Chapter 129: Nebula Power The Nebulastorm Shot

The evolution had changed far more than a name on a parchment scroll.

Eagle to Roc: a single word separated the two forms on paper, yet the difference plunged down to the primordial roots of existence. A new bloodline origin, a different root entirely.

Whatever Thunder Roc had been before, it was now steadily becoming the sovereign of the open sky in every sense that mattered.

The new ultimate it had awakened provided staggering confirmation of that. A thirty-minute cooldown remained standard for a skill of this tier, but the design had no fixed radius.

Every additional point of mana poured into the cast pushed the area outward by a single unit, scaling dynamically to whatever the fight demanded.

With enough mana, a single strike could blanket an entire battlefield in absolute elemental fury.

A skill with a genuinely open ceiling, in the right hands.

Kael inspected the results with deep, unalloyed satisfaction.

With Stormwing Sovereign now at Epic tier, the Bloodseed Pearls would no longer move the needle on it, as they worked only on companions below that threshold.

One pearl remained in his inventory, and the question of where to spend it deserved real thought.

He worked through the roster by elimination.

The Hollow Emissary already carried an Epic bloodline. So did Void Cataclysm.

Wraithlord, an undead warrior animated by baleful spectral flame rather than any true bloodline, had nothing for the pearl to awaken. That left only Lyra, a Starborn hero carrying the unmistakable inheritance of the Starstone itself.

Without further debate, he held the final crimson pearl out to her.

She accepted it with a quiet word of thanks, placed the luminous fruit in her mouth, and swallowed.

A deep crimson radiance ignited somewhere inside her and began spreading outward in a slow, hypnotic wave through her whole frame.

Her boots parted from the churned earth as she drifted upward, weightless in the morning air, brilliant strands of silver starlight coiling in lazy, mesmerizing spirals around her.

The plain silver leather she wore shifted visibly, intricate pale-gold patterns weaving themselves across the surface in flowing lines.

The bow in her hand transformed with her. Nine brilliant gems erupted along its frame, each one burning with the fierce intensity of a miniature star set into the wood.

The string itself dissolved into a taut, humming thread of pure, shimmering starlight, refining the whole weapon into something breathtakingly elegant and far more dangerous.

The star-mark between her brows flared with a blinding silver glare, reshaping itself mid-pulse into the swirling pattern of a nebula, burning against her forehead with a calm, regal majesty.

[Notification: Companion [Lyra, the Starbow] has absorbed the Legendary spirit fruit [Bloodseed Pearl]. Bloodline awakened evolution complete. Epic-tier form unlocked: [Lyra, the Nebula Bow]. New S-rank skill awakened: [Nebulastorm Shot]. S-rank skill [Celestial Surge] evolved into SS-rank (Celestial Dominion).]

"On the first try."

A broad, genuine smile of delight broke across Kael’s face.

Three pearls total, and two companions had just crossed the Epic threshold between them. Odds like that did not happen by coincidence. The Ring of Infinite Fortune had to be doing quiet work in the background again.

Can’t argue with the ring. Never could.

He accessed her full profile without a second’s delay, eager to see how far the evolution had actually carried her.

[LYRA, THE NEBULA BOW]

Race: Starborn

Bloodline Tier: Epic

Constitution ★★★★★★★★★★

Strength ★★★★★★★★★★★★★

Agility ★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

Spirit ★★★★★★★★★★

Skills: Starshot (B), Starfall Barrage (B), Meteor Volley (A), Starpiercer (A), Starbreaker (S), Nebulastorm Shot (S), Celestial Dominion (SS)

Born from the union of Starstone essence and the raw power of the Astral Heavens, every Starborn hero is a natural-born archer, capable of channeling that same celestial force directly into their arrows, strong enough, at its peak, to shatter stars outright.

[NEBULASTORM SHOT]

Skill Grade: S

Effect: Loose an arrow infused with nebula energy. On impact, it erupts into a swirling storm dealing 320% attack damage to every target within a ten-meter radius.

Mana Cost: 1,000

Cooldown: 120s

[CELESTIAL DOMINION]

Skill Grade: SS

Passive: Basic attacks are infused with nebula power, increasing damage dealt by 30%.

Active: Each arrow that lands splashes 40% of its damage onto surrounding targets.

Mana Cost: 30 per arrow

Cooldown: None

Her already devastating output had just been pushed into territory that barely had a name yet.

Basic attacks now splashed on every hit, turning a single-target archer into something closer to a mobile siege weapon.

Kael closed the panel with deep contentment and looked out across the battlefield.

Last night’s fighting had left the southern bank of the Silverflow in ruins.

Corpses stretched in every direction, broken weapons and spent arrows buried in the blood-caked mud, while a few riderless horses stood dazed in the open, nosing at ruined grass as if nothing around them registered at all.

Northvale’s soldiers had already begun the grim work of clearing the dead.

Ebonreach itself had not emerged unscathed. Westfall’s flying units and the sheer weight of their numbers had overwhelmed sections of the walls over the course of the night.

Large stretches had collapsed, and most of the interior structures were reduced to rubble. Only a bit over a thousand Starborn remained standing out of the garrison.

Kael felt not a flicker of concern. He had already worked out how to handle that bill.

Elara would file the full damage report with the crown, formally, and the crown would cover the cost, double if the paperwork happened to reflect it that way.

Every coin of reconstruction would come straight from Northvale’s treasury, the very resources he had been planning to funnel into building out his own territory anyway.

After a night of heavy fighting, plenty of players had already begun logging off, flashes of white light dotting the ruined landscape as they dropped out one by one.

Then someone near the front of the crowd stopped mid-step, his face draining of color, his head snapping toward the northern horizon.

"Everyone, look! What is that?!"

Heads whipped around. Gazes swept north, and one by one, every face in the crowd stiffened in the same moment, a profound, heavy awe spreading through them in a slow, silent wave.