Primordial Heir: Nine Stars

Khione's eyes narrowed, the frost in her gaze intensifying. Her disgust had long since burned away, replaced by a storm of cold, seething hatred blooming silently in her chest. This thing—this vile corruption of existence—wasn't simply an enemy to defeat.

It needed to be erased.

Sealed.

Banished from the world like a malignant curse.

No words left her lips. Only her aura answered. It rose like a glacial tide, silent and merciless, spreading outward in waves of numbing chill. The ground beneath her frosted over, white tendrils of ice curling across blackened, melting earth, defying the abomination's scorching presence.

"This fight will not be easy."

Khione clenched her teeth, her gaze never leaving the grotesque creature ahead.

"He's stronger than me. Nearing the advanced stage of the Red Knight level... and worse, his element is my opposite. If I want to win—no, survive—I must give it everything I have."

Meanwhile, standing across from Nero was the second monstrosity—the mage, still cradling his crooked snake staff with a deranged tilt of his head.

"It~ is my turn~," he purred in a disturbingly flirtatious tone, voice dragging in a melodious pitch that made Nero's spine stiffen. His lip curled in revulsion.

Then the transformation began.

Like the knight, this one warped in both body and essence, bones snapping and flesh stretching into a horrific parody of a sea creature. Gills burst open along his neck, flapping wetly, while his limbs twisted into webbed claws covered in slimy, reflective blue scales. His mouth split wider than humanly possible, lined with needle-like, uneven teeth, and his pupils dilated into slits like those of a deep-sea predator.

His snake staff elongated and mutated, merging and reshaping into a gleaming trident that pulsed with dark blue energy.

Runes slithered across its prongs like eels in water.

A thick, oppressive moisture flooded the battlefield. The temperature dropped—not with the comforting cool of Khione's ice, but a clammy, suffocating wetness. Mist surged in from all directions, rolling in heavy sheets and shrouding the area, isolating Nero from everything but the grotesque figure before him.

"So you use the Law of Water," Nero muttered, narrowing his eyes.

He could already feel it—the pressure. The weight of the deep, pressing down on him, trying to drown his flame. Water was a natural counter to fire, and this mage wasn't just a practitioner—he was a monster wrapped in its element, a mid-stage Adept Mage turned into something profane.

But Nero didn't flinch. His fire burned brighter.

His instincts screamed, his pulse quickened, yet his gaze remained calm. Focused.

This wouldn't be a battle won with brute force. Not against this.

It would be a battle of wills.

And Nero had no intention of letting his flame be extinguished.

To him, it wasn't just power—it was legacy.

An inheritance born of pain and pride. To let it die here, smothered by this grotesque water-born abomination, would be the ultimate disgrace.

In the distance, the faint echoes of battle reached his ears—Khione's icy clash with her opponent, the sharp crack of frost colliding with molten fury. But soon, even that faded as the mist thickened, swirling like a living thing, reducing visibility to almost nothing.

For any normal person, it would've been like being trapped inside a dense, endless fog. But Nero was far from ordinary.

His refined senses, honed through hardship and trials, kicked into high gear.

His special eyes, could still pierce through the haze in short bursts, catching shifting outlines, faint silhouettes. But this mist wasn't just natural—it was laced with prana.

It blocked out his detection spells, nullified sensory pulses, muffled echoes.

He would have to rely on pure instinct.

And instinct did not fail him.

A voice—feminine, masculine, or something between—echoed from all directions, unnerving and dissonant.

"Struggle, little mouse~"

The voice was playful, melodic. Mocking.

Suddenly, a sharp spike in the air pressure surged around him. His muscles tensed instinctively. Danger. From everywhere.

Five shimmering Water Arrows materialized in the mist—honed to deadly sharpness, crackling with mana, converging on him from every angle like fangs of a predator aiming to shred him into pieces.

But Nero didn't panic.

In one fluid motion, he pushed mana into his newly reinforced legs, the bones of his lower limbs—now tempered and strengthened up to his knees—exploding with stored energy.

With a deafening whoosh, his body launched upward, soaring through the foggy canopy like a blazing ember, narrowly dodging the incoming arrows. Below him, the water projectiles struck the earth and exploded with a hiss, gouging out steaming craters in the softened terrain.

He didn't even have time to breathe.

Two more arrows shot out of the mist above him, faster than the last, aimed with the precise cruelty of a skilled predator. One came from his left, the other from above and slightly behind—a deadly pincer meant to catch him midair.

But Nero's body reacted before his mind finished processing.

He twisted in the air—first coiling his torso like a spring, then kicking his legs out wide, his body briefly forming an arc. In a moment of impossible grace, he tucked his right shoulder, pivoted on his core, and spun sideways, shifting his body between the two water arrows with a whirlwind-like pirouette.

The arrows missed him by inches, slicing through the air where he had been only a heartbeat ago.

He landed lightly on a nearby broken tree stump, the wood hissing from the heat of his aura, breath calm, stance low.

"You're not the only one who can dance."

His ominous red eyes gleamed through the mist. This wasn't just survival anymore.

This was war.

And Nero would burn everything in his path.

He jumped down on the ground, before raising his right leg and stomped on the ground.

Bam!

He controlled the prana from his two cores and wield the Law of Fire, manifesting it into the real world. Dark red flame burst the ground spreading outwardly, burning everything on its wake as it advanced at extreme speed, Nero's response was immediate.

''If you think you can hide in the mist like a rat I just have to burn it down!"