The Sovereign-V2: C14: You Are Not Ready

The Sovereign-V2: C14: You Are Not Ready

The world didn't roar.
It shattered.
Lady Elara Veyne’s Sky Hearth Barracks ceased to be sanctuary. The ancient, warded door didn't just explode inward; it disintegrated under the focused, gnawing hunger of the void. The detonation was less sound and more a sickening implosion of reality, a pressure wave of soul numbing cold and the cloying stench of decaying lilies mixed with the sterile, metallic reek of the abyss. Stone shards, compacted frost millennia old, and the fragmented echoes of protective wards became lethal shrapnel propelled by the invading darkness. This darkness wasn't mere absence; it was a presence, a hungry void that actively devoured Ryota’s Polaris light and dimmed the frantic crimson pulse of the Twin Star scars to guttering embers. Through the gaping maw flowed the entity ,a shifting, multi limbed silhouette woven from jagged shards of absolute zero ice and solidified shadow, its form a liquid nightmare of coalescence and dissolution. Dozens of crystalline claws
scrape scrape scraped
the stone floor with a sound like fingernails dragged slowly, deliberately, across a frozen coffin lid. Deep within its amorphous mass, voids pulsed with a sickly blue white light ,not eyes, but focal points of predatory intelligence. The air itself crackled, frosting instantly, stealing breath and freezing sweat into brittle scales on exposed skin.
Shiro didn’t flinch. He bared his teeth. The hours of brutal, agonizing training under Ryota’s unforgiving gaze, the shared humiliation etched in sweat and suppressed screams, ignited not fear, but a fierce, brittle confidence. The
white hot grind in his fused wrists
, the constant reminder of his fragility, was momentarily drowned by the surging tide of adrenaline and the treacherous thrum of power in his scarred palm. We endured Juro, Haruto, Mira and Corvin. We bled for this. We’re ready. He hefted the crude, thin polaris sword scavenged from Elara’s stores, its weight a grounding anchor against the encroaching unreality. "Took your sweet time, frostbite!" he bellowed, his voice raw but vibrating with hard won defiance. "Looking for trouble?" The taunt was a weapon, honed in the Warrens, aimed to provoke, to draw focus, to prove he wasn't prey.
Beside him, Kuro mirrored the stance Haruto used, a prince forged anew in the crucible of shared suffering. Pain was his constant companion ,the
invasive cold chewing like glacial termites deep in his marrow
, the
relentless static buzz scraping raw against every nerve ending
, the
dead, icy drag of his corrupted arm
threatening his balance ,but it was subsumed beneath a desperate, burning need. A need to prove Corvin’s damning verdict wrong, to prove the agonizing hours weren't wasted, to prove they weren't the liabilities everyone saw. He raised the heavy, single edged duelling sword in his left hand, the unfamiliar weight now a symbol of adaptation, the crimson scar on his forearm flaring like a defiant beacon. "Indeed, void spawn!" Kuro’s voice dripped with princely sarcasm, a polished shield over the tremor of effort beneath. "Consider this eviction notice served! Hope your digestion handles shattered ice!" We stood against the Juro’s fury. We can weather this storm. His storm grey eyes blazed, fixed on the pulsing voids. We have to.
The entity flowed forward, a spill of frozen ink given sentience and malice. Shiro didn’t wait for it to dictate the terms. He
exploded
forward, a guttural roar tearing from his throat ,not a scream of terror, but the battle cry of someone who’d carved defiance from despair. He consciously ignored the sharp
jolt of protest
screaming from his wrists, channelling Juro’s brutal forms. He swung the sword in a savage, two handed downward slicing motion, sacrificing finesse for devastating momentum born of sheer, desperate belief.
CRACKKK SHATTER!
The impact wasn't clean steel biting flesh. It was rusted iron meeting glacier forged obsidian. The sword connected squarely with a rapidly coalescing limb of solid, void touched ice. Jagged shards exploded outwards like frozen shrapnel, glittering malignantly in the dim light. The entity visibly recoiled, the limb collapsing into shadowy sludge before reforming, slower this time. A low, subsonic growl vibrated the air, resonating in their chests like a dying engine "FUCK YES!" Shiro barked, staggering back from the recoil, the grind in his wrists flaring into white hot agony that threatened to buckle his knees. But the hit
landed
. He’d made the void spawn flinch. Triumph surged, hot and bright, momentarily eclipsing the pain.
See? Steel and grit. We don't need the cursed light!
