(Cyrus Pov)

The last thing I remember before I passed out was Solaris ripping out my core and replacing it with something else. "A gift you say, almost sending me to an early grave sure doesn't sound like it at all," I thought to myself as my eyes started to adjust to my surroundings. I was no longer in the temples of the past; I was returned back to the astral realm. Laying in the same spot as before but the Solaris constellation was no longer in front of me. There was a dark celestial body that swallowed the light around it. I could feel myself being pulled closer to it against my will, and before I knew it, I was standing in front of it taking on the immense pressure it emitted. When I tried looking into it, it seemed as if the there was a never-ending pit of darkness. This celestial body seemed unforgiving and powerful. It didn't care about what it destroyed or what it oppressed. All this celestial body knew was chaos, and how to assert its uncontrollable power. This was something I resonated with because I knew and understood what it embodied. That's what I wanted for myself, but I didn't have the power to change my position until now. I reached and placed my hand on the celestial body, and I created a tether once again connecting to this mysterious source of power. Once the connection was made a surge of cosmic energy washed over me. I felt the energy run to my new core and then disperse throughout the rest of my body. This time the sensation didn't hurt; it was actually comforting. I could feel my body starting to rewrite itself. My bones felt stronger and more durable, my muscles surged with explosive power. I felt reborn in a way.

When the connection was complete the dark celestial body changed. It separated and rebuilt itself into a pattern. The pattern was made up of several circles inside one another, with each circle being formed by several smaller dark celestial bodies. After it formed it started to glow with this purplish pink hew and projected itself out to me. The projection stopped at my chest and then shrunk and dove straight into my chest where my core was. A burning sensation started to come from my chest along with the same color of glow as the celestial body. I took off my shirt and noticed I was given my own astral tattoo. Now that I was connected to the strange celestial body I had a deep innate understanding of it. The words Even in death a star is dangerous played in my head several time and then it hit me. This fate constellation is not made up of normal stars, it was made up of dead stars.I was excited that i had obtained this new power but i was also kind of annoyed. The past couple of years i spent training and preparing myself to gain the power of Solaris. Now i am back to square one. "This is going to be tedious," i thought to myself.

After my revelation I sat and studied the runes that were embedded into the patterns of the astral tattoo. From what I learned from my father, the paths of insight are generally unlocked after each astral trail. The first trial would awaken ones first rune. When I looked at the rune that appeared on my tattoo, I couldn't read it because I have never seen the markings before. But somehow, I innately knew what it translated to. The only thing I could make out from the rune was that it said gravity. "It must be due to the fact I am now connected with this weird constellation now, but what am I supposed to do with this information." I said with a frustrated tone. "It's not like it comes with its own instruction manual." Then I got the idea to run cosmic energy to my astral tattoo after playing back events of when I watched my father use his abilities. Once the energy reached my tattoo, only the inner circle illuminated with a purplish pink hew. Nothing happened though. I didn't notice a random surge of power or heighten senses. Everything felt normal but I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. The other celestial bodies in the astral realm started to slowly flow closer to me. This pull only worked around the celestial bodies that were close in proximity. The further something was, the less the affect was on the object. "Oh, I can have some fun with this," I said out loud. "But I should probably head back and fill father in on what happened," I said while getting back into a meditative position so that I can find my tether to my physical body and return.

(Ezra's Pov)

The Stellar Fiend chimera that appeared in our camp was a surprising case of events. These creatures are drawn by strong cosmic energy signatures. Which would be the case if I activated ten percent of my power, but I only activated maybe 5 percent of what I was capable of. I also did not sense any other strong enough signatures to warrant its presence. "I wonder if it was drawn by Cyrus's energy being released because he is connected to the astral realm," I thought to myself.

