The flame came not in a wave, but in a line, perfect, controlled, precise.
It carved through the battlefield like a sword swung by the world itself.
Kairo barely managed to leap behind a broken shield cart as the fire roared past. The wooden frame vaporized. Dirt turned to glass. Screams rose from behind him, and two rebels caught mid-stride were reduced to shadow and bone.
Elya shouted something, but the blast drowned her out.
He rolled, coughing through the smoke, halberd gripped in white-knuckled fists. His skin sizzled. His shoulder bled. But he was still breathing.
The Purifier stood untouched at the center of the blaze.
Silver armor glowed with radiant glyphs. A long polearm in one hand shimmered with divine energy, pure sunfire arcing along its edge.
Kairo stepped forward, each movement heavier than the last.
Draegor saw him and began walking too.
Step by step, they approached each other through the burning wreckage, as if the rest of the world had slowed.
The heat no longer mattered.
The fear didn't register.
Only the gravity of inevitability remained.
"You remember me," Kairo said.
It wasn't a question.
Draegor stopped just ten feet away. The firelight reflected off his helm. He spoke in a voice that carried the weight of a decree.
"You were written out. Burned from the Ledger. You walk now only by error."
Kairo lifted his halberd. "Then I'm the gods' mistake."
He launched forward.
The clash was immediate.
Draegor blocked the first strike with ease, sunfire crackling against Kairo's steel. He countered with a sweeping arc, meant to bisect Kairo from hip to shoulder.
Kairo ducked. Rolled. Swung upward.
His blade kissed Draegor's pauldron and sparked.
The Purifier didn't flinch. He responded with a blast of radiant force, sending Kairo flying backward into a collapsed barricade.
Pain exploded down his spine. He barely had time to raise the halberd again before Draegor was on him.
Blow after blow rained down, each one like a hammer made of light.
Kairo blocked the first three.
The fourth broke his guard.
The fifth drove him into the ground.
Draegor raised his weapon high for a killing strike.
Time slowed.
And then the halberd in Kairo's hand screamed.
A surge of red energy exploded outward. Glyphs flared across the haft, the chain snapping free of its magnetic locks.
Kairo's body moved on its own.
He twisted, dodged the sunblade by a breath, and brought the chainblade up in a sweeping slash.
It struck Draegor's side, and for the first time, the Purifier staggered.
They locked blades.
Draegor pushed down, face inches from Kairo's.
"Impossible," the Purifier said.
Kairo's eyes glowed faint red. His breath steamed even in the heat.
"I've done this before," he whispered. "In another life. And I won."
He slammed his forehead into Draegor's helm.
The Purifier stumbled back.
Kairo surged forward, slashing, striking, chaining movement with fury.
But he was too slow.
A pulse of pure light burst from Draegor's body, throwing him through the air like a ragdoll.
He crashed into a stone. Hard.
The last thing he saw was Draegor turning toward Elya, and then everything went black.
He drifted in the dark.
Not unconscious, but more so unmoored.
Somewhere beyond his body, beyond the battlefield, beyond time itself, he floated in a sea of burning memories.
The world pulsed red.
And then a voice older than the Writ cracked through the silence:
"You were forged in the fire beneath the fire. You were not born. You were struck."
Images came fast and disjointed.
—A younger Kairo standing before a Tribunal shrine, eyes defiant.—A sword forged from starlight breaking against a halberd bathed in flame.—Draegor, kneeling before a burning god.
"You are the Revenant not because you live again…But because you cannot end."
His eyes snapped open.
The ground beneath him cracked.
Ash curled away from his skin.
The chain blade at his side lifted on its own, drawn upward by the heat rolling off his chest. The halberd burned with runes long dormant.
Kairo rose from the stone crater in silence.
Around him, soldiers stared. Rebel and Tribunal alike.
Even Draegor paused, weapon lowered, helm tilting slightly.
Elya shouted, "Kairo!"
He didn't respond. He moved.
He closed the distance in seconds.
Draegor raised his blade, but Kairo knocked it aside with a single upward sweep. The glow from his weapon intensified, casting bloody light in every direction.
He struck once, and Draegor blocked.
He struck again, and Draegor almost blocked.
The third strike sent sparks raining down like a crimson storm.
"You're not supposed to exist," Draegor hissed.
Kairo's eyes met his through the helm.
"Then you're not supposed to win."
He unleashed a flurry.
Steel rang. Ground cracked. Fire coiled around his limbs like chains—but he didn't burn.
This was no longer a memory.No longer instinct.This was who he was.
At the final moment, Draegor stepped back and drove his sunblade downward into the earth.
The light exploded.
The cliffside buckled. Rocks tore loose.
Kairo leaped backward as the entire ridge began to collapse beneath them.
Elya screamed his name.
Dust and fire swallowed the hill.
Hours later, the survivors watched the flames on the western horizon fade.
No one spoke.
Ryven stood silently at the Redgate rampart, watching for movement.
Finally, a figure emerged limping, cloaked in ash, dragging a halberd that pulsed with fading light.
Elya ran.
She caught Kairo as he nearly collapsed.
He looked up at her, eyes barely focused.
"I slowed them," he whispered.
Then passed out.