Elias hit the floor of the crashed shrine room, blood dripping down his side in slow, viscous pulsations. The fight was over, but his body didn't know it. It still shuddered, still crouched for a blow, a charge, a raving thing out of darkness.
His hand pressed against the ground. Slick. Cold.
The air reeked of scorched skin and rusted incense.
He attempted to speak, but they sounded like they were wet.
His vision blurred.
He rested his head against a half-melted Aquila plaque and closed his eyes.
The darkness swept in—
He first experienced it in his backbone — a little like a spark that hadn't been there before, working its way up into the back of his skull, muttering thoughts that didn't have words.
Not words, Not voice,
force.
And then… something new.
"You want growth."
Elias's eyes opened.
He wasn't in the shrine anymore, dude.
He stood there in darkness — endless, starless, silent.
His body was whole.
But he had company.
In front of him, a flame hovered.
Small. Steady. Flickering.
Since it was burning backwards — not growing, but curling in, consuming itself over and over, tighter and tighter.
It pulsed as it spoke — or thought — or echoed.
"You call me System. I am not."
" I am Flame."
Elias advanced — but there was no ground, only motion.
He did not walk on anything. He walked through something.
The flame did not increase either.
But it became… closer.
"You're not strong. You're not the chosen one."
"You are alive."
"And that is what I feed."
The flame flickered.
"I don't give authority to those who are willing. The willing are weak."
"I reward the breaking point."
"It's not where you fall, it's where you refuse to move."
Elias swallowed.
"Why me?"
The flame pulsed again — slower.
"Wrong question."
"Ask what you will become."
Elias took another step forward.
The flames moved inches away from his chest now.
It produced no heat.
Only pressure.
A constant, unbearable pressure — like his soul was being measured in tons.
"You seek strength."
"You will receive pain."
"You seek survival."
"You will receive failure."
"You seek growth."
"Then burn."
Elias opened his mouth.
But the flame exploded.
Not outward — inward. A spiral curling into his chest, implanting itself into his chakra, into his breathing, his bones, his spine, like it belonged there — like it belonged there all along.
The world snapped back—
He woke panting on the shrine floor.
His wounds still burned.
But he could feel it.
The world snapped back—
He gasped awake on the shrine floor.
His wounds still burned.
But he could feel it.
Chakra.
Moving.
Alive.
He stood — barely — and staggered toward the access shaft.
As he climbed, as the blood dripped behind him in a slow, steady trail, Elias whispered one thing into the dark:
"Now I know what you are."
He smiled.
Not like a man who'd won.