The silence that filled the carriage on its return to Akasa was thick as fog on a winter moor, heavy with the weight of grief. No voice dared to rise above the hush, for every soul aboard bore the raw memory of death—a life cut short, precious and beloved. The wound was fresh, and silence was the only balm they had.
Yua sat nestled between Masha and Leyla. The elder alicorn had drawn her wing around the young Luxian like a cloak, for comfort, not with words, but with presence. In times such as these, words faltered. There was nothing to be said that could mend what had been broken. Yua's small hooves fidgeted with the sole fragment left to her—a single feather, once part of her sister, now woven into her mane. She toyed with it absentmindedly, as if touching it might summon back a voice, a laugh, a heartbeat. Her tears had long since dried, leaving behind only the hollow ache of loss. She stared ahead, not truly seeing. The light in her eyes had dimmed to embers.
Masha and Kolibry remained silent, their faces drawn, their paws and hooves idle. Consolation eluded them. They longed to ease her pain, but grief had erected a wall neither knew how to scale.
Across from them sat Ayzat, Aren, Aqasha, and Xuefeng, the distance between the groups as wide and cold as a chasm. Aren had chosen this arrangement deliberately. He understood well enough the tension Xuefeng brought with her, the rift between her and her daughter, still raw and unresolved. Now was not the moment to stoke such fire.
It was Ayzat who finally broke the quiet. His eyes lingered on Leyla's group with something close to sorrow. "Aren," he said, his voice a gentle rumble, "perhaps it would be wise for you to go with them. In times such as these, they'll need a heart as kind as yours." There was no command in the Second Paladin's tone, only compassion, an alicorn speaking from understanding. Leyla had already told him they would not remain in his halls. After the quarrels between the young Protectors and Aqasha, he could not blame them.
Aren looked up, his gaze meeting Ayzat's before it flickered sideways to Xuefeng. She sat still, shoulders bowed, eyes fixed upon the floor. The proud blaze that once lit her had guttered low. He knew that look too well—the stare of someone who had seen too much and borne too little. He had worn it himself in Lilas's room more than once. Yet knowing her sorrow did not soften him. Her cruelty toward Yua still rang in his memory, sharp and unforgiven. He turned from her, offered her nothing, and nodded to Ayzat instead. A choice made, quiet but firm.
Aren's quiet nod was all the answer Ayzat needed. The Second Paladin offered a faint, weary smile—more a shadow of courtesy than any true joy. "I'll take Aqasha back with me to the manor," he said, voice low. "Xuefeng, you may stay as well. Tonight is no hour to begin the road to Luxia. Rest, if you can. There's a room prepared, and…some of Mei's belongings remain in my care."
For a heartbeat, Xuefeng bristled. The instinct to reject him rose swift and sharp—she would ignore him, perhaps curse him, or walk away without a word. Her grief had curdled into a restless storm within. But the name stilled her: Mei. At the mention of what her daughter had left behind, something in her anger cracked. "Only for the night," she murmured, the words rough as gravel. Her voice was frayed, worn thin by sorrow.
The High-Priest rose as the transport neared the red towers of Akasa, their spark flickering through the windows like cold stars. He glanced at Ayzat, a hoof briefly resting on his friend's shoulder. "Thank you," he said simply. Aren had no doubt—the best thing for Yua was to be kept far from the shadows of Xuefeng and Aqasha. Whatever peace could be offered to her now lay in the distance.
With that, he crossed the cabin and came to stand before Leyla's group. He bowed his head with measured grace, offering quiet greetings to each of them before settling in beside them. The gesture was not grand, but it meant something.
Ayzat watched him go, that faint smile lingering on his lips, until his eyes turned back to the two alicorns who remained. Whatever warmth had flickered there died away. His features tightened, and the Paladin within him returned. As he stood, his voice took on a different edge—measured, commanding.
"Come with me," he said. "This has gone on long enough. There are truths that must be spoken, and you both must hear them."
Xuefeng gave only a terse nod, her movements stiff as she rose beside him. She spoke not a word—grief had made her brittle, hollowed her out until only silence remained.
