The Sovereign-V2: C31: Burn The Sky To A New Fucking Age

The Sovereign-V2: C31: Burn The Sky To A New Fucking Age

The silence stretched, taut as the wards straining against the howling blizzard outside. The violet light pulsed, slower now, almost hesitant. Dust motes, stirred by the hammering frost beyond the door, drifted in the uneasy air. Mira’s crow shifted nervously on her shoulder. Juro’s hand rested near his dagger, his watchful assessment sharpening. Haruto’s analytical gaze, colder than diamond, observed the micro tremors, the flicker of power, the hesitation, new data points flooding his brain.
Shiro felt Kuro’s shoulder press against his. Not for balance. A silent question. A shared tremor. Kuro’s storm grey eye met Shiro’s burning gaze. No words were needed. The fear was mirrored, the doubt amplified. The path to Ryota felt like crossing a chasm over fraying ropes.
“The crypt,”
Shiro thought, forcing the memory. Not the terror, but the
choice
. The moment they had forced their defiance into the heartstone, not as separate entities, but as one broken, resolute unit. The searing heat of the forge, not the numbing kiss of frost.
“One star at a fucking time,”
Kuro echoed their brutal validation in his mind, feeling the scar’s contained heat resonate against the void cold in his arm.
Precise. Controlled.
Even this fear. Especially this fear.
A single, synchronized breath. In. Out. The flicker in Shiro’s palm steadied, burning with renewed, diamond hard focus. The static crackle around Kuro’s arm subsided to a low, purposeful hum, the grey translucence holding the cold fire in check. The crushing weight didn’t vanish, but they straightened beneath it, finding their balance not just in Haruto’s geometry, but in the shared burden, the shared defiance.
The hesitation shattered, not with a sound, but with a silent, mutual resolve. The five steps between them and Ryota no longer felt like a chasm, but the final approach to the anvil. They moved forward again, not as chastened children or failed princes, but as weapons forged in shared annihilation, ready to present themselves to the Forge Master.
The final turn felt like pivoting towards the heart of a dying star...
The final turn felt like pivoting towards the heart of a dying star. The charged atmosphere, shaped by Mira’s fragile hope, Juro’s watchful challenge, Corvin’s chilling recognition, and Haruto’s cold approval, coalesced into a single, overwhelming pressure as Shiro and Kuro turned to face the cold hearth. Ryota Veyne stood before it, a monolith seemingly carved from the very bedrock of the Razorwind Peaks, granite resolve shaped by fathomless grief, unyielding duty, and a will tempered in the fires of countless lost battles. He wasn't just standing; he was
anchored
, the weight of Kaya’s desperate gamble, of Elara’s shattered legacy, pressing down on his broad shoulders like the mountain itself. His Polaris eyes, which had blazed moments before with the fury of a collapsing sun, now held a complex, churning storm. Profound weariness was etched into every line of his scarred face, the bone deep fatigue of a commander who had borne too many burdens for too long. Yet, beneath that crushing weight, visible only to those who knew how to look, and Shiro and Kuro had learned in the crucible, flickered an ember. Not the roaring inferno of before, but a stubborn, feral
hope
, fanned into reluctant life by the declarations of amnesty and transformation they had just spoken. The air crackled with the tension of a bowstring drawn to its absolute limit.
They walked towards him. Not with the hesitant steps of chastened children returning from failure, nor the bowed heads of failed princes burdened by disappointment. They moved as weapons freshly drawn, white hot from the quenching darkness of the crypt, still steaming with the memory of annihilation’s touch, still singing with the deafening resonance of the hammer blows that had reshaped them. Each step resonated on the cold stone, a counter rhythm to the frantic pulse of the approaching frost gnawing at the wards outside. Violet light from the crypt doorway spilled across one side of their faces, painting stark highlights on Shiro’s determined jaw, Kuro’s storm grey eyes, while the deep barracks gloom clung to the other side, a reminder of the shadows they carried within. They stopped before him, shoulder to shoulder, a united front forged in shared annihilation and defiance.
