Blackout Ascension: Return of Primordial Heir-Chapter 52: Partial Eclipse [1]

The thousands of lanterns drifted higher, turning the night sky into a shining ocean of gold.

Ignis leaned against the stone railing of their high balcony. He watched the floating lights with a quiet smile. Terravarous stood beside him, arms crossed, looking like a peaceful statue resting in the warm breeze. Velanor sat on the stone bench, tossing a silver coin into the air and catching it to the rhythm of the distant street music. Catherine stood a few feet away, her sharp eyes darting the highest lantern as it sailed toward the clouds.

Luna and Soltheia were still holding hands near the edge, speaking in soft whispers.

Kairos stood next to Seyana, his shoulder gently touching hers. The air was warm. The upbeat melody played on wooden lutes from the streets below lingered up to them, wrapping the balcony in a blanket of joy.

Everything was perfect. It was the best night of his life. Then, it happened. It didn’t start with a loud explosion or monster rumble. It started with a sickening silence inside his own head.

The cheerful music from the streets below didn’t stop, but to Kairos, it sounded like it was playing underwater. A cold shiver suddenly crawled down on his spine. The warm evening breeze changed, suddenly feeling like chilling winter ice against his skin.

DING!!

A single sharp sound echoed in his mind. It wasn’t the usual bright blue system interface. The digital window that flashed across Kairos’s vision was a bloody red.

[CRITICAL ALERT.]

[EXTERNAL MANA INTERFERENCE DETECTED.]

Kairos worried. He slowly let go of Seyana’s hand.

Blackout? Kairos whispered in his mind, his heartbeat quickening. What’s going on?

[WARNING. LEVEL-ZERO ANOMALY APPROACHING. MANA IS BEING SIPHONED. HOST, DRAW YOUR WEAPON IMMEDIATELY.]

Kairos’s heart dropped into his stomach. He reached over his shoulder, his fingers clenching the brown cloth wrapped tightly around Asteria.

Before he could speak, Luna gasped loudly. The Zephyros’ heir staggered backward, losing his hand away from Soltheia. Luna clutched his own chest, his pale eyes widening in pure terror. He knew this terrible feeling. He had felt this heavy fear on the rocky terrain of Moonspire Hill.

"Luna?" Soltheia frowned, stepping toward him with a worried look. "Are you okay?"

"Get back," Luna choked out, his voice shaking. He pointed a trembling finger at the sky. "Everyone, look up! Right now!"

They all looked up. The breathtaking ocean of golden lanterns was changing. The warm, bright flames inside the paper domes began to flicker rapidly.

At first, it just looked like a strong gust of sudden wind had caught them. But the wind wasn’t blowing.

One by one, the glowing lanterns burned out. It took seconds. The beautiful, shimmering sky went dark again. Thousands of paper lanterns turned into grey ash. The ash rained down heavily on the capital city like dirty, rotting snow.

Down in the plaza, the cheerful music screeched to a halt. The musicians dropped their lutes in confusion. The laughing crowds went silent, holding out their bare hands as the gray ash fell onto their colorful festival clothes.

Confusion rippled quickly through the city.

"What just happened?" Catherine asked, her voice tight. She stepped closer to her sister, her eyes skimming the plaza.

Ignis frowned. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers, trying to summon a small flame to light up their dark balcony.

Nothing happened. Not even a tiny spark.

Ignis stared blankly at his bare hand. He snapped his fingers again. Much harder this time. "Hey. My fire... it isn’t working at all."

Terravarous stepped forward, his heavy boots grinding against the stone floor. He closed his eyes and tried to summon his Diamond Skin. The giant grunted in sudden pain, clutching his broad chest. "Mana. It is gone. The air is completely empty."

Kairos felt it too. The natural, flowing energy that usually ran through the world, the invisible magic that kept the wavering rivers glowing and the academy wards active, was just gone. It was like an invisible plug had been pulled, draining the world dry.

"It is a vacuum," Velanor said, his usual smirk replaced by a grim scowl. He crouched down and touched the stone platform he had created earlier. "Something massive is eating the magic."

High above them, the night sky began to tear. The bright stars vanished. The glowing, silver moon was swallowed by a creeping, unnatural shadow.

