"Perfect!" Lyra roared, her voice a battle-happy thunderclap that echoed off the walls. She didn't wait; she launched herself forward like a cannonball, the reinforced ferrocrete cracking beneath the sheer kinetic force of her takeoff.
She met the first trio of puppets in a blur of motion, her Aether following her will, instantly splitting into three distinct, humming streams of vibrating energy.
The machines retaliated, their programming flawless. Glowing ice swords, perfect replicas of the Bronze-Rank defenses, descended in a synchronized, tripartite slash meant to dice any single opponent.
CLANG! BOOM!
The moment the vibrating streams met the swords, the air itself seemed to tear. The physical blades met pure, conceptual dissonance. The Aetheric collision was absolute; the ice weapons didn't just crack, they burst into a billion glittering fragments, the laws of cryokinesis holding them together instantly negated and undone.
The puppets stumbled back, their internal logic-processors reeling from an impact force their programming could not account for.
Lyra pressed her advantage, a feral grin splitting her face. She smashed a fist wreathed in shimmering, vibrating Aether directly into one puppet's chest. The reinforced steel caved in with a sickening, high-pitched shriek of tortured metal.
The other two slashed at her from the flanks, their movements precise and inhumanly fast.
She merely sensed the shift in air pressure, ducking under the sweeping blades with contemptuous, almost lazy, ease. She erupted upward between them, her two Aether-encased fists meeting their simultaneous downward swings. Her raw power violently smashed into the newly-formed ice swords, cracking them apart from overwhelming force.
The puppets were thrown back again, their armored arms rattling, internal sensors screaming from the Aetheric feedback.
At the exact same instant, Orion moved.
Where Lyra was a roaring explosion, he was a silent, lethal avalanche. An ice spear, more complex and far colder than the one he'd manifested moments before, materialized in one hand. He relied on pure, honed instinct, flowing through the battlefield like a seasoned warrior-king.
He met the other trio of puppets not with a direct charge, but with a wide, flowing, horizontal slash.
The puppets brought their swords up in a unified block.
The sheer, condensed force and overwhelming purity of Orion's Aether sent all three staggering back, their footing lost, their flawless coordination broken.
He let the ice spear dissolve into mist and instantly, in the same fluid motion, formed one of pure, golden light. The burning tip sizzled as it violated the frigid air, a stark contrast of elemental fury.
Before the lead puppet could regain its balance, the spearhead shattered its re-forming sword on contact and plunged, unopposed, through its chest plate.
He spun, parrying the desperate slashes of the other two with another ice spear that appeared in his free hand, his movements a fluid, deadly, two-handed dance of creation and destruction.
With every punch, every parry, every flawless manifestation of power, the siblings could feel their grasp over their newfound abilities solidifying, their intuitive control becoming absolute.
Elysia and Lisanna couldn't tear their eyes away. They were no longer just watching a training session; they were witnessing the birth of legends. The effortless, godlike flow of Ice Aether, the brilliant, searing dance of captured Light—it was a symphony of impossible power that resonated deep within their own cores.
A desperate, painful itch began to form in their minds. It was an urgent, primal need to push their own abilities, to refine their own Aether, to try and reach for the impossible standard being set right before their very eyes.
For Elysia, it was an almost physical agony. Every flicker of Orion's ice, every perfect construct, felt like an extension of her own soul, whispering secrets of absolute control she had chased, weeping, for a lifetime.
Lisanna felt the same inescapable pull towards the streaks of Light Aether. It was a warmth that promised a deeper, fundamental understanding of the power that was her birthright. The spectacle was a form of exquisite torture, a glimpse of a perfection that felt both impossibly distant and, thanks to the bond he had forged, tantalizingly within reach.
In the center of this storm, the battle reached its crescendo.
Lyra's eyes, usually alight with wild, untamed fire, narrowed into points of absolute, glacial focus. Her mind, once a raging river of instinct, had calmed into a deep, crystalline lake. She felt the flow of Aether through her core not as a torrent to be unleashed, but as a precise instrument to be wielded.
A new understanding bloomed in her mind—an idea born of pure combat intuition that she projected into reality without a second of hesitation.
A shimmering, golden aura of vibrating Aether erupted around her legs. The ferrocrete floor beneath her feet began to scream, dust quivering and being blasted away in concentric circles. The kinetic enhancement supercharged her physique, and with a sound like a localized thunderclap, she vanished.
She reappeared directly in front of a steel puppet, a visual blur too fast for its optical sensors to track. She drew her fist back, the same vibrating energy coiling around it, compressing into a devastating singularity. The puppet, reacting on pure protocol, could only manage to surge its ice sword forward in a desperate, last-ditch defense.
It was utterly, laughably pointless.
CRACK-BOOM!
Lyra's fist met the blade. There was no struggle, no grind of Aether against Aether. Her attack, propelled by impossible, physics-defying speed, simply erased the sword from existence, shattering it into a sub-molecular cloud of frozen dust.
Her fist continued, unabated, and slammed brutally into the puppet's chest.
The vibrating Aether energy, a force designed to tear matter apart on a foundational level, overwhelmed the automaton's reinforced structure. Metal screamed, buckled, and then imploded. A massive chunk of the puppet's torso vanished, and the two-ton machine was launched like a cannonball, soaring across the entire facility until it smashed into the far wall with a deafening, metallic shriek that echoed through the cavernous space.
