From the cracks in the broken floor, from the shattered marble and scattered blood, from the pure, incandescent rage burning inside him—
A white flame was born.
It sparked behind his eyes, flickering like the edge of a dying star. Then it erupted—unleashed with the force of everything he'd held back for years. His pupils shrank, swallowed by a glacial, furious glow, and then—
FWOOOM.
A crown of white fire ignited atop his head, flickering wildly with no source and no fuel, resting like a halo carved from hatred itself. It licked at the air like it was hungry for justice, vengeance, and obliteration.
His silver-blond hair, once neatly trimmed, flared back under the heat, swept by wind that didn't exist. His deep blue eyes—eyes that once stared at the stars in awe—were now locked onto the demon general with the cold fury of a human.
His sword pulsed.
The steel groaned under the pressure of something new. The blade shimmered, then burst into brilliant, white-hot flames—flames of hate. They didn't crackle like normal fire. They howled. They screamed. They trembled with all the pain he never spoke about, every moment of helplessness he buried deep down.
The flames of hate—pure, searing, and impossibly white—devoured the air around the sword like a living beast unleashed.
The demon general, standing across the ruined chamber, narrowed his eyes for the first time.
Something ancient stirred in his instincts. Something primal. Something that should not come from a human.
Alaric stepped forward, bones still cracked, bruises still fresh, but his back straight—like a prince of wrath.
He did not speak.
Because words were done.
Now, there was only the flame.
Alaric raised his sword, the white flame coiling around it like a vengeful serpent given purpose.
With a furious swing, he unleashed a horizontal arc of searing light—a wall of white fire that split the air in half. It roared across the obsidian-black chamber like a divine judgment, melting the very stone beneath it, tearing pillars, warping the air, and screaming hatred in its trail.
The demon general had no time to dodge.
The wave slammed into him, and for the first time, his skin began to burn. Not char or blacken—burn. The heat licked deep into his flesh, past magic, past defenses, past generations of demonic evolution. His red skin bubbled, peeled, boiled.
The general let out a sound somewhere between a growl and a shriek, teeth clenched as he dropped to one knee, steam billowing off his body like a volcano's breath.
Alaric didn't slow down.
He was already sprinting—no, soaring—through the haze, his white flame sword dragging across the floor, cutting grooves into the stone as if it were butter. His eyes were wide, feral, locked on the target.
The general looked up, grinning through pain.
"That's it!" he howled, skin still melting. "That's what I wanted to feel! Pain! Real, holy pain!"
He stood tall again, laughter rumbling in his throat like the growl of a beast.
Then, with a low hiss of pressure, the demon general ignited. Flames burst from his shoulders, elbows, even his fingertips—jetting out of every pore as if his body were a cursed furnace turned inside out. His wounds sizzled, but instead of healing, they fueled him.
"You think fire hurts me?" he cackled. "I generate anything I want from my body... by burning myself. Blood, blades, bones, acid, even magic. You offer me flame?" His eyes gleamed as horns lengthened. "I am flame."
But Alaric didn't stop.
He charged, white flames exploding beneath each footstep, the heat cracking every surface he passed. He didn't respond. He didn't hesitate. Because he wasn't here to talk.
He was here to burn.
The two forces collided in a cataclysmic crash, the white and the black-red slamming together like dying stars. Their impact shattered the floor, obliterated the ceiling, and flattened every remaining pillar around them. The room groaned in agony. Marble fractured, walls burst, ancient runes sparked and fizzled out.
They fought like beasts.
No grace. No form. Just wrath made flesh.
Alaric swung again and again, each slash burning brighter, each hit exploding with white fire, forcing the demon general backward—but only for a moment before the general retaliated with twisted, molten blades erupting from his arms.
They smashed through the next column. Then the next. Then another.
The chamber wasn't a chamber anymore. It was just ruin now.
Flame and hate—the only things that remained.
Alaric's breath came in ragged bursts, the white flames coiling from his shoulders like wings of fury. His blade met the demon general's monstrous edge again, sending sparks flying in a radius too wide, too violent for anyone to survive in—except them.
And amidst the chaos, Alaric began to hum.
Soft at first. Just beneath his breath.
A quiet tune. Delicate. Out of place in this flaming hell of shattered stone and broken gods.
The melody of a music box—worn, chipped, but still turning in his memory. A song that once played from the small wooden box his parents gave him, back when there were still bedtime stories, warm hands, and smiles that didn't burn.
And then… he began to sing.
"O light, O light, so cruelly bright,
You kissed the world and set it white.
You burned the sky, you burned the sea—
Yet still, you brought the truth to me."
Each line escaped his lips in a breathless chant, wrapped in white fire, echoing in the broken marble tomb like a requiem.
