Orion let out a light, appreciative chuckle, the sound directed entirely at Terra's devastatingly blunt and honest assessment. But as he turned his gaze back to Major Corbin Stone, the warmth in his eyes evaporated, replaced by an arctic void. The very air around him seemed to crystallize, the morning's light growing brittle and sharp.
"Alright," he said, his voice dropping to a flat, frigid calm that was infinitely more terrifying than any shout. "I've heard everything I needed to, Stone. So, here's what I think of the Argent Federation and the Directorate's 'authority'."
He paused, letting the silence stretch, letting the weight of his words gather like a thunderhead. The mocking smile was gone, leaving only the cold, hard lines of his face.
"Complete shit."
A profound, echoing silence descended upon the platform. It was as if a vacuum had sucked all sound from the world. Major Corbin and his three B-Rank privates stared, their minds momentarily frozen, unable to process the sheer, suicidal audacity of the statement.
This wasn't just disrespect. This was a declaration of war against a B-Rank power, spoken by... a boy.
Orion continued, his tone remaining flat and emotionless, the voice of a man stating an undeniable, fundamental law of the universe. "This isn't some political game between powerhouses. We're not heroes with a righteous agenda or villains trying to prove a point. It's all very simple, actually."
His eyes, cold and dark as the abyss, pinned Major Corbin in place. "Our power is higher than you can ever imagine. This is my Province. And soon enough, our control will be reaching out far beyond it. Now that you understand," his eyes narrowed, the last vestiges of civility gone, replaced by absolute, unadulterated command, "get the fuck out of my Province."
A heavier, deadlier silence hung in the air. The raw, unfiltered savagery of his words was something one wouldn't expect to hear even from the most thuggish, high-ranking villain.
It was idiotic.
It was insane.
It was suicide.
The three B-Rank privates, momentarily stunned by the sheer gall, felt their shock instantly curdle into a pure, unadulterated, homicidal fury.
"You dare—" Drake snarled, his Aether flaring like a bursting dam, waves of oppressive, high-pressure water beginning to roil and steam around him, the air temperature rising from the sheer energy.
"Insolent backwater trash!" Aquila hissed, her face contorting in a mask of pure venom. Her hands were already glowing, condensed, swirling vortexes of water Aether spinning in her palms, ready to be unleashed. "You have no idea who you're speaking to!"
Major Corbin raised a single, gloved hand.
Instantly, the flaring Aether from his subordinates vanished, snuffed out like candles. His face remained a granite mask, but a dangerous, analytical glint had entered his eyes. He was reassessing, recalculating.
This wasn't the simple arrogance he had expected. This was either terminal madness or a level of confidence so profound he couldn't yet fathom its source.
"Your disrespect and your delusions are noted," he said, his voice a low, rumbling baritone that promised future, methodical retribution. "And they will be reported. The Directorate will hear of this. Do not think for a moment that you can obstruct an official PHAD-sanctioned investigation and simply walk away."
A sound pierced the suffocating tension—a light, airy chuckle. It was Orion.
He laughed. It was a genuine, amused sound that seemed to mock the very gravity of the situation, the very concept of the powers arrayed against him.
"Walk away?" he asked, tilting his head, his smile returning, but this time it held no warmth, only a chilling pity. "How idiotic can you be, Stone? Did you really expect I came to this meeting just to talk?"
Corbin's eyes narrowed instantly. The privates exchanged confused, angry glances.
"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded, his voice dropping to a dangerously low, threatening timber.
Beside him, Lyra's lips twisted into a bone-chilling, predatory smile, a sharp glint of murderous joy lighting up her eyes.
"It means," she purred, her voice a low, vibrating growl, "we're done talking."
She didn't wait for a response. She didn't announce her intentions. In a movement so fast it was little more than a violent displacement of air, she took a single, explosive step forward. The ferroconcrete beneath her foot didn't just crack; it disintegrated into a crater of dust.
There was no fancy technique, no complex martial arts stance—just a brutal, straight punch aimed directly at the still-smirking Drake.
A visible, blindingly golden shockwave of pure, high-frequency vibrational Aether erupted from her fist. It was not a wave, but a lance. Rippling sonic booms howled out from the attack, concussive rings of air pressure bursting across the spaceport, causing the high-altitude media drones to spin wildly out of control.
A terrifying, monstrous pressure, an aura that had been utterly undetectable and perfectly calm moments before, exploded from her body like a supernova.
"What—?!" Drake's arrogant face went utterly, ashen pale. A lifetime of B-Rank combat instinct screamed at him, a primal siren wailing DEATH.