But Lyra didn't stop. In the same fluid motion, as the first puppet was still airborne, she spun on her heel. With a ferocious roar, she punched out to her sides, unleashing two unstoppable waves of pure vibrating force.
The streams tore through the air, visible distortions of raw power, and smashed into the two other charging puppets. Their ice swords met the same fate as the first, atomizing on impact before the waves crashed into their bodies, sending them flying sideways into the wall to join their broken comrade.
Simultaneously, a flash of pure inspiration shot through Orion's mind. As his control over his own Aether Core deepened, he felt the distinct energies of ice and light not as two separate pools, but as two powerful currents in a single, vast ocean.
A shimmering, crystalline aura of pure Ice Aether encased his right arm. The spear in his hand pulsed, glowing with a brighter, more menacing light as it exuded a conceptual cold that seemed to freeze the very air around it.
He didn't just feel stronger; he felt a qualitative shift in his power.
He shot forward like a phantom, his movements silent and lethally precise. His ice spear became a blur of cobalt light, aimed directly at a puppet's chest. The machine, its processors screaming to calculate the sudden, exponential spike in threat level, barely had time to raise its own sword.
Orion's spear smashed the ice sword apart as if it were a child's toy. The tip of his weapon, now condensed to an almost impossible degree of sharpness and cold, pierced clean through the puppet's chest plate.
A spiderweb of absolute-zero frost spread from the point of impact, and with a final, brutal push, a large chunk of the automaton's torso exploded outwards in a shower of frozen shrapnel. It, too, was sent tumbling into the metallic walls.
Without pausing, Orion condensed a spear of pure, golden light in his left hand, a matching aura of shimmering photons enveloping his other arm. He gathered more Aether, not just pulling it from his core but commanding it, shaping it with a single, perfect thought.
He spun, his body a whirlwind of dual, conflicting energies, and unleashed a flawless horizontal slash with the light spear.
The attack manifested as a perfect crescent of blinding, thermal energy. It met the swords of the last two puppets, and the light didn't just break them; it vaporized them.
The slash carved through their defenses without resistance and bisected both machines at the waist. Their upper torsos crashed heavily to the ground as their legs stood frozen for a half-second before toppling over.
A series of loud, rattling bangs echoed through the facility—a symphony of destruction.
Lisanna and Elysia stood frozen, their mouths slightly agape, their minds a hurricane of conflicting emotions—shock, awe, envy, and a terrifying, exhilarating, all-consuming hope.
Orion let his weapons dissolve, the twin auras around his arms fading away. The training room was deathly silent, save for the crackle of ozone and the drip of molten metal. He flickered his eyes towards the two noble girls, a calm, knowing smile gracing his lips.
"That sensation you're feeling," he said, his voice a gentle ripple in the sudden silence. "The one stirring within your Aether Cores as you watch us. You can feel it, can't you?"
His question was so direct, so perceptive, that it made both Elysia and Lisanna jump slightly. It was true. Amidst the storm of emotions, there was a deeper, instinctual feeling—a resonance. It was as if a path to greater power was being illuminated right before them, a path they could almost, almost grasp.
Elysia narrowed her eyes, her sharp mind immediately making the connection. "It's the bond," she stated, her voice tight with realization. "The symbiotic connection you formed with us. It's working its effect, isn't it?"
Lisanna nodded, a hand unconsciously drifting to her chest, right over where her Aether Core resided.
"It has to be," she breathed, a note of pure wonder in her tone. "I've pushed myself to my absolute limits for years just to gain a single sliver of new understanding. But now… watching you wield my power... it's like I can suddenly see everything more clearly."
Orion's smile widened. "Don't just watch. Sit. Focus your Aether Senses on the fluctuations and the flow of my energy. My power is a blueprint for your own. Study it, and you will not only understand your Aether Cores better, but you will also refine your manipulation over them to a degree you never thought possible."
Elysia nodded curtly, her immense pride warring with the undeniable, intoxicating truth of his words.
Lisanna, however, let a slight, adorable pout form on her lips. "So we just get to sit here and meditate? How come this fancy bond doesn't just let us fight like seasoned veterans like you two?"
Elysia sighed, though she found herself internally curious about the same thing. Orion's movements hadn't been just powerful; they had been economical, precise, and utterly lethal. It was the ingrained style of a man who had fought for his life a thousand times.
Orion gave a wry smile. "I'm not entirely sure myself. The most action I've seen before this were dirty back-alley brawls where it was kill or be killed. I suppose I just have a natural combat instinct honed by years of surviving."
A sharp, barking laugh came from Lyra as she cracked her knuckles, the vibrating Aether around them finally dissipating. "Heh. 'Natural instinct'. Don't make it sound so poetic. We've been fighting and killing rats and scums in the Sump since we could walk. All we ever needed was a proper place to cut loose and refine ourselves. And now we have it."
Her predatory grin turned towards Elysia, dismissing the entire topic.
"So, stop standing around gawking. Bring out the stronger puppets this time. Get to it!"
Elysia scoffed, clicking her tongue at Lyra's infuriating, boundless arrogance. A week ago—hell, a day ago—she would have frozen the girl solid for such a tone.
Now, however, she was far too preoccupied with the tantalizing promise of her own growth to care. She strode to the control panel, her fingers flying across the interface, her mind already buzzing with anticipation.