Hilt of Dawn I

"Zariel, what are you doing?" Aurelia asked, walking through the teleportation portal. She tossed her bags onto the ground, drawing closer toward the boy, looking through a microscope. Beneath the scope, a droplet of blood lay. When he didn't answer, Aurelia made something of a brooding face and took a seat beside him. 

She didn't say anything for a while until her stomach reminded her that it was nearly lunchtime.

"Have you eaten?" 

Zariel lifted his head from the microscope, pulling at his silver hair. A brief inkling of agitation visible through his pale eyes. 

"Zariel?" 

'Huh?' Taken back by the sudden appearance of the little girl, Zariel nearly jumped in shock. "Bloody Hell! When the hell did you get here?" 

"Its lunch time," said Aurelia. 

"And?" 

"Did you eat today? Or yesterday?" 

Zariel had to think. He had been so caught up in research that he had recently begun to forget to eat sometimes. The process of fusing Zyla's blood into his had been far more complicated than he originally thought. Especially since his genetic code was heavily tied to his tattered blade, it was the glue that held him together. Without it, he would dissipate into a fine mist. 

"Let's get something to eat if you can't remember." she hopped up, pulling him by the sleeve up into the dining hall where a still Jon awaited them being served to by Genny. There was a lifeless gleam in his eyes that lit up at the sight of his master. 

"Genny, is there more?" 

 "Of course, since the Master didn't eat yesterday or today, I was about to bring him lunch," said Genny warmly. "But m'lady. I thought that perhaps you might want to join your friends in the cafeteria at Trinity." 

"Dumb-Dumb wouldn't have joined me then; it was too messy." 

Genny snickered. "True. Well, please have a seat. And I'll bring everything out in a few seconds." she formally said, returning to the kitchen. 

And true to her word, Genny returned with a tray filled with a large slab of meat, steaming with heat. She plated everyone's plate, scooping out some silky white mashed potatoes and some greens. 

"Is there any cranberry juice left?" Aurelia asked. 

"Oh… I'm sorry, m'lday. Seems like the last shipment isn't in yet. We've apple juice if you want, or is tea or coffee more to your taste?" 

"Apple Juice, please." 

Lazily, Zariel lifted his head while cutting into his slab of meat. "Is it normal for a shipment to be late?" 

"Not for nobles,' Said Genny. 

"I see…" 

After lunch, Zariel pulled out the broken hilt from his pocket, giving it a glance over. He toyed with it, giving it a light flip with one hand. 

"What's that?" Aurelia asked, nibbling on an ice pop Genny had created in her spare time.

"A hilt… I found it in your room." 

The girl tilted her head curiously, "My room? What were you doing in my room?" 

"Did I forget to tell you? Seems we've had an uninvited demon," he said darkly, his eyes narrowing into cat-like slits. "But this here interested me. Why was it in your room with your jewelry." 

Aurelia shrugged. "Was it? I never noticed." she leaned closer, twitching her nose. "It smells like sunlight, though." 

"... Sunlight has a smell?" He lifted his head towards Aurelia, seeming more and more beastly as of late. She had never been normal, healing broken bones in weeks and flesh wounds in days. But the stronger she grew, the more feats Zariel began to notice echoing from this young girl.

"Of course… Can't you smell it?" Aurelia reached for the hilt, taking it into her hands when it came from the cloudless skies. Heat turned to fire and fire to plasma in a single instance, cutting through the heavens through the manor in a single instance. 

The young girl saw everything then. She saw Zariel move like a strange blur, catching the lightning with his naked palm. Watched as everything around them vaperies blasting everything away in a blink of an eye. Saw a strange golden radiance of the lightning begin to emanate from out of Zariel's skin. As if his skin was made of lightning, it crackled, sparking nodes of Arcana into creation. 

The winds turned to knives, wrenching the cloths from off the silver devil's chest; all the while, constructs of stone turned to magma, leaving only the golden lightning, radiating such might every powerhouse within Vesem lifted their heads towards the divine force reeling out of control. Splitting the skies apart. 

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

Zariel roared, opening the weave, feeling the radiant lighting seeking to connect towards the hilt, even if it meant turning them to dust. The lighting blazed brighter than any star, blinding all mortal eyes of all who dared to glimpse it.

With his other hand, Zariel curled an arm around Aurelia and whispered in a dark command, "Disrupt." 

The lightning shattered, twisting into shards of fragmented light before combusting into an eldritch of damnation. 

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

A pillar of light connected Heaven and Earth, falling into a dome before dissipating into nothing. 

"Zariel!" Aurelia shouted, looking at him, covering Aurelia, Genny, and Jon beneath a barrier of golden light reminiscent of the lightning that came from the skies.