Yet, beneath the bravado, a cold serpent of dread uncoiled. The phantom sensation of fused bone fragments vibrating like shards of glass dust within his flesh, the terrifying memory of the superheated crystal searing his palm from the inside out during the warren shield’s backlash, slithered through his mind. It was a visceral echo, a brand burned onto his soul. Using the scar power felt like grasping a live grenade with shattered hands.
Not now. Not uncontrolled. Not unless there's no other choice.
He shoved the treacherous impulse deep, burying it under a fresh wave of defiance. "That all you got?" he goaded, spitting blood tinged phlegm. The taunt was loud, but the shadow of hesitation had stolen a fraction of his follow through speed.
Emboldened by their initial success, they pressed the attack. They became a whirlwind of rusted steel, desperate taunts, and the flaring, unstable light of the Twin Star bond. Shiro ducked under a whip like tendril of shadow frost that sliced the air where his head had been, the unnatural cold biting his exposed cheek like acid. He retaliated instantly, pivoting on his heel with a speed born of Ryota’s drills, launching a vicious sideways chop aimed not at shadow, but at a cluster of those sickly pulsing voids. "Staring contest’s over, bastard! EAT THIS!" The sword bit deep into the coalescing darkness around the voids. Another shriek, higher pitched, more furious, tore through the barracks. But the cost was immediate and brutal. The agony in his wrists escalated exponentially, each impact sending jagged bolts of nerve flaying pain shooting up his forearms into his shoulders. The phantom thorns of the manacles tore viciously at his scars, a ghostly echo of his torture. Beneath it all, a terrifying new sensation bloomed: the fused bone fragments grinding like shards of broken glass within his flesh, the microscopic fissures the others had warned of weeping stress, sending sharp, internal stabs of warning with every jarring movement. He felt fragile, like overstressed ice about to calve.
Kuro saw Shiro’s opening, the ripple in the entity’s form after the sword blow. He moved with him, leveraging their painful synchronicity. Compensating for the dead drag of his corrupted arm with a twist of his core, he lunged. The heavy chopper slammed down. THUD SCREEECH CRUNCH! Black ice fractured. The entity shuddered.
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Exhilaration warred with the static agony lancing up his corrupted arm.
We fucking can do this! You see that Haruto, Juro and especially you Corvin. We can fucking fight.
Seizing the disruption, he focused past the ravenous static chewing his thoughts. He scraped the
surface
of the corruption, gathering a wave of the biting, unnatural cold radiating from his own arm, Haruto’s insane gambit. But as he gathered the cold, a horrifyingly distinct memory slammed into him: the Blight entity in the warren, not just repelled, but
feasting
. He
felt
it again, the corruption surging hungrily, digesting the volatile energy they unleashed, mapping his nerves with predatory glee. It wasn't just pain; it was violation, the enemy growing stronger
inside
him with every flare.
No! Don't feed it! This is a fucking tumour don’t you remember the last time!
The terror was instantaneous, paralyzing. For a critical heartbeat, he froze, the gathered cold writhing in his grasp like a trapped viper. The opening Shiro created began to close.
Fuck but that opening Shiro made we could end this with one blow fuck it no choice!
The thought was a scream. With a guttural snarl pushing past the terror of empowering the enemy within, he
shoved
the cold down the bond, the action feeling less like weaponizing and more like betrayal.
Please, Shiro, make it fucking count… otherwise we are fucked and it’ll all count for nothing.
Shiro felt it surge into him, not energy, but pure, violating entropy. A wave of invasive, soul numbing cold carrying Kuro’s amplified pain and defiance ripped through his nervous system, threatening to lock his joints, freeze his breath solid. The instinct to
reject
it, to violently sever the bond before it crippled them both, was overwhelming, primal. The memory of the warren wasn't abstract; it was cellular: the mutually destructive seizure, the terrifying sensation of his fused wrist bones vibrating at a frequency threatening to shatter them into dust, the molten brand in his palm searing his life force, the nerve flaying agony that had stolen his vision.
It’s happening again! It’ll fucking tear us apart!
Panic, cold and sharp, threatened to unravel his focus entirely. But beneath the shock and terror was the white hot forge of his fury, fury at the entity, at Akuma, at Ryo, at the frost killing Kuro, at their own damned
weakness
. He couldn’t let Kuro’s sacrifice, his own violation, be for nothing. Fucking
Control it!