Shiro spoke first. His voice, honed in the crypt’s absolute zero, rang out clear and resonant, carrying the weight of Ryota’s own despair laden command back to its source, transformed now by understanding and acceptance:
"You asked if the spark still burned." Shiro’s gaze, intense and unwavering, locked onto Ryota’s Polaris eyes, meeting the storm within them. He recalled the crushing, bone deep sadness radiating from Ryota as the crypt door had sealed them in, the resonant command that had felt like a final judgment:
"Be reborn from these ashes... or be broken by them. The true war starts here. In the silence. In the choice."
"You sealed us in the crucible," Shiro stated, the words precise, heavy as forged iron. "In the forge of silence, surrounded by the echoes of our failures and the taste of oblivion... and you demanded we
choose
." He raised his scarred, ruined hand. The Polaris scar embedded within ignited, not with a flare, but with a deep, steady, unwavering pulse of pure stellar light, a controlled sun held in his palm. "We chose," he declared, the light reflecting in Ryota’s eyes, "the forge over the fucking frost."
Kuro’s voice joined Shiro’s not as an echo, but as the second, perfectly synchronized blade in a twin strike. Ragged with the static of his corruption, yet resonating with an iron conviction forged in the same crucible, it cut through the silence. He remembered the guttural roar that had shattered them before the crypt, a sound of pure, agonized fury:
"You are supposed to be the fucking LIGHT TO A NEW AGE! Kaya's gamble! Elara's legacy! The hope the Warrens cling to in the fucking dark!"
And then the quieter, devastating truth Ryota had imparted later, the understanding that had crystallized in the crypt’s darkness:
"The Twin Stars... they were never just raw energy. They were conviction. Kaya's desperate gamble wasn't placed on brute strength, but on the stubborn ember, the fire that refuses to die, no matter how fierce the storm."
"You wanted to know," Kuro stated, his storm grey eye blazing with that very conviction as he lifted his corrupted arm, the jagged crimson scar along his forearm igniting with a fierce, contained furnace glow alongside Shiro’s stellar light, "who we would be
after
the hammer fell. If that stubborn fucking ember still glowed beneath the ash they tried to bury us in."
This text was taken from NovelFire. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Together, their voices merged. Not simply speaking in unison, but weaving into a single, thunderous declaration that seemed less sound and more a physical force. It vibrated up from the stone floor, shook dust from the obsidian rafters, and rattled the ancient wards sealing the outer door. It was the culmination of the crypt’s consuming crucible, the brutal honesty of the amnesty spoken moments before, distilled into pure, defiant essence:
"
THAT FUCKING SPARK YOU WANTED TO WEILD FOR DECADES WELL GUESS FUCKING WHAT?
" The question hung for a microsecond, charged with the weight of Ryota’s doubt and their own past failures. Then the answer, a detonation of will:
"
THE TWIN STARS ARE FUCKING REBORN!
"
As the final syllable shattered the air, they raised their arms, Shiro’s scarred palm blazing with contained stellar fury, a miniature sun held in check; Kuro’s corrupted limb radiating the disciplined, aching cold of the void intertwined with the defiant, blazing crimson pulse of his Polaris scar. Light and shadow, stellar fire and void ice, destruction and defiance, didn't clash; they
intertwined
. They pulsed not in chaotic opposition, but in a terrifying, synchronized harmony, creating a visible conduit of focused power. It wasn't just light; it was a declaration made manifest.
Their gazes, Shiro’s burning with contained stellar fire, Kuro’s storm grey eye reflecting the cold void and crimson defiance, remained locked on Ryota. The vow that followed wasn’t shouted into the echoing silence; it was lower, harder, a promise etched not just in words, but in blood, bone, the fused agony of Shiro’s wrists, the icy corruption eating Kuro’s arm, and the cold fire of the void they now commanded. It was delivered with the absolute, chilling certainty of those who had stared into the abyss of oblivion and chosen, irrevocably, the searing, purifying heat of the forge:
"
WE VOW TO END THAT FUCKERS REIGN. RYO. VOLRAG. AKUMA WHOEVER THE FUCK IT IS.
" Each name was a hammer blow. "
NO MATTER WHAT THE FUCK IT TAKES. NO MATTER WHO WE HAVE TO BECOME.