Aqasha looked up at him, puzzled. The notion of a Paladin's council she understood, but her inclusion confused her. Whatever matter Ayzat intended to speak of, surely it belonged to his rank and not hers. Still, the days had worn her thin. The Festival's end had brought no peace, only fatigue and unanswered questions. She felt them like stones in her belly. And so, without protest or demand for explanation, she stood and followed.
Some burdens, it seemed, were best carried in silence.
***
Through the winding, torch-lit corridors of Ayzat's manor, three alicorns moved like shadows in the dark. The Second Paladin led them, his stride unbroken, his bearing certain, while the other two followed in his wake—one wary, the other wearier still. Even if the building itself wasn't old, the stone walls whispered of age, and the floor beneath their hooves seemed to bear the scuffs of countless cycles, as if even the halls themselves remembered.
At last, Ayzat came to what seemed a blind wall, hung with an ornate painting—a noble scene in hues of dusk and gold. Without pause, he summoned his magic. Light flared softly at his horn, and the wall yielded, shifting to reveal a hidden passage where none should be.
Aqasha froze, eyes wide. She had wandered these halls many times before, a young Ardenian in search of quiet, hiding places where no one would disturb her thoughts. Her adoptive father's friendship with Ayzat had afforded her the run of the manor, but never had she stumbled upon this. It startled her, and she resented, just a little, that it had remained concealed despite all her searching.
"Come," Ayzat said, and stepped through the illusion, leaving the canvas world behind.
Beyond the threshold lay a chamber unlike any in the rest of the manor. It yawned before them like the mouth of some ancient cavern, vast and solemn. The ceiling soared high above, impossibly so—Aqasha thought it thrice the height of the queen's throne room, if not more. The walls were hewn from black stone, not polished but raw, veined with molten hues like veins of fire frozen mid-flow. It reminded her of the craterstone from the Seinaru Kazan—volcanic, forbidden, alive. Beneath their hooves stretched flagstones of dark gray slate, fitted with uncanny precision. Between them, instead of pale mortar, glowed seams of pulsing red, like lava cooled only just enough to hold form.
A lone alicorn waited within. Clad in the muted garb of Ayzat's Protectors division, he stood still as a statue. When the trio entered, he bowed with solemn grace. Then, as the doorway sealed behind them, all warmth from the outer corridors vanished.
Xuefeng felt the shift first. The heat within the chamber coiled around her, heavy and oppressive, as though the walls themselves exhaled smoke. The air shimmered. Her skin prickled, and her wings twitched uneasily. She glanced around. The place might have passed for a training hall at first glance—perhaps one designed for his Protectors—but every direction she turned revealed another detail out of place. Sigils burned faintly upon the stone. Runes etched in long-dead tongues circled the ceiling. This room had seen things—terrible, powerful things.
Then her eyes found the book.
It lay alone at the far end of the chamber, thick and bound in hide that gleamed like obsidian. It called to her—not with words, but with a presence. She took an involuntary step forward, but Ayzat's voice stayed her.
"Show them," he said, his tone flat, final. A command.
The Protector obeyed.
A sudden wave of heat pulsed outward, and the air turned blistering. All three stepped back instinctively. Before their eyes, the alicorn's body shimmered with fire. Lines of molten light crawled from his chest, spider webbing through his skin like veins of lava. At the heart of it, a gem appeared—no ordinary stone, but a fiery core, pulsing with an unnatural rhythm. His eyes flared, no longer his own, and both Aqasha and Xuefeng recognized the change. It was the same look Mei had worn in that final moment—the same eerie gleam, otherworldly and wild.
Aqasha flinched, a cold dread curling through her. Xuefeng's jaw clenched, rage stirring in her chest like a beast waking from slumber.
Then the world changed.
The alicorn—no, the thing that had been an alicorn—unleashed its power. Magic surged, raw and ancient, and the room bent beneath it. The walls folded inward, stretched outward, the ceiling vanished into a sky of swirling aether. The chamber twisted into something else entirely—no longer stone and heat, but an ethereal expanse of light and shadow.
