Primordial Heir: Nine Stars-Chapter 313: Pressure

Nero didn't allow himself to sit with the fear. He changed it into motion. Stripping off his uniform, he pulled on his simple, durable training gear. He sent a quick text to Khione:

"Training. Pocket world. Be back later." Her reply was almost instant, just a single blue heart emoji. It was enough.

He went to the academy's logistical hub, using a chunk of his hard-earned cadet credits to rent a six-hour pass to a medium-grade pocket world. He didn't choose a forest or a volcano. He selected "Frostwrath Tundra." A world of endless snow and ice. If he was going to face cold, calculated enemies, he would first conquer the cold itself.

The transition was a shock. One moment he was in the warm, stone hub, the next he was knee-deep in blowing snow under a flat, gray sky. The air was so cold it hurt his lungs. The wind howled, cutting through his gear. It was exactly what he needed—a environment that fought back just by existing.

He drew his training longsword, the metal instantly feeling brittle in the chill. He took a deep, stinging breath and reached for the Law of Fire.

A flicker of orange flame sputtered to life around the blade, then died, smothered by the wet, frozen air. He grunted, focusing harder. This wasn't a controlled training ground. The very world was resisting his law, suppressing it. He poured more prana into it, his will clashing against the environment. This time, a steady sheath of fire wrapped the sword, hissing violently where snowflakes touched it. The heat was a comfort against his skin. Step one: Maintain your power in adverse conditions.

He hadn't taken ten steps before the tundra responded. From a ridge of drifted snow, two massive shapes rose. Ice Bears, each the size of a small car, with fur like matted frost and claws like clear blue daggers. Their roars were silent in the howling wind, but their charge made the ground tremble.

Nero's first instinct was Lightning—to blast them from a distance. But he stopped himself. That would be using power to avoid the fight. He needed to get stronger, not just spend energy.

He met the first bear head-on, his fiery sword clashing against a sweeping claw. SCREECH-BOOM! Steam and ice shards exploded on contact. The force was tremendous, numbing his arms. He was knocked back into a snowdrift. The second bear was already on him, its maw gaping, trying to swallow him whole.

Nero rolled, the fire on his sword winking out as it plunged into the snow. Frustration flared. He came up, switching laws. Lightning. It crackled eagerly in the dry, cold air, easier to summon than fire here. He didn't shoot it. He channeled it through his body, using it for speed. He disappeared in flash becoming a blur, zipping around the second bear's clumsy charge. He sliced at its flank, but the lightning-enhanced cut only scorched the dense fur and hide. It wasn't enough.

They're too big, too tough. I'm just scratching them.

The first bear recovered and both turned, surrounding him. Nero stood between them, panting, his breath pluming, this place seemed to also siphon his stamina. The fire was hard. The lightning was fast but weak. He was using them like separate tools, and the tools were failing.

Then, he remembered Balrog's lesson against the Wind. Sometimes strength is everything you should use your wits.

What was the strongest of these Ice Bears? Overwhelming mass. Resilient hide. Slow, powerful attacks.

He let the lightning fade. He focused entirely on Fire, not as a blade, but as a forge. As the nearest bear charged for a final crush, Nero didn't dodge. He dropped his sword into the snow and planted his feet. He thrust both hands forward, not to block, but to meet the charge.

"Furnace Palm!" he shouted into the wind.

A concentrated torrent of roaring fire, not wide, but dense and focused like a cutting torch, erupted from his palms. It didn't hit the bear's head; it hit the same spot on its chest he'd scratched with lightning. The intense, localized heat met the super-cooled, tough hide.

The effect wasn't an explosion. It was a catastrophic thermal shock.

CRACK-SHATTER-POP!

The bear's frozen hide, stressed by the sudden, extreme temperature change, behaved like glass hit with a hammer. It spider-webbed, then shattered in a gruesome shower of ice, flesh, and steam.

Siii~

The creature collapsed, a gaping, smoldering hole in its chest.

The second bear lunged at his exposed back. Nero didn't have time to turn. So, he didn't. He let the fire in his right hand die, and with the same motion, summoned Lightning into his left. He couldn't see, so he felt for the creature's mass, for the surge of its movement.

He jabbed his lightning-wreathed hand backwards, not aiming to kill, but to conduct. He touched the bear's wet nose.

ZZZAAAAPPP!

The lightning, so ineffective on the outside, surged through the moisture on its snout, into its body. It wasn't enough to kill a creature this size, but it was more than enough to do one thing: cause every muscle in its body to violently, instantly seize.

The bear froze mid-lunge, a twitching, paralyzed statue. Nero spun, grabbed his sword from the snow, and with a final, roaring exertion, summoned both Fire and Lightning together for the first time in true combat. The blade became a rod of crackling, white-hot plasma. One clean, overhead strike pierced the paralyzed bear's skull.

Silence, save for the wind.

Nero stood over the two dissolving corpses, his entire body trembling from exertion and cold. He wasn't celebrating. He was analyzing.

Fire was power, but slow in the cold. Lightning was speed, but lacked punch. But together… Fire could prepare the target, making it brittle, heating it. Lightning could then exploit that weakness, conducting through heated moisture, shocking a stressed system.

It wasn't about using one law after the other. It was about making them work as one. A brutal, one-two punch.

For the next five hours, Nero wandered the frozen hell. He hunted packs of swift, cunning Ice Wolves, using Lightning to herd them and Fire to finish them. He fought a solitary, ancient Frost Troll, learning to layer quick lightning strikes on the same joint to numb it, before driving a fiery thrust into the weakened spot.

Each fight was a hardship. The cold sapped his strength. The monsters were relentless. He ran out of prana twice, forced to hide in ice caves and meditate, shivering, to recover even a fraction of his energy while the wind screamed outside. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

But with each battle, his control grew. He stopped thinking "now I use Fire, now I use Lightning." He started thinking about the desired effect. Need to soften that armor. Need to stun that nerve cluster. Need to create an opening. His laws became answers to problems, not just flashes of power.

By the time his six-hour pass expired and the world shimmered around him, pulling him back to the academy, he was barely standing. He was covered in minor burns, frost-nip, and shallow cuts. His gear was torn and steaming.