"Just when my soul was healing all nicely, I go and tear it open," he muttered, letting go of the little girl. His skin and hair buzzed with small arcs of lighting. He glanced down at the hilt that lay beneath his feet and picked it up. 

"Not so fast, boy! That doesn't belong to you!" 

Zariel lifted an eye towards Darrian, who had arrived at ground zero with several other arcanists. 

"Hand me the hilt,' he shouted, stomping in through the horrible wreckage of destruction. "Give it here. Now." 

"Aurelia, head into the lab. It ought to have survived. I'll be fine. Black Origin has absorbed most of the lightning." The Silver Devil said calmly, sliding the tattered blade from out its scabbard. 

Dust and ash parted as Zariel Spirit Domain echoed from his soul, billowing a horrid killing intent no creature should possess. 

And he thought, 'And all this could have been avoidable if I ignored Aurelia. Fuck my luck.' 

Embers of Arcana shattered into being around Darrian's palm, calling forth an azure sword, seeming forged out of a strange or rather than metal. The sword was nearly two meters in length and several inches thick, weighing well over a hundred pounds, but was held with great ease by Darrian in a single palm. 

Golden lighting Arcs crackled around the Silver Devil, coiling around him like electrons around an atom. 

 Karlis, the Black Witch, stood in the distance with the other lords of the city. She had been shaken, feeling the monstrous power radiating off the young boy. It felt pure, purer than light itself. Yet it radiated off a boy so rotten she wanted to puke. 

Just then, Zariel moved, shattering through multiple sound barriers; his fist turned to fire as friction tore against Darrien's face, tearing him off his feet. He was flung several miles through the city, skipping over the ground like a stone, barreling through large stone structures. 

BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM!

The blow thundered, reaching the natural speed of lightning. By the time Darrian had realized he'd been hit, he hadn't even the time to care about his shattered nose and partially cracked skull as the boy arrived, slashing that tattered blade of his downward. 

A horrid sword arc swept through the earth, slamming against Darrian's Shard Blade. Darrien felt as if a mountain had struck him across the chest, uprooting him from the earth into the skies far past the clouds. 

"All that bark and look at you," Zariel sneered, having transfigured lighting into the core of his being, gaining all its fearsome might and radiance, transitioned into a lightning bolt, piercing the heavens, echoing another sonic boom onto the world, as a golden line sliced through the skies. 

A named technique sprang into the Silver Devil's mind, turning his cold expression grim. Viens traveled up his arms while Arcana fueled his meridians, seeking to twist out of his control. He didn't allow it. Within his Spirit Domain, he was king. 

Horrified, Darrien managed a flight spell to help regain some mobility. When he saw the boy shrieking towards him, he paled, sensing an ancient force baring its fangs. The winds felt like swords against his skin, shredding through his clothes, biting at his skin until blood pooled from out of pores. 

Never in his wildest dream had he ever felt such a tremendous gale of sword intent reign over him, sealing his movements. 

Expending nearly half of the Golden Lightning within him, Zariel glared into the Weave, finding a weakness, invisible to the naked eye, existing in both Heaven and Earth, alongside Darrian himself. His blade moved, and from the edge of his tattered blade, a brilliance of despair emerged. 

Severing Earth

The Castillan screamed, poring all of his Six stars into his Shard Blade, seeking to a clash, invoked his sword technique. 

"Dragon Slash," he bellowed, piercing his blade forward, only to watch with untold horror as the clash he foresaw never occurred. 

As if he knew where to cut, Zariel's Sword Arc slashed right through Darriesn's attack, taking with it his right arm and leg in a single instance. The earth had parted into a mile-long abyss in which no light could penetrate. Mountains parted, removed from existence in a single flash of light.

The silver devil smirked, hovering with what little Astral Qi he had left after grabbing that lightning bolt.

"So, in the end, you ended up saving him." 

Karlis, the Black Witch of Salem, frowned, holding onto the faint Darrien forced a nod, shaken by the level of destruction brought on by a single sword stroke. And worst of all, the boy didn't seem the least bit tired. 

 And all of it occurred from a boy who possessed a mere one star. She bit her lips, struggling to find the words as his Intent bore down upon her. 

"Severance," Zariel intoned, and the tattered sword bled a profound radiance, shattering into light nodes. Reforming into a pristine blade nearly three meters long. The sword itself bore no hilt but was terribly long, longer than the boy wielding it. 

The Salem Witch paled; his Intent only intensified to an unparalleled degree.

"I don't normally threaten… so I'll ask kindly. Give me that fool or else."