The air grew thick with grief and fury, choking in its weight. Shapes began to form before them, born of pain made flesh.
And the alicorn was gone.
In his place rose something vast, something terrible. Taller than any creature they had ever seen, its presence was suffocating, its power a flood. It loomed before them—no longer alicorn, nor even beast—but a force, a storm, a titan clad in heat and magic. The God of Destruction. Or, at the very least, the limited form It has been able to take from the sacrificed alicorn.
In front of them was a towering figure of gold, fire, and magma, It stood not as spirit, but as a force—relentless, unreasoning, yet somehow righteous. Its gilded flesh burned with inner fire, cracked with glowing veins of molten wrath. Every step scorched the earth; every breath reeked of burning skies.
Its head, noble and terrible, bore the unmistakable shape of an alicorn. A long, jagged horn of blackened stone jutted forward, veined with fire. From its mane, flames rose like war banners, flickering with every surge of fury. Eyes like dying stars pierced the soul, alive with the memory of a betrayal older than time.
But it was the wings—four pairs, vast and radiant—that truly heralded Its divinity. Forged from flame and magma-hardened gold, they shimmered with lost magic, each humming with a different note of doom. Torn from Its very soul in the world's first theft, they were not made for flight, but for reclamation.
Near It, the world itself recoiled. The air thickened and trembled. And the alicorns—those nearest—felt it first: a flood of grief, rage, and pain. Not their own…but Its.
Before the God of Destruction, Ayzat stood unmoved—unflinching, as if the flames that coiled from the creature's body meant nothing, as if the sheer weight of its presence did not press upon his bones like a mountain. The Second Paladin did not tremble. He stood closest to the behemoth, shadowed beneath its looming form, his cloak stirring in the heat that rolled off it like waves from a furnace.
Behind him, the two alicorns lingered, gripped by silence.
Aqasha's gaze was fixed, but not upon the God's molten form, nor the eyes that burned like twin suns. Her stare was drawn to the weapon clutched in its great, monstrous hand—an axe, vast and cruel, the steel blackened as if quenched in blood and flame. Something within her stirred at the sight, a heat to rival the room's own—anger, deep and sharp, blooming like a wound reopened.
Xuefeng said nothing, but her eyes were narrowed, searching, wary.
Seeing them thus, caught in reverent awe—or dread—Ayzat finally turned to them, voice quiet but firm, like the first note of a dirge. "You were taught the histories of our world," he said. "Tales passed down by scroll and sermon, etched into marble and memory. Yet the being you see before you," he gestured to the titan of fire and fury, "was never part of those lessons. It should have been."
He let the words hang in the heat. Then, with measured breath, he went on.
"The power that forged the world," he said, "was stolen—ripped from a God whose name was scrubbed from stone. The truth, buried. Hidden by the Pantheon. What I offer you now…is the tale they do not tell."
His voice dropped low, and in it crept something dangerous—conviction, the kind that burns bridges and bends kingdoms. With a flick of magic, Ayzat summoned fire from the air, and from that fire, three orbs coalesced—floating above his hoof, glowing faintly in the dim room.
"In the beginning, there was nothing," he said, eyes gleaming. "Only the Trinity—three Forces, eternal, primal. They were the breath before the first word, the wind before the fire. They were: Body, Soul, and Magic."
He raised the first orb, and it pulsed deep red, the color of heartblood and volcanic flame. "The Body," he said, "the wellspring of all that is physical. Matter. Flesh. Bone. Stone."
The second orb rose, shining blue like a calm sea at dawn. "The Soul," he continued, "the seat of thought and will. Memory and reason, dream and dread."
Last, he lifted the third—vivid green, alive with a light that seemed to pulse with emotion itself. "And Magic," he said. "Emotion and power. Fury and joy. The weave that binds all unseen."
The three orbs began to spin, slow and deliberate, circling one another like stars in a dance older than the sky.
"They were balance," Ayzat said. "Each completing the other. But balance is not eternity. And peace is never permanent."
