Outside the gilded walls of the Kira Estate, the Clover Kingdom was drowning in celebration. The midday sun beat down on the cobblestone streets, casting a brilliant, mocking warmth over the festival below. But inside the royal bedchamber, the summer heat was suffocated by the sharp, metallic tang of blood and sweat.
A ragged shriek tore through the heavy silence. The Queen of the Clover Kingdom writhed in the center of the sprawling four-poster bed, the silk sheets tangled and soaked. Her skin, usually flawless porcelain, had faded to a sickly, translucent gray.
Beside her, the King, a man whose vanity usually preceded him like a shadow, looked entirely undone. He gripped her frail hand, his knuckles stark white. His throat bobbed as he swallowed down rising bile, terrified that if he loosened his grip for even a second, she would slip away into the dark.
"Breathe, My Lady. One final push," the midwife murmured. Her hands were steady, her steady voice a solitary anchor in the churning panic.
The Queen gasped, her spine arching as she bore down with the last dregs of her strength. But the air in the room suddenly grew thin. The oppressive density of noble mana that always filled her chambers was evaporating, violently vacuumed into the life fighting its way out of her. A thin, terrifying line of crimson wept from her left nostril, followed by a tear of blood pooling in the corner of her eye. The child wasn't just being born; his innate magic power was consuming her.
A shrill, piercing cry shattered the tension. A warm, absolutely blinding pulse of ambient light rippled outward from the slightly open curtains.
"A boy, My Liege," the midwife breathed, lifting the squalling infant.
But the bed had gone entirely silent.
The King's grip went slack. The delicate hand he held was limp, the residual mana completely drained from it until it felt like nothing more than cold clay. He collapsed to the floor, the heavy thud of his knees swallowed by the sudden roaring in his ears. The midwife's joyous words were white noise. The world narrowed entirely to the lifeless, hollowed-out form of the woman he loved.
He stayed there on the floor, paralyzed, until the midwife hesitantly knelt beside him and pressed the swaddled bundle against his chest.
Instinctively, his arms closed around the weight. The infant was practically radiating magic, a furnace of pure, golden warmth in the chilling wake of death. The King looked down through a blurry veil of tears. The boy stared back, his cries settling into quiet hiccups. His eyes were a vivid, piercing sky-blue, illuminated by a rogue beam of sunlight piercing the open curtains.
In that brilliant light, the King saw the spirit of his wife as a terrifyingly beautiful inheritance.
His voice cracked, barely a whisper over the distant, ignorant cheers of the kingdom below. "Aurelio," he choked out, pressing his trembling forehead against the child's. "Your name is Aurelio Kira."
Hiding in the shadows of the corridor, Augustus stood pressed against the heavy oak of the bedchamber door. His lip curled in a sharp, jagged sneer. It wasn't the loss of a mother that twisted his features into an expression of raw disdain, but rather the thing that had just crawled out of her lifeless body.
To Augustus, the newborn wasn't a brother; he was a catastrophe. Even through the thick wood of the door, the mana radiating from the room was suffocating. It was vast, rhythmic, and undeniably superior. It felt like a physical weight pressing against Augustus's chest, mocking his own royal reserves. Every pulse of that golden light within was a hammer blow to his status as the rightful heir.
He leaned closer, straining to hear the King's weeping, his weight shifting unevenly against the doorframe. Suddenly, the latch gave way.
The door swung inward with a violent groan. Augustus stumbled, his arms flailing in a desperate, undignified scramble to keep his balance. He managed to catch himself just before hitting the floor, smoothing his ruffled tunic with trembling, sweat-slicked hands.
"Augustus?" The King's voice was hollow, stripped of its usual booming authority. He looked up, his eyes bloodshot and unfocused. "I... your mother... she is gone, Augustus. The birth... it was too much for her."
The words were clumsy, falling from the King's lips like lead weights. He didn't wait for a response, perhaps too buried in his own grief to notice the lack of sorrow on his eldest son's face. Instead, he lifted the swaddled bundle, presenting the child like a holy relic.
"But look," the King whispered, a haunting glimmer of hope piercing through his despair. "In her final moments, she gave us this. Your brother, Aurelio. Look at that light... he is the future of the Kira bloodline. He is the future of this kingdom."
Augustus stood paralyzed. He tried to maintain his mask of royal composure, but his face was a fractured mosaic of awe and suppressed rage. The ambient mana coming off the infant was unlike anything he had ever felt; it was a sun trapped in silk. It was beautiful, yes, but to Augustus, it was a death sentence.
He looked at the baby, and for a fleeting, terrifying second, he didn't see a brother. He saw an eclipse, a golden shadow that was already beginning to wash out the image of his own future.
[5 Years Later]
The heavy, velvet curtains of the Kira archives remained drawn, but the room was far from dark. At the center of a fortress of ancient, leather-bound tomes sat Aurelio. At only five years old, he was a demographic anomaly, a child who had traded toys for complex books on magic.
By his first year, he had bypassed the stumbling gait of infancy, walking with a steady, purposeful grace that unsettled the nursery maids. By three, he wasn't just reading; he was dissecting forbidden scrolls on mana theory and ancient techniques that left seasoned royal tutors stammering in his wake. They called him the "Prodigy of House Kira," but the title was whispered with as much fear as it was pride. Even without a grimoire, the boy didn't just possess magic; he commanded the atmosphere.
Aurelio ignored the lingering stack of "Royal Etiquette" primers on his desk. To him, the intricacies of tea ceremonies and lineage charts were static noise. His ambition was singular and predatory: to become the most formidable mage in history.
