—— ❖ —— —— ❖ —— —— ❖ ——
The plain trembled with the rhythm of war.
Drums of Essence pounded through the soil—each strike answering another.
Light bled through the seams of Myra's ruined armour, pooling in cracks and dents like liquid fire.
Radiance swirled along his own armour, trickling through every carved motif, responding to his breath, his stance, his will.
"Myra," he said quietly. "Get back to the Sword Sisters—now."
She hesitated.
The figure stood between her and the advancing horde, spear in hand, black-tar blood sliding down its edge and dripping into the churned earth.
I must save my strength for the enemy commander.
"Commander!" a booming voice thundered from within the dust.
The enemy laughed.
It was a deep, ugly sound—wet, grinding—carried on the wind.
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.
Wind rolled between them, dragging dust and ash across the field.
Then motion exploded.
Metal met storm.
The axe fell—speed shocking for its size—but Eryndor deflected, pivoted, lunged.
Metal shrieked.
The Gorgur raised its arm to block—
and the spear bent.
The point curved mid-thrust, light itself twisting, refracting along the shaft as if reality had momentarily agreed to give way.
It slid around the Brute's guard and tore across its face.
The General reeled back, roaring blood into the air.
Light obeyed Eryndor's will.
His weapon, The Eclipser, commanded it.
A spear born to shape, fold, and refract illumination; to change its path as easily as thought.
"GAH—RAARGH!" the General howled, charging.
The axe came again.
A whirlwind of hacking force ripped open the earth as Eryndor met each strike with effortless precision.
CRANG!—horizontal block, riposte.
CRUNCH!—sidestep, low lunge.
WHSSH!—flip, rupture of muscle and bone.
Sparks bloomed in perfect rings each time the spear met steel. The air warped around them, distortion halos chasing every swing. The ground wasn't ground anymore—just molten slag cooling too slowly.
The Gorgur General fought with brutish strength, unimpeded by the pain.
Whilst Eryndor fought with absolute calmness and skill.
Brute force against perfect control.
He moved like water against stone—yielding, redirecting, unbroken—even as the land disintegrated around him.
He spun, drove a boot into the giant's gut, and sent it skidding back through the dirt.
Then the world ignited.
KZZZSHH–BORRWW!
A column of white fire tore through the plain.
The Light-Engine's beam scattered, scorching the battlefield into molten glass. Dust and ash swallowed everything.
When sight returned, an entire regiment had vanished—shadows burned permanently into the soil.
The smell was wrong. Ozone and cooked sand.
Did it go critical?
A shadow lunged through the smoke—axe first.
Eryndor caught the blow, but the impact hurled him backwards, boots carving trenches through the earth before he arrested his momentum.
He reset his stance.
Across the haze, a deep voice rumbled.
"Zsheems lyke yur shoota jus' exploded."
A hulking outline pushed through the falling dust, jagged tusks split by a grin.
"Now dis iz where it getz ugly fur yous."
The brute raised its axe and pointed.
A purple Shard socketed in the axe's axehead pulsed, beaming with Essence.
"Colossal Decree."
VORZZZ!
Instantly Eryndor's body sank.
Weight crushed down on him; even air felt heavy.
His body felt overbearing and sluggish, as if his strength took on a weight of its own.
Before he could counter, a shrill whistle cut the haze—
Jaws exploded from his right, clamping around him.
Jaw latched.
Fangs bit into armour.
He was dragged through the ground, crushed, and the earth erupted.
Calmness.
Spear Retracted.
A yellow shard clung in his fist.
Reactivation.
"Hundred Spears."
Golden light detonated outward.
An explosion of spears pierced the wyvern from snout to tail, each lance punching through scale after scale until its roar fractured into static.
The beast bled light.
It collapsed in a rain of gore, crashing into the earth and skidding to a brutal stop.
Eryndor rolled clear, recalling his weapon.
Still, the world pressed down—too heavy, too slow.
The ground trembled.
A second beast slammed into him, throwing him across the field.
The Tyrant Champion.
Essence shifted behind him.
This time, he was ready.
He backflipped, extended his spear mid-motion.
The Eclipser burned through rider and mount in a single line of radiance.
Both went limp, hitting the ground.
A massive axe crashed down.
Eryndor caught it on his spear, slid aside, slashed the Gorgur's chest, and kicked him back.
A 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.
"Myra!" Eryndor roared.
Light flared in his eyes.
"Spear Gra–"
A roar drowned him out.
Essence exploded behind him, reality bending under 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. Air became sound and fire.
Everything behind him—men, monsters, earth—was erased in a single expanding scar.
Weapons locked.
The Gorgur bellowed.
Beyond them, the last Champion charged Myra.
"Grr—NO!" Eryndor roared.
And then—
He saw it.
Falling motes of starlight.
Tiny galaxies drifting through smoke.
Heaven cracked.
The sky tore open.
A column of radiance crashed to earth like a falling sun.
Light swallowed the field.
Enemies fell silent, eyes lifted.
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 steel 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.
Auriel stood above the battlefield.
The breeze licked her cloak, Essence glinting along its weave like drifting stars.
Her Aura—a Celestial's Aura—was astronomical. It reshaped the atmosphere itself, as though Essence folded beneath her not from command, but recognition.
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 joy.
She looked down at the carnage.
Rage and hunger churned through the monstrous ranks below, tearing through the land.
Men and destruction killed and bled.
No more…
Astral Weave.
"Constellation Fall."
Light burst into being above her–threads of radiance weaving together, tracing invisible paths, interconnecting with one another.
A constellation of stars, given form through Essence.
Then, with a slight flick of her finger, it fell.
The woven ornamentation of star light descended at blinding speeds, ripping through the General, Tyrants and Shard-Tusk Behemoths alike.
Then, beside her, a sword of light ten times her size materialised.
"First Dawn."
The blade, as bright as a hundred stars, plunged down from the sky, slicing the wind.
It crashed like a meteor, radiant force detonated across the field.
Siege beasts were her target, and now they were simply… gone.
After a moment passed, Auriel fell. As if air itself lost all sense of resistance.
The ground convulsed as a small meteor crashed, earth and dust erupted skywards.
Auriel knelt amid the impact, her sword buried into 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 motion, savouring the moment for extra drama points.
She took in her surroundings as Sword Sisters and soldiers nearest to her had already dropped to their knees.
Auriel was a beacon of hope, an awe-inspiring figure to everyone that had knelt to her. Her hair shimmered. It gleams like strands of starlight, shifting in the wind with every movement. Radiant armour gleamed with auroral hues. Her cloak drifted like a living starfield.
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.
She was a vision born of the stars.
Eryndor stepped toward and knelt. Myra followed, wincing through the pain.
Auriel glanced at them, then towards the chaos of war.
"Eryndor," Auriel said. "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.
She glided above the ground, her gaze turned towards the distant forests.
"I will hunt him down myself."
She ascended, shooting into the clouds like a glimmering star returning to where it had fallen.
—— ❖ —— —— ❖ —— —— ❖ ——