"
Ryota didn't move. Not a muscle twitched in his scarred face, the stern mask of the Commander who had witnessed a hundred battles and a thousand losses. It remained unreadable granite. But the fierce light in his Polaris eyes… it didn't just mirror the power blazing before him; it
answered
it. It was the reflection of Kaya’s own indomitable defiance, the unbroken line of resistance stretching back through generations of crushing darkness. The corner of his mouth didn't twitch upwards in anything resembling a smile. It was the subtle, deliberate baring of teeth, the grimace of a predator acknowledging kin who had finally found their fangs, ready to face the coming storm together.
He stepped forward. One heavy, deliberate step that resonated like a falling anvil. Not to embrace them, not to offer false comfort or hollow praise. He stepped forward as the Forge Master, the one who had designed the crucible, acknowledging weapons pulled from the quenching oil not merely intact, but finally
tempered true
. He stepped onto the anvil of war beside them. His voice, when it came, was a low, visceral rumble, like distant thunder gathering force before the deluge. It resonated with the immense power of the Polaris he commanded and the brutal, undeniable truth he embodied, a truth they had finally embraced:
"
THEN FUCKING BURN. BURN LIKE THE STARS YOU WERE MEANT TO BE. BURN THE SKY TO A NEW FUCKING AGE.
"
The command was not a blessing. It was an ignition. A final, brutal permission for the conflagration they’d been terrified to unleash.
And they answered.
Shiro’s controlled stellar fire didn’t just flare; it
detonated
. A silent, contained sun erupted from his palm, but this time, it didn’t threaten to consume him. The agony in his wrists wasn’t a protest; it was the sound of a vessel being tested to its absolute limit and
holding
, the grinding shriek a war cry against its own fragility. He was not a bomb. He was a forge, and his pain was the fuel.
Kuro’s response was a mirror of annihilation. The void cold in his arm didn’t just pulse; it
screamed
into the space between them, a wave of absolute zero that bit hungrily at the edges of Shiro’s light. The static wasn’t a drone; it was the death rattle of a thousand possibilities, all narrowing to this single, brutal vector. He did not fight the corruption; he
unleashed
it, a directed plague, a shard of the Star Breakers own heart turned back against the coming frost. The grey translucence crawled past his elbow, the price paid in real time, flesh sacrificed for the weapon it had become.
Their powers didn’t just intertwine; they
devoured
each other. Stellar fury met void hunger in a helix of mutually assured destruction, held in check only by the twin, unbreakable wills at its core. The air didn’t crackle; it
screamed
, torn between creation and negation. They were not sparks. They were the first and last moments of a star, collapsed into a single, terrifying point of defiance.
As the final syllable, thick with challenge and grim approval, echoed off the ancient stones, the violet light from the crypt doorway didn't just pulse gently.
It
ROARED
.
Cassiopeia’s heart star, a struggling ember moments before, detonated into incandescent, furious life. It wasn't just bright; it was a
blazing violet sun
erupting within the mountain. Its light didn't just flood the barracks; it
scoured
it, banishing every vestige of gloom, casting stark, elongated, defiant shadows that clawed at the obsidian walls. It illuminated every face with brutal clarity: Mira’s fragile hope hardening into resolve, Juro’s watchful readiness sharpening into lethal focus, Haruto’s fierce analytical satisfaction deepening, Corvin’s shadowed recognition solidifying into recalculated potential, Ryota’s own bared teeth resolve blazing brighter, and at the centre, the Twin Stars themselves, Shiro and Kuro, reborn and blazing with terrifying, unified purpose.
It was more than a signal flare. It was a war banner, woven from bruised starlight and void cold defiance, unfurled directly into the teeth of the howling storm. A declaration written in light and shadow against the encroaching night.
Outside the ancient, heavily warded door, the Razorwind Peaks didn't just moan; they
screamed
. The blizzard intensified from a howling gale into a living, conscious avalanche of ravenous hunger and ancient, implacable malice. The gnawing cold of the Void, a physical, sentient pressure, slammed against the wards with renewed, desperate fury, tasting the rekindled, defiant light blazing within the mountain’s heart.
The amnesty was spoken. The forge was scorching, its heat radiating outwards. The reborn stars were lit, their light a challenge and a beacon.
The silence was gone, shattered by the roar of light and the scream of the storm.
The true war began now.

V2: C31: Burn The Sky To A New Fucking Age