38th Day of Fall, Year 13,499
Doran drifted through the void, stars swirling around him like dust in a dying dream.
His flames sputtered behind him—unstable, uneven. Each breath came shallow, tugging at a chest that no longer knew its own rhythm. Something inside pulsed.
Twice. Then again.
Not in sync.
Not in harmony.
A flicker of pain crawled down his spine.
He winced.
It wasn't sharp—just a spark behind the ribs—but it lingered. Deep. Constant. Like a bruise waiting to become a scar.
Behind him, Avon followed. Wings fluttering. Eyes locked on Doran with surgical focus, scanning every movement. Every shift.
"You're flying wrong," Avon said. Not with mockery.
Not yet.
Just observation.
Doran didn't answer. He didn't have the breath to waste.
"Too rigid," Avon added, voice drifting through the vacuum like smoke. "You used to flow with the flame. Now you're forcing it."
Doran clenched his jaw.
The fire in his limbs stuttered again—first from the shoulders, then the calves. Mismatched bursts. Out of sync. Each one pushed his body forward in jagged arcs, barely keeping pace.
His flame-wings fluttered—flickering like torn cloth in windless air. They couldn't hold shape. Couldn't hold him.
And yet, he pressed on.
Toward Furrow.
Each beat took more effort. And every time he flared them to stabilize, he felt something inside him tear.
Not just pain.
A ripping.
As if something was trying to force its way out.
Shredding. Burning.
"Hey, kid… you alright?" Avon's voice cracked through the silence, suddenly more raw. More human. "You're not looking too good."
Doran's hands trembled.
Barely.
But enough.
The flame dancing along his fingertips shifted—edges flickering violet, with streaks of indigo chasing the pulse in his veins.
Fast. Hot.
Then the flames flared.
Bright. Wild. Wrong.
Avon stopped mid-flight, recoiling, one wing raised to shield his eyes.
"Kid—dim it down! What the hell are you doing?!"
But Doran didn't respond.
Didn't move.
Because the flame did.
"Damn it!" Avon hissed, eyes narrowing at the limp figure ahead. "I'm gonna have to break the Soul Bind…"
He muttered it more to himself than anyone else.
Then he moved.
Avon's wings folded inward. His body dimmed, fire receding into the shape of something restrained. Controlled. A stark contrast to Doran's flame, which blazed brighter and more violently with every breath.
"Mind. Body. Soul," Avon whispered. "Break the chains of the final sacrifice."
Then—
A ripple.
Not a shockwave.
A pulse.
Even the stars dimmed—just for a moment—as if the void itself inhaled.
And held it.
Doran's flame froze mid-bloom, no longer growing but still blinding in heat and light. Its rhythm didn't slow. It just… hung there.
Avon's form began to glow—subtle at first, then rising like a quiet sun. His eyes snapped open, now burning from within.
"I promised myself I'd never stoop to this," he said. "But you gave me no choice."
His voice shifted—lower now. Older. Laced with something that hadn't spoken in years.
"You can't control yourself. And the flames will consume you if I let you keep going."
He raised a hand, palm glowing.
"I'm taking over until we reach Furrow."
Then Avon ignited.
Not in rage.
But in command.
His flame curled inward—tight, compact—before bursting outward in a sharp corona of blue and orange. He hovered only a breath longer, gaze locked on Doran.
"I won't let you keep throwing your life away," he said, voice resonating deeper than sound. "I will depose all those who claim godhood."
Then he surged forward.
In an instant, Avon collided with Doran—not in force, but in possession.
His flame sank into Doran's chest, threading through cracks between ribs, down veins, into memory, into mind.
Doran's body spasmed.
The flames fought.
Blue. Orange.
Red. Violet.
They danced. They clashed.
Not in harmony.
Not in sync.
But in collision.
Each movement seared. Every breath tore open something buried deeper.
Flame cracked along Doran's skin, bleeding through the seams of his body like molten glass under pressure. His bones pulsed. His lungs hitched. His vision blurred to colors that shouldn't exist.
Avon gritted his beak, forcing more flame through.
Trying to wrap around the soul.
Trying to stabilize.
Trying to anchor.
Trying anything.