He turned his eyes back to the floating green orb. "The Third—Magic—grew restless. Craving more, it turned upon the Body, and stole from it. Flesh became land. Bone became mountain. Blood became sea. The world was born…not through creation, but through betrayal."
Behind him, the God of Destruction stood still, silent. Watching.
And now, so did the Aqasha and Xuefeng.
The world around them burst into motion. Ayzat's magic danced through the air, conjuring a realm of illusion within that infernal chamber. Flame answered his call—not wild and consuming, but shaped, colored, woven into meaning. What he summoned was not the world as it stood, but one born of fire and memory, sculpted in the crimson hues and golden tongues of Ardenian magic.
Mountains heaved upward in rivulets of molten stone, rivers flowed with flickering orange light, and forests bloomed from curling tongues of heat. It was all aflame, and yet it lived—real in form, if not in substance.
"Then," Ayzat said, his voice low and firm, "the Third fashioned a race of horned and winged beings…the alicorns. Us."
From the swirling fires rose their likenesses—fiery silhouettes with wings wide and horns aglow, flickering against the illusionary sky like phantoms lit from within. His words echoed in the charged air as he watched them take shape.
"But we were hollow," he said, "empty vessels, shaped but not yet whole."
With another gesture, he showed the green orb—the one called Magic—reaching again, this time to steal from the blue. As the glowing orb touched the second, cracks splintered across both, veins of white-hot light splitting their perfect surfaces.
"The Third took the mind," Ayzat continued grimly, "and granted us sentience. And, finally, with Its own power, It gave us emotion…and magic."
His voice grew bitter then, the corners of his mouth tight with contempt.
"This is what we are," he said, "not divine, not chosen. Creations, forged by theft. Puppets dressed in splendor, made to appease the vanity of a jealous force."
His illusions darkened, the orbs now marred and broken. "The other two," he said, "robbed and sundered, began to wither beneath the weight of their loss. Balance was broken, and their pain was unending."
The red orb twisted, burned, and transformed, its shape warping until it became something monstrous—an echo of the beast looming beside them: Destruction, the God who now filled the room like a second sun. The blue orb withered and thinned, becoming serpentine, pale and ghastly, the suggestion of bone and nightmare given form.
"Body became Destruction," Ayzat said, "and Soul became Nightmares."
The illusions faded, the flame dimmed, and with a single breath, the ethereal realm collapsed, leaving only the scorched stone walls of the chamber and the oppressive presence of the gigantic creature.
His tone softened, more personal now, as though peeling away the mask of the Paladin to reveal the alicorn beneath.
"Since the first days of my life, I heard them," he murmured, eyes closed, as if the memory was carved upon his soul. "A voice, calling. Crying. Suffering."
He opened his eyes, their light flaring with something deeper than memory—something ancient. "It grew louder with time. And with it came spirits—magma-born, strange and new, their presence increasing like smoke before a fire."
His gaze fell upon Aqasha, and it was a heavy thing, like the grip of fate closing around her throat.
"Aqasha," he said, voice quiet but carrying the weight of stone, "that fury within you…that flame that never dies…"
He paused. The firelight flickered across his face.
"It is not yours alone. It is Destruction's rage. And it has always been with you."
As Ayzat's final words lingered in the air like smoke after fire, the colossal figure behind him stirred. Stone-like muscles groaned as the God turned Its gaze, immense and burning, down upon the one who bore a fragment of Its soul. Its eyes—if they could be called that—glowed like twin forges, and in their reflection, Aqasha saw herself not as she was, but as something more…or something less.
Her breath caught, her heart thrummed like a war drum. Within her chest, a fire long kept at bay surged again, but this time with confusion riding its coattails. What did he mean? That this fury, this pulse of flame in her marrow, was never hers to begin with?
She had no time to give voice to the storm inside her. Ayzat was already speaking, as if plucking thoughts straight from her skull.
"No one knows the how or why," he said, his tone low but certain, "but a part of It dwells within you. Not merely a trace or a mark—but a sliver of the very being It once was. You, and you alone, can aid Its return. What you feel is not borrowed power, Aqasha. It is a shard of Destruction Itself."
