> Perspective: Kiel
> Setting: Memory Flashback Catching Up to Present — The Southern Coasts
(For simplicity, she is referred to as Celia in his memories.)
Chief Father. The village that was once my home. My friends. Celia.
When I opened my eyes, Celestine was an incinerated graveyard.
A sea of white ash and collapsed timbers stretched to the tree line. 10 paces ahead, Toby lay half-burned and torn open on the scorched stones. Nearby, Mira's body lay shredded in the dirt.
Footsteps crunched through the embers.
Ronan stumbled out of the smoke, trembling violently, his right hand clawing into his chest. Beneath his pale skin, a monstrous crimson-and-black fire pulsed like an unholy heart, radiating heat that warped the air.
"She killed them all, Kiel. When you passed out, black chains tore through the guards. She snapped her neck back into place, healed Lyla, and summoned a flame demon that burned this valley in 3 minutes. The demon chose my body before she vanished. I will hunt that witch down and burn her to ash with my own hands." Ronan rasped, his eyes bloodshot and wide with manic fury.
He turned and limped into the burning mist.
I stood alone among the corpses, my broken wrist throbbing, my fingers curled around the small leather pouch in my pocket. The green emerald was still unbroken.
I didn't care what Ronan swore. I had to find Celia myself and hear the truth from her own lips.
For 1 full year, I wandered the frontiers of Celestine as an A-rank mercenary, chasing shadows.
Then rumors of a subterranean breach drew me to a frontier canyon.
Cloaked beneath my mother's Elysian shroud—a cursed veil of cold shadow that masked my presence and hid me from mortal eyes—I followed the mercenary vanguard into the crags, only to stumble upon a living nightmare.
The dungeon boss had breached the surface: Malgareth, the Sovereign of the Abyss. The entity stood 15 feet tall, an armored abomination of pitch-black chitin, 6 razor claws, and 2 obsidian horns crackling with red lightning.
Before the beast could tear the gorge apart, Ronan stepped from the shadows. He carried no blade and wore no armor, his hands tucked casually into his pockets.
Ronan spread his arms wide, his voice rising in an ancient, rhythmic incantation that set the night vibrating with scorching heat.
"Velkaris, King of Flames, Sovereign of the Infernal Pyre. Take this vessel. Burn away my weakness. Reduce this abyssal filth to ash."
The ravine erupted in an inferno of white-hot fire.
When the blaze parted, Ronan was gone. In his place stood Velkaris—his eyes burning like twin suns of molten gold, radiant heat warping the air in shimmering waves.
Malgareth roared, unleashing an all-consuming sphere of black void mana that shook the cliffs.
Velkaris didn't even flinch. He stepped back with effortless grace, fire spiraling around his left arm until a colossal bow of blinding, white-hot flame materialized in his grip. His fingers drew the fiery string, conjuring an arrow that burned brighter than lightning.
The arrow released with a sonic crack. It cleaved Malgareth's dark sphere in 2, drilled through the sovereign's armored chest, and detonated in an apocalyptic pillar of flame. The 15-foot titan shrieked as its body crumbled into smoldering ash.
Velkaris vanished as quickly as he had appeared, leaving Ronan unconscious on the smoking stone.
I lay frozen behind the shale, petrified by the display of cosmic power. Ronan wasn't human anymore; he was the living vessel of a fire god.
I didn't collect the silver bounty. I turned around and ran into the dark.
4 years slipped away.
Then, fresh rumors pulled me to the Southern Coasts.
A coastal settlement reported a girl with snowy-white hair and crimson eyes. But the report held 1 strange detail that chilled my blood: she was alone. Lyla was gone.
When I arrived at the seaside hamlet, bounty hunters swarmed the docks smelling gold. Among the armored crowd stood an anomalous figure leaning against the bounty board—an E-rank swordsman with dark hair, sharp blue eyes, and a broad blade strapped to his back. Someone called him Kaiser.
I turned down an alley toward the ridge—and walked straight into Ronan.
He blocked the narrow lane, his greatsword resting against his shoulder, heat rolling off his leather armor.
"Kiel. Are you here to avenge Toby and Mira as well?" Ronan greeted, his tone flat and lethal.
"What are you talking about?" My pulse spiked into my throat.
"Don't play dumb. Celia slaughtered our friends. Are you here to avenge them, or are you still weeping over that witch? Your life depends on the answer." Ronan stepped forward, flames dancing across his knuckles.
I knew the truth: if I hesitated for 1 heartbeat, Ronan would incinerate me where I stood. I couldn't save Celia if I was a pile of ash.
I forced my jaw tight and let out a cold scoff.
"I'm here to put her in the dirt myself. I've trained 4 years to slit her throat for what she did to Celestine."
Ronan stared at me for 3 long heartbeats, then his lips curved into a sinister grin.
"Good. Come with me. We'll end her together."
I followed him toward the rocky bluffs, my stomach churning with bile. My plan was a desperate gamble: play the bloodthirsty revenger until Ronan let his guard down, knock her companion aside, root Celia in place, and then cast my Elysian sleep and shroud spells to carry her away into the wild.
When we crested the ridge, my heart stopped.
