In a desolate expanse between two kingdoms, where even time seemed reluctant to pass, the land had long since forgotten the touch of life. No grass stirred. No bird cried. The skies hung low, swollen with storm clouds that offered neither light nor release. The soil was scarred, the wind acrid — and at its ruined heart, violent energy still lingered, crackling like a silent scream.
At the center of a newly carved crater stood Emperor Kaelvar Drayth.
Smoke curled around his broad silhouette, rising from the pulverized remains of what had once been a roving horde. Their annihilation had taken less than a breath — their cries lost before they could echo. The air trembled from the raw force of his presence, the destruction he had wrought settling into the earth like a bitter aftertaste.
But the second impact came swiftly — a thunderclap of might, crashing down like the wrath of lightning.
BOOOOOOM.
The sky split again. The land, already fractured, crumbled further beneath the pressure. From the swirling chaos, two figures emerged — not separate, but entangled. Blades and fists collided, power grinding against power in a moment that could have sundered the ocean.
"How dare you hurt him, you bastard!"
The voice rang out like crystal shattering on stone — sharp, furious, unmistakably feminine. A sword swept through the smoke, gleaming silver and ice-blue, aimed straight for Kaelvar's throat. He caught it with his bare arm, the curve of his golden armor ringing out like a bell struck in defiance. Sparks flew.
Without pause, he retaliated. A clenched fist rocketed toward her stomach, glowing faintly with compressed force. But the woman moved with impossible grace, twisting in midair, her second sword flashing toward his face like a streak of lightning. He bent back, spine arching like a drawn bow, and the blade missed him by no more than a breath.
Then, stillness.
The two titans stepped apart, dust and energy swirling around them in slow eddies, drawn to their power like moths to flame.
On one side stood the reckless Emperor — Kaelvar Drayth, the dominator of the Vanyr Dominion. His aura pulsed like a living storm, thick with restrained chaos. He bore no weapon. He needed none. His fists had shattered cities. His presence alone commanded silence. Encased in full-body golden armor etched with ancient marks of conquest, he looked like a war machine returned to destroy the world. His silver eyes, smoldering with equal parts thrill and calculation, never left the woman across from him.
She fascinated him. Challenged him. A rare presence in his life — a rival.
On the other side stood a tall woman, cloaked in an aura of cold arrogance. Her eyes — deep blue, like the ocean's floor — held no trace of emotion, untouched by the chaos around her. And yet, something had cracked her perfect composure. A flicker of anger surfaced, raw and unfamiliar, breaking the surface like a ripple in still water. But it vanished as swiftly as it came. In a breath, she returned to her glacial calm, her expression carved once more from unyielding ice.
She was breathtaking in a way that invited no warmth — beauty not as allure, but as distance. A sharp, delicate nose, brows shaped like blades, and long, shimmering dark hair that drifted behind her like trailing shadow. Every movement she made was precise, deliberate — as if the world itself had to shift around her presence.
She was not merely a ruler. She was the will of Solvaris made manifest — not a symbol of justice, but its execution. To face her was not to face a person, but a sentence long prepared.
With two swords of glacial steel gripped in either hand and a flowing sky-blue dress that concealed her figure like silk armor, she stared at the man before her with frigid indifference, as if appraising something beneath her notice.
Selene Vireya, Empress of Solvaris.
"You know why I did it, don't you?" Kaelvar said, his voice stripped of all effort — like someone reciting a fact too obvious to be worth discussion.
Selene said nothing. Her swords lowered slightly, not in surrender, but in disdain. She studied him — this man who burned the world with his fists and laughed in the face of kings — as if trying to decide whether he was worth her time or her fury.
Kaelvar let out a breath that might've been a sigh or a chuckle. "You're angry. How rare," he said, eyeing the crater between them. "I was beginning to think nothing stirred that frozen heart of yours."
"Silence," Selene snapped, her voice low and frigid. "You crossed a line."
Kaelvar raised an eyebrow. "I always do."
"And then silence again — a silence so sharp it hummed. Only the rain, the silent witness to it all, remained.
The war between Vanyr and Solvaris had not yet begun.
But here, between these two, it had already found its first battlefield.
After a beat of silence, Selene moved once more. This time, she didn't strike.
She raised one of her icy swords skyward, the blade catching the broken light that filtered through the ashen clouds. Her other sword remained low at her side, nearly forgotten — but not idle.
Her eyes locked onto Kaelvar's, calm and unflinching. When she spoke, her voice was a whisper of frost, as cold as the sword in her hand."You've crossed the line twice. Now, prepare for what comes next."
Kaelvar let out a short laugh — not mocking, but entertained."Heh. Bring it on."
And without waiting for a breath more, he charged.
The golden light gathered around his fists flared with renewed brilliance, casting jagged shadows in every direction. His armor sang with energy as the ground beneath him cracked from the sheer force of his movement. He tore across the distance between them, a living weapon — direct, relentless, unstoppable.
Selene remained still, her sword held steady as her eyes locked on the sky, as if she could sense his charge before it came.
But Kaelvar, driven by the hunger of battle, failed to notice what truly mattered — the faint pulse of energy spiraling around the lowered blade. It thrummed with an almost imperceptible rhythm, a silent threat hidden within the stillness.
With only two steps between them, Kaelvar's momentum should have sealed the strike
Instead, he froze.
A sudden, searing cold detonated inside him, starting at his gut and tearing a path of fiery agony straight to his left eye. For a heartbeat, Kaelvar couldn't comprehend the sensation. Then, warmth followed — his own blood, hot and bright, spilling over his jaw in a steady flow.
His reflexes, sharpened by countless battles, saved him from worse. A twist, a shift, a breath — and the sword meant to bisect his skull only claimed one eye.
But it was enough.
Kaelvar skidded to a halt, his boots carving deep lines into the shattered ground. His momentum shattered like glass, halted by the pain and the shock. One hand covered the wound, golden light flickering around his fingers in unsteady bursts.
He didn't fall.
But for the first time in a long, long while — he had stopped.