The royal astronomers had predicted a partial eclipse for next month. They were wrong. A massive, jagged black circle carved itself into the night sky. It looked like the dark, alien magic runes Luna had drawn on the parchment. It was huge, stretching across the capital city like a suffocating dome. The edges of the dark circle bled with toxic black mist.

"When the sun and moon turn black," Kairos whispered, his blood running cold. He remembered the cursed words from the Restricted Archives. The Fallen will rise.

"Seyana, stay behind me," Kairos ordered, stepping protectively in front of her.

He ripped the brown cloth off his back. The fabric fell away, revealing the glimmering silver blade, Asteria. Even in the mana vacuum, the mythical sword flickered with a faint, holy light.

"Kairos, what is that thing?" Seyana asked, her voice trembling as she looked up at the terrifying sky.

"It is a fairy tale," Luna said bitterly, stepping in front of Soltheia, pulling two sharp throwing daggers from his dark sleeves, "the one we really hoped for was a lie."

****

In the square, heavy confusion finally turned into panic. People started screaming loudly. The oppressive gravity of the dark circle pressed down hard on the crowd. It was hard to breathe. Children cried. Merchants abandoned their wooden stalls and ran toward the narrow alleyways. But they didn’t get far.

SHHHUK!!

A sickening sound echoed loudly across the square. From the jagged edges of the black circle in the sky, thick pillars of solid darkness shot down into the ground. They crashed into the cobblestone streets, shattering the stone and throwing massive clouds of dust into the air.

The dark pillars connected, forming a pitch-black barrier wall around the entire festival district. They were trapped. The hundreds of civilians, the armed Royal Guards, and the young elite Generals were sealed tightly inside a cage of dark magic.

[SYSTEM UPDATE.]

[BARRIER DETECTED. NO ESCAPE ROUTE AVAILABLE. THREAT LEVEL: FATAL.]

[HOST, PREPARE FOR IMMEDIATE COMBAT.] 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

"They are here," Luna hissed, his silver eyes darting around the panicked plaza below.

The dark mist gathering at the base of the barrier walls began to shift..Footsteps rumbled over the terrified screams of the crowd. They were metallic footsteps that sounded like grinding, rusted iron.

Out of the deep shadows stepped eight towering figures. They wore old, jagged black plate armor. Thick mist oozed constantly from their joints, consuming away at the faint light around them. They had no faces, just dark, empty metal helms. In their armored hands, they held massive swords forged from pure, solid darkness.

Black Mist Knights. An entire elite assassination squad. A group of brave Solaris city guards charged at the closest Knight, raising their iron spears. "For the King! Stand down!" the guard captain yelled at the top of his lungs.

The Black Mist Knights didn’t even bother to look at them. A knight simply swung its dark sword in a horizontal arc. The blade cut the space in front of them. A wave of dark, compressed energy shuddered cleanly through the air, slicing the guards, their iron shields, and the stone fountain behind them in half.

The brave guards fell to the ground, blood splattering and turning instantly into gray ash before they even hit the dirt.

The crowd screamed much louder, scrambling wildly over each other to get away from the towering monsters. But there was nowhere to run. The dark barrier blocked every single exit. The Knights were slowly walking forward, slaughtering everyone who got in their way.

"No," Seyana gasped, covering her mouth as she watched her innocent people turn to ash. "We have to stop them right now."

Ignis growled, his red eyes blazing with raw fury. Even without his fire magic, he was a proud warrior. He grabbed a heavy metal support pole from a nearby festival tent that had collapsed onto their balcony. "I am going to smash their empty heads in."

Terravarous cracked his knuckles, stepping up beside him. "We fight together. Do not break formation."

"Wait!" Luna yelled, holding his arm out to stop his friends. "You can’t just run blindly at them. You heard what happened on the mountain from me. They don’t just use swords. If they start speaking that alien language, your brains will melt."

"Luna is right," Kairos said, his grip tightening on Asteria. "Physical attacks won’t work easily against mist. We need a real strategy."

Velanor Banner stepped up to the edge of the stone balcony. He looked down at the eight towering Knights closing in on the helpless civilians.

"I can buy us some time," Velanor said, his face serious. He didn’t have his usual cocky smile. "My earth magic is sluggish because of the mana drain, but I can still physically move the ground."

