Chương 51: Granting a Wish upon a Falling Star

The beast didn't seem hurt by the blow. Its head turned slowly to look at the silver-haired girl.

"Such insolence—to question me? To keep fighting back with nothing but useless hindrance." Its eyes settled on her face.

"As though doing this will accomplish anything or change a single thing. Tell me. Why shouldn't I be here? Why shouldn't I do exactly this? Isn't this what fate already sealed—to create a new order, a new world, where pathetic creatures like you no longer roam or live at all?" The beast's energy began to grow, dark violet light swirling around it.

"Perhaps you're one of those born to play the hero. Someone who needs to prove something, to leave behind a legend so your name is never forgotten. Or perhaps you're simply clinging to revenge, an endless pursuit that holds nothing at its end. Either way—you are nothing in the grand scheme of what's coming." Stelle stayed silent, listening to its words. The words that settled in her ears offered her nothing to hold onto, or simply were not something she felt anything toward.

"I feel like you're trying to say something to me," she said finally, "but every word you said has nothing to do with me." She pointed her sword at its chest.

"I'm here for one reason. To end you, so I can continue with what I left and start to find my own purpose."

"A novel strain of ignorance. Come, let me strip away your delusion and show you why every desperate effort you make here is useless." The roar that followed wasn't a beast's sound at all. A chorus of overlapping voices screamed through one ruined throat, and a surge of energy sent webs of cracks across the frozen ground beneath her and Valen. The two of them fell back, putting real distance between themselves and the beast.

"Now—you shall witness the power of the Great Darkness!" Its massive hand swing. And then it tore the air itself open. Its claws raked downward, tearing open empty space. Reality split where they passed, leaving a ragged, vertical wound suspended in the middle of the ravine—a glowing passage of dark violet. [WARNING] [Dimensional breach detected. Spatial integrity compromised.] [Signatures emerging. Count: 5... 11... 19.] Things began climbing out of it.

They came in different shapes—four-limbed, then six—their bodies sheathed in hardened shells with jagged horns glowing purple along the ridges of their backs. They hit the snow and moved immediately, low and fast, spreading out across the ravine floor in a widening ring.

"Wonderful," the possessed guardian said, spreading its arms wide, corruption pouring off it in thick, rolling waves.

"Then let this world learn what it forgot. Bury them!" [SYSTEM] [Crawler: Tier 2 and 3] [Physical manifestations born of the Dark Star's power.] The system interface flashed across Stelle's vision, identifying the monstrosities pouring out of the tear in reality.

"Born from the Dark Star itself?," Stelle said, running the distinction against everything her archive already carried. A corrupted creature was simply a beast or monster claimed by abyssal or Dark Star energy... but these things are born from it.

"Rift Crawlers…" Valen's expression had gone entirely serious.

"A horde this size isn't something we can handle alone." He looked at her.

"We need to leave." Stelle stayed quiet, reading the battlefield, then spoke calmly.

"No. I'm staying here to kill it. Leave if you want."

"I'm not asking," he said, his tone cold and commanding.

"We can't defeat it with an active Abyssal Rift pouring out Rift Crawlers. We leave—both of us."

"Did you not hear me?" she argue calmly.

"If you want to leave, then leave."

"Can't you see—""I know," she said.

"I can't stop them all... but I'm not trying to. That beast is the only thing I have to kill. If you think it's too dangerous, leave me. You aren't responsible for my life." Valen didn't like the way she said it. Her stubbornness rubbed him the wrong way, and he wasn't used to spending patience convincing anyone of anything—not a commander like him. This girl…, he muttered to himself. What is she thinking, staying here to die? He studied the approaching horde, then looked back at her.

Her gaze held none of the fear or hopelessness he'd have expected from someone facing this. Nothing in it resembled a person who wanted to die. He knew what she could do. He had seen her nearly kill the Guardian outright before it fell to that entity claiming to be an Envoy. Maybe she had a plan after all. He paused for a moment before speaking.

"You... you actually have a way to kill it, don't you?" She looked him in the eye.

"Yes." He didn't argue further. He only sighed.

"Then I'll give you the way through," he said, already reaching for his longsword before stepping forward.