Her eyes darted back to the titan, its presence looming like a memory too large to forget. And in its fiery glare, she saw not malice, but kinship. That familiar wrath—the one that had roared within her since her earliest breath—mirrored now in a creature older than time.
But Ayzat had already turned, his voice shifting its aim. He faced Xuefeng now, whose face bore the hardened grief of a mother, the careful suspicion of a soldier, and the buried fury of one wronged by fate itself.
"The Third," he said, "is Python."
He let the name fall like a blade between them.
"Yes," he went on, his voice cold as iron yet burning with truth, "the very regent of the Pantheon, who paraded herself as savior, is the same that shattered balance for her own glory. What you lived, what we all endured—every tale, every trial, every scripture whispered in reverence—it was all a lie."
He stepped closer, the firelight catching the steel in his gaze.
"Python rewrote the story. She cloaked theft in creation, branded herself divine while silencing the cries of the forsaken. But the truth is here before you—burning, breathing. The Destruction stands not as villain, but victim. A God undone."
Xuefeng's lips parted, but no sound came. Doubt clung to her, heavy as armor, but even that could not shield her from the voice rising within. It was not Ayzat's voice—it was older, rawer. It screamed not only for the titans betrayed, but for every alicorn scarred by Python's reign.
She thought of her daughter. Mei, bright and brave, slain by a sword sworn to gods who never deserved worship. Slain in the name of a false history. Her grief, once dull and heavy, began to sharpen into something colder. Something louder.
Ayzat's eyes lingered on Xuefeng, sharp and unyielding, yet beneath them smoldered something deeper—sorrow, perhaps, or the remnants of long-buried guilt. He had seen the flicker of rage in her, a tempest rising behind the walls she had long held firm. And so, with the calm precision of an alicorn used to wielding daggers in the dark, he pressed further.
"You were chosen, Xuefeng," he said, his voice low but certain, each word falling like a stone in still water. "Chosen for a truth too great to remain hidden. It was no random cruelty that claimed Mei's life. She knew. She knew everything—and she aided me."
The words struck like a spear through her ribs. The wound was already there, raw and gaping, but he twisted it. Her fury needed flame. And he had brought the spark.
"She died because she dared to see beyond the veil," he continued. "Because she sought to undo the lie they spun around us like golden thread." His voice darkened, heavy with contempt. "But the alicorns—Python's grand creation—were never meant to last. Perfect in her eyes, perhaps, but flawed to the marrow. Over time, they begin to unravel."
He turned slightly, pacing beneath the watchful gaze of the titan behind him.
"That is what began within Mei. She was becoming something else…something greater. I called her a Molten. Born of fire and fury. The truth kindled that change in her—and during the Festival, it overtook her."
A breath trembled from his lips, the first crack in his composure. A shudder rippled through his tone, unspoken sorrow choking the edges of his voice.
"She would have stood with us…had she lived. That power within her—it could have reshaped the world." He faltered. "But Luxoah…Luxoah made sure she would never have the chance."
His words faltered to a hush, and for a moment he stood silent, eyes clouded with grief. Whatever had once been stoic and steel-bound in Ayzat seemed to waver, though no tears fell.
Then came the fury. His pain turned to fire as he met Xuefeng's eyes again. "And you—her mother—you should be furious. You have every right to be. They stole your daughter, your blood, your light. So I ask you not for vengeance, but for justice. Help me make this right."
The fire was already catching in her. Xuefeng's wings trembled at her sides, her breath ragged, like a dam breaking beneath a tide of fury. The Pantheon—those gods cloaked in reverence and lies—had murdered her daughter. Not in battle, not by misfortune, but by design. Because she had learned the truth.
Her body shook with wrath barely held in check, and her gaze dropped, hiding the tears that escaped despite her will. They scorched her cheeks, silent testaments to all she had lost. Her grief was an inferno now, and her sorrow, a blade honed by betrayal.
Ayzat's voice softened once more, a rare thing in him, like the lull before a storm. "Mei loved you, Xuefeng," he said gently. "And she wanted you to see the truth she died for: that the Pantheon are no gods. They are thieves—parasites drunk on stolen flame."