Velanor slammed both of his hands hard onto the stone railing. "Earth Shift: Trench Trap!"

Down in the plaza, the cobblestone street beneath the eight Black Mist Knights suddenly groaned loudly. The ground split wide open, creating a deep trench right under their heavy boots.

Four of the Knights fell into the deep pit, crashing into the dirt below. But the other four didn’t fall.

Instead of dropping, their bodies simply vanished into thick black mist. They hovered easily over the gaping hole like weightless dark clouds, reappearing on the other side in an instant.

"They can teleport," Velanor cursed, pulling his shaking hands back. "They are basically unhittable."

One of the Knights slowly turned its dark helm upward. It looked at the elevated stone balcony where the young Generals were standing.

The Knight didn’t speak a single word. It just pointed its dark greatsword at them.

Instantly, the four Knights on the ground vanished back into mist.

"Watch out!" Kairos yelled, pushing Seyana behind him.

Black haze materialized right on their stone balcony. The air turned freezing cold. The sickening scent of rotting ash filled their lungs. The four Black Mist Knights descended over them, raising their jagged swords.

They had come for the biggest threats in the city. They were here to assassinate the future leaders of the mortal world.

Ignis swung his metal pole right at the closest Knight’s head. "Get out from our balcony!"

The metal pole passed right through the Knight’s helmet like it was hitting simple smoke. The Knight grabbed Ignis by the throat with its free hand and threw him off his feet. Ignis crashed hard into the stone bench, groaning in sheer pain.

Terravarous stepped in, throwing a massive right hook. The punch was strong enough to shatter a boulder. But the Knight simply melted into shadows, reappearing right behind the giant.

The dark sword swung down, cutting a deep gash across Terravarous’s broad back. The giant roared in pain, falling heavily to one knee.

"Terravarous!" Catherine yelled, grabbing a discarded wooden lantern stick to bravely defend herself.

Kairos lunged forward, swinging Asteria in a wide arc, aiming for the Knight that had cut Terravarous. The holy silver light of the sword hissed loudly as it met the dark mist. Asteria didn’t pass through. It actually connected with the armor, sending a bright shower of black sparks into the cold air.

The Knight staggered back slightly, tilting its head as if genuinely surprised that a mortal weapon could touch it.

[SYSTEM ANALYSIS: THE SILVER BLADE CONTAINS HIGH PURIFICATION PROPERTIES. IT IS EFFECTIVE AGAINST CORRUPTED MANA. HOWEVER, THERE ARE EIGHT TARGETS. YOUR BASE SPEED IS INSUFFICIENT TO PROTECT ALL ALLIES.]

"Then make me faster," Kairos gritted his teeth. He blocked a downward strike from a second Knight. The impact sent a painful shockwave right up his arms. He was rapidly losing ground.

Luna stood in the center of the chaos, keeping Soltheia safely behind him. He watched Ignis get tossed aside. He saw Terravarous bleeding. He saw Kairos struggling desperately to hold off two Knights at once. His friends were going to die here.

Unless he did the thing he swore he would never do again. Luna closed his pale eyes.

He ignored the freezing cold. He ignored the screaming crowd below. He reached into his own soul, pushing past his natural gravity magic, past his fear, and found the golden chain wrapped tightly around his core.

The Cosmic Lock. Luna pressed his mental hands against the ancient seal, and he pulled hard.

CRACK!!

A much larger fracture split loudly across the golden chain. A roaring, blinding flood of infinite mana slammed vehemently into his brain. The pain was terrifying agony. Bright red blood dripped from his nose and ears, staining his black collar. But Luna didn’t scream. He forced his eyes open.

His irises burned with a terrifying elegance.

"Kairos!" Luna shouted, his voice echoing with an unnatural authority that made the Black Mist Knights actually freeze in their tracks. "Don’t try to track their bodies! They are moving through the shadows!"

Kairos parried a dark blade and jumped back. "Then how do I hit them?!"

Luna wiped the blood from his chin. A dark, reckless smirk spread across his pale face. He looked at the four towering monsters on the balcony.

"You don’t track their bodies," Luna said, focusing his newly unlocked mind into the dark void connecting the Knights. "You let me read their minds. I will tell you exactly where they are going to be."