The demon general blinked—a flicker of confusion. Then, a slow grin returned to his cracked, flame-licked face.
"You're singing?" he said, dodging a white arc of flame that carved a trench through the floor. "In the middle of this beautiful carnage?" He licked his cracked lips. "This is getting better by the second. You're insane, and I love it."
But Alaric didn't care. His voice rose.
"O fire, O flame, you took and tore,
But I am not that child no more.
The ash you left, I wear with pride—
My hate, my light, shall never hide."
Each verse came with a blow.
A slash of white heat.
A burst of sacred fire.
A cry from a soul that had burned for too long in silence.
The demon general's laughter mixed with the song, manic and reverent, like a devout beast praising the battle.
He roared as he swung, but even as his blade clashed, he was listening.
"Sing louder, little hero! Sing while your bones still hold! Burn for me! Burn everything!"
Alaric's eyes were wild now, tears evaporating the moment they formed. His voice cracked, but he kept going, louder, louder—
"So shine I will, and shine I must,
In wrath, in pain, in sacred trust—
I'll burn your kind into the ground,
And wear your screams as holy sound."
His voice was the storm.
His blade was the answer.
And his hatred was the fuel.
Clang of steel and flame's white hiss,
A song of war, a song like this—
With every step, the marble breaks,
With every breath, the heavens shake.
Alaric's boots pounded across the scorched floor, leaving prints of light that seared into the obsidian like holy scars. His sword, now a beacon of white fire, arced through the air like a conductor's baton—each strike punctuating a verse of rage.
"You took the breath from lullabies,
You filled the dark with dying cries,
But I—am not—what you foresee,
A child? No more. I'm the pyre set free."
The demon general roared, spinning his massive blade in a wide sweep, splitting a pillar in two. Marble shattered. Dust rose. The echo of steel upon steel rang louder than the beat of war drums.
But Alaric kept singing.
White fire, hate-born, sacred flame,
Each slash a hymn, each strike a name,
He sang not just with voice, but soul,
For ruin now was his only goal.
The demon lunged, faster than a thought—yet Alaric was already there, sliding under, white flame dancing from his heels as he spun and slashed upward in a vertical line of hate-soaked light. The general reeled back with a grunt, a searing trail etched across his chest.
"O hate, O hate, you carry me,
Through blood, through screams, through agony—
I do not fight for peace or right,
I fight because I still ignite."
The ground quaked beneath their duel. The once-proud chamber, now a battlefield of ruins and flame, bent and twisted under the fury of their clash. Rubble rained. Pillars fell like giants. The walls wept molten cracks.
And Alaric sang louder.
"Come, devil, dance beneath my blade,
Your sins, your flame—I'll not evade.
This crown I wear, this hate I keep,
Will drag you down into the deep."
Their swords met once more—
shockwave—
a ring of fire burst from the impact, scorching every stone.
Both stood their ground, pushing against one another, blades trembling with magic and muscle, their faces inches apart.
The demon general sneered, amused and breathless. "What are you, boy? A knight? A hero? A bard?"
Alaric grinned, blood dripping from his lip, voice hoarse but still singing.
"I am the end of your reign of lies,
I am the flame that never dies—
No title needed. No crown, no throne—
I burn because I stand alone."
And with that, he pushed.
Not with strength—
But with every ounce of hate that had burned since the fire took his home.
"And now the end, your final verse,
No screams to beg, no breath to curse,
You brought the flame, but I—the fire—
Born of grief, forged in pyre."
Alaric's voice cracked, but the fury within him only roared louder. The white flame around him no longer flickered. It raged—a storm of heat that made the air wail and the stones bleed.
Every step forward, the flame grew hotter. It bent space around him. The obsidian floor hissed and melted under his feet, reduced to bubbling glass. The very walls of the world seemed to retreat.
The demon general swung, wide and fast, his massive sword leaving trails of black hellflame. But it wasn't enough.
The white flame carved through it all.
And the demon knew it.
He opened his mouth—charred fangs grinning through pain.
"Y—my name is—"
But before the name left his lips, Alaric's flame had already burned the demon's tongue. It sizzled into ash.
And the only sound left…
…was laughter.
Choking, gurgling, maniacal laughter.
Even with no tongue, he laughed—burning from the inside, guttural and loving every second of this death.
It didn't matter to Alaric.
He wasn't listening anymore.
"All your hate is mine to wield,
All your sins, now unrevealed,
So burn, demon—my hate is true—
And through this blaze, I bury you."
He held his sword above his head, and for one breathless moment, the fire stilled.
It all focused.
Every grudge.
Every tear.
Every scar.
All of his hate.
One. Singular. Slash.
A white arc of flame tore from the blade—wide as the room, brighter than the sun, faster than thought.
