The silence after the Guardian's fall was unbearable. The void chamber quaked, its obsidian walls bleeding with streams of indigo fire. Vemy stood at the center, his body trembling, his flame no longer the same azure hue. What burned around him now was something else—something alive, shifting like liquid metal.
The Prismarine Flame.
It shimmered like shattered glass reflecting countless stars, blue one moment, silver the next, indigo when it surged. Every breath Vemy took bent the air around him, his aura pushing reality itself away.
From the high balcony, the Thrones whispered. Shadows with crowns of flame, unseen faces watching with a weight older than time itself.
"Impossible… the boy altered the Flame itself."
"Not azure, not void… it is something that should not exist."
"He may surpass the cycle."
Vemy clenched his fist. The Prismarine fire responded, molding into burning gauntlets around his arms. His mind was steady now—no whispers, no cracks. He had devoured the Guardian's despair and reforged it into his own.
But the chamber was not still.
A pressure broke across the void, colder than flame, heavier than death. A voice, sharp and calm, echoed:
"Vemy… so you've chosen to wield the unthinkable."
Vemy's head snapped upward. Across the flaming void, standing on a fractured platform, was Akiar—his rival, his mirror. His silver-black cloak fluttered in the heat, untouched by the Prismarine inferno.
His eyes burned with restrained fury.
"You were never supposed to touch the Thirteenth Ring."
"You're tearing apart the balance that keeps this world alive."
Vemy narrowed his gaze. "Balance? Or chains? I won't die shackled like the Guardian. If the world fears my flame, then let it burn."
The void trembled as Prismarine and Akiar's stormlike aura collided across the chamber.
Akiar raised his blade, its edge screaming with restrained lightning.
Vemy tightened his burning fists, his Prismarine fire rippling.
The two forces prepared to clash—
and the void itself shattered beneath their power.