Primordial Heir: Nine Stars-Chapter 360: Back

The mountain path was dark and winding. Khione and Elreth moved in silence, their battered bodies protesting every step. Elreth’s broken arm, stabilized in a crude cast of reinforced ice, was pale but she remained determined. Khione’s remaining prana was barely enough to keep going and to sustain the ice shelter for the rescued villagers.

Behind them, terrified and huddled together, the Oakhaven villagers followed. They were weak, starving, and traumatized. Children clung tightly to their mothers. Old men leaned on younger shoulders. They had been captives of goblins for days and now found themselves refugees in their own homeland.

Khione had made a quick, cold decision: they couldn’t afford to search for Nero with civilians in tow. Their priority was to get these people to safety first—specifically, a ranger station three miles down the eastern ridge, which was out of the way and would delay their search, but was the only option.

Elreth hadn’t argued. She had simply nodded and fallen in beside Khione, her good hand gripping her spear.

They walked in silence. The only sounds were the crunch of gravel underfoot, the ragged breathing of the exhausted villagers, and the distant howl of the mountain wind.

Then the howls changed.

Closer. Sharper. Hungrier.

Khione paused, her ice-blue eyes scanning the dark tree line ahead. Elreth tensed, her spear shifting in her hand.

From the shadows, the wolves emerged. Night Wolves—sleek, black-furred predators with pale green eyes glowing in the darkness. They weren’t corrupted or summoned; they were simply hungry, opportunistic hunters attracted by blood and fear.

There were ten, maybe twelve of them. Their lean bodies moved with fluid, silent grace as they spread out to block the path both ahead and behind. Their yellowed fangs gleamed in the starlight.

The villagers shouted in terror, huddling together. Children sobbed, and an old man fell to his knees, resigned.

Khione didn’t turn to look at them. Her gaze was fixed on the wolves. Her voice was quiet, flat, and absolutely calm.

"Glacial Ring: Compact. "

A circle of low, thick ice walls, waist-high, erupted around the villagers in a heartbeat. It wasn’t a fortress, but it was a barrier. It would keep the wolves from reaching them directly.

Then she stepped forward, placing herself between the ice ring and the pack. Her wand was in her hand, but the blue light at its tip was weak, flickering like a candle in the wind. She had almost nothing left.

Elreth stepped up beside her. Her broken arm hung at her side, useless. Her good hand gripped her spear, the blade igniting with a low, steady orange flame.

They did not speak. They did not look at each other.

The lead wolf, a massive beast with a scarred muzzle, lowered its head and growled. Its pack echoed the sound, a chorus of hunger and threat.

The wolf lunged.

Elreth met it. Her spear swept in a low, horizontal arc, the flame trailing like a banner. The wolf twisted in mid-air, avoiding the blade, but the fire caught its flank. It yelped, skidding on the gravel.

Two more wolves charged from the right. Khione raised her wand.

"Ice Dart!!! " 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Three needles of frost shot forward, weak and slow. One missed entirely. Two struck, but only one pierced deep enough to draw blood. The wounded wolf faltered; the other kept coming.

Elreth was already there. She couldn’t use wide sweeps with her broken arm affecting her balance, so she used short, brutal thrusts. A wolf lunged at her throat; she stepped inside its reach and drove the butt of her spear into its chest, feeling ribs crack. It fell, wheezing.

Another wolf circled behind her. Khione saw it. She didn’t have the prana for another ice dart. Instead, she dropped her wand, grabbed a fist-sized rock from the ground, and threw it with all her remaining strength.

It struck the wolf square in the snout. The beast recoiled, snarling, more surprised than hurt. But the moment gave Elreth the opening she needed. She spun, ignoring the scream of protest from her broken arm, and drove her spear through the wolf’s neck.

The pack was learning. They stopped charging blindly. They circled, testing, looking for weaknesses. The two women stood back to back, breathing hard, surrounded by glowing green eyes and gleaming fangs.

A wolf lunged at Khione’s legs. She sidestepped, but her exhausted body was too slow. Teeth scraped her calf, tearing through her uniform and drawing blood. She hissed, but didn’t cry out. She stomped down, her boot reinforced with a thin, brittle layer of frost, and caught the wolf’s snout. It released her with a yelp.

