Part One Hundred Twenty-Eight — Astro Nova

　Enzo raised his hand toward the sky, and the heavens themselves seemed to answer.

　Countless points of light bled into existence around him, tiny and distant at first, drifting into slow, deliberate orbit — stars, genuine stars, pulled from wherever such things actually came from, gathering closer and closer until they began, impossibly, to compress.

What—

　Eris thought, watching from the field's edge, something between awe and dread settling into her chest.

　The gathering light grew denser with every passing second, heat radiating outward in visible waves, until what hovered above Enzo's outstretched palm resembled nothing so much as the collapsing core of a dying star — brilliant, terrible, humming with a pressure that made the very air scream in protest.

　Myrath's own casters, still riding the confidence of a king who'd never once tasted genuine defeat, began their own second volley, level eight explosive spellwork gathering across ten thousand outstretched hands in a wave meant to finally, decisively end this.

　They never got the chance to release it properly.

"Retreat."

　Eris's voice cut across their own side of the field, sharp and absolute, no room left for hesitation.

"Everyone, now — this isn't about their spellwork anymore."

　The elite trio and their subordinates fell back instantly, trusting her judgment without question, the whole of Horizoncrest's assembled force putting hurried distance between themselves and whatever Enzo was actually about to unleash.

　Enzo's eyes had gone distant, focused entirely on the collapsing star cradled above his palm, his voice carrying across the battlefield with the weight of something that had already decided its own ending.

"[ Astro Nova ]"

　The word left his mouth exactly as Myrath's own delayed volley finally launched — fifteen thousand soldiers' worth of confidence, colliding with something considerably beyond anything their history had ever prepared them to survive.

　The sphere descended.

　A blinding flash tore across the battlefield first, white and absolute, swallowing the sky itself before the actual detonation had even properly begun.

　Then came the explosion — not a single blast, but something that unfolded in impossible layers, a wave of raw cosmic destruction expanding outward in a perfect, merciless sphere.

　Cosmic energy tore through Myrath's own remaining defensive wards like paper, magic barriers simply ceasing to exist the instant the wave reached them. Lingering stardust followed in the blast's wake, burning through anything it touched, disrupting whatever mana regeneration any survivor might have desperately attempted.

　For those who somehow endured the initial detonation, the field itself became a trap — gravity collapsing inward around the blast's epicenter, movement slowing to nothing, escape rendered entirely impossible while the remaining cosmic energy continued its patient, thorough work.

Stellar Collapse, Eris thought, distant, horrified, watching the devastation unfold from a safe distance she was already grateful for.

　The blast didn't stop at the army's own boundaries.

　It continued outward, consuming the open plain the battle had been fought upon, tearing through the mountain range standing behind Myrath's former position, and kept going still, a wave of absolute annihilation that finally, inevitably, reached the kingdom itself.

　Myrath — city, castle, every home and market and academy and temple its people had ever built — simply ceased to exist, erased from the world in a silence so total it felt, to everyone watching, considerably louder than the explosion that had caused it.

Fifteen thousand souls. An entire kingdom. Gone, in the space of a single named attack.

　The silence that followed stretched on, perfect and endless, a kingdom-shaped hole in the world where fifteen thousand lives, one arrogant crown, and the very name Myrath had existed only moments earlier.

　Enzo lowered his hand slowly, the sky sealing itself shut above him, brushing dust from his sleeve — dust that had never been ordinary dust at all, that carried no name, that remembered nothing of what it had once been.

　He turned, unhurried, and began walking away without looking back.

"You were right about one thing, little king," he said, quiet, to the empty air where a throne had stood only minutes before. "He is a mongrel. A bastard. A stain."

　He paused, something final entering his voice.

"But he is my mongrel," Enzo said. "And you do not speak of what is mine."