Chapter 76: Crushing Victory Over the Starborn

A low, mournful horn rolled out from the floating city ahead, and the party reined in as one.

Figures appeared along the walls within moments armored warriors, human in build and bearing, but unmistakably something else entirely up close.

Silver hair, silver eyes, each glowing faintly like captured starlight.

Between every set of brows, a glowing rune sat etched into the skin itself, each one unique, each one radiating a quiet, otherworldly weight.

Every face on that wall settled into grim readiness the moment the party came into view, weapons gripped tight, bracing for exactly the confrontation that was coming.

One of them stepped forward younger-looking than the rest, clearly in command and called down, voice hard.

"State your business.

Why does an armed column approach Ebonreach?"Kael spurred his horse forward, raising his voice to carry.

"We ride under the banner of the Third Princess of Northvale. By her order, this city is to be brought under her authority."

"Submit now, or be removed by force. Those are your only two options."

"Northvale?" The commander’s lip curled. "Never heard of it. And it changes nothing."

"Ebonreach belongs to the Starborn. No outsider sets foot here uninvited."

"A bold claim." Kael’s voice stayed level, cold. "Every stretch of soil beneath this sky answers to a crown somewhere.

This land answers to Northvale’s. Claiming otherwise doesn’t make it true."He raised one hand, signal clear.

"Take the wall."

The order needed no repeating. All hundred-plus guards surged forward as one, bows coming up first, a storm of silver-fletched arrows arcing toward the defenders above.

Mages followed immediately behind, staves raised, channeled energy crackling out toward the battlements in overlapping waves.

The Starborn answered in kind, arrows raining back down from the wall, and the fight ignited in full.Guild strongholds in Ascension came in one of two forms.

The first meant staking a claim on open ground and building from nothing craftsman-type players raising walls and towers by hand, recruiting human garrisons once the base hit a certain scale.

The second meant seizing something that already existed. More efficient by far, and it carried a secondary advantage most players never fully appreciated: these outposts weren’t just stone and timber.

They were home to entire populations of distinct, non-human peoples the Swarmkin, Orcs, Giants, the restless Undead, each with their own racial strengths.

Take the outpost, and its inhabitants came with it, trainable into garrison units that ran circles around anything a standard human defense force could field.

Ebonreach had carried a reputation in Kael’s first life as the single strongest stronghold on the entire server and not purely for its unusual nature, floating and effectively indestructible.

The real reason sat behind those walls right now.

The Starborn themselves.

Origin stories around the race ran mythic even by this world’s standards born, the old accounts claimed, from the awakening of a celestial stone rather than any ordinary bloodline.

Whatever the truth of it, their raw combat strength matched the legend.

An unremarkable Starborn warrior sat comfortably above level 40, strong enough on its own to flatten most ordinary players this early into the game without much effort.

Fortunately, Elara’s guard hadn’t been assembled from ordinary stock either.

All hundred strong, every member sat at level 50 or above and leading the charge, vice-captain Sir Gareth Thorne carried a stat sheet that put him in an entirely different conversation.

Level 70, legendary in his own right, already brushing against the edge of what the realm called the Exalted threshold.

He dropped from his saddle without ceremony, boots finding nothing but open air beneath him, and simply walked upward as if the sky itself had decided to hold his weight.

A single sweep of his blade followed one clean, arcing stroke of condensed sword-force and over a dozen Starborn warriors dropped from the wall in the same instant, the strike finding every one of them at once.

Kael wasn’t content to watch. He raised a hand and brought all three companions into the fight.

Void Colossus hit the wall with a roar that shook the stone beneath it, jaw splitting wide, a wave of distorted sound rolling out across a cluster of defenders in one punishing pulse.

Wraithlord followed on horseback, spear raised, triggering Phantom Charge a full spectral cavalry condensing out of the air behind him, thundering forward with a force that scattered every Starborn line it touched, inflicting brutal, compounding damage with every stride.

Overhead, Thunder Roc dove in last, wings flaring wide, and Thunderfall split the sky a storm of concentrated lightning hammering down across the battlements, Starborn warriors crying out under the sustained barrage.

For companions still sitting at relatively modest levels, the output they put out told an entirely different story bloodlines running deep, skill kits built for exactly this kind of engagement, every bit of it amplified further by the flat boost the Beastlord passive threw on top.

Even against warriors averaging level 40 and higher, the damage landed brutal and real.

"That eagle that’s a true Legendary bloodline?!"

"The undead knight carries a presence that heavy? He’s no common wraith."

"And that violet monstrosity something about it is genuinely unsettling to look at."

"Captain these three are going to be something extraordinary, given time. Mark it."

Murmurs rippled through the royal guard, more than one face turning in open astonishment toward the three companions tearing through the Starborn line.

This unit hadn’t been assembled from leftovers. Every soldier riding with Elara had been hand-picked from among thousands, hardened by real service and more than a little proud of it.

Kael’s own standing with them had started thin, and for good reason. His actual level sat modestly around thirty nothing that would normally earn this kind of deference from soldiers this seasoned.

The guard’s captain had only taken the post himself after a lucky save of the princess’s life, and the rest of the unit had carried a quiet, unspoken dismissiveness toward their newly appointed commander ever since.

If Elara hadn’t issued the order personally, not one of them would have mobilized for Kael on his word alone.Watching his companions work changed that calculus fast.

Every soldier present understood exactly what they were looking at bloodlines this rare, growth potential this steep, given enough time and investment, didn’t stay modest.

Whatever Kael’s own numbers said right now, what stood beside him was already pointing toward something considerably larger.

Even Sir Gareth Thorne, descending from his aerial strike with the same unhurried composure he’d ascended with, allowed a flicker of real interest to cross his face.

Level seventy, one foot already past the edge most soldiers would ever reach, and he still found himself recalibrating his read on the man riding at the front of this column.

Nobody in that guard underestimated Kael again after that.His eyes swept the wall, locking onto the densest cluster of Starborn still holding position, a cold and merciless intent settling over his expression.

He brought his blade down in a single, decisive arc, and the battle for Ebonreach rolled on without mercy in either direction, the floating city’s fate already tilting, slowly but unmistakably, toward whoever had brought three Legendary bloodlines to a fight nobody on that wall had expected to face.