"Is he fighting it?" Avon growled. "Or have I just gotten this weak…"
Then—
Stillness.
Not peace.
Just the absence of everything.
The flames froze mid-flicker.
The void folded—flat and breathless.
Avon's grip faltered.
Something entered the silence.
Not with sound. Not with force.
She didn't step in.
She didn't appear.
She slotted into existence.
A single figure.
Still.
Watching.
Perfectly wrong.
A woman.
Short brown hair framed her face, not a strand out of place. Ember-colored eyes glowed faintly, not with warmth, but with precision—like lanterns set in a symmetrical frame too flawless to be human.
Pale skin. Smooth as starlight.
Lips the color of old blood.
Her mouth parted.
"Was I too late?" she asked.
Her voice carried no urgency.
Just faint mockery.
And a dusting of disappointment, like she had expected better.
Avon turned.
Slowly.
He didn't need to ask who she was.
His body already knew.
His flame dimmed.
Eyes locked onto hers.
And for the first time in centuries, Avon shuddered.
Not from cold.
Not from pain.
Not from doubt.
But from recognition.
"…You," he breathed.
His voice cracked.
His fire curled tighter around him.
And behind him, Doran's body twitched. The flame still fought. Still flared.
But neither of them—Avon nor Doran—were the brightest thing in the void anymore.
She was.
The woman drifted closer.
Arms at her sides.
Body motionless.
She didn't swim through space.
She commanded it.
And the void obeyed.
She didn't so much move as reposition reality around her.
Creation embodied.
"Luciana," Avon breathed, his wings curling inward.
Luciana tilted her head ever so slightly.
Her hair didn't move.
Not even space dared to touch her.
"I had to see it for myself," she said softly.
Her voice wasn't loud, but it filled the void like scripture. Like something written at the beginning of time and only now being spoken aloud.
"Oh, how far you've fallen," she continued, lips curling faintly. "Relying on a mortal. And the best part?"
She smiled.
"You chose this."
Avon's wings tightened—not in reverence.
Not in defiance.
In containment.
Trying to keep his flame from spilling out under her gaze.
Luciana's eyes flicked to Doran.
"If you're wondering how I found you," she said, voice almost bored, "thank your little pet."
Avon's jaw clenched.
"I figured," he muttered. "I'm more curious why you're here."
His voice cracked at the edge, like a wire under too much weight.
Luciana gave a single blink. Slow. Methodical.
"Isn't it obvious?" she said. "I came to see what you created."
She spread her hands slightly—just a motion, not a gesture.
"I am the Goddess of Creation, after all. I can't have someone like you showing me up."
Avon's gaze snapped to Doran, then back to Luciana.
"…What do you mean?"
Luciana's amusement faded.
Her eyes narrowed—not with rage.
But annoyance.
"You made a Soul Bind," she said, voice flat. "Granted the dead mortal a soul to make him whole again."
She floated closer.
"Then somehow—somehow—he gains another soul. One not connected to you."
Her lips parted, tone turning cold.
"You've created something I never thought I would see."
She paused.
"A being with two souls."
Her body drifted forward, slower now, as if even movement had become a form of accusation.
"Tell me," she said. "What did you do? How did you split the Forbidden Flame?"
Avon didn't answer.
Couldn't.
His throat locked. The fear gripped too tight.
Luciana's voice deepened—reverberating through the vacuum like a command etched into time.
"Answer me."
The sound rang through the void, echoing against nothingness.
Avon's wings twitched. His flame flickered.
"I didn't do it," he gasped. "He did!"
And just like that, the echo stopped.
The silence snapped back into place—too fast, too sudden.
Luciana stilled.
So completely that even the void seemed to hold its breath.
"…He did?"
No movement.
No blink.
No need.
Her voice cooled. Calculating now.
Avon gave a small, barely-there nod.
Luciana turned toward Doran's body, eyes narrowing to slits of living ember. She studied him the way a master sculptor might study a shattered statue.
"Impossible," she murmured. "Two souls cannot coexist in one vessel without collapse. One must devour the other."
She raised a single finger.
"That is law."
Her hand moved closer.
"That is balance."
Avon flared.
"Don't."
Luciana stopped.
Then smiled.
Not out of amusement.
Amusement would imply doubt.
