The Hollow Beyond twisted above them like a living mosaic. Gravity rippled like waves. Light from the crack refracted through hanging stones and floating crystal canopies. Beneath the fractured skyline, Nilo Finnegan stood on an uneven slab of obsidian rock, steam rising faintly from his body. Across from him, Zhu Honghui adjusted his wrist guards, calm as still water.
A circle had formed—an unspoken perimeter of Stellar Soldiers and Dominion operatives. They promptly turned off their communicators and shut down the surveillance drones. Just two elite seeds from rival superpowers facing off.
“Is this necessary?” Byron whispered to Rohan.
“Necessary?” Rohan shrugged. “No. But inevitable.”
As Nilo and Zhu Honghui approached each other towards the middle Honghui spoke first.
“What are your conditions flaming soldier? Should you win?”
“A 20% cut on your harvests. And no killing inside the Hollow.”
“Very well. I agree.”
Zhu moved first.
His feet barely tapped the surface as he surged forward with perfect center balance—no wasted motion. His body glowed with a crimson aura, the sign of Xiyuan’s Qi-derived S-Factor variant, shaped like flowing silk and fire. With a flick of his palm, a crescent of pressure cut through the air.
Nilo dodged low, barely skimming the ground, the edges of his clothes nicked by the force. His own aura hadn’t flared yet—he was still holding back.
Zhu followed with a rising spiral kick, the motion generating a vertical shockwave that cracked the rock around them. Nilo’s forearm snapped up in defense, laced with a faint green flicker—his Fantasia Flame barely activated. The impact sent him sliding, heels skidding across the stone.
“You’re not fighting seriously,” Zhu said evenly, frowning as he was landing softly. “Are you purposely losing?”
Nilo’s eyes narrowed. “No. I’m afraid of losing control.”
Then the shift came.
Nilo’s pupils dilated. Time slowed—not in reality, but in perception. His core skill, Thought Acceleration, activated in bursts, allowing him to pre-calculate motion vectors, predict feints, and simulate outcomes before they happened.
Zhu rushed him again, fists darting like needles—jab, sweep, shoulder feint, rising elbow. To an untrained eye, it looked like a blur.
But to Nilo, every strike had a frame. Every micro-gesture a purpose.
(Incoming high feint. Left sweep delayed by 0.3s. Counter: diagonal parry into off-angle kick.)
He moved with surgical precision. Slid past the jab, angled his elbow to disrupt the sweep, and drove a knee toward Zhu’s open flank.
Zhu took it—grunted—but responded by grabbing Nilo’s leg and pivoting into a throw.
They both hit the ground hard—dust and cracked obsidian flying—but Nilo sprang to his feet, flames trailing off his fingertips.
“This is enough,” Nilo muttered.
With a thought, the green flame in his palm flickered—then turned blue. Frost crackled along his gauntlet, and his breath misted.
He raised both hands. Four flames danced between his fingers—green, blue, purple, and a new kind of flame, a barely stable white.
Zhu stepped back, surprised for the first time.
“You’re using multiple traits. Simultaneously.”
“You’re the one who asked for me to get serious.”
Nilo launched forward, low to the ground, using acceleration bursts between steps to warp his trajectory. A blue flame burst behind him mid-leap, freezing the ground and launching him forward.
He slammed his palm toward Zhu’s chest—purple flame arcing out like a psychic whip.
Zhu dodged, but caught a lick of it. His body shivered—not from cold, but from a phantom pain in the back of his mind.
He hissed. “You’re mixing effects?”
“I’m experimenting.”
Zhu’s form shifted then—his body glowing brighter red, and his fists seemed to carve afterimages of themselves.
Then he began striking with Chained Echoes—a technique that let each hit reverberate through the air seconds after impact which a reclusive master taught him personally.
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Nilo caught one, two… but the third hit came from the past, a delayed shockwave that struck from behind.
He gasped, staggered—his flames faltering.
Then it happened.
Nilo’s body began to hum. Not metaphorically—a sound vibrated from within, like resonance through steel.
His skin flushed. His flame colors spun wildly, then merged briefly into a silver flare, before snapping into clarity.
The world sharpened.
The third star ignited in his Stellar Core.
His aura flared with colorless fire—a transient fusion of all flame types, his body simultaneously burning, freezing, healing, and decaying in perfect tension.
Zhu paused, sweat on his brow as he instinctively felt the danger posed by Nilo’s transformation.
“I’ve seen many breakthroughs,” he said. “ Yet none that looked like that.”
They clashed once more—Zhu’s precision and martial insight vs Nilo’s multifaceted assault. Fire arced across the sky. Ice crystals shattered mid-air. The ground beneath them warped from the overlapping forces.
Laughter came from Zhu Honghui as he reveled in the joy of combat. Every technique, every tactic he knew was employed as he fought Nilo.
But now, Nilo was too fast. Too aware. His Thought Acceleration no longer needed to pulse—it was constant. He dodged before Zhu committed. Countered before Zhu planned.
A final blow: a rising uppercut wreathed in purple and white flame, striking Zhu square in the chest—not to destroy, but to demand submission.
Zhu flew back, slid, and landed on one knee.
