"Remember, Sol,” his father often taught. “Learn from my mistake. The low-born are persistent creatures. No matter how frustrating it is, hide your fang and royal prestige, convince them you are their brood. Remember, you can only return your pain a thousand-fold once when you gain the supreme authority”

“Father?”

“In the past, I and your mother received this lesson the hard way. I acted too mightily for my station, and those low-lives gave my brother an excuse to banish me. You must avenge me, Sol. You must win back the throne and make those low-blood regrets the day they banish us.”

“Yes, father.”

Those were the warped lessons that created Sol Vice Grandy.

…

Back in Venistalis’ Fire-quarter, the battle started warming.

“Ace,” Kruger blinked. He never heard of an elf who called herself that.

Luxinna swung [Historia] in a defensive form, putting herself between the innocent victims and Sol Grandy. A mere hundred-meters marked a no-man zone.

Sol Grandy sneered and signaled the mud into action. No matter how many times the elf crushed his minions, his spawns would regenerate to fight again. There was no urgency to deal with. A royalty who attained supreme prestige didn’t need to fear mere mortal. He surpassed death! Who did the elf think she is to challenge him?

It was obvious Sol hadn’t deduced Luxinna’s depth or else he wouldn’t go for something predictable.

“[Assault Flora] low-power shooting,” Luxinna whispered her command. “Calculate and release.”

Nails of glass launched into the shifting piles of muds, destroying the monster before it reformed.

“You notice my creation's immortality?” Sol jeered. “You are sharp, but that means you must realize the pointlessness of destroying an unkillable army! This is the height separated the ruled and the ruler!”

“We must take him—”

Kruger tried to give his input, but Luxinna’s action beaten him.

“[Flower of Victory: Paralyzation Round]”

The nail pinning the mud sparked with electrical current, paralysing them and ending their attempt to reform.

Stun silence hung over the battlefield.

“What?” Sol’s hundred crimson eyes blinked.

“I shock the mud,” Luxinna explained. “It might be immortal, but if it can’t reform, it can’t be a threat.”

“How?” Sol’s voice echoed in confusion.

“You seem to be under the misconception that speed and power are all my flowers have,” Luxinna savagely filled the air with more blooming [Assault Flora]. “Let me show you the real firework.”

Extrapolated Arcana Propagation Sub-routine or EAPS was a signature creation of Horizon Dawn’s member. It was a combination of True Magic, Skills and Arcane. [Flowers of Victory] combined Luxinna’s [Serene Glass] and [Glass Weaving] skill to create a rail-gun and projectile enhanced by her [Child of Lightning] passive. The combination provided the trait for her [Assault Flora].

But speed and power alone was not enough to earn victory. Only by transforming the round into a versatile specialty shell with variety selections of lightning Arcane did victory become assured. Name by its co-creator Melody Solarmaria for its unfailing crushing power and versatility, [Flower of Victory] would blanket the mud of defeat with a brilliant display of thunder.

“[Flower of Victory: Discharge Round]” Luxinna pointed [Historia] at Sol’s monstrous forms. “Volley fire! Blanket Annihilation!”

She twisted the sword like a key to a nuclear silo.

Sol saw the garden of jasmine floating beside Luxinna glittered like stars. Before he reacted, a nail cracking with electricity appeared an inch from his mouth.

Boom!

The glass war-head embedded into Sol’s monstrous chest and exploded. The golden discharged charred his flesh of energy and crimson mud. Sol felt the shock of the attack disrupting the very bond holding his World Enemy’s flesh together. Hundred eyes rolled in its ethereal socket from pain. It was no longer possible to take this carnage half-heartedly. Despite being reborn as a species that ended worlds, the elf had the power to destroy him.

That thought surfaced in his mind for a split second. It was a split second too late to react against Luxinna’s remaining bombing run.

25 more shells landed on Sol.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Countless more explosions pockmarked the land. Sol’s body caught in the middle of the barrage storm. His body ripped apart, bleeding mud sprays, paralyzed from static electricity. Whatever celestial organ Sol had turned to mush. His innards torn asunder, and he screeched a gutting pain of death as Luxinna’s barrage knocked down his immense ego.

The on-looker watched the performance in awe.

“Who the hell is she?” One noble muttered. “How could we never hear of someone with such power?”

“Explosion,” Eliza the victim muttered. “Explosion are scary.”

Andries looked at the elf in awe. The fan-girl’s switch that laid dormant for the last seventeen-years of her life flipped open full-blast. The entrance, the symbol, the way she posture herself and her overwhelming power — it was too much to resist. No, she must maintain her cool as a noble.

“Onee-sama,” one noble-lady spoke what Andries had in her mind. Later that day, the two would become soul-mates bonded by the blood of an undying fan.

Luxinna — oblivious to the fact she single-handedly created a new all-powerful clique in Venistalis — popped out a health tablet and started chewing.