He extended a small, pale hand. He didn't need a book to tell him how to feel the mana in the air; it was instinctive, like feeling for a pulse. Concentrating, he drew the ambient energy inward, compressing it until a microscopic bead of white-hot light ignited above his palm. It wasn't the flickering candle-flame of a novice. It was Solar Magic, dense and volatile; it was a powerful combination of both light and fire attributes.
His obsession led him deep into the restricted stacks, where he buried his face in the history of ancient races. He found himself captivated by the legends of the Elves, who were once worshipped as deities, but he was truly enthralled by the hierarchies of the Underworld. To Aurelio, Devils represented the absolute ceiling of magical potential. He studied the Highest-Ranking Devils not with fear, but as a benchmark. He didn't want to avoid their power; he intended to surpass it.
However, it was his presence outside the archives that truly disrupted the delicate status quo of the three royal families.
When Aurelio walked the cobblestone streets of the Noble Realm or peered down into the Common Region, he didn't look with the cold, bored eyes of his peers. To the citizens of Clover, Aurelio was the sun made flesh. He spoke to the gardener with the same level of focus he gave a High Priest; he didn't judge a soul by the depth of their mana pool or the crest on their cloak.
While Augustus practiced the sneer of a future King, Aurelio practiced the empathy of a true leader. To the commoners, he was the ideal royal, a beacon of genuine warmth in a kingdom defined by icy arrogance. But within the Kira Estate, that warmth was starting to look a lot like a threat.
Internally, the house was already divided into two factions. Aurelio remained oblivious to the politics, ignoring the way certain servants were "clumsy" in his presence or the lingering glares from the shadows. He was too busy chasing the pinnacle.
That pursuit led him to the training courtyard, where he traded his books for a blade.
"Your progress is… disturbing, Young Master," his sword instructor remarked, his voice a mix of awe and professional pride. He parried a strike from the boy, his own movements fluent and practiced. "I thought your heart belonged to the magic, yet your swordsmanship evolves with every breath."
The instructor moved with effortless ease, yet he could feel Aurelio's attacks calculated, precise, and aimed ruthlessly at his weak points. There was no wasted motion.
"To be the best, I must be strong in every way! A true mage doesn't wait for a grimoire; they make their own path." Aurelio declared, his voice filled with conviction. With a sudden, graceful movement, he performed an upward slash that unleashed a shimmering projectile of pure mana. "See? My blade and I are already one with magic!"
The attack narrowly missed his sword instructor, although it split the instructor's blade in two before disappearing into the sky.
"Isn't it amazing? With my blade, magic feels like it's dancing with me! That's why I chose this path, it's where my heart sings!" Aurelio's face lit up with pure delight, his eyes sparkling with the same brilliance as the mana he commanded.
"Truly amazing…" the instructor whispered, staring at the shattered remains of his weapon.
A blast of fiery mana suddenly scorched the air as a woman with wild, vermillion hair strode into the courtyard, her presence alone making the ground feel hotter. "So you're the little hotshot everyone's yapping about?" she barked, a predatory grin spreading across her face. "Aurelio, right? House Kira's supposed 'prodigy'." She cracked her knuckles, her eyes gleaming with anticipation. "Let's see if you've got any real fire in you, or if you're just all talk."
"Enough talk! Let's see what you're really made of, kid!" Mereoleona's voice boomed, a feral grin spreading across her face as her mana erupted like a volcano. The air itself seemed to catch fire around her. "Fight me right now, and show me if that passion of yours is worth a damn!"
"Fight me? Of course I will!" Aurelio's eyes sparkled with excitement rather than fear. "Though I must admit, I'm at a disadvantage without my grimoire, it hasn't chosen me yet, as I'm only five." He stood tall, shoulders back, despite his small stature.
"Don't give me that! This is just a spar, so don't piss your pants. I promise not to use my grimoire." Mereoleona stomped forward, her fiery mana rolling off her in waves that made the very air shimmer. "I just want to see if the next generation has any worthy rivals!"
Aurelio dropped into a low stance, his blade tilted. He regulated his breathing, the world around him slowing as he reinforced his limbs with a primitive, instinctive mana skin. As Mereoleona closed the distance, he didn't just see her; he saw the threads of her intent. He visualized her muscle fibers tensing, the structure of her bones, the trajectory of her weight.
He lunged. With the battle IQ of a veteran, he stepped inside her guard and thrust his wooden sword toward her midsection.
The courtyard went silent for a heartbeat. Aurelio's blade made contact, but before he could celebrate, Mereoleona's hand clamped onto the wood. The raw heat of her aura instantly charred the surface.
She pulled back a fist, the air screaming as she prepared a counter. Aurelio didn't panic; he used the momentum to vault backward, aiming his hand to fire a concentrated magic bullet mid-air.
The attack didn't even make her blink. It fueled her. She vanished, appearing before him as a blur of orange and red.
"Too fast," Aurelio murmured.
She feinted a left jab, then connected with a right-handed uppercut to his gut. The air left Aurelio's lungs as he was lifted off his feet, dropping to his knees.
He didn't stay down. He rolled instinctively, narrowly avoiding a follow-up kick that shattered the cobblestones where his head had been. Mid-roll, he pointed his fingers at her like a firing line, unleashing ten simultaneous beams of mana.
Mereoleona swatted them away like annoying gnats. She vanished again, reappearing beside him. Her hand came down like a falling mountain, slamming his head into the dirt.
"Hmph. Not bad, brat. You've actually got some fire in you. Don't disappoint me when you're worth my time." Mereoleona grunted as she stomped off toward the Vermillion estate.