It ripped through the demon general.
Through bone.
Through pride.
Through every regenerative lie he clung to.
The demon didn't even fall.
He simply ceased.
Ash on the wind.
Silence followed.
And Alaric—his sword lowered, shoulders heaving—stood in the center of a smoldering ruin, the crown of white fire still glowing faintly above his head.
He didn't speak.
He didn't cheer.
He just breathed.
And hated.
The room, if it could still be called that, was no more than a molten grave.
The obsidian floor had melted into warped pools of reflective black glass. Pillars once proud and towering were reduced to glowing stumps, snapped and scattered like kindling. The ceiling had long since caved in, light from the burning fortress above dripping in like blood through the cracks.
And there stood Alaric.
Alone.
The white flame crown atop his head flickered once… then dissolved into gentle embers that rained down around him, disappearing before they ever touched the ground. It left his silver-blond hair faintly glowing, then dull. His deep blue eyes, wild just seconds before, softened—but not in peace.
He looked down at his sword.
Then his hands.
Then the emptiness.
The silence.
No one was here.
No one saw him.
No one had come.
The hate that had fueled him still smoldered in his chest, but now, it twisted—into something colder. Sharper.
He hated this.
He hated the silence.
He hated the stillness.
He hated the feeling in his stomach—the hollow pit that opened whenever it was over.
He hated being alone.
He always had.
In the orphanage, under thin sheets and flickering lights, he'd cried into his pillow because no one stayed.
In his dreams, he saw the fire take his parents over and over.
No matter how much he screamed, no one ever turned around.
He hated that.
He hated that even now, after all this rage—this power—he was still standing in the ashes with no one beside him.
Power didn't change that.
Flames didn't fill the void.
He clenched his sword tighter.
Even after slaying a demon general with a flame not of this world…
He still couldn't burn away the loneliness.
A sudden thoom echoed from above.
Then another. Cracks spidered across what remained of the ruined ceiling—until with a loud CRASH, a figure plummeted down through the rubble like a shooting star. She landed hard on the scorched marble floor, creating a puff of ash and stone dust.
"OWWW! My butt!" Renna wailed, grabbing her rear with both hands and rolling over like a crushed pancake. "What is with this world and throwing me into trauma pits?!"
Alaric blinked, still gripping his scorched blade. "...Renna?"
Renna blinked back. Her vibrant eyes took one glance at the shattered battlefield, the melted floor, the faint wisps of white flame, and the giant demon corpse still smoldering into charcoal in the corner. Then she looked at Alaric.
He looked like a statue carved of ruin. Burnt around the edges, chest rising and falling like a man who'd just fought hell itself—and won.
Renna's expression shifted from pained to… worried.
"Oh no, no no no—Alaric!" she scrambled toward him on her knees, still rubbing her sore behind. "You are not allowed to look like that, mister! What happened?! Are you dying?! You better not die—I'll kill you if you die!"
Alaric opened his mouth, but no words came. She was already there, patting down his shoulders, brushing debris out of his hair, checking his wounds—half-serious, half-chaotic.
"Renna—" he managed, half a protest.
"Nope! Not listening! Look at you, you crispy baguette! You're steaming! You smell like overcooked justice! What the heck was down here, the Devil's sauna?!"
Her hands trembled slightly as she pulled a healing potion from her pouch. Alaric saw it, felt it—that nervous energy she always tried to hide with banter.
"...I'm fine," he said softly, his voice still hoarse. "Really."
Renna froze. For just a second, her joking stopped.
Then, with a sigh, she held out the potion. "Fine, tough guy. But drink this anyway. For me."
He took it.
Their hands touched.
Something quiet passed between them—unspoken, warm, a spark untouched by even the white flames.
And in that flicker of calm, Alaric realized something.
He'd hated so much.
So deeply. So fiercely. So completely.
But not once—not ever—had he hated them.
Not Renna's chaotic energy, not Cael's creepy whispering, not Thorne's overcompensating bravado, not Lys's blunt sarcasm. Not even the way they constantly broke the laws of physics and decorum at every opportunity.
He never hated them.
Especially not Renna.
If anything... their presence in this strange world had been the one thing he never questioned.
The one thing that made being here—bearable.
And Renna, sitting beside him with a scuffed elbow and wild eyes, frowning at his bruises like they were her own—she wasn't just bearable.
She was—
"Hey," she whispered, nudging him in the side. "You're staring at me like I'm a full-course meal."
Alaric blinked. "What?"
Renna smirked. "Don't fall in love with me just because I'm angelic when I fall on my butt. And of all things, I used to be a dude in the original world."
He turned away quickly. "I'm not."
"You sure?"
"...Shut up."
She laughed.