The fire fell like a collapsing sky.
It roared outward from the colossus’ maw, a torrent of molten light that swallowed screams and steel alike. The ash plains beca a furnace, horizon to horizon, a single breath of annihilation.
Kael braced himself, blade planted, body turned into a shield. The heat seared his flesh, blistering through armor, but he did not falter. Behind him, Elara wrapped herself around the boy, her fire rising not to attack but to endure, a cocoon of fla within fla.
For a mont, it seed nothing could survive. Warriors were reduced to shadows, their cries vanishing as the inferno consud them. The scarred woman’s spear glowed white in her grip as she scread defiance, hurling herself against the tide. The fire struck her down, yet she did not fall—her body stood rigid, burning, as though her hatred itself was a pillar against the blaze.
Then—light shifted.
The boy cried out. His glow flared, not ember-red but white-hot, cutting through the furnace like a shard of dawn. The flas that should have devoured Elara and Kael bent, split, flowed around them as though the child himself was a wound in the fire.
The colossus faltered, its furnace sputtering. Its chains writhed in confusion, so snapping inward as if recoiling from the boy’s cry.
When the fire at last relented, the battlefield was unrecognizable. Ash smoldered where warriors had once stood. Only fragnts remained—charred armor, half-lted blades. A handful of survivors staggered, coughing blood, their skin blackened.
Kael fell to one knee, smoke rising from his scorched armor. He forced his eyes open, searching through the ruin. Elara still knelt, clutching the boy, her own skin blistered but her arms unyielding. The scarred woman was still on her feet, though her body was cracked and glowing with burns, her spear fused to her hand. She breathed in ragged bursts, but her eyes blazed—alive.
The colossus reeled, wounded by its own unleashed fire, molten chest splitting wider. From within, a glow deeper than fla pulsed—dark, resonant, like the heartbeat of the Gate itself.
Above, the chains shuddered violently, each link screaming as though the fire had seared them too. One cracked. A fissure raced along its length, sparks raining into the sky.
The Unborn’s voice followed, deeper than before, no longer a whisper but a tremor that split the air:
“You burn. You break. You bleed. Yet still, you resist. Good. Strain harder... until you beg to co.”
The scarred woman staggered toward Kael, her body half-ruin, spear dragging. She spat blood into the ash, her voice ragged but venomous. “Still you shield that thing. Tell , warrior—how many more must burn before you admit the truth?”
Kael rose slowly, blade in hand, every breath a wound. He t her blazing eyes, then looked to the boy trembling in Elara’s arms.
The child’s glow pulsed weakly, whispering again: “Father... closer...”
And Kael knew—whether they killed or protected him, the boy was no longer theirs to decide.
The Gate had already chosen.
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