Another wolf went for Elreth’s wounded side. She pivoted, her spear coming up, but her broken arm buckled under the strain. The thrust went wide. The wolf’s jaws closed on her forearm—her good arm.

Elreth screamed. Not a cry of pain, but a roar of pure, defiant rage. Her flame surged, not from her spear, but from her skin. A burst of orange fire erupted from her arm, searing the wolf’s mouth. It released her instantly, whimpering, its muzzle smoking.

Khione saw Elreth’s arm—bloody, burned, but still gripping the spear. She saw the ice ring behind them, the terrified villagers huddled within. She saw the wolves, seven still standing, preparing for another coordinated rush.

They couldn’t hold much longer.

Khione made a decision. She reached deep, past the empty, aching void where her prana should be. She found the dregs, the final, frozen reserves at the very bottom of her core. It wasn’t enough for a spell. But it was enough for one gesture.

She raised her hand, palm facing the sky.

The moisture in the air—the cold breath of the mountain, the lingering frost of her earlier spells, the very sweat on her skin—answered. It coalesced above her palm, a tiny, swirling sphere of freezing mist.

It was not an attack. It was a signal.

She released the mist upward. It shot into the night sky like a pale, glittering flare, visible for miles against the dark canvas of the mountains.

Then the wolves attacked again, all at once.

Elreth met them with her spear, a whirlwind of desperate, fire-lit thrusts. Khione stood beside her, using the last of her strength to conjure thin, fragile ice blades that shattered after a single strike but bought precious seconds.

They did not speak. They did not call for help. They just fought, back to back, two battered warriors refusing to fall while civilians cowered behind them.

A wolf’s claw raked across Elreth’s side, tearing through her uniform and drawing blood. She grunted, but didn’t stop thrusting.

A wolf’s fangs closed on Khione’s ankle. She kicked it away with her other foot, the motion causing her to stumble. Elreth caught her elbow, steadying her.

They were losing. They knew it. But they would not stop.

The lead wolf, scar-muzzled and cunning, saw their weakness. It gathered itself for a final, killing leap—aimed not at Elreth or Khione, but at the gap between them, at the ice ring and the helpless villagers within.

It launched itself into the air.

A golden bolt of lightning, blinding and precise, shot down from the sky.

It struck the wolf mid-flight, a direct hit to the chest. The beast didn’t even have time to yelp. It was hurled sideways into a tree trunk with a sickening crack and lay still.

Silence fell. The remaining wolves, startled by the sudden, violent intervention, turned their glowing eyes toward the ridgeline.

A figure stood there, silhouetted against the starry sky. Dark blue hair, wind-tossed. A sword in his hand, crackling with fading golden sparks.

Nero. There was something different about him, something fundamentally different neither could put their fingers on.

He didn’t speak. He simply walked down the slope toward the pack. His pace was steady, unhurried, and utterly terrifying. Each step seemed to carry the weight of the mountain itself.

The wolves, primal creatures of instinct, sensed it. This was not prey. This was a predator of an entirely different order. Whimpering, tails tucked, they melted back into the shadows, fleeing into the dark forest.

Nero didn’t chase them. He walked past the fallen wolves, past the blood-stained gravel, and stopped in front of Khione and Elreth.

His eyes swept over them—the torn uniforms, the blood, Elreth’s mangled arm, and Khione’s bitten leg. His jaw tightened. But he said nothing.

Khione looked at him. Her ice-blue eyes, exhausted beyond measure, searched his face. She saw the new solidity in his frame, the deep, steady power radiating from him. She saw that he was whole, healed, and stronger than before.

She did not ask where he had been. She did not ask what had happened. She simply reached out, her cold fingers finding his, and held on.

Elreth leaned heavily on her spear, her chest heaving. She looked at Nero, then at Khione’s hand in his. A small, tired, genuine smile flickered across her blood-streaked face.

"Took you long enough," she rasped.

Nero’s lips quirked, just slightly. "Got held up."

Behind them, the villagers wept with relief. The ice ring slowly melted into harmless water. The mountain wind carried away the scent of blood and fear.

Things are about to get hectic he thought.