Primordial Heir: Nine Stars

The fight was intense, a close match of speed and skill. Suddenly, the black-clad knight facing Nero broke away, leaping back about twelve feet. His partner, still shaken from the lightning bind, copied him, only to find Elreth’s fiery spear blocking his way, compelling him to face her instead.

The knight across from Nero tilted his head—a grotesque motion through his silver mask. A low, buzzing hum emanated from his body.

”Target resistance higher than expected,” his voice grated, filtered and strange. ”Initiating Phase Two. Demonization.”

The surrounding air twisted and shimmered. His black armor looked as if it was melting into his skin. His body grew larger, joints popping and reversing. Dark green, chitinous plates burst forth from his flesh, forming a bizarre exoskeleton. His head stretched out, mandibles snapping where his mouth once was. His arms turned into powerful, serrated limbs ending in sharp pincers. He transformed into a hulking, humanoid beetle-like creature. His aura surged, reaching into the lower Purple Knight realm.

Nero watched, his expression cold. He’d seen this before—the twisted power of the Ouroboros organization. He wasn’t shocked.

’So, they finally made their move.’

A glance over his shoulder confirmed Khione and Elreth were holding their own; Elreth now faced the other knight, who was beginning his own, slower transformation into a bestial, wolf-like form.

’They want to capture me, Nero’s mind raced. They’re testing. Observing. The mastermind is watching. We can’t reveal everything.’

It wasn’t hard to reach this conclusion. He knew they must’ve learned about his achievement and would want to capture him. It was a logical deduction.

He locked eyes with Elreth across the chaotic battlefield. In that split second, an entire conversation passed between them. Don’t go all out. Draw them in. Make them overconfident. We must do this to catch them off guard and win.

She gave an almost imperceptible nod before turning to meet the wolf-demon’s charge with a controlled, defensive display of fire.

Nero turned back to the Beetle-Demonized human. He let a flicker of ’fear’ show in his eyes. He raised his sword, letting only the Law of Lightning crackle along its length. No fire. This would be a fight of speed against armored strength.

The Beetle-Demonized human charged, no longer graceful, but terrifyingly fast in a straight line, a living battering ram. The ground shook.

Nero didn’t meet it. He used his lightning to become like a ghost. As the pincers snapped where he’d been standing, he was already behind the creature, his sword leaving a scorching, sizzling line across its chitinous back.

”Kreeeeee!”

It shrieked, more in anger than pain—the armor was thick.

The fight became a spectacular high speed exchanges normal people couldn’t follow.

The Beetle-Demonized human was powerful, each swing of its limbs capable of shattering rock. Nero was a darting, like a golden will-o’-the-wisp. He danced around the monster, a constant storm of movement.

He put on the act.

He let himself be cornered against a large boulder. The Beetle-Demonized human lunged, pincers closing. At the last second, Nero ’barely’ scrambled up the rock, the pincers closing on empty air and cracking the stone. He jumped from the boulder, bringing his lightning-charged sword down on the demonized human’s shoulder—a solid hit that made the monster roar and stagger, but didn’t break the plate. Nero landed poorly, ’stumbling’ and leaving his flank open.

The demon took the bait. It backhanded him. Nero ’failed’ to block it fully. The impact sent him flying, crashing through a stand of saplings with a convincing grunt of pain. He lay there for a second, ’dazed.’

From her ice ring, Khione saw this. Her heart clenched, but she saw the calculation in his earlier glance with Elreth. She trusted him. She focused on freezing a corrupted boar solid for Elreth to shatter.

The Beetle-Demonized human stomped toward the downed Nero, confident. Its master would be pleased. The target was strong, but not strong enough.

As the shadow fell over him, Nero’s ’dazed’ expression vanished. It was replaced by a cold, focused lethality.

The demonized human raised a massive, crushing foot to stomp down.

Nero moved.

This wasn’t the defensive, darting speed from before. This was an explosion.

”Lightning Step: Maximum Output.”

He didn’t get up. He vanished from the spot just as the foot descended, pulverizing the ground. A streak of pure, blinding gold lightning reappeared above the demonized human, having arced through the air in a split second.

The demonized human looked up, its compound eyes registering shock.

Nero was upside down, falling toward it, his entire body sheathed in a crackling, concentrated maelstrom of electricity. He had gathered all the lightning he’d been ’wasting’ during his act into this single point.

Nero said, his voice flat and carrying an absolute authority:

”Thunder God’s Descent.”

He plunged down, not with his sword, but with a fist clenched around a miniature sun of lightning. He drove it directly into the weak spot he’d been secretly testing with every glancing blow—the seam between the head and thorax.

The lightning didn’t just strike. It poured into the creature. There was no dramatic explosion. There was a piercing, high-pitched SCREEEEEEE of energy and a flash of light so bright it bleached the color from the darkened forest.

When the light faded, Nero stood over the Beetle-Demonized human. It was on its knees, twitching violently, smoke rising from every joint in its exoskeleton. The powerful chitin was now blackened and cracked, glowing faintly orange from internal heat. With a final, shuddering click of its mandibles, the demon-form collapsed, dissolving away in a foul smoke, leaving the broken, unconscious form of the black-clad knight on the ground.

Nero stood panting, the act completely dropped. He looked tired, but victorious. He turned, lightning still flickering on his knuckles, to see how the others were faring. The message was sent. The struggle had been a show. The real power, even restrained, was enough. The mastermind watching had just seen their tool broken, and their target was far more dangerous than he pretended to be.