"Do what you need to do. But if I see you dying… then I will drag you away, whether you like it or not." Stelle nodded in response before Valen starts to moved. Gale and Aqua ignited along his steel in a violent, volatile fusion. He met the charging horde head-on with brutal, economical precision—a pivot, a draw-cut, a step through the opening it left—three creatures came apart before a fourth could finish closing the gap. These were no mindless husks.

The Rift Crawlers were towering, armored things built from dark star power, hides thick as iron armor and studded with jagged obsidian bone. When his blade bit into the shoulder of a four-legged brute, steel ground against bone with a sickening screech. He tightened his grip, forcing the cut through anyway. Stelle begin to follow his track. Where the remaining Crawlers are waiting. Her white blade swept out in a wide arc meant to take two heads at once.

Sparks flew off the lead Crawler's throat—its hide barely scorched. It didn't even flinch, lunging inside her reach with terrifying speed, its tri-jawed maw snapping shut inches from her face. She dropped low, twisting through the snow, but a second Crawler caught her mid-evasion, its heavy, spiked tail lashing out like a siege engine. Swoosh. A dense blade of wind struck it before it could land the blow, staggering it long enough for her to seize the opening and take its head.

Further off, Valen reset his stance, eyes glowing blue-green, already turning to intercept the next cluster. [Current Reserves: 36%] At the center of the storm, the corrupted Guardian stood still. Its chest had torn open, exposing a pulsating, midnight-purple core that burned like a dead sun, black lightning arcing from it directly into the widening tear in space. It was using its own core as an anchor, feeding an endless legion of Crawlers into the world at the cost of its own strength.

"The Almighty! The Sovereign! The Supreme God, who once held every realm! It will rise again!" The beast laughed, watching the chaos spread beneath it. Valen tried to carve out breathing room with a gale-force barrier, but the sheer number of Crawlers overwhelmed it, tearing straight through the swirling wind. One of them raked its claws across the side already scorched by the earlier beam, opening the wound to the bone.

He killed it a heartbeat later, driving his sword through its eye socket until the point buried itself in the earth—but five more Crawlers were already airborne by the time he wrenched the blade free, and he was forced to deflect and block rather than press forward at all. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Stelle moved through the pack in front of her, fast and durable creatures leaping at her one after another.

Rather than waste time finishing each one outright, she simply found the weak point in every strike, slowing or stopping them one by one. They were drowning. And as long as that core kept feeding the rift, none of it was going to end. We won't survive if this fight drags on, she calculated. I have to stop holding back. She opened the utility she hadn't yet dared to test. [UTILITY: OVERCLOCK] [WARNING: Core safety limiters will be fully disengaged.] [Proceed?]"Proceed."

Heat surged into the air around her as the world slowed down. Time hadn't changed. Everything else had just become readable—the path of every creature in the ring, every shift in weight, the exact moment each monster committed to an attack. Her [Simulation Sequence] ran at triple speed, seeing the next few seconds of the battle like an open book. Frost swept over her and her weapon both. Stelle moved.

Her eyes glowed red, heat steaming visibly off her skin and evaporating the cold in the air, the frost mitigating just enough of it to keep the worst of the side effects at bay. She crossed twenty meters before the nearest creature even registered she'd left her position, her blade taking it through the spine on the way past without slowing her stride.

She planted a foot, torqued her body, and a crescent of pure frost tore outward from the edge of her sword—two more froze mid-lunge and lost their heads in the same motion. A cluster converged on her side. She moved through it rather than around it, three precise cuts landing in under a second, each one finding exactly the point her simulation had already marked. Ice bloomed outward wherever her feet touched the snow, locking anything caught in it solid to the knee. Her sword left her hand entirely.

The levitation runes flared turquoise and the blade hung suspended beside her. She sent it forward with a flick of two fingers—it punched clean through one creature's chest mid-lunge the change it's trajectory without slowing, and passed through a second one behind it before returning to her open palm exactly when she needed it. Two more closed from behind. She didn't bother turning to look.

Her simulation sequence had already shown her where they'd be; she let herself fall backward into the gap between them, driving her heel into the first one's jaw while her blade opened the second from hip to shoulder on the way back to her feet. Across the field, Valen fought like something else entirely—no elegance, no wasted breath, every motion chosen purely for how quickly it ended a life.