"Protective," she said softly, withdrawing her hand. "You've changed. Or is the Soul Bind that dire?"
Avon didn't give one. His fire stayed curled, tight and dim, a shield he couldn't afford to drop.
Luciana tilted her head again. That same unsettling symmetry.
That precision.
"I wonder…" she mused aloud. "What does he know of the Forbidden Flame?"
She didn't wait for an answer.
"Because if he didn't know before…"
Her eyes narrowed. Voice thin. Sharp.
"…he will soon."
Then she began to drift—slowly—circling Doran like a sun tracing the edge of its own eclipse. Every flicker from his broken flame caught in her gaze, reflected in her pupils like ancient equations.
Measured.
Memorized.
"Tell me, Avon," Luciana said, still circling, her eyes never once drifting from Doran.
"What happened—right before the second soul?"
She stopped behind him, just out of reach.
"Did it slip in like a whisper?"
A pause.
"Or did something else happen?"
Avon clenched his beak. Hard.
Luciana's smile returned.
Not from joy.
But from being right.
"You wouldn't be this quiet if it had just slipped in." Her voice lowered. "You know more than you're letting on."
The silence between them was damning.
"He's done something unimaginable," she continued, now drifting forward again. "Even by our standards."
Her voice dropped to a reverent hush.
"I mean… destroying an entire timeline?"
She let the words sit there. Let them echo in the space between gods.
"That's unheard of."
She leaned in.
Close.
Too close.
Her face hovered inches from Doran's.
Then she licked the flame bleeding off his body. A soft, slow pass of the tongue through divine fire.
Her eyes fluttered.
"…Delicious."
She turned, drifting from Doran to Avon like the moment had bored her. As if divinity itself were an art gallery, and she was moving to the next piece.
Reaching out, she placed a pale hand atop Avon's head. Her fingers wove through his flame without resistance, as though the fire parted for her.
"Like I said…" she murmured, petting him like a favored creature. "I just wanted to see him in person."
Then she smiled again.
"But that's just me."
Her fingers moved.
"I can't speak for the others."
Avon tensed beneath her touch.
The fire around his shoulders hissed as her hand passed through—flesh meeting flame, divinity brushing divinity.
"…Others?" he rasped.
Luciana didn't answer with her mouth.
She leaned in close.
Her lips never moved.
But her voice entered him.
It filled his chest. Coiled down his spine. Settled into his bones like frost that would never melt.
"If you thought you were hidden within that mortal…"
"…you were wrong."
"We've been waiting."
"Death wants this to unfold more than he wants you dead."
Avon's wings curled tighter.
Tighter than sinew should allow. Tighter than his flame could bear.
His fire stilled.
Quiet.
Then, from below—
Silent.
Absolute.
A ring of energy surged upward.
Glasslike. Blue. Perfect.
It refracted starlight into a hundred colors as it rose—not a blast, not even fast—just inevitable.
Reality rippled.
Avon had just enough time to flinch.
The ring skimmed past him—harmless, but wrong.
Luciana simply smiled.
"Have fun," she whispered.
And then she drifted back.
Not vanishing.
Just… withdrawing.
Her eyes never left him.
Avon's panic bloomed, his fire faltering. He scanned the black for Doran—but instead, he saw them.
Four figures.
No.
Four presences.
Then—
Another ring.
"GAAHH!!"
The scream didn't echo.
It didn't need to.
It stayed locked inside him, bouncing between his bones.
The second ring hit.
Not with pressure.
With memory.
A war he never fought.
A girl he never failed to save.
A betrayal he never committed—until now.
False memories.
Real pain.
The Rings of Despair had begun.
First Ring: Disillusion.
False hope.
A dream of peace just before the scream.
Second Ring: False Memories.
The collapse of truth.
"You always did break first."
The voice floated upward—ironic, soft, unhurried.
Daegryn ascended from the black, elegance stretched over nightmare.
Translucent blue rings spun around his wrists like chained moons.
His grin was wide. His hat dipped low. His coat shimmered with angles that should not exist.
Madness made formal.
He landed on a slab of Lily's shattered city-body, arms folded, amused.
Avon gasped. "Daegryn…"
Then—
A bite.
A serpent slammed into him—teeth first—then hurled him like debris through space.
