The Cryo Sovereign's Secret

Fontaine.

A veil of water wrapped the sky—cast by a Sovereign, for a war the world was never meant to witness.

Within it, silence reigned.

Not peace.

Judgment.

And in its center stood Asmoday, Ruler of Space.

Her hand was buried deep in Orion's chest, fingers gripped tight around something that should not have existed—a soul made of two beings, twisted into one by love, sacrifice, and divine contradiction.

He clutched Elynas in his arms, shielding her still, even as his soul was being torn in two.

> "Don't hurt Big Brother Orion!" she cried, eyes wide with terror.

But space bent before her words.

A red-black cube of shimmering geometry snapped into being around her, like a cage built by equations.

With a pulse, it vanished—

taking Elynas into a fragment of unknown space.

---

Felix lunged forward, his wings flaring in panic—

Only for a second cube to form around him mid-flight, swallowing him whole with the same cold logic.

> "Don't resist, Vessel of the Dragon King,"

Asmoday whispered, her voice soft as silk and just as strangling.

She turned her attention back to Orion—

Or rather, to the soul growing inside him.

Not just Orion.

Not just Frieda.

But something new.

Something becoming.

And Asmoday began to separate it.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

Like unraveling a braid woven from fire and frost.

---

Elsewhere within the veil—

Neuvillette stood frozen, not by fear, but by the sheer pressure that bound him.

Hydro twisted around him in turbulent silence, waiting for a moment to act that hadn't yet come.

Beside him, Zephyr hovered mid-air.

He did not try to strike.

He did not try to speak.

He simply watched with narrowed eyes, wind curling around him like held breath.

They both knew—

until the others arrived, any resistance would be crushed.

And time was running out.

Ignarion arrived like a falling star, streaking through the veil with his blade already drawn.

The Brutal Emblem of VlastMoroz did not wait for permission—he roared through the sky, fury igniting around him as he aimed straight for Asmoday's throat.

But space folded before impact.

A cube—crimson-black and seamless—appeared mid-air and snapped shut around him, locking him mid-charge.

"Tch—You dare?!" he snarled, raising his blade.

With one swift arc, he slammed it against the cube's walls—then again. And again. And again.

The air howled with each blow, his Divine Cryo clashing with Asmoday's geometry.

But the Ruler of Space did not flinch.

She didn't even glance at him.

Her attention was fully consumed by the soul unbraiding inside Orion.

---

A flower bloomed on the boat.

From it stepped Kaelya, the Blossom of Prana, radiant with sacred frostlight and divine healing.

She didn't attack.

She wrapped her arms around Orion, her magic pulsing softly—reaching inward, piercing through the agony, entering the inner realm of the merging souls.

"I'll protect what remains," she whispered. "With everything I have."

And as she vanished into his mindscape, the blossom closed behind her.

---

Beside the boat, time rippled—

and Morven arrived in silence.

The Third Emblem of VlastMoroz raised one hand, calling upon the slow-turning runes of frozen time.

The skies flickered.

Reality staggered—

And then resumed, unhindered.

He blinked.

"Even time refuses me now… Her presence corrupts causality itself."

---

The veil trembled.

It knew who came next.

Through the upper firmament—above storm and sea—two Sovereigns tore the sky.

---

VlastMoroz, Sovereign of Cryo, descended in silence.

Her enormous form rippled like a glacier unbound, frost singing in her wake. Cold didn't follow her—it obeyed.

Beside her flew the chaos incarnate:

Raiclaus, Sovereign of Electro.

Her wings carved serrated paths through the clouds. Her laughter split the thunder like glass.

And flying between them, small and radiant, was Seraphyx—Plume of Drakon, the mortal heir reborn in glacial light.

---

Raiclaus was first to speak—of course she was.

"We see that Neuvillette and Zephyr were already here.

Then why didn't either of you strike?"

Her voice cracked the veil with its sharpness.

---

Neuvillette's voice was deep—measured, oceanic.

"She is not simply a foe… she is a Shade," he answered, not with shame, but clarity.

"If we want to retrieve Orion... three Sovereigns with their full Authorities are required."

A pause.

"I have not yet reclaimed mine."

And then…

From the slightly opened mouth of VlastMoroz, something stirred.

A figure tumbled out lazily, yawning into the divine storm like a woman waking from a nap she deeply regretted.

"What'd I miss?"

It was Yandelf, Emblem of VlastMoroz.

Also known as the Gourd of Booze.

She scratched her head, unbothered by the chaos around her, holding a jug of something unholy in one hand and an expression of existential hangover in the other.

---

But before anyone could process her presence—

The mountain moved.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

A monolith that had long been mistaken for part of the horizon began to shift. Cracks pulsed with golden light, and tectonic groans echoed through the battlefield.