He roared, desperately surging every ounce of Aether he could muster. He didn't even try to counter; he threw his hands forward, spewing out dense, protective waves of howling water, layer upon layer, forming a spinning, domed shield—his ultimate defense, the Aegis of the Depths.
With a sound like grinding mountains and tearing silk, the golden lance of vibrational Aether tore through everything.
The water shield didn't just break; it didn't just shatter. It was unmade. The Aether construct was atomized on a molecular level, bursting into a cloud of fundamental, inert mist.
The golden lance of Aether dispersed just before hitting him, a flash of blinding light bursting in his gaze.
But before he or anyone else could even process this, Lyra was there. The first attack had just been to clear the way. She was now inches from his face, her fist already pulling back for a second, much shorter strike. Her body glowed with a golden, vibrating aura, and a disdainful, joyous laugh bubbled from her lips.
"Come on, B-Rank!" she shouted, her voice dripping with mockery. "Use your mighty, superior powers to crush me!"
The private went mad with fear and rage, his mind snapping. "DIIIIE!!"
He surged all of his remaining Aether, his B-Rank power howling out in uncontrolled, desperate waves. A massive water sword, dense and sharp enough to cleave a mountain peak in two, its edges humming with pressurized force, condensed in his hand.
The ground cracked beneath his heels as he desperately slashed out, unleashing a full-power strike capable of killing any C-Rank hero ten times over.
It was all useless.
Lyra's vibrating golden punch met the blade. The sword, a construct of pure, high-density B-Rank Aether, instantly shattered into harmless vapor. A terrifying shockwave of displaced energy burst all around them.
Without a moment's hesitation, her golden fist, losing no momentum, continued its path and savagely smashed into the private's chest.
There was a sickening, wet CRUNCH of breaking ribs and a percussive THUMP that echoed across the silent platform, loud as a cannon shot.
Drake's eyes bulged, his howl of rage cut short in his throat. A fine, pink spray of blood and spittle erupted from his lips. The force didn't just hit him; it penetrated him. His Aether-reinforced uniform and a B-Rank's durable body were meaningless.
He was launched backward like he'd been struck by a freight train, tumbling end over end, his body limp. He skipped twice on the reinforced ground, cracking it with every impact, before finally slumping into a broken, unconscious, and bleeding heap fifty meters away.
Lyra lowered her fist, which was still humming with golden light. She spat on the ground in disgust. "So much for an all-powerful B-Rank."
The other two privates stared in absolute, mind-numbing shock at their fallen comrade.
"You… you…" Aquila couldn't even form a coherent thought, her mind rejecting the reality she had just witnessed.
In that moment of stunned silence, a soft, musical giggle echoed from their side.
"My, my, so impatient, Lyra," Lisanna purred, her golden eyes twinkling with a mischievous, deadly light. "You could have at least let me have one."
Aquila whirled toward the sound, her shock instantly replaced by a furious, desperate rage. Her Aether aura, a pressure slightly greater and more refined than Drake's, howled out, a tempestuous vortex of water surging around her. The ground beneath her feet began to crack and moisten under the sheer strain.
She unleashed a storm of shimmering, razor-sharp water blades, a thousand projectiles screaming through the air, her voice a furious shriek. "Insolent! You really dare to—"
Lisanna raised a single, elegant finger. A small orb of incandescent light, no bigger than a marble, condensed at her fingertip. It was a perfect, stable, beautiful sphere of pure, solidified sunlight.
"Ah, ah, ah," she chided playfully, as if scolding a child.
She flicked her finger.
The orb shot forward at a speed that seemed to defy physics, leaving a golden trail in the air. An instant later, it met the incoming storm of water blades and detonated.
It wasn't a massive, crude explosion. It was a contained eruption of searing, churning light-flames that formed a swirling, silent vortex several meters wide. The sound of the explosion was light itself.
The storm of a thousand water blades was swallowed whole, dissolving into stray photons and harmless steam before they had even traveled a few feet.
The vortex of pure, solar light, having lost none of its power, slammed into the female private.
With a short, strangled scream, she was thrown back, her body engulfed in searing gold. Her uniform was instantly singed to ash, and her body convulsed violently from the thermal and kinetic shock before she, too, collapsed into an unconscious, smoking heap.
Elysia, who had been watching with a pained expression as if dealing with a pair of unruly, destructive children, rubbed her temples.
"Honestly," she sighed, her voice laced with aristocratic weariness. "Must you both be so… theatrical?"
The third private, the muscular Breaker, finally shook off his catatonic shock. Raw, primal fury overtook him.
