The first thing Seren felt upon stepping into the portal was weightlessness—like she’d shed her body and soul, becoming mist and light. Then, just as suddenly, ca the crushing weight of the Sovereign Realm.
Her feet touched stone.
Her eyes opened.
A dead forest stretched before her.
Twisted trees with ashen bark clawed toward the sky. The ground was soft and dark, littered with bone fragnts and broken steel. The air reeked of iron and decay, but beneath it was sothing subtler... older.
She closed her eyes briefly, letting the ambiance settle over her. Her crimson pupils flickered with runes—lines of ancient magic trailing across her irises as if decoding the very mana in the air.
[ Sovereign Trial: Welco, Seren Album. ]
[ Sovereign Trial: Rank 1 of 100. ]
[ Sovereign Trial: Primary Objective – Survive. ]
[ Sovereign Trial – Annihilate all threats. ]
She reached toward her back, retrieving the silver-black violin case slung over her shoulder. She opened it with a soft click—revealing not a musical instrunt, but a long, slender blade—obsidian in color, with silvery veins pulsing faintly beneath the surface.
Dissonance.
The blade humd as she drew it, responding to her will.
Suddenly, the trees rustled.
Footsteps.
A trio of participants—low-rank, by the way they moved. Sloppy footwork. No suppression of aether signatures.
They burst into the clearing, blades drawn. One of them grinned.
"Well, well. Looks like we got lucky."
"Is that... Seren Album?" another whispered. "Rank 1?"
"Doesn’t matter. Three of us. One of her."
She didn’t respond.
They lunged, their weapons cutting through the air.
Seren moved only once.
A single step.
In that instant, her sword slashed in a crescent arc.
Three heads hit the ground before their bodies even registered they’d been struck.
She sighed.
"Too loud."
[System: 6 Points Earned.]
She walked past the corpses, her blade cleaning itself—crimson mist dissipating the blood in a hiss of mana.
Then her thoughts returned to him.
Einar.
She didn’t know why, but his presence disrupted her rhythm—his gaze, unflinching. His aether, turbulent. And more than anything... that presence within him.
It felt wrong.
Unnatural.
Chaotic.
She should’ve reported him to the Aetherion Lords imdiately.
But she didn’t.
Why?
She didn’t know.
Maybe it was the contradiction in him—the apathetic cruelty barely hidden beneath a facade of casual speech. The way he didn’t care that he was a Sanguis, or even that he was hated.
Or maybe it was sothing deeper.
Sothing... familiar.
Her grip tightened on Dissonance.
No.
She had no ti for distractions.
The Sovereigns’ Cup wasn’t so social event.
It was a battleground designed to refine and reveal.
And for her, it was a stage.
She looked up toward the blood-red moon peeking through the dying forest canopy.
"I’ll win this year," she whispered.
Her voice was soft, but resolute.
"Because if I don’t... I’ll never be free."
A breeze passed by, catching the ends of her silvery hair.
And then she vanished into the woods, crimson eyes gleaming like a predator on the hunt.
...
She moved silently through the tangled ss of the ashen forest, each step crunching over fragnted bone and shattered steel.
The trees were twisted—blackened skeletons of what once might’ve been oaks or pines, now reaching skyward like grasping claws. The fog hung low, brushing against her calves as if trying to pull her into the earth itself.
Her breath remained steady.
Her senses, sharper than blades, flickered with quiet tension.
Then—crack.
A sound, distant yet distinct. A shuffle through the brittle underbrush. Subtle, but evident.
Seren’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t hesitate.
In a blink, she bent her knees and kicked off the ground—ascending high above the forest floor just as—
SWOOSH.
A monstrous blade cleaved through the space she had just occupied, tearing a wide arc through the earth. The nearby trees trembled from the force, their weakened trunks cracking under the pressure. Dust and debris scattered like ash in a gust of wind.
She landed gracefully a few ters away, knees slightly bent, balance pristine.
Her crimson eyes locked onto her adversary.
A towering knight stood before her, eight feet of rotted steel and rotting sinew. Armor pieces had lded into his flesh, etched like grotesque tattoos of ancient war. A jagged bone crown sat crookedly upon his skull, the last vestige of a king long dead—or forgotten.
His aura radiated decay, undead aether bleeding from his joints in black wisps.
Above him, translucent text burned into the air:
[ Sovereign Trial: Obsidian Remnant ]
[ Threat Level: Awakened ]
Seren’s lips curled downward in disdain. "Weak," she whispered.
The Obsidian Remnant lifted his rusted greatsword and began striking his own chest with its flat edge. The loud clang echoed through the lifeless forest like a tribal war drum. A call to battle—or a lure to nearby predators.
He wanted attention.
He wouldn’t get it.
She tightened her grip around her blade—Dissonance—the obsidian-black sword pulsing with faint silvery veins beneath the surface. A chilling hum resonated through the air as she vanished from her spot and lunged forward.
The two t in a burst of power.
CRASH.
Steel slamd against cursed steel, a shockwave rippling out from their collision. The very air around them trembled, warping like ripples on disturbed water.
A faint blue light began to dance along the edge of Seren’s blade—her runes activating with elegant nace. The Dissonance began to sing—a resonance so high-pitched and pure that the Obsidian Remnant’s massive sword started frosting over, tiny webs of ice crawling up its length.
Sensing danger, the creature reeled back, dragging its sword with it. Its movents were brutal, yet calculated—this thing wasn’t just a beast. It rembered war.
They circled each other in silence.
Then the knight roared—a deep, bone-rattling cry—and charged once more. With a heavy swing, it cleaved a path toward her in a wide arc.
Seren didn’t dodge.
She glided.
Leaping onto the flat of the sword mid-swing, she used its montum to vault herself into the air. Her figure spun upward like a silver wraith, hair trailing behind like liquid starlight.
Mana surged.
Above the battlefield, her outstretched hand shimred with icy blue sigils.
SHRRRRK.
Jagged spears of ice burst into existence around her—hovering like satellite, crackling with lethal energy.
Then she dropped.
So did the spears.
Like arrows loosed from the heavens, they rained down in unison—piercing the knight’s corrupted armor and pinning it in place. Frozen veins crept rapidly from each wound, locking the Obsidian Remnant in a prison of ice.
Her descent was silent.
Her blade, screaming.
With one final burst of montum, she brought Dissonance down like a divine guillotine, plunging it straight through the Remnant’s skull.
CRACK.
A shockwave echoed across the clearing.
The knight convulsed once... twice... then shattered into frozen fragnts—ash and splintered bone dissolving into the mist like it had never existed.
Above the ruins of its corpse, system notifications blood in the air:
[ Sovereign Trial: Obsidian Remnant Defeated. ]
[ Points Earned: 20 ]
The mist swallowed the remains.
Seren stood motionless, her sword slowly returning to its dormant form.
She didn’t say a word.
Victory wasn’t worth celebrating. Not here. Not in this place.
She turned her eyes toward the black canopy once more, her expression unreadable.
And deep down, she felt it—
The Sovereign Realm wasn’t just testing them this ti.
It was hunting them.
Reviews
All reviews (0)