The silence in the ruins was not silence at all.
It breathed.
It pulsed in the cracks of the broken stone. It whispered from the torn banners of fallen kings. It crept along the edges of Dexter's mind like a cold wind threading through the bones of the dead. Every step he took echoed not just in the air, but in memory—forgotten memory.
His boots crunched over ash and brittle fragments of things once alive. The sky above bled a deep, unnatural violet, like the heavens themselves had been cut open and left to leak.
He had been here before—though not with body or mind.
No. It was deeper. Instinctual.
This was the realm of Thyatira.
The Silent Flame.
Oldest of the Nine. Mother of demon legacies long buried. Keeper of the flame that no longer whispered, but waited. Watching.
A voice met him then, curling from the haze like smoke with lips. "Welcome, Chosen."
He turned, and there she was.
Thyatira.
She did not walk. She glided. Her body was flame made flesh, robed in black and red and veined with living runes that crawled across her skin like molten scripture. A crown of bone coiled around her head—each horned piece whispering in tongues only the dead understood.
"You were expected," she said, her voice a glassy rasp, beautiful and broken all at once. "But you are… disappointing."
Dexter didn't hesitate. He raised his sword, its black flame dancing like it recognized her.
"I'm not here to impress you," he said, voice low and burning. "Just to end this."
A slow, pitying smile curved her lips. "Ah, the fire of youth. So bright. So eager to be snuffed out."
She vanished in a blink.
Ash exploded around him. Then—impact.
A force slammed into him, launching his body through the air. He collided with a jagged column of obsidian-glass. The pain was white-hot, blooming across his ribs, but he pushed through it, rising just as her next strike came.
Claws shrieked against steel.
Her eyes burned like suns extinguished in rage.
"You wear the rings," she growled, circling him like a predator. "But you don't even know what they cost."
"I know enough to finish this," Dexter spat, breath ragged. "The warlock lured me here. To die. But I'm not dying today."
Thyatira's laugh wasn't loud—it was deep, cold, and full of something ancient.
"You think this is about death?" she whispered. "The warlock didn't send you here to die, child. He sent you here to remember."
She raised her hand.
And the world split open.
Visions tore across the air around them—fractured windows into a past buried beneath layers of blood and fire:
A younger Astaroth, kneeling before a veiled woman cloaked in nothingness—Thyatira.
A burning citadel. Nine thrones. One empty.
A forge glowing with impossible heat, and nine rings shaped not by mortals—but by her.
"You were never fighting us," she said, stepping closer, her voice now tender, intimate. "You were completing us."
Dexter staggered, the rings on his fingers burning. They pulsed violently. Each beat was a scream in his blood.
Then the memories came—not his own, but imprinted deep inside him. A city burning in silence. A scream drowned in flame. Names without mouths.
"You made the rings?" he gasped.
"I am the rings," she answered.
Her hand reached toward him. "They were pieces of me. Each one sealed with a shard of my soul. Scattered across the realms so I could be forgotten."
The rings began to dissolve.
One by one, they unraveled into pure light, searing his skin, his veins, his mind. He cried out, falling to his knees, clutching his chest as unspeakable knowledge flooded into him. He could hear the stars singing. He could taste names that shattered time.
"You're not the chosen," she whispered, kneeling beside him. "You're the heir."
Dexter's voice was raw. "No…"
"Yes." Her touch grazed his cheek. Gentle. Possessive. "Born of flame. Forgotten by time. And now, returned to me."
"I'm not yours!" he screamed. "I'm human!"
She laughed.
"Human?" Her breath was warm with fire and sorrow. "Why do you think the fire answers you? Why did the sword choose you? Your soul burns with what little remains of my dominion."
He tried to rise, but her palm pressed against his chest—and the world turned to blinding white.
When he awoke, the world had changed.
He stood atop a black tower of molten stone, overlooking a sky of fire. Below him stretched armies. Marching. Breathing. Preparing.
Ashborn. Demons. The Flamebound. All drawn toward the center of a swirling storm.
Toward him.
The Convergence was near its zenith.
