Lord of the Truth

Whoooooosh

From the heavens, one of the four-headed stars—the azure one—began to twist furiously upon its axis. Faster and faster it spun until its body blurred into a spinning disc of blinding light, and with a piercing shriek it hurled itself forward, streaking toward its mark like a divine blade unleashed.

Boooooom

In the next instant, the white star followed, bursting into motion with dazzling brilliance. It curved gracefully through the darkened sky, yet wherever its radiance passed, the very air itself froze into glassy shards, the breath of winter made manifest.

Swoooooosh

The brown star quivered as if an ancient beast had awakened within it. Though it did not move from its sacred place, its rumbling grew, and beneath the city the earth convulsed in violent tremors, trembling in dread anticipation of the cataclysm to come.

Shooooolaaaah

The fourth star, glowing a fierce orange, erupted with wrath. From its core it belched forth a storm of fireballs, a thousand blazing suns scattering downward like meteors set to reduce all beneath them to ash.

And then, as the storm abated, the four great tails of Renara returned to their majestic formation. They spread behind her like a throne forged from the heavens themselves, proclaiming her sovereignty.

The white star and the blue star slowly began to reassemble, their broken forms knitting together until they shone once more. Within a few heartbeats, the nine stars were whole again, nine celestial flames burning in the sky, casting their merciless light upon the trembling city below.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The ground split open, towers shattered into rubble, and cries were swallowed by thunder. Renara did not need to peer downward—she knew all too well.

The four assaults had reduced the mighty walls to fragments, annihilated those who stood upon them, and erased the nearest quarter of the city to the gate.

Streets, houses, even the foundations upon which they were built—obliterated in an instant.

Only the broken remains of the Four Elders remained as ghastly proof of the slaughter. One cleaved brutally in half. Another preserved as a frozen statue of horror. The third run through with unholy spikes. The fourth nothing more than blackened charcoal. Four cataclysms were erased in the blink of an eye.

"Akawatins…" Renara's voice boomed like a verdict from the heavens. "I know you're there. Come forth, before I crush what remains of this wretched city upon your head, I don't care how many dies today."

From the heart of the ruin, amid the broken stone and fire, a shape began to rise. Something moved with defiance, drifting above the carnage. A woman emerged, perhaps in her early forties, her frame still radiant with a beauty twisted by wrath. Eight tails lashed violently behind her, and her eyes blazed like a furnace of hatred. "Renara…" she snarled, her voice dripping venom. "Do you even understand what you are doing, you reckless fool?!"

"…Yes, I am a fool," Renara admitted coldly, her gaze sweeping the woman with undisguised disgust. "A fool for not seeing your rotten aura sooner. A fool for never questioning how you gained that eighth tail when there were only seven before. Yes… I was fool. fool and Blind ."

"Don't pretend to stand on honour simply because you're unwanted and naive." The Mistress of the Hall scoffed, resting one hand arrogantly on her hip. "On the path of power, one may butcher millions without hesitation—yet spreading one's legs a little is unthinkable? We all knew you were a stubborn blockhead like your father and grandfather. That's why we never told you. And we were right! You destroyed everything with your own hands!"

"Heh~" A sharp smile tugged at Renara's lips. "My stiff-headed grandfather and father, is that it?" Her eyes trembled like storm-tossed waters. "I heard whispers of this… from Formin and Asinat. They spoke of it with their dying breaths, trying to enrage me further even as their lives slipped away in my hands."

"…!!" The Mistress recoiled a step, then another. Her once-arrogant stance hardened into caution.

"So it turned out that it wasn't Elinor who birthed this filth," Renara continued, her voice cutting deeper with each word. "It was you—the Hall Masters, and the generation before you. It was you who plotted my father's death, and before him my grandfather's, luring them into ambushes laid by the Twilight Spectrum Empire. You longed for a more compliant ruler, one you could twist. You poisoned Elinor's mind with your lies from the moment she could walk. And why? Because you could not control me. I was the one locked away, buried in the library by my father's will, forced to study day and night."

