Chapter 15 – Flame of Rebirth
Nothing in Krish's training thus far had been gentle, but fire was another order entirely. While thunder struck and wind guided, and earth steadied, the flame asked for surrender. Its lesson was for those who sought not only to survive but to be remade.
The first flare tore through him like a confession. Heat kissed his muscles and then dragged at the marrow of his bones, coaxing every weakness to the surface. The flame's purging hunger was merciless; it did not negotiate. It would burn the old away so the new could stand in its place. Pain, real and white-hot, served as its herald.
RC's alarms screamed in the background. "Core temperature critical. Tissue degradation imminent. Initiate emergency nanoshielding—"
Krish cut her off with a laugh that tasted of iron. "Let it try." He let the flame take him.
Sometimes people confuse destruction and purification. They are cousins in the dark. The flame consumed him in ways nothing else could: cracked scars, cauterized rot, stripped brittle angles from his soul. But it also showed him beauty—when old growth is cleared, new shoots find sunlight. He felt his old fears burn out and his resolve harden into something honed and surgical.
There was a strange serenity under the inferno. Pain existed, vivid and immediate, but it was a certain kind of promise: the price of becoming. With each incinerated flaw, Krish felt a strange lightness settle into his limbs. His reflexes were clearer now, uncluttered by pointless hesitations. Where once he had reached with panic, he now reached with purpose.
When the flame began to fade, he opened his eyes. His skin did not bear the char of mortality; instead it shimmered as if forged anew—slick and tough, glinting with inner heat that no external air could snuff. The fire had rearranged him into a sharper instrument of will.
RC's voice was softer, processing the new data. "Cellular reformation complete. Dermal fortification achieved. Thermoregulatory efficiency optimized."
Silvia coiled and made a low sound that could have been admiration. "Rebirth is the path of those who would rise taller than their ashes," she said.
Krish flexed, feeling the residual warmth buzzing through his limbs. Fire had given him not only destructive potential but also a core species of courage: the certainty that when the world burned, he would not only survive—he would shape the flame to his ends.
He practiced channeling the new heat through his palms and into the wind, letting thunder ride the thermal updrafts he created. Fire spiced his other elements with ferocity. The storm within him was not gentler, but it was cleaner.
For the first time in what seemed like ages, Krish smiled without a shadow. He had been burned and remade, and that remaking had a purpose broader than him. Each new element was no longer isolated; it was a facet of a being gathering strength in the void.
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