The Legacy Revealed

Klaus blinked, eyes narrowing slightly in confusion.

His brows knit together as he scratched the back of his head.

"Wait—hang on…"

He pointed toward Lunaria with his thumb.

"Didn't you just say something about me… drifting too close to the veil?"

Lunaria gave a graceful nod, the stars behind her crown shimmering softly like listening constellations.

"I did."

Klaus folded his arms, stepping forward with a half-frown.

"What exactly does that mean?"

Lunaria's gaze softened with ancient amusement. She muttered to herself under her breath, the words barely audible:

"So much like his father… and yet… so different from the heirs before."

Then, with an elegant gesture, she turned and began to walk down a newly-formed path that shimmered like moonlight on water.

"Walk with me, Klaus."

He followed without hesitation, still cautious, still curious.

As they moved, her voice danced gently in the still air:

"When I said this is the Ancestral Realm, where the Echoes of the Aetherions gather… I meant only heirs to the throne of our bloodline can come here."

She halted and turned, her ethereal presence towering like the night sky itself.

Lifting one glowing finger, she pointed gently to his chest—right where his heart pulsed.

"And you, Klaus… you have just awakened the first node of the Aetherion bloodline."

A soft wave of energy pulsed through him the moment she said it, as if confirming the truth in her words. Klaus looked down at his chest, then nodded slowly—putting it together now. The strange surges of strength. The way his body felt different since the tournament. The elemental power.

"So… that's what this feeling is," Klaus said. "That's why I've felt different from everyone else."

"This is… because of the bloodline."

Lunaria suddenly paused mid-step.

Her brow furrowed ever so slightly—not in alarm, but in contemplation—as she turned her head just enough for the glowing stars behind her to shift in kind. The moonlight around them pulsed faintly, like a ripple in calm water.

She closed her eyes.

"…Strange."

Klaus blinked. "What is it?"

Her gaze returned to him, now sharper, more curious. "Your power… it's faint. The first node has awakened, yes, but the surge is… weaker than expected."

Klaus raised a brow, slightly confused. "Weaker? What do you mean?"

Instead of answering directly, she tilted her head in his direction.

"Klaus… how old are you?"

He paused for a second, thrown by the question. "Fifteen."

Lunaria's eyes widened—not in horror, but clear disbelief. "Fifteen…"

She folded her hands behind her back, her silver robes flowing like mist as she walked a slow circle around him.

"A normal heir of the Aetherion bloodline awakens their first node at the age of twelve," she said softly. "Sometimes even earlier, depending on the planetary resonance."

Klaus's expression tightened. "Huh. Maybe it's because of Earth."

She turned slightly.

"The energy… or mana. Whatever you call it back there—it's not the same, right?" he continued, shrugging with one hand. "Maybe that's why it took longer."

Lunaria nodded, her expression thoughtful. "That could very well be the case. Earth's elemental lattice is fragmented—its core threads are far too young and unstable to sustain early bloodline ignition."

Klaus narrowed his eyes slightly, the weight of her earlier words still settling in his mind.

"So… Earth's been holding me back?"

Lunaria gave a quiet hum and nodded—but only once.

"Well… yes and no."

Klaus tilted his head, confused.

She turned to face the vast starfield above them, then raised a hand—fingers glowing with strands of silver light. With a graceful motion, she drew swirling arcs in the sky. Stars shifted. Trails of light aligned. A planetary system slowly formed in the air, hovering in a crystalline projection. Each world pulsed with its own radiant hue.

"There's something you must understand about the cosmos, child. Power is not born in the body—it is shaped by the world beneath your feet."

She pointed to one of the glowing orbs: Earth—small, pale, flickering.

"Every planet has a Lattice Core. Think of it as the heart of that world's spiritual energy. It pulses. It breathes. And it determines how energy flows into the living things upon it."

She then gestured to another world—larger, swirling with violent crimson and azure. It hummed like a furnace barely contained.

"This... is Eralis—the world your ancestors once walked. The original seat of the Aetherion Dynasty. Its core was ancient. Refined. Perfectly attuned to bloodlines like yours. Energy flowed into the body easily—without resistance. Children awakened early. Power came as naturally as breath."

Her hand swept back to Earth.

