Primordial Heir: Nine Stars

The second floor materialized around Nero in a wash of white light. When it faded, he stood alone in the center of a vast field that stretched to every horizon.

Grass swayed under a pale sky. The air was still, heavy as if forecasting something ominous.

He stood there for a moment, his hand resting on his sword, his red eyes scanning the emptiness. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. It was the silence before the storm.

Then the notification came.

A window of pale blue light appeared before him, floating in the air like a ghost. Words etched themselves into its surface, one by one, slow and deliberate.

Second Floor: Trial of Endurance

Objective: Survive three waves of monsters.

First wave approaching.

The window dissolved. And the field filled.

They came from everywhere—from the grass, from the air, from beneath the earth itself. Goblins by the hundred, their green skin slick with hunger, their yellow teeth bared. Hobgoblins twice their size, carrying crude axes and wearing armor made from bone and leather. Kobolds with gleaming red eyes, their claws scraping the ground as they ran. Soldier ants almost as big as horses, their mandibles clicking, their bodies armored in chitin that shone like polished steel.

Cha~ Cha~

They poured across the field in a tide of flesh and fury. There was no strategy, no formation. Just hunger. Just rage. Just the simple, primal need to tear him apart.

Nero looked at the charging horde. At the thousands of eyes fixed on him. At the teeth and claws and weapons raised to end him.

He smiled.

His hand closed around the hilt of his sword.

He drew it slowly,

Shingg~

The sound of steel leaving leather a whisper in the chaos. He raised the blade toward the sky, the point aimed at the pale clouds above.

And he poured prana from his core into his sword. He reached deep, into his inner world where countless stars lay, pass the Red star to reach the second one: The Golden Star.

His second law. Lightning.

Then the sky answered.

Dark clouds gathered above the charging monsters, boiling from nothing, spreading across the field like spilled ink. The pale light died, swallowed by shadows that writhed and churned. The air grew heavy, charged, electric. The monsters slowed, confused, their simple minds sensing something wrong, something dangerous that was about to come.

RUMBLE! RUMBLE!

Thunder rumbled. A deep, rolling growl that shook the ground and vibrated in Nero’s chest. Lightning flashed behind the clouds, once, twice, three times, painting the darkness in brief, blinding gold.

Nero held his sword high, the blade now crackling with energy, sparks dancing along its edge. His eyes, those ominous red eyes, reflected the storm above. His smile did not waver.

He lowered his sword.

”[Lightning Descent.]”

The words were soft, almost gentle. They should have been lost in the thunder, drowned by the chaos. But they cut through everything, clear and final.

And hell rained down.

The clouds split open. Lightning poured from the sky in a deluge, not bolts but rivers of pure electric fury.

Ziii~ Ziii~

They struck the charging horde with the force of a god’s wrath.

Dum~ Dum~

Goblins vanished where they stood, bodies atomized, leaving only scorched earth. Hobgoblins raised their axes, their armor, their fists against the sky, and were erased. Kobolds scattered, ran, tried to burrow—the lightning found them anyway, hunting them through the earth, turning their dens into graves. Soldier ants, armored and ancient, cracked and burst like eggs in a fire.

The field became a storm of gold and ash in an instant.

Nero did not watch. He moved.

Lightning clad his body, sheathing him in crackling gold. His feet left the ground, not flying but flowing, becoming one with the storm. He shot forward, a bolt given form, his sword trailing arcs of electricity that scorched the air behind him.

He entered the horde like a blade entering flesh.

His sword swept left, and three goblins fell, their bodies smoking before they hit the ground. He spun, his blade a circle of gold, and a ring of hobgoblins collapsed, their chests carved open, their hearts stopped. A kobold lunged at his back. He didn’t turn. Lightning leaped from his shoulder, caught the creature mid-air, and it was gone.

He moved through the chaos like a ghost, like a god, like something that had no business being among the living. His sword was always moving, always killing, and the lightning answered his every thought. A group of soldier ants tried to form a line, their mandibles clicking in rhythm, their bodies forming a wall of chitin and fury. He raised his free hand, and lightning answered. A single bolt, thicker than a tree, struck the center of their formation. The wall shattered. The ants died. The ground where they had stood was now a crater of glass.

Above him, the storm raged on. Bolts fell in sheets, wiping out whole sections of the horde, leaving only ash and memory. The monsters that survived the lightning found Nero waiting for them. He was everywhere, nowhere, a blur of gold and steel. They swung at him, and he was already behind them. They ran from him, and he was already before them.

A hobgoblin, larger than the others, armored in stolen plate, raised a massive axe and charged. It roared, a sound that cut through the thunder, and brought the axe down in an arc that should have split him in two.

Nero caught the axe with his sword. The impact sent shockwaves through the air, flattening grass, scattering lesser monsters. For a moment, they were locked together, steel against steel, strength against strength.

The hobgoblin’s eyes widened. It saw, in that moment, what it was fighting. Not a man. Not a cadet. Something dangerous.

Nero smiled.

Lightning poured from his sword into the axe, into the hobgoblin’s arms, into its chest. The creature’s muscles seized. Its armor glowed red, then white, then melted.

’’!”

It tried to scream, but the lightning filled its throat, turned its lungs to steam, stopped its heart.

It fell, a statue of charred flesh and molten steel.

Nero stepped over its body and continued his work.

The first wave was breaking. What had been a horde was now scattered remnants, pockets of terrified creatures that had lost their will to fight. They ran in every direction, trampling each other, blind with panic. Nero did not pursue. He stood in the center of the carnage, his sword lowered, his lightning fading.

The storm above began to clear. The clouds thinned, broke, dissolved, letting pale light fall again on the field of ash and glass and bone.

He was breathing hard. Not from exhaustion, but from the sheer pleasure of it. The power that flowed through him, the storm that answered his call, the sword that moved as his thought—it was intoxicating. It would be dangerous to let this feeling consume him.

He shook his head, clearing the thought. This was not a game. Not a pleasure. It was a test. A preparation.

The notification appeared again, its blue light soft against the destruction.

First wave cleared.

Second wave approaching in ten minutes.

Nero looked at the horizon. The field was empty now, but he could feel them coming. More monsters. Stronger monsters. The tower was not done testing him.

He raised his sword and waited, his red eyes fixed on the distance, his smile fading into contemplation about his next strategy. The first wave had been easy. The second would not be so.

He tightened his grip on the hilt and prepared for the next.