He caught one creature's arm mid-swing, broke it at the elbow, and used its body as a shield against the two behind it before running his blade infused with Aqua to cut through all three at once. A fourth came at his wounded side; he turned into the strike rather than away from it, letting its claw skate past his blade before answering with a rising cut that split it from groin to collar. Then he was already turning to meet the next cluster. Behind him, Stelle surged forward with far greater speed than before.

"We need to move faster!" Her voice carried cleanly across the chaos, calm as a held breath.

"I need to reach it." He understood at once.

"No problem." He stepped forward, one arm wreathed in Gale mana, and punched in the direction she needed to travel. The wind swept a full corridor of Rift Crawlers aside in a single motion, clearing her path.

"Already done," he said, and turned to hold off the ones still trying to follow her. Stelle closed in on the beast. It saw her coming and opened its mouth, a beam tearing the air with blinding speed. Her eyes had already read the shot seconds before it fired. She dodged without breaking stride, her momentum carrying her forward, unslowed.

"Die! Kneel before a true god!" The beast raised its massive hand, forming a giant sword of solid frost. Then swung it with enough force to collapse a stone wall. Stelle slid beneath the blow, slashing upward to freeze its left foot. Momentum carried her meters away, skidding right into a pack of leaping Crawlers—but Valen spun through the air and cut them down mid-flight.

"I'll take the rest!" Valen yelled, charging ahead to draw the Crawlers away from her. Stelle turn and closed the distance again. The beast swung a second time. She rolled clear, the ground exploding where she'd been standing. She flicked her hand, sending her sword flying straight from her grip toward the beast's head. But the monster twisted at the last second, dodging the blade just in time.

[Current Reserves: 25%] She deactivated [Simulation Sequence], conserving what little energy she had left, and caught the returning blade as it snapped back into her palm. She was already sliding beneath it on a sheet of ice she had laid earlier, rising from below with three rapid slashes that froze its right leg in place. The Guardian stopped trying to hit her directly.

It slammed both palms into the ground instead, and the ravine floor erupted—not ice this time, but jagged spears of solidified dark matter tearing upward in a chaotic eruption all around her. She cleared most of them, but one caught her across the thigh, another along her side, while the third clipped her shoulder hard enough to spin her fully around before she hit the snow and rolled clear. She came up with blood running freely down her leg and kept going anyway.

"Still standing," the Corrupted Beast said, its layered voice cold and amused.

"How long do you really think you can survive?"

"Long enough to kill you," Stelle said. She leaped onto her floating sword, riding the blade's forward trajectory before vaulting off it into the sky. At the peak of her leap, she manifested the Glacial Spear and dived straight back down at the monster.

"Hah! You think that trick still works on me?" The beast roared, already anticipating the dive. It opening its mouth to fire its beam the instant she committed to the fall. Stelle didn't dodge. She only shifted her weight slightly so the beam missed her vital organs. She took the hit, letting it pierce her shoulder without slowing her fall. The beast kept firing. She took a second hit through her side and a third that grazed her cheek, but none of it stopped her from pressing forward. [Current Reserves: 12%... 11%... 10%] The Glacial Spear absorbed the last of her reserves faster than any utility she had. Seeing her still closing the distance, the beast charged its beam with far greater energy than before, planning to end her with one blow. But a figure burst in from the side to slash at its head, forcing it to divide its attention at the last possible second. The beast was fast enough to turn his strike into a shallow cut and counter with a punch that threw the man away.

It turned back to the falling figure above it and fired anyway, full force, with nothing left to hold back. In Stelle's eyes, the dark violet energy burned, reflecting the raw power rushing to meet her. [Spatial Inventory] A pale blue light bloomed directly in front of her. A half-second later, a Space Capsule smashed straight through the beam. The massive fragment of alien hull plummeted like a falling star, cleaving the energy blast in two before it could touch her.

The beast's eyes widened seeing the massive object falling towards it. It tried to pull away, but its feet were locked solid in the ice. It fought to break free, but time had already run out. The capsule struck it with the full force of the drop, the impact tearing a shockwave through the ravine that shook loose snow from every surrounding ledge. The Crawlers were blown away by the sudden force, covering the whole ravine in a blanket of white.