“What is that, Onee—” Andries caught herself before rephrasing her question. “Miss, are you fine?”

Luxinna gave the girl a reassuring smile.

“Oh, this is just some recovery medication,” Luxinna explained. “It is the first time I use that technique, so it cost a little more from me than expect.”

“FIRST TIME!” Chamomile underwent another mood-swing. “YOU NEVER PRACTICE THAT TECHNIQUE BEFORE!”

“Yeah, but my concept is solid, so it works fine aside from some over-expenditure.”

“YOUR MANA SHOULD BE DRIAN AFTER THAT BOMBARDMENT!”

“Nah, I just run of steam a little,” Luxinna winded her arms. “I am back to 75%.” The girl elf’s animal instinct tensed. “Everyone, step-back. He isn’t down!”

“No way!” One noble-girl said. “Ace Onee-sama already peppered him with enough power to turn the royal-knights into dust!”

“HEY!” Chamomile yelled.

“Shut up, Lady Chamomile,” Another noble girl verbally kicked Chamomile in the face. “You are second away from turning on us!”

“Yeah, Eliza, chain-up Lady Chamomile, we cannot trust her with any weapon.”

“DON’T YOU DARE!”

Kruger didn’t even bother helping.

“Elragorn, you bought this on yourself,” Kruger glanced at the male nobles. “You guys can use magic, right? Back her up! A World Enemy won’t die so easily.”

Right on cure, the dust cleared to reveal an enormous boulder of gray rocks dotted with crimson vein. The grotesque construction pulsed like a malformed heart, sending a waved of concern to all involvement.

“What is that?” Eliza the victim trembled.

Luxinna answered sternly and calmly.

“He assimilate the surrounding rock and soil into himself to help insulate himself from electrical discharge,” Luxinna readied her [Flora].

Sol’s body trembled and started erupting with pieces of rock coated with a crimson vein. The rocks shimmered with volatile power as it fell down like blood-soaked meteors. Fully prepare, Luxinna intercepted fire with more rail-gun projectiles.

The supersonic projectile hit an artillery, exploding it in a shower of dark-red shock-wave. The gust from the explosion blew across the battlefield like a hurricane. Immense wind nearly tossed the crowd of survivors like a rag-doll. Luxinna skidded a foot back as the wind nearly toppled her footing.

Luxinna cursed, perceiving the dozens of arriving gust storm.

“[Guard Flora],” the elf cast.

A huge lotus unfurled and shielded the entire group away from the gale. Not wasting time, Luxinna directed her jasmine to return the fire. However, her direct hit just ricocheted off Sol’s body in a spark of red light. Luxinna bit back a curse. She needed higher penetration. 

Sol fired back with half-dozen crimson rocks that Luxinna shot down with her nails. The abomination rearranged its attack angle and Luxinna followed suit with her interception. Red detonation rocked the sky and earth every time the two combatant’s attack met. Above. Flank. Forward. Explosions rocked every axis of the thin center lines where the duel of range supremacy churned.

The aftermath of those furious of exchange turned the area into a hurricane disaster-zone. A fire-fight so catastrophic the Grand Empire should be thankful it boiled down in a destroyed area .

The battle raged so intensely that Andries still felt the immense back-draft from behind the glass flower. Then she saw an image that cowed her mind to submission — Sol’s boulder like body swelled in size. It pulsed like a like a balloon on the verge of blowing out the air of annihilation on anything standing in front of it.

“Ac…”

A golden light answered her query. Luxinna’s sword — [Historia] — transformed into a bow.

“She know archery?” One noble blinked.

“She is an elf, you moron!” A fangirl yelled at her boyfriend. “Are there any elf that can’t use a bow?”

Luxinna wanted to tell the girl that Magnolia’s talent with long-bow was questionable, but she was only six then. Maybe her sister improved with solid guidance from professional teachers, but Luxinna doubted it.

“But where is her arrow?” One pot-bellied noble surfaced after a solid minute hiding from the hurricane.

“Right here,” Luxinna answered, stretching out her hand and summoned one of her [Assault Flower]. The sculpture flew from unfurling into wires of glass, weaving a glass arrow with a head of lotus and drill for its seed pods.

Luxinna nocked the arrow and jumpstarted the current. She grinned. Her ideas paid off. 

Luxinna’s battle-style was heavy-aggro. She had an excellent range-arsenal and numbers for an overwhelming opening. But like all mono-red master, her effectiveness torpedoed against quality and regeneration, forcing her to end fight quickly before she lost her momentum.

Her solution was to launch a rapid quantity of haymaker before her opponent. Hence, she adjusted [Assault Flora] with charge capacitor. Something easily arrange with her processing speed and memory. While each rail-gun shot costed a little more, the Jasmine could save a substantial amount of energy until she cracked the flower opened and released it all at once.

