Chapter 6: Awakening of the Starlight Core

The silence inside the High Guildhall was suffocating.

On the stretcher in the center of the hall lay nine-year-old Leo Sterling, the only son of High Duke Sterling. Black, necrotic veins crawled across the boy’s neck like poisonous spiderwebs, expanding with every shallow, agony-filled breath he took.

Guildmaster Malakor staggered backward, wiping blood from his lips after his Tier-7 Purification spell had been violently shattered by the void magic.

“It is an Abyssal Void-Lich Curse!” Malakor stammered, his face pale as chalk. “It devours light mana! Any magic we pour into him only feeds the curse! High Duke… there is no hope. The child will die within minutes.”

High Duke Sterling, a battle-hardened commander who had led armies against northern barbarians, fell to his knees beside his son’s stretcher, his armor clanking heavily against the marble floor. Tears of helpless anguish welled in the warrior’s eyes. “No… there must be someone… a high priest, an arch-mage…”

From the elevated noble balcony, Lord Julian Vance smoothed his silk lapels and sneered down at the scene. “What a tragedy. But at least we have established that even senior mages cannot stop this curse. It is time to clear the hall and resume Aria’s sentencing!”

Baroness Chloe nodded in agreement, dabbing her neck with perfume. “Indeed. Why waste time on a dying commoner’s tragedy when we have an ungrateful girl to banish?”

Before the guards could move, a clear, resolute voice echoed across the quiet hall.

“Move aside. Let me see the boy.”

Aria stepped past the wooden barrier. Her linen apron was stained, her hair tied back in a simple knot, but her posture was straight as an arrow.

Julian let out a burst of condescending laughter. “You? Aria, have you lost your mind? The Guildmaster and seven Senior Arch-Mages failed! You are a low-rank healer who was just stripped of her medallion! Touching that child will infect you and rot your flesh to bone!”

Lady Victoria fanned herself furiously. “Guards! Restrain that insolent girl before she disgraces us further!”

Aria ignored them entirely. She knelt beside the writhing child, gently placing her hands over the pitch-black core of the curse on his chest.

“Aria…” Duke Sterling looked up, his eyes filled with desperation. “Can you save him?”

“I will give everything I have, My Lord,” Aria said softly.

She closed her eyes and turned her perception inward. Deep within her chest lay her mana core—usually a tiny, quiet spark of gentle light magic. But as she touched the cold, malicious malice of the Void Curse, something deep within her soul stirred.

A sensation like a cracking seal resonated through her veins.

Crack.

Suddenly, Aria’s heart pounded with the rhythm of thunder. The ambient mana in the Guildhall began to swirl violently, drawn toward her body like iron filings to a magnet.

“What is this pressure?!” Guildmaster Malakor gasped, staggering back as his own mana pool trembled in fear.

From Aria’s chest, a single beam of blinding, silvery-golden light shot straight upward, shattering through the vaulted stained-glass ceiling of the Guildhall and piercing into the heavens above Aethelgard!

The light was not the pale, yellow magic of common healers. It was radiant, pure, and infused with the ancient power of the stars—the legendary Celestial Starlight Magic, a bloodline power possessed strictly by the royal house of Eldoria!

“The Starlight Crest!” Arch-Mage Lucian shrieked from the elders’ bench, dropping his staff in sheer disbelief. “Divine Royal Light! That is the bloodline of the High Monarchs!”

Aria opened her eyes. They glowed with brilliant luminescent gold.

As her hands pressed against the boy’s chest, the holy starlight flooded his body. The terrifying black void veins shrieked with an audible, demonic hiss as they were burned away, dissolving into harmless white steam. Within seconds, the boy’s skin returned to a healthy rosy hue. He took a deep, clear breath and opened his eyes.

“Father?” the little boy whispered softly.

Duke Sterling wept openly, pulling his son into a fierce embrace. He then turned, dropped to both knees before Aria, and pressed his forehead against her dusty shoes. “Lady Aria… Divine Healer… House Sterling owes you a debt that can never be repaid in ten lifetimes!”

Up in the balcony, Julian’s champagne glass shattered on the floor. His face turned as white as a corpse, his knees trembling so violently he had to clutch the balustrade to keep from falling.

“Starlight magic…” Lady Victoria whispered, her hands shaking uncontrollably. “No… no, it’s impossible! She’s a peasant orphan!”

Baroness Chloe stared at Aria in unadulterated horror, her arrogant sneer completely erased.

In the shadows near the entrance, Thomas—King Arthur—smiled warmly as he watched his daughter. He reached beneath his cloak and slipped a massive golden signet ring onto his right index finger.

“The seal is broken, Eleanor,” King Arthur said softly to Queen Eleanor beside him. “Our daughter’s true power has awakened. Now, let us show these corrupt fools what happens when you humiliate the Princess of Eldoria.”