Vask?
The name sparked in Avon's fading mind.
He flew through the void of space until a barrier caught him mid-flight.
Blue and yellow, shimmering like starlight behind glass.
It twisted like a gear.
CLICK-CLICK-SNAP
Locking Avon in place.
Frozen. Wings and legs stretched outward. Flame dimming.
"Theryn…?" The name slipped from him. A whisper. A thought. Barely real.
Then from the dark—
A figure floated forward.
Polearm in one hand. Morningstar head glinting like a comet.
Her voice pierced the void.
Soft. Sharp. Fatal.
"Lost Twinned Soul."
Energy poured from her body—white and translucent, flowing like water across the void.
It gathered beside her.
Took shape.
Another her.
A mirror made of spirit. This one held two swords.
Neyta…
The copy raised its blades in sync with her.
Mirrored. Perfect.
Then the tips of their weapons began to glow.
Green.
"Twinned Soul: Staff and Sword."
They swung.
Blades met mid-air—point to point.
The energy converged. Became a single green arrow of pure force.
It fired.
CHHHEUWWP
Light warped. Space screamed.
The arrow struck.
Impaled Avon.
His flames shattered around the wound. One wing—gone.
He writhed. But made no sound.
Just the crackling of a dying fire.
The barrier held him fast.
Broken. Exposed.
The four Sepideus watched.
Daegryn clapped slowly.
"One wing down," he mused, spinning the blue halos around his arms like children's toys. "Four rings left."
He grinned wider.
"But let's not rush. Pain should be savored."
Another ring descended.
The third.
It didn't strike.
It slid into Avon's chest.
Smooth. Gentle.
Like it belonged.
Third Ring: Recognition.
Avon's mind shattered again.
Fractured images spiraled inward—then anchored.
He saw himself.
Kneeling.
Inside a cold castle of ash-colored stone.
His younger self trembled before a throne so massive, so silent, it swallowed the room.
The air was heavy. Not with sound.
With absence.
The braziers didn't crackle. The flames didn't dare.
Avon—both Avons—felt the silence in their bones.
"Father…" the two voices said in unison, one a memory, one a ghost of it.
And Avon remembered.
I remember this.
I begged him to help me survive.
The floor had been cold. But it was the stillness that hurt more.
He saw himself again—knees bruised, shoulders hunched, lip bloodied from a battle that hadn't just scarred his body.
It had scarred his inheritance.
His fire flickered like a dying star.
"I'm not strong enough…" the young Avon whispered.
And on the throne sat the figure that loomed over his soul more than death ever had.
Prince.
The God of Souls.
His father.
He didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
Didn't see him.
Skin like deep ocean stone. Hair like falling ash. His frame thin—almost hollow—but radiating an impossible pressure. A divine gravity.
He sat unmoving.
Unyielding.
Uncaring.
Avon remembered the hope.
He remembered clinging to it.
"Please father, I'm not asking you to kill them for me, I just—"
Prince cut him off.
Flat. Emotionless.
"I don't want to hear your sorry excuses for why you're so weak."
He didn't raise his voice.
He didn't need to.
"If you die, it's because it was meant to be," he said. "A stepping stone for the rest."
Avon's younger self said nothing.
He just bowed lower.
Forehead to stone.
A child of fire made small.
And still—
Prince never looked at him.
Not once.
Then—
The room fractured.
Not with sound.
With truth.
The illusion cracked like mirror glass. Reality folded wrong.
And Avon's body convulsed against the barrier as the Third Ring—Recognition—peeled away, leaving him raw.
But he didn't scream.
Couldn't.
The pain had evolved.
It had become something colder.
Something quieter.
Something permanent.
Daegryn's voice slithered in.
Smooth. Gentle.
"That one always hurts a little more, doesn't it?" he said.
"To be forgotten by the ones who made you."
Avon didn't respond.
Couldn't.
His head sagged forward.
His limbs hung limp in the barrier's grip.
His remaining wing dimmed to a mere outline.
His flames—
They pulsed only in his chest.
A quiet flicker.
A dying heartbeat.
It didn't come with a glow. It didn't announce itself.
It came as emptiness.
Avon blinked—and everyone was gone.