Although these energy-counters might not mean a lot, but the stored energy allowed her to top off attack’s cost faster rate than her opponent. The technique became even more impressive once people realized Luxinna had more than a dozen of those flowers active.

[Serene Glass] coated Luxinna’s bow, and a massive rail grew out to help dissipate the recoil. Her battle with Chuang taught her to adapt her technique for recoil dissipation. The elf graduated from being a one-shot wonder and into the league of human siege-breaker.

[Grand Assault Flora: Penetrator Lotus]

The lotus arrow spun like a drill and she fired that shot. It spun with lightning and wind. To a passer-by, the shot vanished in the flash of lightning and followed by a gust of wind and splintered glass. The arrow left a trail of dust where it past and punch into Sol’s armored body. The arrow — enhanced by [Thunderbolt] and [Storm] Arcane — chewed into Sol and blew past it with the raw force. To make the success more spectacular, Luxinna’s arrow destroyed the shell containing the energy Sol’s charged for his haymaker—a haymaker Luxinna beaten him to. The crimson energy exploded out of Sol in a wave of red-light, flattening everything in sight and sweeping the battlefield in a blinding detonation.

[Guard Flora] buckled under the weight of the wave, but it held. Luxinna breathed a sigh of relief and gave every survivor behind her a thumb-up.

“Yep, all clear!”

“YOU MUST BE KIDDING ME!” The deranged voice of Sol instantly disapproved the elf’s assumption.

With that, Andries spoke the universal sentence blaring in every cranium.

“How is he alive!” Andries yelled. “How can he receive those hits and still live?”

That day, the dust faded again, revealing dried branch of neon-red vein with eyes growing from it like an abominable bamboo. Sol survived Luxinna’s [Grand Assault Flora] but the attack and subsequent backfire of his own energy blast carved his body into an oozing mess.

Despite the shattered, fragmented body he got reduced to, Sol Grandy was angrier than hurt.

“I wait for these moments for years! Tolerate mingling with those dirty-blooded mutt for the moment I claim my birthright! I painstakingly learn that troublesome smile, comforting to those sorry excuses of a breed-horse. Lower myself to greet those insignificant rugs. I toil and hide until my patience bled. Do you understand how painful my ordeal is? And you dare take that sweet reward from me!? FROM ME? Who do you think you are, bitch? Those traitors are my property! I have earned that right! Who are you to interfere!?”

Sol intense vitriol scared the nobles to the bone. How did such monstrous beings fly under the radar for half a decade? His madness jolted the noble to their obvious complacency.

Luxinna serenely answered the question.

“They are not your property,” Luxinna declared. “I am fucking knight of justice—interfering is my job's description!”

Sol screeched. His branch like body bulking up into a muscular behemoth with a hundred eyes. His gigantic body charged forward with an attempt to kill, but Luxinna was ready. She fired a few [Assault Flora] at Sol, but the World Enemy’s momentum remained strong. Sol lined everything he had into closing the distances. Out-muscling Luxinna in close-quarter was his only path to snatch a semblance of victory.

The nail pierced Sol’s body and went through it, but he fought past the pain and continued toward Luxinna. Two more nail — rigged with [Paralyse] — embedded his flesh, forcing Sol to shed his affected Amalgam flesh out of his body. Complete obsession dictated him to take down the elf. No matter the injury befell him, he must reduce the battle to a melee to stand a chance.

[Serene Glass: Overdrive I (Nerve)]

Luxinna smashed an [Assault Flora] with [Historia] and vanished, appearing in front of Sol. Swirl of liquid glass wrapped around [Historia] as the stored energy cleared her activation condition.

“Take this!” Sol threw a fist the size of the bus at her, but Sol had zero knowledge about [Overdrive]. Infront of that skill, Sol needed to accept the fact any attack slower than supersonic was useless.

Luxinna ducked below Sol’s fist in a limbo maneuver. She twisted within a hairbreadth distance and unleashed a [Overload Blade] with [Historia], severing Sol’s leg. The appendage the size of the bridge’s column fell and gravity took its turn at dragging Sol to the ground.

Luxinna twisted her swing and launched her finisher. It was a final evolution of [Overload Blade]. Born from the principle of Luxinna original [Lotus] liquid-glass beam. Combining pressure with [Hurricane] Arcane to maximize and focus the immense frictional heat and world-shattering vibration cutter, it was the sword whose swirled glitter like diamond who’s fated to part the cloud and revealed the stars.

[Jewel Sword: Extension]

The glittering blade extended the reached of [Historia] by 10 meters and bisected Sol Vice Grandy right down the middle.

“How?” The common-sense shattering power of a no-name elf soloing a World Enemy broke what little remain of Chamomile’s mind. “How the hell did Lightwell miss someone this outrageous?”