Birth of the Ruler: The Emergence of the Primordial Race

At the southern battleground, stars twinkled beneath the veiled galaxy like fragments of polished crystal scattered across obsidian silk, casting a haunting shimmer over the darkened landscape. Nyxander hovered mid-air, suspended just inches above the cracked earth, his right fist clenched tightly against the open palm of the Beast King's colossal hand. His teeth ground together in effort, jaw grinding with silent rage as the force around his blow dissipated, like mist under sunlight. Tremors rattled down his arm, leaving his knuckles trembling like a flame caught in a storm wind., his widened eyes flickering between disbelief and dismay, a silent war of emotion behind narrowed gaze.

The Beast King stood resolute, unshaken, as though the clash had meant nothing more than a passing breeze. "Why do I feel sickening weakness crawling along my right arm... to the point of trembling?" Nyxander wondered, buried in the turmoil of his thoughts.

The stillness cracked as the Beast King's thunderous voice pierced the moment, dragging Nyxander back to reality. "You haven't answered my earlier question... Why is a Primordial like you standing alongside the outsiders?"

Snapped from his thoughts, Nyxander's eyes narrowed, his lips curled with suppressed rage, voice brittle with frustration. "And why should I answer, simply because you asked?" His tone carried both defiance and irritation, an edge sharpened by failure and the mocking presence before him.

A guttural growl rumbled from the Beast King's throat as he raised his left hand, fingers curling slowly into a rocklike fist, each joint locking into place like steel gears clicking into a war machine.

"Then I have no choice," the Beast King thundered. "Better to crush you now than let you taint your blood with theirs."

His left arm lifted, not rushed, but with a solemnity that made the movement feel ceremonial. The fingers curled in, knuckle by knuckle, into a fist like a falling mountain preparing to crush. "Then I have no choice," the Beast King thundered. "Better to crush you now than let you taint your blood with theirs."

And then. WHOOSH! Suddenly, his massive left fist launched forward, not a punch, but a meteor pulled by fury, breaking through the night with terrifying acceleration.

Nyxander's eyes widened like full moons,vnot from fear, but from sheer disbelief. His perception nearly failing to track, as the incoming blow blurred the very air around it, and in that suspended moment, time thinned to a fragile thread. Just before impact, instinct roared through him. He retracted his right hand, folding both arms in tightly across his chest, just in time like a fortress hastily built at the edge of ruin to meet the beast's devastating blow.

BOOM!

The impact erupted like a cannon's thunderous roar. Nyxander's body folded against the concussive force, flung backward like shrapnel hurled from an explosion, tiring through the air, distorting the wind around him into screaming vortices. He flew backward, his form spinning violently like a shard of metal hurled against stretched fabric. Each rotation slammed his feet toward the ground, and with each attempt, he tried to root himself, but the force denied him, tossing him like a leaf in a hurricane.

Finally, on the fourth desperate rebound, his feet dug into the shattered soil. A thunderous skid echoed as he dragged against the force, body staggering, boots carving twin trenches into the cracked soil, skidded back, kicking up dust and sparks, as his knees buckled under the remaining force, shoulders trembling, chest heaving, but he was still standing.

Nyxander's breath hitched, his chest rising and falling in slow, deliberate waves as the dust began to settle like a curtain drawn after a stage performance. He glanced down at his arms, now trembling with strain, veins surging beneath the surface like pulsing rivers of effort. Stretching them across his body, a frown crept onto his face.

"What sort of cursed ability does it possess, to erase the very strength I've gathered into my fist?" he muttered, voice hoarse yet edged with defiance. Though his arms betrayed the toll, his breathing soon steadied like a calm before another storm.

"RRROOOOR." "RRROOOOR." "RRROOOOR."

The chilling roar of multiple Primordial Beasts echoed through the fractured air, each one louder, closer, like an approaching avalanche of rage. Nyxander's thoughts snapped into focus, his internal haze clearing as his gaze lifted forward. His eyes narrowed, scanning like a hunter tracing the movements of a thousand prey.

Then, without warning, his body vanished, the earth cracking beneath where his feet had just stood, displaced by sheer acceleration. In the next heartbeat:

"Stormbreak Void Fist: Lightning Rift (Stage 3)."

BOOM!

One of the colossal beasts, charging at the front, suddenly had its skull hammered into the shattered earth, the impact crater screaming with fractured stone and the smell of ozone. Nyxander, descending like thunder given form, drove his right fist into the beast's crown from above, cracking its spine beneath the pressure.

But the others didn't care. As if their own kind were expendable, they unleashed a storm of energy blasts in every direction, no strategy, just slaughter. Nyxander, now standing atop the stunned beast, leapt skyward an instant before the barrage consumed the fallen creature. Below him, beams collided in a roaring, atomic explosion, the flames licking the heavens as if trying to seize him from the sky.