When I took another glance at Cyrus in the barrier, I noticed his position was lower than before. There was little crater where he was sitting. "I have never seen that before when someone goes through the first trial with the Solaris constellation," I said out loud. I notice the Stellar Fiend shift its attention from me to Cyrus as well. The behemoth flapped its wings and propelled itself toward Cyrus eager to drain my son of his cosmic energy. "Oh no you don't," I yelled as I transformed my sword into a javelin and hurled it towards the flying beast. I clipped one of the wings of the chimera instantly stopping the momentum of its propulsion making it crash into the ground. The behemoth picked itself off the ground and shifted its focus back to me once again, "now what type of creature attacks a defenseless boy." The creature let out deep growl as it shook off some of the debris from its crash. "See i was gonna let you go with a warning, because i know you really dont know any better." I said to the monster as i slowly walked towards the towering creature. "But you see that boy you were so desperately trying to get to is my son," i said to the chimera as I was now standing in front of it. "What would you do if something tried to kill your ofsrping," i said as i formed a solar long sword in my hand. The creature tried side swiping me with one of its claws but i blocked the attack with my forearm easily. Immediately I unleashed a counter with a descending slash of my long sword cutting clean through its massive paw. The monster wailed in pain and in a rage it blasted fireball at me in retaliation. I let the fire ball hit me because I am immune to any heat-based attacks and just stepped through it as if it were a light breeze. Next, I concentrated the energy into my feet and let solar energy propel me to the main head of the chimera. "Me personally I would crush anything that ever tried into oblivion like the little ants they are," I said to behemoth as I grasped the hair around its central head. The monster snarled and tried to fire one more fire ball, but it was too slow because I sliced through its neck before it finished its charge.

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I gently floated down to the ground after severing the main head. I watched the two other heads analyze the decapitated part of themselves and contemplate its next options. This wasn't something out of the norm for Stellar Fiend astral behemoths. Generally, behemoths of the third rank had a great deal of intelligence compared to its lower counterparts, but this behemoth does not seem to be smart all. The chimera emitted more pressure than it did before by releasing more of its cosmic energy due to the fact it was going through a transformation. This is an ability they obtain once they reach the Stellar Fiend rank. The chimera transformation resulted in the split of the monster's heads each forming its own body similar to the one it had before. Now I was faced with the task of keeping the both of them away from Cyrus, without drawing to much attention to the area.

One of the beasts sent several fire balls my way while the other vanished. I Ignored the fire balls and let them hit me while I was trying to sense the cosmic energy of the other beast so I can intercept its attack. The beast reappeared behind me and took a slash at my back, but I perceived the attack a second before it was going to land and side stepped it. The beast that shot the fire ball dashed towards me and tried to sweep my legs with its tail. I dodge the attack by jumping and used both legs to throw kicks at the beasts as if I was performing the splits midair. Both of the behemoths both slid multiple meters away from me. When I landed on the ground, I noticed the behemoths both shared a glance at each other. They both sent a barrage of fire balls at me, and both vanished from their positions. "When are you guys going to learn that these don't work on me," I yelled out to the behemoths as I patiently waited for the fire balls to dissipate after colliding against my body. I threw up my guard in anticipation of them trying to attack me again in my blind spots. But the attacks never came. I remembered too late what their true goal was from the beginning when they were one. They wanted Cyrus. I dashed to where Cyrus was sitting in the barrier. One of the beasts had thrown multiple strikes at the barrier creating several cracks then the second beast winded up to throw its tail at the barrier with all its momentum. "Fuck I'm not going to be fast enough if I don't use more of my power," I thought to myself.

I charged and condensed cosmic energy imbued it with solar energy into my palm and released a wave of energy to destroy these monsters now that they broke through the barrier and Cyrus was left defenseless. The monsters for some reason stopped in their tracks and no longer tried to attack Cyrus. When my wave of energy got to the area, it seemed to have been redirected from the zone and slipped by the monsters and Cyrus as if it was sling shotted from orbit. The closer I got to the area the more I could feel this weird resistance getting stronger and stronger suppressing my movements. I noticed the behemoths were struggling to stand and they started to fall to the ground because of the immense pressure. "This pressure is what was causing the mini crater underneath Cyrus earlier," I thought to myself. When I looked closer at Cyrus, I saw his free form dreads flowing in the area as if the pressure was not affecting him the same. Then his eyes opened but his dark brown eyes were not present anymore. They were replaced by a purplish pink hew of light. Cyrus stood up off the ground and walked towards the struggling Stellar Fiends. He kneeled next to them and placed both hands on them.

"Begone you pathetic creatures," I heard Cyrus say in an unbothered tone. The pressure increased even further around the area. The Behemoths started to fold and crumble on each other, and then they exploded sending blood flying everywhere. With the astral behemoths defeated, Cyrus's eyes faded back to their normal color and then he collapsed to the ground.