Celia sat near a campfire on the bluffs, laughing with that same dark-haired E-rank swordsman—Kaiser.
For 1 fleeting heartbeat, seeing her genuine smile made the last 7 years of agony vanish. She looked happy. Safe.
"Stop daydreaming, Kiel. Take the shot, or I burn them both to grease right now." Ronan's whisper cut like a scalpel.
I had to sell the lie. If Ronan suspected even a shred of mercy, he would unleash Velkaris.
"I'll handle her. Don't kill her fast. She deserves to bleed for what she did, and I want to hear her beg before morning." I said, keeping my voice hard.
"Have your fun. Just make sure she's dead before sunrise." Ronan chuckled with dark approval.
I stepped forward, conjuring a sudden blast of elemental fire that struck Kaiser, hurling him across the shale to clear the line of sight. Then I cast a binding hex into the dirt, freezing Celia's boots to the stone.
Now came the part that tore my soul to pieces.
To make Ronan walk away, I had to convince both of them that I was a monster.
I stepped up to Celia, drew back my fist, and struck her across the jaw.
Her head snapped sideways. She tumbled to the gravel, clutching her reddening cheek, her crimson eyes wide with utter, childlike disbelief.
"Mommy...? What did I do...?" Celia choked out, her voice cracking in the cold sea wind.
The words felt like a serrated dagger twisting through my ribs.
"You were my friend, Kiel... Why are you doing this? What happened to you?" She whispered, tears spilling over her lashes as she reached toward Kaiser's fallen silhouette.
Forgive me, Lia. Please forgive me.
"I was never your friend, Celia. You murdered Toby and Mira. You destroyed our home. You're going to pay for every drop of blood." I spat, forcing every ounce of venom I could summon into my throat.
"No! You know I didn't—"
"Shut up! You're a monster, and monsters don't get mercy." I yelled, cutting her off before my voice could break.
I struck her again, driving her into the shale.
She lay there, curled on her side, staring up at me with an expression that shattered the last remnant of my boyhood. The warmth, the trust, the sweet memory of the little girl who picked blue flowers—all of it died in her eyes, replaced by hollow, unadulterated disgust.
"I don't know you anymore. You're not the Kiel I knew." She choked out, her voice turning to pure ice.
I know... I'm sorry.
My plan was 2 minutes from succeeding. Ronan had turned his back, satisfied with my cruelty, walking toward the outer perimeter. All I needed was to knock her unconscious with my sleep hex, veil us in invisibility, and flee into the dark forest.
Then Kaiser stood up.
What followed wasn't a battle; it was an impossibility.
Without a single drop of mana, without chanting an incantation, the E-rank swordsman moved like a living phantom. In less than 3 minutes, Kaiser dismantled both of us, deflecting Ronan's flames and crushing my ribs before pinning me to the dirt with his greatsword at my throat.
And now, the memory caught up to the bitter reality of the present.
I lay in the gravel, coughing blood, looking up at Kaiser's blade.
Beside him stood Celia.
She looked down at me not with anger, but with cold, sickening revulsion. She had heard my vicious words to Ronan; she had felt my fists against her face. She truly believed I was a traitor who had tracked her across the continent to slaughter her for bounty.
Every desperate apology died in my throat. When she denounced me—declaring her real name had been given to her by her true friend, and that she would never speak to a degenerate liar like me again—every word felt like an iron stake driven through my sternum.
I had tried to save her from Ronan's fire, only to murder her love with my own hands.
Before Kaiser's blade could end my life, a fiery arrow shrieked through the night sky.
The projectile slammed into Kaiser's shoulder, detonating in a blinding explosion of flame that hurled the swordsman across the clearing into the cliffside.
Celia gasped, scrambling backward toward Kaiser's smoking body in sheer terror.
Through the blazing smoke walked Ronan.
He was no longer human. Demonic crimson-and-gold fire swirled around his frame, his eyes burning with the apocalyptic light of Velkaris. He had surrendered his flesh entirely, fusing his soul with the King of Flames.
"Did you think a measly 1 or 2 spirits could defeat me? How dare you touch my soul, you pathetic weakling." Ronan sneered, his voice layered with the booming roar of a god as a vortex of white-hot fire coalesced in his palm.
Celia fell to her knees beside Kaiser, trembling, entirely powerless before the approaching god of fire.
And I lay in the gravel, broken, beaten, and despised.
I had failed at everything. I had failed to protect her under the ancient oak tree 7 years ago. I had failed to save her with my lies today. She looked at me like I was filth, and she would carry that hatred to her grave.
My hand slipped inside my shredded coat.
My fingers brushed against the small leather pouch. The green emerald was still cold, still unbroken.
It was never just a birthday gift. It was my promise. It was the only tangible piece of the boy who had loved her before the world went mad.
She would never forgive me. She would never take it from my hands.
It doesn't matter.
I was a coward when the Chief slipped the noose around her neck. I was a coward when I hid behind lies.
I won't be a coward now.
I gritted my teeth, forced my cracked ribs to hold, and pushed myself up from the dirt.
Black cursed mana flared around my bruised knuckles, thick and stubborn against the blazing heat of the King of Flames.
Even if she hated me forever, I would stand between her and the fire.