Her lips quivered, her voice breaking into raw fury. A single tear trailed down her cheek, shining in the light of the nine stars. "It was you… who stole everything from me. My father, my sister… and now you would steal my throne, my very self. It was you!!"

"If those two fools have already told you everything, there's no point in wasting breath on empty words. Know this: it was never personal, my dear," the Hall Mistress said as she retreated with slow, deliberate steps, her eyes flicking like hungry birds over every alley and rooftop for any possible route of escape. Her voice was syrupy calm, but every inch of her betrayed panic. "Stubborn minds that choke the progress of the many must be removed. That is simply the law of advancement."

"...How many?" Renara's voice snapped like steel, each syllable a blade. Her gaze flared red with contempt. "You grew an eighth tail, and instead of rising to the zenith of a world cataclysm, you dared to try becoming a Nexus State and failed, gaining additional power. None of that—none of it—comes from coupling with one or two outsiders. If it did, we would see the same change among every girl that was taken... How many?" Her steps moved forward, a measured march that closed the distance between them.

"Hundreds… thousands," the Hall Mistress said as if naming ornaments on a shelf. "Who cares?" She bowed slightly, then pushed forward with glazed, hopeful eyes, as though offering a dream. "I was born with only seven tails and yet I rose to this power. Imagine what you could be with nine. Put the past behind you and allow me to guide your path. Heed me, and you will reach the pinnacle of the Nexus State."

"Thousands?" Revulsion and fury twisted Renara's face into something unrecognizable. The air around her seemed to tighten as she moved with cold, effortless speed. "I regret only that I can slit your throat once. All I can hope is that my father will finish what remains when he greets you on the other side!" Her words were ice and promise in one.

"Attack!!" The Hall Mistress screamed, a sharp command, and pointed straight at Renara. Then she spun and ran, feet pounding as she fled for a narrow alley that might lead to safety.

The very paving stones underfoot split open like a great maw. From beneath the streets poured a tide of warriors bearing heavy energy cannons on their shoulders—an endless line turning the thoroughfare into a weapon. All barrels aligned and leveled at Renara's heart.

BAM BAM BAM

From the roofs and balconies, the city answered: powerful men and women leapt out, voices raw with rage, faces carved by hatred. Their attacks rose in a chorus, launched from below to meet the sky. In an instant, the metropolis seemed to invert—streets rained up as if the city itself had decided to strike the heavens.

Only a decade ago no one could have imagined such a betrayal: the Empress of the Nine Paths razing her own city, its sons and daughters—of the same blood—turning on their sovereign with murder in their hearts.

Renara did not allow sentiment to cloud her. The moment the volley began, her orange star spun with lethal intent and vomited a tempest of fire-orbs. Each orb was an ember of obliteration, a comet of concentrated wrath.

BOOOOM SHOOOOLAAA

Screams exploded into the night. Flames devoured timber and stone in a heartbeat; the scent of burning thatch and melting metal stung the air. Yet Renara's stride never faltered. She surged toward the direction the Hall Mistress had run, her red eyes twin torches slicing through smoke and ash. "Akawatins," she roared, her voice carrying like thunder over the wreckage, "you will not leave this planet alive. Hear me—if you burrow beneath the world or climb to the highest sky, I will execute you today!!"

"Damn it!!" the Hall Mistress hissed, voice reduced to a rasp. She poured the last of her life's vigor into a desperate, unnatural leap, flinging herself toward a narrow ridge, toward a chance—not of survival, but of delay.

---------------

In that very direction—

Bzzzt

A spatial gate shuddered open, a ripple in the air like a struck gong.

Three figures stepped through its seam, each wreathed in a halo of oppressive power that made the very atmosphere tremble. The center figure turned his head with a casual grace, and a smile curled at the corner of his mouth—one that did not belong to a man surprised, but to one who knew the hour of doom had come.

"Heh heh," he murmured, voice soft and certain. "Incident number three falls today."