Ancestral Lineage

Ashes danced on the air like dying stars, glowing softly as they descended upon the scarred battlefield of the Obsidian Groves. Giant trees—once as ancient as memory—lay splintered across the craters, their psychic-resonant bark cracked and humming with echoes of the battle. The very Will of the land had been shaken, bent beneath the weight of two titanic forces.

And now, one knelt.

Queen Ashtora, Monarch of the E'Sherils, her body flickering with the aftershock of spent psychic energy, lowered her head. Her tail—majestic and marked with ten sharp, gleaming spikes—lay motionless across the ground, a symbol of her defeat. Yet there was no shame in her eyes—only weariness, and the unfamiliar stillness that followed surrender.

Before her stood Ethan.

His skin glimmered faintly, his Partial Saint Form still active. But the intensity had dimmed, his aura folded back into the seams of reality. The blood-magic runes etched into his arms faded, and the crimson mist of his healing flesh dissipated. He looked down upon her not with scorn, but something stranger—warmth.

"Rise, Queen," Ethan said simply, his voice carrying power that was no longer forceful—but sovereign.

Behind him, the golden portal remained open. Saareiya embraced her mother, tears and disbelief blending on her face. Onyx, arms wrapped tightly around Ethan's shoulder, kept glancing between Ashtora and the others, like a loyal shadow waiting to be summoned again.

But Ashtora did not rise.

Instead, the air quivered.

From the eastern ridge of the battlefield, three figures stepped through the thick mists—high-ranking E'Sherils, their spikes shimmering like obsidian blades. One bore eight spikes, one had seven, and the last—a—tormenting brute of grim visage—had nine.

The one with seven spikes spoke first, her voice cold and sharp.

"You kneel, my Queen… for this?" She gestured toward Ethan, lips curling with disgust.

"He broke me," Ashtora replied, her voice steady, echoing like a chime in an empty hall. "In will. In might. In essence."

"You are our Sovereign," the nine-spiked male growled, his elbows bristling with psychic tension. "We do not bend. We make others bend."

The eight-spiked figure—leaner, cruel-eyed—laughed darkly. "A half-blood. A vampire-dwarf hybrid with strange magic and arrogance. That is who now holds your leash?"

Ethan stepped forward, casual yet absolute. "I'm not holding her leash," he said. "I'm offering her a new crown. One without chains."

The nine-spike launched first.

Without warning, a surge of psychic force roared toward Ethan—dense, sharp, and echoing with layered screams. But Ethan didn't flinch. He raised a single hand, and Blood and Creation surged together.

With a gesture, the ground itself—already infused with his power—rose in jagged crystalized spirals, absorbing and then reflecting the psychic force in an eruption of crimson shards and golden glyphs. The attacker was hurled backward, landing with a snarl and cracking the landscape in half.

Onyx stepped beside Ethan now, her eyes gleaming. "Can I handle the next one, Master?"

"No. Let them decide."

The eight and nine-spiked E'Sherils paused, exchanging a look. What they saw wasn't just strength—it was order. A being who could conquer through force and still offer peace.

The seven-spiked woman bowed her head. Slowly.

Then dropped to one knee.

The eight-spike disappeared in a ripple of psychic displacement, fleeing.

Ashtora finally stood, her psychic aura dulled, humbled, but unbroken. She walked toward Ethan and stood by his side, not beneath, but beside him.

"I made my choice," she said softly to her remaining followers. "Follow, or fade."

In the distance, the Obsidian Groves stirred. Animals stopped moving. Psychic spirits paused their wandering. From high atop the Will Peaks, the slumbering giants known as the Mindroots whispered in tones only the ancient could hear:

"A new voice commands the Will…"

The psychic mist over the Obsidian Groves began to thin, fading like a bad dream. The echoes of the battle still lived in the roots of the cracked trees and the stone veins beneath the scorched soil, but now… there was a strange stillness.

The kind that follows history being rewritten.

Ethan stood at the center of it all, surrounded by his people and former enemies. Onyx stood at his side, arms crossed, while Saareiya held tightly onto her mother, who still trembled from her days as a captive. Behind them, Queen Ashtora gazed forward, her crown of psychic will now voluntarily surrendered—only to be reforged.

Then Ethan raised his voice—not with magical amplification, but with something greater: presence.

"I did not come here for war," he said. "I came for justice. I came for someone's mother."

Murmurs. A few chuckles. Some confused silence.

"But war came anyway," he continued, stepping up onto a fractured boulder that glowed faintly with golden runes. "Because this world... no longer fears strength—it depends on it. And those with strength are too often those with no guidance."

He turned slowly, letting his voice carry into the remnants of the E'Sheril forces now gathered in a wide semi-circle, Queen Ashtora standing just behind him, her head bowed—not in shame, but in acknowledgment.

"Let this day be the last where we fight without reason," Ethan said. "Let it be the last where strength decides everything. I don't want to rule you. I don't want you to kneel. But I do want order. And I want something greater—an Accord."

He extended his hand toward Ashtora.

"To those willing, I offer a place under the Accord of Anbord—a union not of bloodlines or territory, but of principles. Of mysticism, of order, and of choice."

There was silence at first.

Then, Ashtora took his hand.

"I, Ashtora of the E'Sherils, pledge my people to this Accord," she said, her voice proud, renewed with clarity. "Not as a vassal. But as a sovereign who chooses reason over ruin."

Behind her, the nine-spike E'Sheril nodded and followed suit.

From the shadows, figures stepped out—mages, warriors, elders of tribes Ethan had never even known existed. Not all were E'Sherils. Some were allies. Others... simply watchers.

And one by one, they came forward.

The Accord was born not in glory, nor conquest, but in the aftershock of both.

Far across the skies, Sage the Sound Drake heard the distant psychic resonance of Ethan's declaration and roared in triumph, sending waves of harmonic energy across the cloudlines.

In the blood-soaked hills, Maverick stood amidst the fallen, sensing the tectonic shift in allegiance ripple through the Will Planes.

Stygian, still locked in battle, paused only briefly to feel the surge of something like pride in his spirit. His Master had done what many couldn't: make titans listen.

As the sun fell, the skies above the Obsidian Groves shimmered not with stars—but with radiant psychic streams. A temporary aurora, birthed from the binding of wills, danced overhead.

Ethan looked up, silent.

Onyx leaned closer. "So... what now, Master?"

He smiled.

"Now we begin building something the world has never seen."

"Sage, Maverick, Stygian. Come back," he commanded in his mind