Dexter's sword pulsed with ancient runes—her runes. And his reflection in the blade showed eyes not his own.
Eyes like burning stars.
Something in him had changed. He wasn't just Dexter anymore.
He was something… more.
Something ancient.
The sky rumbled, and a cruel, mocking laugh echoed across the tower.
"You thought they were your allies?" Thyatira's voice rang like poison bells. "The warlock… the Ashborn? They serve me now."
The air shimmered. Dark shapes emerged.
Not soldiers.
Monsters.
The FORIS.
Demons unlike any he had seen—their forms tall and twisted, armored in bone and smoke. Their eyes were voids. Their steps shook the world. They moved as one.
The elite of the Seven Elders.
Stage Three demons.
Now protectors of the last surviving elder—Thyatira.
She raised her arm. "Prepare him for the ritual. My rebirth is almost complete."
They closed in.
And then the sky broke.
A thunderous crash tore through the tower as streaks of fire, lightning, and wind erupted from the heavens.
Tulopia descended first, her robe blazing like a living comet. "Sorry we're late," she said, landing beside Dexter. "Had to gather the rest."
Kael, Riven, Orin, Vael, Zyre, and Naru followed—six avatars of elemental destruction.
Dexter's chains fell with a burst of light.
Tulopia whispered an incantation.
"Patrinos… Akremali."
Dexter roared.
His demon form surged forth. The sword ignited anew. Black fire spilled from his back like wings. And together—they charged.
The first wave of FORIS struck hard. But the flame struck harder.
Kael's axes cleaved through bone and shadow, laughter booming as every enemy combusted in black flame.
Riven whipped chains of molten vines through the air, shredding enemies into shrieking ash.
Orin danced, his spear a storm of red. His war-cry pierced heaven.
Zyre summoned glaciers of obsidian, freezing FORIS in place—before shattering them with white-flame detonations.
Naru vanished into the stone beneath, bursting upward to impale enemies from below, brown flame devouring all.
And Vael—silent, deadly Vael—wielded the blue flame like a blade of divine judgment, lightning trailing each deadly stroke.
The ground trembled beneath their fury.
Tulopia fought at Dexter's side, her staff spinning with celestial light. "They fall, one by one," she called. "But she's the heart. She must die!"
"I'll handle her," Dexter growled.
Thyatira descended in a storm of wings and flame.
"You fight your blood," she hissed.
"I fight my past," he answered—and their blades collided.
Their battle tore the sky open.
Her wings shredded the air, her magic burned like suns. Dexter parried each strike with fire of his own, their swords shrieking as they collided again and again.
"You were always meant to join me," she spat. "You are flame!"
"I am more than what you made me!" he roared.
Tulopia summoned a sigil into the sky—radiant and vast.
Chains of light fell like meteors, binding dozens of demons in place. She launched a beam of celestial power, carving a path through the battlefield straight toward Thyatira.
"Now, brothers!" she cried.
The Six regrouped.
"We end this!" Kael bellowed.
Each brother raised his flame.
Together they formed the Halo of Infernal Harmony—a spiraling vortex of elemental fury.
They hurled it at the ash titan Thyatira had created—a towering abomination of fused bodies and wrath.
The titan shrieked as the spell struck. Its body shattered in light and silence.
And silence fell.
Thyatira rose, broken, bleeding black fire. One wing gone. Her crown cracked.
"You… think you've won…"
Dexter limped toward her, sword blazing. "No. We've endured."
She staggered. "You… were never meant… to survive."
"We weren't meant to. But we did."
He plunged his blade into her chest.
Light poured from her. The fire within her turned on itself. Her scream cracked the sky.
And she was gone.
Ash.
Just ash.
The battlefield was still.
Only smoke and the breath of the living remained.
Tulopia collapsed to her knees, staff trembling. The Six stood silent, their flames dimming.
Dexter turned his face to the sky.
No more flame.
No more war.
Just stars.
And for the first time in a long, long time—he felt like himself.
Not a vessel.
Not a weapon.
Just a man who had survived the fire.
And learned to command it.