Chapter 48: I am proud of you
Up close, Hawkin could see that his nephew’s transformation went far beyond the physical.
There was an ancient intelligence in those lava-red eyes, as if the boy had accessed memories and knowledge that predated his own birth.
The wings cast shifting shadows that seemed to move independently of their source, and the heat radiating from his small form was intense enough to make the veteran warrior’s armor uncomfortably warm.
Behind them, Sigora’s spell reached its crescendo.
The turtlerock fully awakened from its passive transport state, its voice shaking the very ground as it called out in the ancient tongue of the deep places.
The sound was both a challenge and a promise—a declaration that the peaceful evacuation was over and that any who threatened its charges would face the wrath of ages.
The whole surface where the elves stood trembled with heavy vibrations.
Jorghan turned back toward Sigora, his expression softening slightly as he took in her wounded state.
Despite the rage burning within him, despite the system’s cold calculations urging destruction, he recognized that she needed immediate protection.
"Take them away," he said, his voice carrying easily over the chaos of the battlefield.
Though his words were simple, Sigora understood their full meaning immediately.
Get the elves to safety. All of them. I’ll handle this.
The older elf met his gaze and saw something that chilled her despite the heat radiating from his transformed state.
Jorghan was no longer the frightened boy she had rescued from the flames six years ago.
The seals hadn’t just contained his power—they had contained the accumulated fury and pain of his heritage.
Now, with those restraints gone and his true nature awakened, she was looking at the last son of Sol’vur in all his terrible glory.
And for the first time since pulling him from the burning ruins of his clan’s stronghold, Sigora wondered if she had made a terrible mistake in saving him.
-
The moment stretched like a bowstring before snapping into explosive violence.
Hawkin’s weathered face twisted into a snarl beneath his helm as he recognized the terrible irony of fate—the nephew he thought dead had returned as something far beyond his worst nightmares.
"So be it," Hawkin growled, his voice amplified by the runes carved into his massive armor.
He had ordered them to put this suit on, and the wired, automated silver tendrils quickly put the armor on him as he stood ready.
The power armor, forged in the great smithies of Kor’hkan and blessed by war-priests, began to hum with deadly energy.
Servos whined to life as the suit’s integrated weapon systems activated, steam hissing from vents along his shoulders.
"If I must kill you again, boy, I’ll make sure there’s nothing left to resurrect this time."
[HOSTILE THREAT LEVEL: MAXIMUM]
[TARGET DESIGNATION: HAWKIN SOL’VUR - NINE STAR COMMANDER CLASS]
[CARNAGE REQUIEM: COMBAT PROTOCOLS ACTIVE]
[BLOODBORNE RAGE: ASCENDING TO CRITICAL MASS]
Jorghan’s response was wordless—a primal roar that contained six years of suppressed agony and rage.
The sound ripped through reality itself, causing the very air to ignite around him. His lava-wrought wings spread wide, no longer mere appendages but instruments of annihilation.
The larger pair hardened into blade-like extensions, their edges superheated to temperatures that made steel vapor. The smaller wings became focusing arrays for his mana, channeling the raw power of his bloodline into weapons that sang with lethal intent.
The first clash shattered the island beneath them.
Hawkin launched himself forward with the fury of a meteor, his armor’s jump jets screaming as he closed the distance in a blur of metal. His power sword, a relic blade that had tasted the blood of dragons, crackled with disruptive fields designed to cut through any defense. He brought it down in a two-handed strike that would have cleaved a fortress in half.
Jorghan met the blade with his wing.
The impact sent shockwaves racing outward like ripples in a pond, but these ripples carved through solid stone as if it were water.
The smaller isle they fought upon simply ceased to exist, its substance scattered to the winds in molten fragments.
The air around them boiled from the displaced energy, sending massive heat waves in all directions.
A nearby ship was stuck by this wave and instantly became a puddle of iron and exploded within no time.
Somehow, impossibly, Jorghan’s wing had not only stopped the legendary blade but was slowly pushing it back. Where metal met living lava, reality warped and twisted, creating brief tears in space that leaked otherworldly light.
"Impressive," Hawkin admitted through gritted teeth, "but you’re still just a child playing with forces beyond your understanding!"
The commander triggered his armor’s integrated weaponry.
Lightning cannons erupted from his shoulders, firing explosive rounds the size of a man’s hand. Each projectile was inscribed with runes of expulsion and wrapped in disruptive fields, designed to tear apart magical constructs. They struck Jorghan’s smaller wings in rapid succession, each detonation bright enough to blind mortal eyes.
When the smoke cleared, Jorghan floated unmarked, his expression one of terrible calm.
The wounds had simply... vanished, the lava-stuff of his wings flowing like water to repair any damage instantly.
[MANA DEVOURING ATTRIBUTE: ACTIVE]
[ABSORBED ENERGY: 47 UNITS]
[REGENERATION: MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY]
[BLOODLINE ABILITY EVOLUTION: 69%... 71%... 74%]
"My turn," Jorghan whispered, and vanished.
The speed of his movement transcended mere velocity—it was translocation, the fundamental bending of space to will.
He appeared above Hawkin, all four wings swept forward like the petals of some deadly flower. From each wingtip erupted streams of concentrated destruction, beams of pure annihilation that reduced anything they touched to component atoms.
Hawkin’s experience saved him.
He twisted desperately, his armor’s machine calculating trajectories and deploying countermeasures in microsecond intervals.
A series of shields erupted around him, energy barriers that caught and redirected the worst of the assault.
But even his legendary defenses couldn’t deflect everything.
One beam grazed his left pauldron, and the blessed Meltneite simply ceased to exist, leaving a perfectly smooth crater that glowed with residual heat.
"Throne and Blood," Hawkin swore, genuine fear entering his voice for the first time.
This was no mere awakening—this was the emergence of something that belonged in the age of legends, when gods walked the earth and reshaped continents with their battles.
The two combatants separated, circling each other like primordial beasts.
Around them, the very fabric of reality strained under the pressure of their conflicting auras. Hawkin’s presence was that of absolute order—military precision backed by technological supremacy and unshakeable will.
Jorghan radiated something far more primal: the fury of creation itself, the raw chaos from which all order emerged and to which it would eventually return.
"Your father would have been proud. Heck, even I am proud, feeling too much excitement, nephew," Hawkin was beaming as he moved.
"You have achieved something that even my father couldn’t."