He had not arrived.

He had always been here.

Varnak'Thul, the Sovereign of Geo, had finally stirred.

His body was not built for the sky.

He was the land.

Layered stone. Luminous fault lines. A continent unto himself. He had no wings—only the authority to summon the world beneath him to rise at his will.

When he moved, the crust of Teyvat bent to his shape.

He didn't speak.

He didn't need to.

---

Above them, the winds shifted again.

The Divine Generals of Zephyr finally arrived—slower, breathless, wide-eyed.

Among them, Dorores, First General of the Sky Palace, stared in awe.

"I didn't think… the war between Sovereigns had already begun."

His voice cracked like brittle glass against the air.

---

And then came flame.

The veil rippled violently as the sky split open, and from the breach coiled a serpent made of burning legend—

Xiuhcoatl, Sovereign of Pyro, emerged.

He was a living volcano, his wings burning in symmetrical fury—eight in total, arms like molten spears, horns curved like sun-scorched blades. His very breath evaporated clouds, hollowed mountaintops, and baked the sky.

A crown of fire and ash swirled above his head—not celebration.

Mourning.

"I wasn't informed that the war would begin early," he growled in low, draconic tones.

"Whose mistake was it?"

---

He was not the last.

From the far edge of the horizon, life itself rippled.

And with it came Apep, Sovereign of Dendro.

Her body moved like the memory of rivers—serpentine, endless, crowned in glowing roots and bioluminescent bloom. Her scales were bark and vine, her coils carved with ancient runes.

She was the whisper of forests that once ruled Teyvat, and the unkillable promise that they would return again.

Her eyes held no wrath. Only wisdom, and the weight of watching time break its own rules.

"I didn't think the plan would escalate so quickly," she said.

---

At last, a voice answered her.

Soft. Cold. Knowing.

"I didn't want the plan to escalate either,"

whispered VlastMoroz, Sovereign of Cryo.

Her tone carried no regret. Only inevitability.

Inside the SoulScrape.

The mindscape was cracked marble and bleeding starlight.

And in its center, Kaelya stood firm—hands trembling, heart burning with fear, but eyes fixed on the growing soul at the core: Orion, Frieda, and their unborn child.

She battled against a projection of Asmoday, whose very presence gnawed at reality.

Each of Kaelya's movements was elegant, forged from sacred frost and glacial Prana.

She wove her spells like lullabies—gentle in purpose, violent in resistance—erecting barriers of shimmering white-blue light around the core of the soul.

"Mother... please..." she whispered. "Don't take too long..."

Outside, she could still feel VlastMoroz, waiting—ready.

But the longer it took, the deeper Asmoday carved.

Blocks of crimson-black matter materialized from nothing, devouring the space Kaelya had tried to seal.

This wasn't just magic—it was deletion.

Asmoday was unmaking possibility itself.

"This is so foolish," the Shade said with contempt. "Do you really think you can stop inevitability?"

Kaelya gritted her teeth, reinforcing the sigils—

And then…

The elements moved.

One by one.

---

Pyro.

A burning warmth that burst into the soul like the memory of love that refuses to die.

Hydro.

A tide of sorrow and grace, cloaking them like forgiveness made liquid.

Dendro.

Roots of memory and rebirth, wrapping around the unborn soul like a cradle of blooming truth.

Electro.

A scream and a spark. The will to continue. The storm of survival.

Geo.

The weight of finality. The strength to carry sacrifice.

Anemo.

A breath between parting. A soft wind that kisses the dead goodbye.

Cryo.

Stillness. The seal of sleep. The silence of eternal protection.

---

The seven elements converged, surrounding the fused soul.

But they weren't trying to protect all of it.

They were choosing one.

Asmoday clicked her tongue in annoyance.

"So they make their move after all. Choosing the fragment over the whole... predictable."

---

Within the core of the soul—

Orion and Frieda stood.

Their bodies flickering, half-formed. Their eyes locked on the child floating between them, still pulsing with incomplete divinity.

The elements, like avatars of judgment, spoke:

"Do you wish for your child to live?"

"Or will you die together with him?"

There was no pause.

No hesitation.

Orion reached out.

Frieda followed.

They nodded.

And in that instant—

they gave up their souls.

Not as surrender.

But as offering.

---

The elements accepted.

They wove the sacrifice into an unbreakable barrier, wrapping the child's essence in a cube of seven sides, each face marked with a different elemental sigil—glowing, pulsing, alive.

And then Cryo layered over them all—

the final seal.

A frost that would not thaw.

A lullaby that would not end.

---

It was clear now what they had done.

What the elements themselves wanted to protect.

The final segment of Nibelung's reincarnated soul.