And there, in the quiet that followed, it was not Ayzat's magic, nor the God looming behind him, that held sway over the room—but the silence of a mother, shattered and seething, standing on the edge of something far greater than rage.
While the two Paladins spoke—one with fire in his voice, the other with grief buried in her gaze—the great titan behind them did not move, save for Its eyes. Those burning orbs, deeper than any forge and older than the mountains, remained fixed on Aqasha. And she, drawn like a moth to flame, could not look away.
Then, like the stirring of wind in a crypt, she heard it—not aloud, but inside her, a voice without breath yet louder than thunder.
"You are marked, child. My flame courses through your veins," It said, each word reverberating through her bones, through her very soul. "Why you were chosen, I cannot say. Perhaps it was fate. Perhaps mere chance. But the time has come for you to recall the past you've buried in ash and shadow."
Her breath caught in her throat, and the world around her fell away. Darkness took her, swift and silent, and when her vision returned, it was not to the ethereal room of fire and stone—but to a memory.
She was a small child again, and fire was everywhere. The house she stood in was aflame, its beams collapsing in shrieks of heat and smoke. Tears streamed down her cheeks as the inferno devoured all, and her own magic blazed uncontrolled around her.
Through the roar of the flames came a voice—frantic, desperate. "Little sis! Aqasha! Aqasha!" it cried from somewhere beyond the fire.
But the fire was too loud. The voice too distant. She tried to answer, but the heat pulled her under—and then the memory vanished, slipping through her feathers like smoke.
Her eyes opened, and she found herself back in the room, yet the vision had not truly passed. Around them, the ethereal space was now ablaze, flames flickering in familiar shapes. It was the same fire she had seen in her memory. The same that had consumed her childhood.
Xuefeng's voice cut through the silence, sharp as shattered glass. "That's what your division is for, isn't it? What's its name?" she asked, her tone brittle with grief, her gaze blazing with a fury only a mother could know.
Ayzat turned to her, steady and solemn. "The Sacred Fire," he said. "Named for this fire—the fire of Destruction. The very flame you see burning around us now."
The name struck Aqasha like a hammer. Sacred Fire. She remembered, now. The same name as her Soul-weapon. She froze, her thoughts scattering. That fire—the fire that had devoured her home, the weapon she wielded, the god before her—were they all pieces of the same truth?
Her head spun. And then—
"Aqasha?"
She heard her name again, faint and far, like the echo of the voice from the fire. Was it the same?
"Aqasha?"
No…this voice was nearer. Present.
Her vision cleared, and Ayzat stood before her now, his brow furrowed with concern. He was calling her name, drawing her back from the brink. Behind him, the last burning embers consumed the body of the alicorn who had housed the Destruction. The God's presence faded like smoke on the wind, and the room returned to its former shape—cold stone and shadow.
Aqasha's voice was soft, brittle, as though the words themselves pained her. "I…I need time. And rest." Her eyes did not meet his. "May I go?"
The Second Paladin inclined his head, the firelight catching in his solemn eyes. "Yes…go, and take your rest," he said, his voice gentled now, as if the weight of the tale had carved away the steel in it. "But swear to me this—do not stray beyond the manor. I would have you safe beneath this roof."
With that quiet benediction, Aqasha turned and walked once more through the great painting, the same portal that had brought her here. Her steps were uneven, unsteady—each one a labor, as though her legs might betray her at any moment. Ayzat watched her go in silence, his gaze holding her retreating form until it vanished like smoke beyond the canvas.
When she was gone, he turned at last to the one who remained.
"Xuefeng," he said, his tone shifting, hollow now, like a bell that had rung too long. "I would give you what was meant for Mei. She was to be the first true Molten—her power unlike anything we've seen. But now she's ash and memory. I believe she would have wanted you to carry the flame."
His words struck like a mailed fist. Xuefeng stiffened, her breath stilled in her chest. What he was saying—the gall of it—was beyond grief. Mei had died not just by the hoof of a corrupt and lying Pantheon. Anger blinded her, but she finally realised: her dear daughter died but because of him.