"GO DIE!" he roared, an even denser, more stable Aether pressure surging out of him. An immense wave of churning, dark blue water engulfed his body, hardening in an instant into a suit of pressurized liquid armor, complete with swirling pauldrons and a helmet.
A massive water axe, larger than a man and humming with enough force to shatter a skyscraper, condensed in his grip. With a bellow that shook the platform, he smashed it straight down towards Elysia's head.
Elysia didn't even flinch. She simply scoffed, a sound of pure, unadulterated disdain. "Trash."
The temperature of the world plummeted.
It wasn't just a drop; it was an erasure of heat. Frost, intricate and beautiful as a work of art, spiderwebbed across the ground from Elysia's feet, racing toward the charging private like a living thing.
He was suddenly enveloped in a violent, localized blizzard, the air itself freezing solid around him. The water armor he was so proud of, a pinnacle of his B-Rank control, was flash-frozen in an instant.
The moisture within the Aether construct expanded, and the armor shattered from the inside out, exploding off his body in a thousand pieces.
Before he could even complete his attack, before his mind could even register the cold, he was encased. A magnificent, jagged prison of diamond-hard, impossibly clear ice formed around him, a crystal sepulcher capturing his face in a perfect rictus of shock and rage.
Elysia, with an air of profound boredom, flicked her finger.
A single, thin spear of impossibly cold Ice Aether, so cold it seemed to burn the air, shot out. It slammed into the frozen statue.
There was no scream, only the crystalline tinkle of shattering ice and a muffled, wet thud. Frosty, crimson blood sprayed within the prison, instantly freezing into a grotesque, arterial pattern.
The entire block was sent careening across the ground, sliding to a halt near its comrades, the private inside already deeply unconscious and well on his way to hypothermia.
Silence.
Utter, profound, and absolute silence filled the world.
Despite the flurry of attacks, the three separate, decisive, and overwhelming executions, the entire exchange had taken less than thirty seconds.
Major Corbin Stone stood alone.
The cold, analytical mask he wore had finally shattered, replaced by an expression of solemn, profound gravity. His gaze, however, had never once left Orion for a single, fleeting second.
Throughout the entire, brutal exchange, he hadn't moved a muscle to help his subordinates.
He couldn't.
From the very instant Lyra had moved, an invisible, conceptual blade had been pressed against his throat. The raw, unfiltered, and abyssal killing intent emanating from the smiling boy in black had locked him in place. It wasn't a tangible Aether force, but a primal, absolute warning from his own deeply honed instincts: move your gaze, move a single muscle to interfere, and you die.
Yet, even under the crushing, suffocating weight of an intent that promised a swift and brutal end, Major Corbin Stone did not break.
He was not one of his privates. He was a veteran forged in the crucible of the Broken Wastelands, a man who had faced down numerous B-Rank Aether beasts at the same time and survived. He had navigated the political minefields of the Argent Federation and stared into the eyes of death in a hundred different forms.
Villains, nobles, heroes, monsters—this smiling boy was just one more.
A chilling, impossible stillness settled over him as his body, honed by decades of relentless combat, tensed like coiled, adamantine steel. His Aether, dormant and hidden until this very second, began to stir from the depths of his core. A sleeping leviathan had been roused.
"I see," he spoke, his voice low and steady, each word carrying the finality of a judge's sentence. "I see how this will go down now."
The shift was instantaneous and absolute.
A suffocating pressure, an aura as heavy and relentless as the deepest, darkest ocean trench, erupted from his being. The air around him became instantly thick, humid, and impossibly heavy, tasting of salt and ozone, as if they had been instantly transported to the seafloor. The light itself, the very photons from the morning sun, seemed to bend and warp around him, distorted by the sheer density of the Aether he now commanded.
"It appears a more... direct approach is required."
The ferroconcrete platform, already cracked and scarred, began to groan, splinter, and depress beneath his boots. His Aether aura, now a churning, visible torrent of deep, oceanic blue energy, rose like an unfathomable tidal wave.
It was a force of nature that utterly dwarfed the combined power his three privates had displayed—not twice, not ten times, but dozens of degrees more potent, more refined, more absolute.
He raised a single, gloved hand. The moisture in the air, the very humidity his presence had generated, began to coalesce. It swirled violently, condensing into a high-density sphere of water above his palm, spinning so fast it became a perfect, liquid drill, humming with a catastrophic, world-ending potential.
"You have made a grave error."
Rippling waves of suppressive, crushing Aether filled the atmosphere, a physical, tangible grasp that felt capable of shattering the very mountain peaks visible on the horizon.