THE GENERAL'S DISGRACED HEIR

"[Temporal Sanctuary]!"

The world around David crystallized into near stillness. Colors bled into muted shades, and the roaring chaos of battle faded to a distant whisper. Even the obsidian titans attacking them seemed to move through thick honey, their massive forms leaving trails of afterimages in the slowed time.

Vespera's ice magic sparkled in the temporal distortion, each crystal forming with agonizing slowness as she held the titans at bay. Her expression, frozen in concentration, told him she couldn't maintain this defense for long.

[System Alert]

Warning: [Temporal Sanctuary] Duration Limited

Current Race/Class Compatibility: Low

Estimated Time Remaining: 4.2 seconds

"Shit," David spat, blood trickling from his nose. The strain of manipulating time pressed against his mind like a vice. Four seconds wasn't enough time to properly set up [Bookmark], his most potent role skill. He needed—

His eyes widened as a memory surfaced. The hero summoning section in the system shop. It was expensive, nearly bankrupting, but...

His fingers danced through holographic menus with practiced speed: [System Shop > Hero > SSS Rank]

The list of available heroes appeared before him, most greyed out or requiring special conditions. But one name blazed with possibility:

[Kaelith Solvrae - "The Crimson Luminary"] Cost: 50,000,000 DC Status: Available Warning: Summoning success rate affected by summoner's strength

David didn't hesitate. "Purchase!"

Time resumed its normal flow with a violent snap as [Temporal Sanctuary] expired.

[System Notification]

Skill [Temporal Sanctuary] entered cooldown: 7 days

Golden light erupted from above, and there he floated—Kaelith Solvrae, the demigod. His mane of crimson and white hair moved like living flame, his black and gold armor pulsing with veins of power. The staff in his hands radiated an energy that made reality itself tremble.

Those piercing azure eyes found David. "Are you the one who summoned me?" His voice carried the weight of divine authority. "Are you my... master?"

Before David could respond, Winter's command cut through the chamber: "Kill him! Kill the demigod!"

The obsidian titans surged forward, their weapons converging from all directions. Kaelith didn't flinch. He simply spun his staff, a look of cold disdain crossing his features.@@novelbin@@

"Obliterate."

Light spears materialized around him in a corona of divine wrath. They hung in the air for a fraction of a second before launching outward in every direction, each one carrying enough power to shatter mountains.

"Shield!" Vespera's cry came just in time. Ice erupted around her and David, forming a protective dome as Kaelith's attack turned the chamber into pure devastation.

The Titans crumbled like sand castles before a tsunami. But Winter... Winter took several spears directly, pulling them from his small form as darkness knit his wounds closed. His childlike features twisted with rage.

"You!" Vespera rounded on Kaelith as the ice shield cracked. "You could have killed our master with that display!"

Kaelith didn't even look at her. "I don't recognize him as my master. His power is... insufficient."

David knocked on the cracking ice shield, letting it crumble around them. "Maybe I am weak," he admitted, pointing at Winter. "But you have no chance of defeating him alone."

"Your words are repulsive—" Kaelith's retort died in his throat as space itself shattered.

Winter's hand, small and pale as moonlight, had merely twitched. But in that gesture, he broke reality. The darkness around him condensed into a singularity of pure void—a sphere of absolute nothingness that distorted light itself. Then it expanded.

The attack wasn't just power; it was the antithesis of existence itself. A wave of un-light that moved like liquid death, twisted into the shape of a massive hand. It grabbed Kaelith before he could react, the void eating through his divine protection like acid through paper. The demigod's eyes widened in genuine shock as Winter closed his small fist.

The impact when it came was apocalyptic. Kaelith's divine form rocketed downward with such force that the air ignited around him. He struck the obsidian floor like a fallen star, the impact sending spiderweb cracks racing across the entire chamber. The crater that formed wasn't just broken stone—the very foundation of space seemed to crack where he landed.

Winter rose into the air where Kaelith had been, but now the darkness moving around him was different. It wasn't just shadow anymore; it was something primordial. Streams of void energy spiraled around his small form like the arms of a galaxy, each tendril carrying enough power to unmake creation. The air grew so heavy that breathing became painful, and reality itself seemed to bow away from his presence.

"Enough games," the boy-king declared, his voice resonating with power that made the void itself tremble. His eyes, once merely frightening, now blazed with the light of dying universes. "You will all die by my hand." Experience tales at My Virtual Library Empire

He raised his arms, and the response was immediate and terrifying. From every corner of the chamber, every shadow, every dark space—the darkness answered. It came not like a flood but like the end of all things, rushing toward him in streams of pure negation.

"Come, darkness," Winter commanded, his childlike form now wreathed in power that defied comprehension. "Show them true despair."

The shadows coalesced around him into shapes that hurt to look at—forms that existed in geometries that the human mind was never meant to comprehend. Each movement of his small hands directed forces that could rewrite reality, and his smile promised only oblivion.

Kaelith rose from the crater, his divine senses finally perceiving the truth. The boy wasn't just powerful—he was being used as a vessel by a Sovereign. Even for a demigod like himself, a god's direct descendant wielded power beyond comprehension.

"Damn it," he spat, "the summoner was right."

He shot forward like a cosmic bolt, the air igniting in his wake. Landing beside David and Vespera, he spun his staff with practiced precision. "[ULTIMATE CELESTIAL LIGHT]!"

A radius of pure radiance erupted around them, holding back Winter's encroaching darkness. But even Kaelith felt the pressure—a weight that threatened to crush his divine essence.

"Oh?" David's smug voice cut through his concentration. "It seems my summon is willing to cooperate after all."

Kaelith clicked his tongue, refusing to acknowledge how right his supposed master had been.