Rage flared in her like wildfire, leaping through dry leaves. Her face contorted, and a raw, anguished cry tore from her throat, one born of sorrow too vast to carry.
"Come, Needlesong!" she shouted.
With that summons, her Soul-weapon answered. Four gilded needles spun into being, dancing in the air like deadly stars, each threaded with a line of luminous silk so thin it seemed spun from moonlight itself.
Ayzat did not flinch. He smiled, almost wistfully, as if he had been waiting for this moment.
In a breath, his own weapon was born into the world. A Katana, long and lean, red as fresh-spilled blood.
Red Day.
Its blade shimmered with symbols too ancient to name—runes of the Destruction, etched deep into its cruel edge. The hilt was grotesque, twisted gold turned to something flesh-like and corrupted, veins bulging along its length, pulsing faintly beneath his magic. At the guard, a single eye peered forth—unblinking, watchful—flanked by two tiny wings, as if to mock him.
With a flick of his telekinesis, Ayzat deflected the first of the needles, the clang of metal against metal ringing like chimes of war. Her assault came swift, fierce, but undisciplined. Rage made her reckless. It dulled her edge, turned precision into fury.
And precision was her strength.
Ayzat moved like a shadow, parrying each strike with ease. He did not counter, not truly—only measured her. Watched her. Studied her dance. For Paladins did not often cross blades, and rarer still was a duel with stakes such as these. So he let her fury come, and met it with steel and silence, his sword singing softly with each deflection.
He was not yet testing her. He was learning her.
The fire of Destruction still danced around them—writhing, hissing, alive. It cast long, twitching shadows across the chamber walls. Ayzat moved within it like a creature born of flame, shifting from one side of the room to the other with ease, his blade cloaked in fire.
A flash. A slash. Fire tore through the air.
Xuefeng twisted aside, but not untouched—the flames kissed the tip of her tail, and the smell of burning fur bit at her nostrils. Her eyes snapped toward him, smoldering with rage. Ayzat stood tall, flicking a lock of hair back from his brow with a smug little flourish.
"Was that truly necessary?" she growled, her voice tight with pain and scorn.
He gave a soft chuckle, almost melodic. "Always. Elegance in battle is all that keeps us from becoming beasts. Once you cross that line, there's no crawling back."
Another sweep of his sword. Another ribbon of flame.
Then he vanished—gone in a whisper of sparks, slipping into the inferno once more.
Xuefeng snarled, magic crackling at her horn. The needles spun at her will, weaving a net of silk through the smoky air. It shimmered—beautiful, deadly—but too slow. Ayzat burned through it before it could close, his body a blur, his blade a red specter.
Strike after strike, they clashed.
He had yet to bleed.
She had not been so fortunate.
The heat clawed at her skin. Her breath came faster now, her heart hammering like a war drum. She gritted her teeth and, with light magic, conjured illusion—phantom needles swirling like ghosts of glass. They danced, misled, threatened.
Then, without warning, he reappeared.
Above.
The sky—her sky. Her refuge, her battlefield. She had owned the air when she fought the Wingless. But Ayzat had followed her there, and now the sky belonged to neither.
He struck again—swift, silent. No fire licked the blade. No flame trailed its arc.
Xuefeng's instincts screamed.
She dodged.
Too slow.
Pain bloomed along her neck as fire burned her mane. A whole chunk of it hissed, curled, blackened. She winced, seized one of her own needles, and cut the burning hair away with a single, sharp motion.
And then she understood.
He had hidden the flame.
Invisible fire. Heat without light. Flame that burned only when it touched.
Fear curled around the base of her spine, cold and unwelcome.
Anger stirred still—white-hot—but beneath it, doubt.
She was falling behind. Outpaced. Outmatched.
She landed hard, hooves digging into stone, wings spread for balance. Her horn ignited, blazing with power. The needles hovered, glowing, poised.
"Opensoul: House of Silk…"
The words had almost left her mouth before he came again.
From flame. From nothing.
Right in front of her.
Red Day sang low.
