.
But the biggest rift in their relationship was the difference in their ideals. Vairon Aetherion was many things: a genius, a scholar, and a cultivation monster who stood apart from his generation like a star shining in the night sky.
But there was another part of him he had always denied. He hid behind his books and research to escape the impulses buried within his soul.
To the point that it had even manifested into an alter ego that awakened with his incarnate.
The desire to conquer.
Vairon tried to deny it—to lock it away deep within himself and never let that part of him see the light of day. Over time, he had learned to accept it as part of the whole that he was. But as a young man, he hated the feeling of being controlled by his impulses.
So he suppressed himself.
Convinced himself that this wasn't who he was. Who he wanted to be.
But to his father, this was the greatest insult to their bloodline.
Vaelor Aetherion, patriarch of the Aetherion Clan and descendant of the Immortal Zephyrrak Spirit Race, was the very embodiment of conquest. He was born into war and thrived in conflict.
The bloodline of the Immortal Zephyrrak Spirit Race demanded its inheritors seek out war and conquest as a way of life, and Vaelor lived up to that expectation with a drive that placed the Aetherion Clan at the pinnacle of power within the Eastern Realm in a short two hundred years.
Though there were no longer wars for power and territory as there had been in the past, he raised his children to embody that same ideology.
For his first two sons, it stuck. But for Vairon—the son with the most potential and the purest bloodline—he was not as eager as his brothers to follow in their father's footsteps.
This caused Vaelor no small amount of grief, to say the least. The disappointment and frustration his youngest son caused led them to become more and more estranged as the years passed.
Until forty years ago, after a massive falling out, they had not even glimpsed one another. So seeing his father suddenly appear before him now, Vairon's body froze like a stone statue.
Meanwhile, his father hadn't spared him a single glance. His stormy gaze was locked onto the shivering children standing before him—or more accurately, the trembling girl and the curious boy.
While the young girl looked to be a step away from fainting, it was the reaction of the boy—a baby not even out of his diapers—that caught his attention the most.
As he stared at the boy, whom he confirmed was indeed his grandson, Vaelor was silently shocked to see him meeting his gaze head-on. There was nothing but abject curiosity in those large eyes.
No fear.
No terror.
Not an ounce of hesitation.
Chayrith held his gaze with an unwavering spirit that seemed to mire Vaelor's momentum in a quagmire. So Vaelor decided to test the grandson he had never met.
He began to increase the pressure he was emitting toward them, causing the girl to begin to collapse. Still, Chayrith stood.
Unmoving.
Unblinking.
As if the pressure were nothing more than a passing breeze. Vaelor raised an eyebrow in genuine interest at his grandson's calm demeanor. The tiniest wisp of a smile ghosted across his face, then vanished as if it had never been there.
He nodded to himself and began to withdraw his aura—only for his senses to scream a warning.
A sharp coldness washed over his body, filling him with dread and causing his eyes to brighten in defiance.
His glare shifted to the young girl standing before his son. A cold, malevolent aura began seeping from her pores. As she slowly lifted her head, Vaelor's heart clenched.
But before he could glimpse her face behind the veil of black hair, he heard his grandson's voice.
"Nini?"
Then, just as quickly as it had appeared, the sinister feeling vanished as if it had never existed. The young girl swayed, struggling to remain upright, yet throughout the entire exchange, she had never let go of Chayrith.
Vaelor's eyes narrowed, a flicker of confusion flashing deep within them.
'…What was that?'
Unwilling to leave things as they were, he took a step forward. But just as he did, a roar tore through the suffocating tension.
"YOU SENILE OLD BASTARD!"
Turning his head slightly, Vaelor found his son's fist hurtling straight toward his nose.
There was no panic or surprise on his face. Instead, Vaelor's lips twisted into a sick grin.
BOOMMM