The command was a roar in his mind, born of desperation. He didn't just catch the cold; he grabbed it with his will, a vise of pure rage. Funnelling the invasive cold into the crystal felt like forcing liquid nitrogen into a fragile glass vessel. He poured his own sonic potential, his desperate need to shatter, into the conduit, using it to
compress
the cold,
focus
it,
ignoring the internal scream warning of imminent self immolation
. Every microsecond holding it was agony, a dance on the razor's edge between weapon and suicide bomb.
Break it! NOW!
With a raw, wordless roar torn from the depths of his being, he thrust his palm forward…
The entity didn't pause. It flowed
towards
Kuro, drawn to the flare of corruption and agony like a moth to a lethal flame. Multiple limbs coalesced, claws aimed to impale the vulnerable prince. Panic, cold and sharp, cut through Kuro’s battle fury. He instinctively reached
inwards
, towards the volatile core of the Twin Star power, the crimson scar flaring weakly on his forearm. He felt the connection snag, power gathering like a storm in his chest, tinged with the invasive cold.
Blast it back!
But the memory wasn't just of pain; it was of
loss of control
. The warren shield hadn't just hurt; it had turned him into a puppet, his body wracked by seizures while the Blight
feasted
inside him. He saw Shiro convulsing, heard his own choked scream echoing in his memory.
If I use it now… uncontrolled… in this state… will I even hit it? Or will I just… explode? Feed it? Kill Shiro with the backlash?
The terror was absolute, a cold fist closing around his heart, tighter than Nyxara’s frost. The gathered power
sputtered
, collapsing inwards like a dying star before it could form. He
flinched
, physically recoiling from the very power that could save him, a fatal paralysis born of traumatic certainty. His good hand came up in a useless, instinctive ward. The claws descended.
Panic, cold and sharp, cut through Shiro’s battle fury like the void whip itself. He saw Kuro frozen, exposed, the claws descending.
NO!
The crystal in his palm ignited, a supernova trapped under scar tissue, screaming for release.
Burn it! Blast it to ash!
The power surged, molten and terrifying, promising annihilation, of the entity, maybe, but also of himself, of Kuro, of everyone near. The backlash memory was visceral, immediate: the phantom thorns tearing his scars open anew, the fused bone fragments grinding like glass dust, the terrifying sensation of the crystal superheating, threatening to detonate his hand, the microscopic fissures screaming under the strain.
If I unleash this… uncontrolled… in panic… it won't save him. It'll kill us all.
The certainty was a bucket of ice water. The desperate, arrogant belief that they could
control
the wildfire evaporated. They couldn't. Not like this. Not under this pressure. The power was truly a tumour, volatile and self consuming. Using it now wasn't courage; it was suicide with collateral damage.
Protect him!
The thought was primal, overriding the allure of destructive power. He
choked
down the nascent inferno within his palm, the energy dissipating in a wave of searing heat that scorched his nerves but remained contained. The light died. He had no weapon but the sword. He charged, not with the focused fury of controlled power, but with the desperate, sacrificial abandon of a man with only his body left to offer. "GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HIM!" He swung the sword wildly, a clumsy, off balance arc fuelled by terror, sacrifice, and the utter rejection of their most dangerous tool. The movement left him wide open, a testament to his fatal choice: death by the enemy was preferable to death by their own uncontrollable power.
Juro materialized like a vengeful ghost beside Kuro, his scavenged dagger a blur as he
thwacked
hard against a crystalline claw aiming for Kuro’s spine, deflecting it with a spray of frozen shards. "Control it or
die
, Princeling!" he snarled, his voice tight with fury and fear. "Your rot paints a target on us all!" His movement was pure, desperate necessity, a stark contrast to their faltering strength.
Mira’s voice, high and frayed to breaking, pierced the din, directed at Shiro: "The pain! Your pain echoes his! It resonates with the void cold! It’s using
you
! Feeding the hunger! Amplifying the beacon!"
Corvin’s distorted voice, colder and more final than the deepest void, cut through from near the shattered entrance. He wasn't just manipulating rubble anymore; he was subtly
pulling
at the entity’s edges, trying to unravel its cohesion, but his focus was split. "The bond is a conduit. It amplifies
everything
." His words were shards of ice driven into their minds. "Weakness. Pain. Despair. Your uncontrolled agony is its beacon. Your volatile power is its feast." A pause, heavy with the weight of absolute truth.
"You are NOT READY."

.
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V2: C14: You Are Not Ready