As his feet neared the fractured soil, he smashed his left fist downward. CRACK! The ground cried out in a cascade of crushed stone and shattered earth, a cloud of dust exploding around him like a volcanic eruption. Pebbles skittered in all directions, clattering like broken armor across the cracked battlefield.

A brief silence, a false calm.

Then, Nyxander tore from the cloud like a missile from a storm cloud, streaking through the chaos like a thunderbolt. The Primordial beasts shrieked and howled, their attacks turning toward him in frantic unison. Beams danced through the air like cursed fireworks, but none found their mark. Nyxander twisted through them with eerie precision, his body weaving through death as if it whispered directions only he could hear.

More beams followed, dozens, then hundreds, like glowing javelins hurtling through the air. Nyxander twisted, flipped, and spun with inhuman grace, dodging each blast with a dancer's rhythm and a warrior's timing. Each evasive move carried purpose, but not retaliation, as if he were biding time, waiting for something, hiding a strategy inside his retreat.

The battlefield, once visible, now disappeared into a rising maelstrom of dust and energy. Only the sound remained, raw, deafening, chaotic, as if the world itself was cracking apart.

Then, like a phoenix erupting from ash, Nyxander shot out, soaring out of the dust dust, diving like a falcon toward the one who ruled the storm: the Primordial Beast King. The beast's eyes widened, the pupils shrinking in primal dread as Nyxander closed the gap.

Close enough now for flesh to meet flesh. "Stormbreak Void Fist: Stormbreak Barrage (Fourth Stage)!" He unleashed a flurry of punches, rapid, blistering, relentless. Each strike detonated into small voidbursts of lightning, carving streaks through the air like a meteor shower set on one path, annihilation.

But something shifted. As each blow neared the Beast King, they faltered, their explosive strength fizzling like sparks in rain and withered, as though the air itself drank the strength from the blows.. Upon impact, they barely bruised the monstrous hide.

The beast chuckled, a deep, guttural sound like grinding stone.

"Still making unnecessary attempts… Just give up and accept a quick death, offspring of our ancient nemesis," the Beast King rumbled, its voice like tectonic plates grinding in the abyss.

It raised a colossal arm, muscle and malice coiled in one terrifying motion. A thunderous punch shot forward like a meteor, but Nyxander had already prepared. He leapt back, boots skidding across the ground, knees bent, spine bowed like a drawn bowstring, evading the strike by the width of a heartbeat.

"Proofff... Profff... Profff." Nyxander's breath rasped against the silence, each exhale thick with dust and fatigue. His chest rose and fell like the tides of a restless sea as his eyes locked onto the distant figure of the Primordial Beast King.

"I thought it was just me, overthinking, grasping for excuses…" he muttered to himself, his voice no louder than a whisper borne on the wind. "But now… I know. There's something unnatural about that beast's ability. Something that far more dangerous and deadly."

Far off, the Beast King stirred. It raised its massive, clawed hand to the side of its grotesque head, purple eyes igniting with eerie luminescence. With a slow, deliberate twist of its wrist, an almost ceremonial gesture, it exposed the back of its hand. The meaning was clear.

Across the war-torn battlefield, every Primordial Beast, from scattered distances and broken vantage points, turned their eyes toward Nyxander like puppets responding to a single string. Their horns began to glow in unison, humming with latent power, building toward annihilation.

From his blindside, one of the colossus beasts positioned behind Nyxander released a compressed supersonic strike, the air around its horn shivering as the attack erupted with a scream too violent for mortal ears. The other beasts didn't move, they waited. Patient. Calculating. Ready to strike the moment he dodged, like predators baiting prey into a trap dictated by the Beast King's silent command.

The ground trembled. The sound, the pressure, was enough to make the sky shudder.

Nyxander braced, his right fist clenched tight, but instead of dodging, he slowly unfurled his fingers, raising his open palm toward the oncoming attack. As if, perhaps, he would catch it.

Then, from the heavens, or so it seemed, an axe spun through the air, its blade a blur of furious steel, whirling like the blades of a war-bound chariot. It collided with the horn just before the blast connected, slamming against the beast's face and knocking its aim just off-center.

The redirected force roared past Nyxander, sparing him by inches. The axe, still spinning, vaulted high into the air before descending vertically, crashing into the shattered earth. It sank deep, burying half of its blade in the ground like a victorious banner.

Startled, Nyxander turned toward the direction from which the axe had flown, the wind still howling through the aftermath. Four figures emerged through the haze of rising dust, step by step, striding forward like echoes of vengeance returned. Kola. Lunara. Theodric.

And leading them all, Karl, his presence as bold as thunder. "Boss! We're back!" Karl shouted, his right hand lifted high like a declaration. The moment felt like a breath between storms, hope reborn in the form of comrades.