A week passed since Lysira Cindergale shattered the world's expectations and burned her name into history. The silence that followed was heavy. Calculated. It wasn't surrender—it was fury sharpening its blade.
And then the second campaign began.
The Aurelion Kingdom, humiliated, rallied an army of 150,000 elite soldiers. This time, they didn't rely on numbers alone. They brought two of their Ten Pillar Casters—the strongest battlemages ever born under the System's regulation.
These two were ancient in power, chosen from the High Towers of Discipline, cloaked in history and arrogance.
"We will not falter again," said the Aurelion High Commander. "This time, we erase Vastelune's arrogance from the map."
The Royals Answer
Upon receiving news of the advancing horde, the Council of Thrones convened. Vastelune's nobles urged caution—not because they feared loss, but because they feared unleashing what was next.
Ari Solen, standing among them, said only one thing:
"Send Primira. Send Cerys. This is their war too."
Primira Vastelune, adorned in her Crown of Prismlight, and Cerys Aetherrose, wielding her Aetherrose Heartvine, bowed with sovereign grace and turned to ride.
The Bloom of Aether and the Shardlight Eclipse
The battlefield lay beneath the Ashen Spires, where rolling hills dipped into lakes of ancient mana. Vastelune sent a force of 100,000, knowing they were outnumbered, but not outmatched.
The Aurelion Commander scoffed.
"So the princess and her flower girl come to die."
But then the winds stilled.
First came Cerys. As her boots touched the soil, the Heartvine pulsed, and a sound like a chorus of petals filled the air. She didn't chant. She didn't draw glyphs.
She simply raised her staff.
The sky bloomed.
A storm of crystalline vines erupted from the air itself, weaving through time and space, splitting the battlefield into hundreds of glasswork chambers. Soldiers found themselves isolated, ensnared in illusions of their greatest fears and failures. The spell was ancient Aetherrunic Bloom—a forbidden defensive-offensive art from the age before the System was born.
"This magic…" one Aurelion mage gasped. "It predates the Threads!"
Then came Primira.
She walked through the falling prismlight, expression unshaken, and whispered only a single word:
"Null the dawn."
The moment she spoke, the sun itself fractured.
A massive shadow-dome enveloped the battlefield, within which only she could see clearly. Luxthread—normally light-based—shifted, refracted, twisted into anti-light. It carved the battlefield in mirror-sliced beams, reducing legions to scattered rays.
The spell was called "Eclipse Coronation." Once lost in the halls of ancient Vastelune matriarchs, now reborn in their rightful heiress.
By the end of the battle, the Aurelion army had lost over 100,000, the two mighty casters retreating—wounded, humiliated, their spells shattered before even activating.
The remaining 50,000 fled under the cover of night, their minds broken by illusions, blinded by kaleidoscopic shrapnel and echo-light residue.
Vastelune didn't pursue. They didn't need to.
In the streets of Vastelune, the bells rang again.
"The Princess of Prismdeath!""No—she's the Crown of Eclipse!""And Cerys… what do we even call her?""The Garden of Ruin.""The Bloom that Devoured Armies."
The nobles shuddered. Even the King Vastelune was silent as he viewed the battlefield echoes.
Ari, watching from the sanctum balcony, exhaled deeply.
"They surpassed even what I imagined."
And in the dark corners of the world… the Fragmentwalkers stirred.