He coughed once. Smiled faintly.
“I concede.”
Nilo stood over him, breathing heavy, his aura retracting into his skin.
The crowd was silent.
“We will honor the agreement.” Zhu Honghui said as a female member of his squad hurried to his side helping him stand.
And with that, the two groups went separate ways and activated their drones and communicators once more.
---
In a hastily built wooden pavilion overlooking the mountain where the two stars previously fought, Xiyuan medics hovered around Zhu Honghui, carefully applying salves and running diagnostic scans with their jade-etched tablets. His robes were torn, ribs visibly bruised, but his breath remained calm and even.
An Meili, a member of the Xiyuan expeditionary force, crossed her arms, lips pursed. “You lost.”
Zhu nodded, sipping a metallic herbal tonic. “Yes.”
“And you’re smiling.”
“I learned more in that fight than in the last three years of cultivation,” Zhu said, eyes gleaming. “That flame technique—multi-type elemental fusion—it’s unstable, but fluid. If I hadn’t relied on Chained Echoes, he would’ve buried me before I reacted.”
“He held back on that last strike you know. He mixed the purple flame to change the white flame’s nature. Those white flames are scary hui-ge, my eyes see that it burns anything.” Yu Xingxing, another member of the Xiyuan expeditionary force chimed in from the side.
He looked down at his hands. They were trembling, not from fatigue, but energy.
“My core’s reacting. I’m… almost there.”
Meili’s eyes widened slightly. “You mean—”
“Peak of 1-Star,” Zhu confirmed. “I can feel it. Nilo pushed me through the final bottleneck.”
The Dominion aides muttered among themselves. If Zhu Honghui broke through before they even entered the Hollow, it would tip the power balance. Mei gave a small nod.
“Good. You'll need that power. Next time, we’ll be the ones taking advantage of those smelly Avalon people!” An Meili clenched her fist and softly punched Zhu Honghui in the chest.
---
The Hollow Beyond shimmered with impossible geometry—floating obsidian shards like hanging swords, rivers of light that bent upwards, and a sky that rippled like liquid mirror. The air was denser, tinged with pressure and a faint scent of ozone and burnt metal.
Overwatch’s voice crackled in their earpieces.
“Recon formations. Genesis Squad Alpha and Beta, proceed along vectors marked Green and Indigo. Monitor energy readings and maintain radio integrity.”
The cadets moved in cautious lines. Nilo walked near the front with Byron, Claire, Solace, and Rohan.
Naturally, it didn’t take long before someone spoke.
“So…” Byron said casually, “…what’s it like being the first-ever 3-Star Stellar Soldier?”
Nilo raised an eyebrow. “The same. Just… more intense migraines.”
Lira grinned. “Come on, seriously. You flared colorless. That shouldn’t even be possible. Did you feel it? Like, when you crossed the threshold?”
“I didn’t feel it so much as I stopped feeling. Everything went numb. Then everything made sense.” He tapped his temple. “My thoughts are faster. Flames are calmer. It’s like… having perfect control while standing on the edge of losing it.”
“Sounds terrifying,” Claire muttered. “And a little sexy.”
Everyone paused.
Claire was unfazed by the stares.
“You’re the only one who can say that get away with it,” Solace said dryly.
Overwatch’s voice interrupted again.
“Cadets, maintain formation. If the anomaly ahead moves again, I’ll re-vector you.”
“Copy that, Overwatch,” Nilo replied, voice steady.
“And Lifefire, good job on that fight.”
“What?” Nilo was taken by surprise as that spar was supposed to be only known to people there.
“I told you I’ll be monitoring you in real time.”
“She’s really terrifying…” Byron quipped.
---
The group passed a levitating bone structure, twisted like a whale’s spine but made of translucent crystal. The deeper they went, the more surreal everything became—echoes that had no source, flickers of movement in their peripherals, gravity behaving inconsistently.
Arden clicked his tongue. “This place feels like a hallucination.”
Solace knelt by a swirling pool of glass-like liquid. “These formations… they’re living terrain. Look.” She pointed to the ripple patterns—they pulsed in time with their footsteps.
“I’ve seen this before,” Rohan said, frowning. “In Overwatch’s old briefings on pre-collapse ruins in the Tibetan Tiers. Dimensional bleed. This isn’t just space—this is memory etched into terrain.”
Overwatch chimed in again.
“Rohan is correct. This anomaly appears to contain folded temporal strands. Do not touch anything reactive or animate without permission.”
“Too late,” Arden muttered, toeing a glowing vine.
“Overwatch, Arden touched a vine,” Claire said flatly.
“Everyone stand on guard, I’m getting abnormal readings.”
Everyone laughed—nervously.
Nilo trailed behind, his thoughts heavier than his steps. His internal flames pulsed with new rhythm, like breathing in a larger lung. But something about this place called to him. Not in words, not even in emotion—just pull.
Then a sudden tremor rocked the path ahead.
A massive obsidian sentinel rose from the terrain, ten meters tall, its body comprised of interlinked star-forged plates. Energy pulsed from its core like sonar. A roar than sounded like tearing metal resounded as the being stood and faced Nilo’s group.