No Daegryn.
No Vask.
No Neyta or Theryn.
No Luciana.
No Doran.
Just blackness.
Fourth Ring: Isolation.
And for the first time in centuries…
Avon was alone.
Truly.
Utterly.
Alone.
He wasn't restrained anymore.
No barrier.
No watchers.
No Sepideus.
Just—drifting.
His body, or what was left of it, flickered faintly—flame reduced to the barest ember.
He floated in a place that didn't feel like a place at all.
A space that refused to acknowledge his existence.
He opened his mouth to speak. To scream. To curse.
Nothing.
Not even breath. Not even echo.
Barely even himself.
Then—a voice.
Not distant. Not near.
Everywhere.
"If you want to escape…"
Mocking. Smooth.
Like a grin wearing someone else's voice.
"…you'll have to find the door out."
Then came the laughter.
Low. Sinister.
Childish. Cruel.
And then—
Silence.
No weight.
No time.
Just… Avon.
Drifting.
A concept unmoored from shape.
A soul unsure it still existed.
No pain.
Not even sorrow.
Only awareness.
And the space between thoughts.
"If you want to escape…"
The words came again.
Not from the outside.
But from within.
A whisper curled in the cavity where his soul once burned—once roared.
"…you'll have to find the door out."
But what if…there is no door?
And the venom began to set in.
Elsewhere
Doran floated—unmoving.
The flames along his limbs had frozen mid-burst, strands of fire locked in place like glass sculptures. Ice had begun to form across his body, creeping over his ribs, his shoulders, the corners of his eyes.
Even time seemed to hesitate around him.
Debris hovered in slow spirals, casting long shadows beneath the stars.
And around him—five figures stood like celestial judges.
Daegryn.
Theryn.
Neyta.
Vask.
And Luciana.
Together, they formed a silent crown around a broken flame.
"I never thought to see you like this," Daegryn said, circling slowly. His coat shimmered with threads that defied physics, his smile curved with memory. "How pitiful you look now, Doran."
"You've met this mortal before?" Vask rasped, his snake-arm twitching as if tasting the stillness.
Luciana tilted her head toward Daegryn.
Amused.
Sharp.
"Interesting," she said. "So that's why you were so eager to accompany me."
Daegryn twirled one of his six rings between his fingers.
"Yeah. Back when Avon lowered himself to work with this thing. I used my sixth ring on him trying to kill Avon." His grin didn't waver. "Waste of a good torment."
Theryn crossed his arms. The light from his eyes glinted against the golden alloy of his jaw.
"But why were we even needed?" he asked. "Avon isn't that much of a problem."
"I'm with Theryn," Neyta added, flipping one of her blades lazily. "Happy to help and all, but if we're not killing him, what was the point?"
Luciana said nothing at first.
Then—
She cupped her hands together.
A pulse of divine heat surged between her palms.
When she pulled them apart, a deck of cards floated in the void.
Elegant. Dangerous.
Etched with threads of fate.
"Death tasked me with a job," she said, her tone suddenly formal. "Distribute these, there are 24 left, you will each take six. Each mortal you choose is to receive three. Then we sit. And we wait."
Vask's serpent hissed, writhing in irritation.
"Why must we wait?" he growled. "I have better things I could be doing."
"Yeah, this felt like a waste of power," Theryn added with a scoff. "I thought this was going to be fun."
And then—
Snap.
Two rings of violet energy materialized in an instant—circling Vask and Theryn's necks with a crackle that sizzled across the stars.
They froze.
Eyes wide.
Fangs silent.
"I'm sorry, Luciana!" they both said at once.
Luciana's eyes glowed with a cold flame.
"I know both your lazy asses have nothing better to do," she said. "You will wait. Because this one—" she pointed to Doran's frozen body, "—will come to you."
Neyta's brow furrowed.
Confused.
Irritated.
"So what if the mortal comes to us?"
Luciana didn't blink.
Didn't soften.
Her voice cut through the vacuum with celestial certainty.
"Because this mortal is special."
She turned slowly, each word deliberate.
"When the time comes and you kill him…"
She paused. Let the cold silence stretch.
"…you will ascend to Kamikura."
She smiled—just enough to show her teeth.
"Death's words himself."