In a blink, his sword swept beneath her.
She felt it—sharp and deep. Then warm.
Blood spilled onto the floor, gleaming like rubies in the firelight. Her wings spread wide as she staggered, catching herself mid-fall.
Ayzat drew a sharp breath, a flicker of something like guilt flashing across his face. "Oh, dear…I truly am sorry," he murmured, voice feather-light with mock regret. "I hadn't meant to sever them so cleanly. Truly. I assumed, as a Paladin, you had more…resilience." He tilted his head, eyes glinting. "But there's no need for tears. Once you're Molten, they'll grow back, limbs and all."
He gave a light chuckle then—dry, mirthless. Lifting one hoof delicately, he sidestepped the growing pool of blood as if it were no more than spilled wine. "Of course," he added, "the only requirement is that you die. Decapitation is the one path you must avoid…but otherwise—"
A flick of his horn, and Xuefeng's head was wrenched upward by invisible threads of magic. Her forelegs no longer held her—those lay severed beside her, grotesque and still. Her chest heaved as her body dangled, upheld by his power alone.
"Here. Drink." The words were gentle, but the act was not. He forced the potion down her throat—the final component in his cursed transformation. She gagged. Coughed. Choked.
But she drank.
Ayzat smiled, and this time it reached his eyes. They sparkled like frost under moonlight. "So then…how would you like to die?" he asked, almost playfully. The joy in him was real, and it was terrifying. Thinking back, never before had she seen him truly feel—never in all their years. And now, here it was. This twisted elation. Pure, unmasked.
Xuefeng's body quaked. She groaned as her wings pressed to the scorched floor, trying to raise her—useless. Her limbs were gone. The pain carved hollows in her strength.
Still, she shifted. Managed to raise her head, almost. Her gaze locked onto Ayzat's. Her lips twitched upward into a slow, deliberate smirk. Her horn glimmered with the faintest pulse of light.
"I'll do it myself," she whispered. "Asshole."
One of her needles, silent and swift, darted like a viper. A streak of light, impossibly fast.
It struck her between the eyes.
Her body went limp. Wings fell open. Head lolled to the side. Her final breath escaped on a sigh, and the blood beneath her stilled.
The silence that followed felt like the world holding its breath. Even the flames seemed to dim.
Then, a shimmer in the air. A crystal formed—clear, radiant, humming with power.
A voice, cool and sharp, filled the space. "This is a message for the Pantheon, Paladins, and High-Priests. The Fifth Paladin of Equestera, Xuefeng the Weaver, has perished."
The Second Paladin stared at the glowing crystal, its cold voice still echoing in the silence. The seconds stretched thin, heavy as iron. Time seemed to slow, each heartbeat a drumroll.
Then—suddenly—he exhaled. A sharp, almost surprised breath, followed by a drawn-out sigh that seemed to come from somewhere deep within.
"Oh no," Ayzat muttered, dragging a hoof across his brow. "What a fool I've been." He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "In all the chaos, I forgot the best part."
He brought the hilt of his Katana to his forehead with a dull thud and lingered there for a moment. The Ardenian turned away, where his God stood once, as if he was talking to it. "I am very sorry I didn't take the chance to tell her that she was the target from the beginning. That every word I said, every step I guided her through, was a thread in the web I wove for her alone." His voice dropped to a murmur. "And her daughter…her precious Mei…just bait. Expensive bait, but bait nonetheless."
Another sigh escaped him. "It appears I was a better "Weaver" than the Fifth Paladin." There was no remorse in it—only a strange, patient weariness.
With a flick of his horn, he conjured a syringe into being—long, cruel, and filled with a molten liquid that shimmered like living magma. It pulsed with unnatural life, a fiery echo of the Destruction whose mark still lingered in the room's air.
He turned toward Xuefeng's corpse, now limp and cooling.
Carefully—almost tenderly—he pressed the needle to her chest, directly above the heart. It slid in without resistance, the red fluid vanishing into her body like it belonged there.
Ayzat stepped back and watched.
"Well," he whispered, "let's see if It was right after all…"