The moment Ashwan saw the flame fragment in the enemy's hand, the world changed.
Not visually—everything still burned dim and hollow in Kul'tharuun—but spiritually. The very air shifted, responding to that stolen spark of the Final Flame. It was subtle, but Ashwan felt it in his bones.
Like the Veil itself shivered.
The enemy figure, standing in the center of the altar, raised his hand slowly. His skin cracked with glowing threads of red light, and his face—half-mask, half-scorched flesh—smiled.
"Keeper of the Rear," he spoke, his voice smooth, cultured, and terrifyingly human. "You arrived faster than our prophecies claimed."
Ashwan stepped forward, eyes fixed on the flame. It hovered unnaturally above the altar—a pure ember, small as a fingernail, but burning with truth. That was no illusion. That was a shard of the Final Flame, siphoned from the leyline running beneath the Veil Fortress.
"How did you extract it?" Ashwan demanded.
The figure tilted his head. "We did not. It came willingly."
Behind Ashwan, his team held defensive positions. Ruvana had taken aerial stance again, blades ready, while Suda's glowing arms formed protective sigils. Thyrol hissed from behind a boulder.
> "Ashwan… that's not just a cultist. That's a Flamebinder. A former human—converted. The Clans use them to manipulate spiritual systems. They're traitors."
Ashwan didn't look back. He already knew.
"I've heard your voice before," he said to the man at the altar. "In the whispers during raids… in the death-chant during the siege of the East Watch Tower."
The Flamebinder bowed slightly. "Then allow me to reintroduce myself. I was once called Rajin Dhasar, of the Bhavari Flame Sect. A scholar. A priest. A believer."
Ashwan's grip on the Vel tightened.
Rajin Dhasar. The man who vanished during the First Retreat War, the one blamed for betraying the eastern leyline outpost—causing the deaths of over seven thousand civilians.
"Why?" Ashwan asked, voice low.
Rajin's smile widened. "Because flame doesn't belong to the weak. It belongs to the worthy. And the Clans… they have made me worthy. They gave me truth."
He raised the fragment, and the altar pulsed.
Suddenly, black veins of corrupted ley energy surged through the ridge, twisting the terrain further. Even Ashwan staggered.
"The Final Flame will not burn forever," Rajin said. "It chooses. And it has chosen change."
Ashwan's sigil flared violently. "No."
> "The Flame doesn't abandon.
It waits.
It tests.
And it returns."
He stepped forward.
Rajin sneered. "You cannot win here. This shard is linked to the altar. Strike it, and you risk rupturing the leyline beneath the Veil."
That stopped Ashwan cold.
Because he wasn't lying.
Ruvana's voice rang in his ears. "Ashwan, if he's telling the truth and you attack the shard—"
"—we tear a hole through the Veil's heart," Ashwan finished grimly.
And in that moment, Rajin launched his attack.
From the altar surged a spiral of flame—not sacred, but twisted, black and crimson, screaming with voices of corrupted spirits. It wasn't fire. It was memory—the dying cries of cities, the betrayal of generals, the regrets of the burned.
Ashwan stood firm.
"Nadathin Neruppu… Vilakkattum." (Let the Fire of Purpose Light the Path.)
His Vel ignited again—not with fury, but with clarity.
He danced through the spiral—dodging, weaving, deflecting flames with angled strikes. The battlefield became a duel of philosophies—Rajin's corrupted belief in power through surrender, and Ashwan's burning oath to protect even in retreat.
They clashed at the center of the altar. Vel met dark staff. Sparks turned to firestorms. Runes burst and collapsed.
Ashwan felt himself burning again.
But this time, he didn't ignite the Flame Fragment.
He reached around it.
Through sheer will, he wrapped his soul-flame around the shard—isolating it from the altar. Agniyan's voice whispered once in his mind:
> "Balance it. Do not burn.
Cradle the fire… as a parent, not a warrior."
Ashwan shouted, "Seal formation! Now!"
Suda slammed his palms into the ground. Six mantra seals flared around the altar.
Thyrol detonated a precision bomb of frozen ash, halting the leyline's spread.
Ruvana descended like a hawk, slicing through Rajin's defenses.
And Ashwan—
Ashwan reached into the fire.
His hand gripped the shard.
And he did not burn.
The Final Flame flickered.
And chose him again.