When the mist finally cleared, only a crater remained where the beast had been standing, its massive body pinned beneath the wreck—and above it, standing on the massive object, a silver-haired girl. The ship dissolved back into her inventory, and she landed softly atop the unmoving giant's chest, the Glacial Spear still gripped tight in her hand, the exposed core glowing weakly just beneath her. The beast's eyes went wide with what looked like fear in whatever was left of its mind.

Its regeneration had ground to a halt, leaving its broken body with no time to mend. It couldn't move anything below its neck.

"W-what happened... You—""This ends here," Stelle said. She didn't waste another moment.

"Die…" She drove the spear straight down into the exposed core.

"NO—" The spear pierced through, the heavy impact vibrating up through the shaft. Frost surged outward from the point of impact like a flash flood, spreading fast across the whole of its ruined body. Deep within its chest, the beast's corrupted core fractured along a single, hairline crack. A high-pitched chime echoed through the thin air of the Rift. Then it shattered completely. For one long, suspended second, the beast's massive frame froze solid. Then, fine cracks spiderwebbed across the frozen body.

The creature didn't crumble to dust but instead it began to dissolve entirely into the air, its dark form scattering apart in endless threads of brilliant gold and pale blue light. The light caught the wind, burning away the dark energy and bathing the battlefield in a cold, silent glow. Stelle landed lightly on the ice-slicked ground. The Glacial Spear in her hand dissolved into mist, but she remained in her low stance, her breathing heavy, eyes fixed on the empty space where the beast had just stood.

Around them, across the whole width of the ravine and beyond it, the same light began rising from the ground in dozens of scattered points at once. The Blood Tribe stopped where they stood, staring down at their hands as their bodies began dissolving into that same soft, golden light. Beneath the pale hide, bluish skin, and wild white hair, another truth surfaced—the ordinary faces of the Snow Fae, glowing translucent in the ethereal light.

They turned toward each other, recognizing the faces beside them instead of the monsters the curse had made them. An old warrior held out his hands. Translucent, steady, and whole again, they were completely unmarked by corruption. He stared, unable to believe they were his. A woman nearby let out a startled laugh, tears streaming down a face that was finally her own. Further off, someone knelt in the snow and wept, whispering a name that had waited a thousand years to be spoken by its real voice.

None of them tried to hold on. Whatever this moment was, they seemed to understand, without needing to be told, that it wasn't meant to last. One by one, gently, they began to dissolve. Nothing was torn away. They simply lifted like morning fog under a warm sun, unhurried and complete. Soft smiles lingered as their forms thinned to air. On others, only absolute peace remained—their first true rest since Saint Lilian gave herself to the ice.

At the center of the wreckage, Stelle standing at the center of the crater, a small familiar figure stood in front of her. Fira. Before she could say the name, a second figure moved past her from behind. It was an ethereal light, walking toward the girl instead of away. The light from the beast's dissolves body formed into a man. He looked at her like a lifetime of waiting was over. His posture was unmistakable, wearing a crown that resembled the throne in the ruins. Fira's eyes filled with tears.

"Father...? is that really you?"

"Fira, it's me..." he said softly.

"Let's go home and find your mother." They reached out at the same time, hands intertwining, and turned to look at Stelle one last time.

"Thank you..." the little girl spoke softly. They shared a quiet, grateful smile before their forms dissolved into the wind, carrying them away. Overhead, the aurora shifted softly in the sky, as though waiting to welcome them home. The Guardian… was the King himself, Fira's father. Stelle understood it. The shape of everything was finally settling into place.

He was the very sovereign the Snow Fae had once followed—bound to this mountain across a thousand years by a duty he had carried even into his own imprisonment under the cursed. He had never left, continuing to guard his final land. Behind her, the Abyssal Rift sealed shut like a breath finally released. The last remaining Crawlers collapsed one by one until the field was completely silent. With the Rift closed, there was no power left to keep them alive.

The ravine held nothing but snow, and silence, and the two of them left standing in the middle of it. She didn't look back at any of it. She simply closed her eyes before letting the cold and the silent night settle over her completely.