"But Earth?" Her voice softened. "Its Lattice is young. Shattered long ago by some catastrophe your kind no longer remembers. The energy here is diluted, unstable, fragmented into particles that resist complex bloodlines like yours."

Klaus furrowed his brow. "So, I've been fighting upstream this whole time…"

Lunaria nodded gently. "Exactly. It's not your fault. On Earth, you were walking through fog. Here—" she raised her hand again as a gentle wind circled them "—you've stepped into clear air."

She turned to him now, solemn. "Your body tried to ignite the node before. It simply couldn't find enough resonance. That's why you feel like your power is lagging behind.

Klaus looked down at his hand, watching faint silver flickers swirl between his fingers.

"So I was meant to be more than this?"

Lunaria smiled softly. "No, Klaus. You are more than this. You've simply been caged by Earth's limits."

She stepped forward once more, her voice stronger now—etched with reverence.

"Now let me show you what our bloodline was truly capable of. Let me show you the Aetherions."

---

"The Aetherions... we were once ordinary."

A luminous projection bloomed between them, shaped from stardust and old memory. A massive continent floated among the stars—Eralis, the birthplace of the Aetherion Empire.

"Before the wars. Before the bloodline. We were farmers. Scholars. Nomads under the sky. Until one man changed everything."

The image shifted. A lone figure stood atop a shattered moon, bathed in violet light. His name appeared in old sigils, then translated into a name Klaus could read:

—High King Norellion Aetherion, the First King of Light and End.

From his outstretched hand, the weapon emerged.

Lunaria raised her palm—and the staff materialized in spectral light, identical to the image Klaus now saw before him.Wrought in obsidian and stellar essence, its crescent head glowed with sigils that pulsed like a heartbeat, and from its core spun galaxies no larger than sparks.

"This," Lunaria whispered, "is the Alpha-Omega. The first and final weapon."

Her tone changed—softer, yet weighty with awe.

"With a power as unpredictable as fate itself, this staff bends the boundaries of creation and destruction. Beyond space. Beyond time."

Klaus, breath caught, stared at the image. "How did he get it? Did he awaken? Was it… destined?"

Lunaria's expression darkened. Her glowing eyes dimmed.

"We'll get there, child."

The projection expanded, showing the Aetherion family tree—a vast, intricate structure of glowing branches that twisted across millennia. Each King's face appeared in shimmering succession, all bearing the same sigil on their core.

"Every Aetherion king, queen, and heir has held the Alpha-Omega. It is not passed. It chooses. And through it… we changed."

She pointed to a segment in the tree labeled: "Era of Expansion."

"We went from regular elemental wielders to energy architects. We learned to extract energy from planets, then stars… then dimensions. We became a Type 1 civilization, able to control our world's energy. Then Type 2—harvesting from stars. Then Type 3—controlling galaxies. And finally…"

She turned to Klaus.

"Type 4. Where the Aetherions could harness the fabric of the universe itself."

The projection shifted again—now displaying cities of floating crystal, moon-sized libraries, stellar gateways powered by thought.

"But power breeds fear."

Lunaria's tone chilled.

"Invasions came. Gods. Leviathans. The Forgebound Swarm. Civilizations born in black holes. We fought them all. We were nearly eradicated. But we survived… because of this weapon."

The Alpha-Omega spun, its surface shifting between burning suns and frozen time. Beneath it, the sigil of the Aetherion bloodline blazed.

Now, Lunaria extended a new branch from the glowing tree—one smaller, but intimately connected to the royal line.

"This... is your lineage."

Images appeared—Klaus's father, a man with solemn violet eyes. Then a woman with wind in her hair—his mother. Ancestors Klaus had never seen, some bearing armor carved with starlight, others dressed in robes of raw arcane weave. One of them stood beside the Alpha-Omega, holding it with sorrow.

Lunaria's voice lowered, full of meaning.

"The last hope of our name."

Klaus leaned back, brows furrowed in thought, the shimmering echoes of the family tree still fading from Lunaria's projection. He took a breath.

Lunaria's gaze softened, her ethereal glow dimming slightly. "Now comes the answer to your question."

She stepped closer, her voice steady but laced with ancient sorrow.

"You wanted to know how the weapon itself was here in the first place, right?"

Klaus nodded.