CHAPTER 32
Darkness bled across the dreamscape, not of night, but of uncreation. The stars trembled, their constellations frayed like an unraveling thread. In the distance, Sorayael floated, weightless, voiceless, breath caught in the throat of time as chaos unfolded before her.
There, on the battlefield woven between stars, a presence clashed against the heavens.
It once bore stories, once sung across the skies in divine harmony, a guardian of cosmic balance, but no longer.
Now, it twisted and thrashed, its body cracked with leaking starlight and veins of obsidian rot. It had chosen to defy the Law of Celestials, to walk a path that severed itself from the celestial loom.
One who willingly breached the God Taboo: using divine light for domination, for slaughter, for self.
Its form now burned with anguish and wrath, howling with the voices of the forgotten, its limbs like blackened comet trails coiling with distorted constellations.
And then Velthira suddenly appeared.
Not from above, but from within the light as though the universe itself remembered her name and called her back.
She descended like a whispered command, cloaked in reverent silence and awe. Her silver hair spilled behind her like liquid stardust, moving with divine will. Her golden eyes gleamed, fixed and unyielding, the gaze of one who had judged ages and borne their weight.
There's no steel crown resting on her head, rather, a golden crown of pure Auctoritas hovered above her shifting endlessly.
It radiated the law. It pulsed with truth.
She wore robes and armor not wrought by mortal hands, fluid like silk, shining like constellations, and etched with ancient glyphs that shimmered with every movement. The very fabric whispered power and origin, as if it had been sewn with the breath of the cosmos.
Each of her steps across the void left trails of radiant gold that withered into stardust.
She was not a goddess.
She was not born to be a star, but the stars were born remembering her name.
'So, this is the VELTHIRA?'
'It's different from what I've read.. but similar din..'
Sorayael could not speak. She could only witness as Velthira raised a single hand, and the corrupted star reeled, not from the force, but from recognition. It remembered her.
The golden trails left by Velthira's steps hadn't yet faded when the Corrupted Star let out a shriek, a sound not made for mortal ears.
It echoed like broken hymns and cracked thunder, enough to make the stars themselves recoil.
Its form coalesced into monstrous limbs, twisted blades of void-light spiraling around its pulsating core, desperate to devour, to silence the force it once revered.
Sorayael remained suspended above, a quiet spectator in this forgotten realm. Time bent strangely here; the moments hung long, as if the cosmos itself was watching with her.
Velthira moved, not with rage, but with resolution. She didn't charge but she commanded.
With a flick of her wrist, glyphs of golden language spun around her in orbits, words of an ancient tongue only Auctoritas could remember.
They shimmered, then burst forward like arrows of judgment, searing through the black ether.
The Corrupted Star reeled as the glyphs struck, parting its corrupted essence, each blow unraveling a piece of its defiance.
It retaliated with a lance of void, a spear of dying light and poison memory. Velthira raised her arm, and a golden sigil unfurled like a shield, absorbing the blow before fracturing into a thousand shards of starfire that reversed direction, striking the beast with its own tainted will.
Then she leapt.
Faster than light, her silhouette burned across the void.
Each movement was precise, an ancient dance honed not through training, but destiny.
Her blade, forged from crystallized Auctoritas, carved through the dark flesh of the Fallen Constellation, purging corruption with every strike.
Where she passed, the void healed behind her-celestial threads mending.
The Corrupted Star roared, lashing wildly. Meteoric claws slashed at her, creating rifts in the battlefield. Yet Velthira spun, her golden crown flaring, weaving between destruction with graceful defiance. She was light incarnate. Not just a warrior but a reckoning.
Sorayael's eyes stung as she watched, heart thunderous. She didn't know if it was awe, fear, or the echo of something forgotten in her own blood. She felt something stir within her. Not power but a memory.
Velthira then stopped mid-air, floating with divine serenity.
Her voice rang, and it wasn't a shout, it was a verdict.
With that, she pressed her palm forward.
The stars flickered then aligned behind her, forming an ancient sigil of divine decree. A single lance of golden judgment shot forward, brighter than any sun, piercing through the Corrupted Star's core.
A silence fell. The monster's form cracked apart, dissolving into strands of fading starlight, and with it, its name, its myth, its memory was erased.
Velthira stood, her crown dimming gently, then turned her eyes directly to Sorayael who still hovered in the dreamlike ether, her breath caught in awe, the echo of power thrumming within her bones.
Velthira gazed at her, her voice steady and unyielding. It resonated like a choir of truths buried beneath time.
Then everything unraveled.
The battlefield collapsed into light.
...........
When Sorayael opened her eyes again, she wasn't in the sky, nor in her bed.
She was in an endless field. A land of tall, swaying grass, stretching in every direction. There was no wind, yet the grass moved like it breathed. The sky above was cloudless, pale, almost too still. No trees nor sun. Just her, and the hush of eternity.
She sat up slowly, brows furrowed. "Where...?"
A presence brushed across her senses. Not hostile, but ancient like someone who had stood between centuries and bore the weight of unspoken truths.
Then came the voice. Smooth, low, and curious.
Sorayael turned quickly. "What? Who's there? Who are you?"
Silence fell for a second. Then the voice answered again, this time gentler, fainter, like it was already slipping away, "It's not the time yet, but soon... we'll meet properly. For now, wake up, little flame."
She gasped. Eyes wide, chest rising sharply. Sheets rustled under her as she jolted upright.
The room was dimly lit, filtered by early morning sun. She was back. Her bed. The academy infirmary. Cool clothes rested against her forehead, now slipping off.
The door opened.
Azi stepped in, blinking as the light hit his eyes. When he saw her-
Zarethian appeared behind him with wide eyes, followed by a half-asleep Kieran and Ravelia with her arms crossed but clearly relieved.
Zacchaeus followed last, expression unreadable.
Azi dropped the towel in his hand. "You've been out for three days, woman! Thought you decided to marry the mattress or something."
Sorayael blinked.
'Three days..'
As her friends crowded around her with relief and concern, Sorayael leaned back against the pillow, letting their voices drift like echoes. She answered when needed, smiled faintly when urged but her thoughts were far from the infirmary walls.
When the moonlight poured gently through the infirmary window, Sorayael sat in silence, the quiet breathing of her friends asleep around her.
Her fingers traced the edges of the blanket, mind adrift to the dream; Velthira, her golden crown, her blade that sang in the wind, her eyes that bore through souls like firelight in the void.
Her heart still beat with the echo of those words.
"Carve a name the heavens will kneel to..."
She could still feel the trembling power that awakened inside her, the weight of a destiny she did not ask for... but could no longer ignore.
Meanwhile, in the cold sanctum of his private chamber, the Emperor stood before the sealed star relic, its dormant runes flickering faintly for the first time in years. He stared, unmoving, yet his breath caught faintly, like a shadow had brushed his shoulder.
He knew what this meant.
The past was stirring. The power he tried to bury was rising again.
And in that same moment, worlds apart but bound by fate, they both spoke a single name: