Chapter 25 — Crossing Into Fire
The Frostlands had vanished behind them.
No snow. No ice. No cold winds.
Only scorched earth stretching to the horizon, cracked like old stone plates. Heat shimmered above the ground in waves so thick it blurred the landscape into a molten mirage.
No Cristarion towers.
No shelters.
Only silence… and the faint, distant thrum of powerful beasts moving far beneath the earth.
Alicia lowered her hand toward the ground. "It's really hot here."
Shin wiped sweat from his brow. "Feels like walking into an oven somebody forgot to turn off."
Vaibhav stepped ahead, eyes narrow. "Stay alert. Something's here."
He didn't have to wait long.
From behind a ridge of blackened stone, two enormous shapes emerged—muscular beasts glowing with molten-red stripes running across their flanks. Their manes billowed like living fire.
Fire Mythics.
Their roars rolled across the plain, shaking the scorched ground.
The first one lunged at Vaibhav.
He summoned the Ice Claw instantly. Frost spiraled up his arm, forming sharp crystalline talons. But the heat pushed back harder here—steam hissed around his hand as the ice strained to hold form.
Vaibhav met the beast head-on. With a clean arc, he slashed upward, splitting the lion's molten jaw.
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: None]
[+4 Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
The second Fire Mythic charged Shin.
He vanished from its sight and reappeared at its side. One quick strike to the temple—just raw speed, no technique—and the beast's legs buckled before it crashed into the dirt.
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: Fire Lion]
[+1 Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
A faint crackling sound rose from the east.
Three more beasts emerged—twisted versions of fire predators, red fissures splitting their bodies like cracks in molten rock.
Mutated Fire Mythics.
They screeched and sprinted at impossible speeds.
Vaibhav pivoted and struck the first across the skull with the Ice Claw's backhand. Frost clashed with unstable heat, and the beast's head burst in a cloud of steam and embers.
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: None]
[+6 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
A second mutated Mythic lunged at Shin. He intercepted it mid-air, slamming it into the ground with a twisting throw. Vaibhav finished by punching through its molten chest.
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: None]
[+3 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
The third circled Alicia, claws sparking against the stone. Alicia ducked, sliced along its leg, and Vaibhav shattered the beast's skull with a clean strike.
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: None]
[+3 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
The heat thickened suddenly.
A shadow swallowed the horizon.
A roar—deeper, older, heavier than before—rumbled across the plain.
The ground trembled.
A massive creature stepped through the smoke… a titan of flame and molten armor. Its entire body glowed like volcanic stone, cracks pulsing with fire. Each breath it released distorted the air into flickering heat waves.
A Transcendent-class Fire Behemoth.
Alicia's voice tightened. "This thing… is huge."
Shin cracked his knuckles. "Yep! Something I can hit without feeling bored."
The Fire Behemoth charged.
Its first punch slammed into the earth, rupturing entire plates of rock into airborne shards.
Alicia reacted first.
Her aura sharpened.
"Ethereal Divide."
A transparent barrier curved in front of her.
The Behemoth spat a torrent of molten flame—
The barrier reflected the spiritual energy straight back into its own chest.
A burst of exploding embers filled the air.
The beast staggered.
Vaibhav sprinted in, Ice Claw glowing brightly as frost condensed around his arm. He slashed across the Behemoth's ribs—
—but the heat was overwhelming.
A fracture split across the Ice Claw.
Vaibhav ignored it and struck again.
The Behemoth roared and swung its colossal arm downward.
Vaibhav blocked with the Ice Claw—
Cracks spread across its crystalline surface.
"Hold… just a little longer," Vaibhav gritted.
The beast lifted its arm to crush him—
Shin moved.
His leg disappeared for a blink.
Lightning Kick.
The kick slammed into the Behemoth's head, snapping its jaw sideways. Before it could recover, Shin dashed behind it and hammered a second kick into its spine.
Then third.
Last fourth.
The molten armor cracked.
The beast dropped to one knee.
Vaibhav seized the opening.
He thrust his claw forward, pouring everything into his strike.
The Ice Claw met the Behemoth's skull. Frost detonated against molten flame.
The Behemoth roared—
Shin's heel finished it, slamming down on the top of its skull with a brutal cracking sound.
The Transcendent collapsed, flames flickering out.
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: Flame Behemoth] — Shin
> [+7 Transcendent Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
Shin crouched, ripping open the beast's chest. The blue shard pulsed with dense transcendent energy.
He absorbed it.
> [+4 Transcendent Power Points Gained] — Shin
Vaibhav finally let the Ice Claw fade—
The crystal shattered along the fracture lines before dissolving into vapor.
"Damn," Shin muttered. "That crack wasn't small after all."
Alicia nodded. "He used it too much."
They moved from corpse to corpse, tearing open chests, collecting shards.
Alicia gathered the Mythic and Mutated Mythic cores—six in total.
Then she absorbed, one by one:
> [+4 Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 1
[+4 Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 2
Mutated ones next:
> [+4 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 3
[+4 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 4
[+6 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 5
They sat to rest. The heat carried a strange stillness.
Shin finally checked the Beast Spirit he obtained. With a faint flash, the spirit materialized briefly—shaped like a translucent, flame-forged sword.
He smirked. "A sword-type beast spirit… Finally something fancy."
Vaibhav stood. "Let's move once we rest."
One hour passed.
The air grew heavier… then trembled.
Flames burst across the horizon.
A herd of Mythic fire beasts, nearly fifteen strong, thundered toward them—Fire Wolves, Fire Raptors, Fire Antler Bulls.
Alicia stepped forward, blade ready.
Vaibhav summoned the Ice Claw again, weakened but functional.
Shin cracked his neck. "Round two."
The beasts charged.
Vaibhav struck first, slashing a Fire Wolf clean across the snout.
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: None]
[+3 Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
A Fire Bull rammed at Alicia—she ducked and decapitated it cleanly.
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: Fire Bull]
[+2 Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
Shin punched a Raptor mid-leap, cracking its ribs.
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: None]
[+4 Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
Another beast lunged at Vaibhav—he shattered its jaw.
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: None]
[+4 Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
Alicia sliced another's throat—
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: None]
[+5 Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
The trio killed all fifteen in minutes.
Then extraction began.
Alicia knelt beside each corpse, pulling eleven blue Mythic shards free from the herd.
Shin handed all collected herd shards to her.
She absorbed them:
> [+3 Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 1
[+2 Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 2
[+3 Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 3
[+3 Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 4
[+4 Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 5
[+3 Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 6
[+1 Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 7
[+3 Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 8
[+4 Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 9
[+4 Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 10
[+6 Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 11
The scorched wind carried a low rumble across the plains.
Two hours passed.
The fire region grew harsher, hotter, the ground beneath their feet turning from cracked ash into molten fissures that hissed with heat. Smoke drifted across the plains, carrying the distant scent of burning stone.
Vaibhav wiped sweat from his brow. "Temperature's rising again."
Shin kicked a charred rock aside. "Means stronger things live here."
Alicia raised her gaze. Her aura spread outward in thin, controlled pulses. "Multiple mutated signatures approaching. Mythic level."
The heat trembled.
A dozen shadows tore across the scorched plain.
Fourteen Mutated Mythic fire beasts—each warped with crimson fissures glowing under their hides—charged toward the trio as if fleeing something behind them.
Vaibhav summoned a beast spirit.
A dark-red gauntlet materialized over his right arm—jagged, flame-resistant, pulsing with unfamiliar energy. A Mutated Mythic Gauntlet from some past fire beast… he genuinely couldn't remember which one.
It didn't matter.
He dashed forward.
His fist tore through the first beast's ribcage.
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: None]
[+6 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
Shin crushed a second beast's neck with a twist of his wrist.
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: None]
[+3 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
Alicia sliced through the third using a clean diagonal cut.
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: None]
[+5 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
More beasts rushed them from every direction. Vaibhav drove his gauntlet fist into one creature's skull, flames scattering like embers.
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: None]
[+4 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
Another lunged—Vaibhav blocked with the gauntlet, then punched through its abdomen.
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: None]
[+2 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
Alicia and Shin cut down more with ease, the herd falling rapidly.
A mutated beast tried to slam Shin from behind—he simply spun and kicked its spine in half.
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: None]
[+5 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
Two more died under Vaibhav and Alicia's joined attacks.
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: None]
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: None]
[+3 Mutated Exalted Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
[+5 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
Shin beheaded another mid-charge.
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: None]
[+2 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
Vaibhav struck down the last two beasts with clean, heavy blows.
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: None]
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: None]
[+4 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
[+3 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
The final monster staggered under a combined hit from Alicia's blade and Vaibhav's gauntlet punch.
> [Beast Spirit Acquired: None]
[+5 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
Silence returned—thick, scorching, unnatural.
Alicia scanned the horizon. "These weren't attacking. They were running."
Shin snorted. "Running from what?"
The answer arrived a heartbeat later.
A tremor rolled beneath the scorched earth.
Deeper. Heavier.
The ground fractured—bursting upward in a violent eruption of flame and molten rock.
A mutated aurora of red-black energy surged before them.
A gargantuan creature rose from the crack—towering, plated with molten obsidian armor, red veins glowing like rivers of magma.
A Mutated Transcendent Fire Titan-Beast.
The boss of the frozen-to-fire border.
It roared—a sound so violent the shockwave melted the nearby stones.
Alicia tightened her grip on her blade. "This one is… far above the others."
Shin's smile sharpened. "Wow! That looks cool."
Vaibhav stepped forward, raising the Mutated Mythic Gauntlet, channeling energy into it.
"Let's end this."
The Titan-Beast leapt, the air scorching around its claws.
Vaibhav launched himself upward, driving his gauntlet fist into its jaw—
Starbreaker Fist.
His energy detonated like a meteor strike.
The shockwave cracked the ground for dozens of meters.
But the gauntlet shattered instantly—splintering into fragments of molten ember.
Vaibhav hit the ground, stunned.
Without hesitation, he summoned his other beast spirit.
Frost condensed on his arm as the Ice Claw materialized—cold vapor clashing violently with the heat of the region.
Alicia stood forward, a swirl of transparent aura forming around her.
Ethereal Divide.
The Titan-Beast released a blast of compressed flame.
Alicia's barrier bent the energy back—reflecting it into the monster's chest. The explosion staggered it.
Shin vanished.
The Transcendent Sword Beast Spirit flared into existence around his arm—sleek, fiery-blue, humming with destructive intent.
He whispered:
"Starvein Flash."
Light bent.
The world dimmed.
Then the battlefield split into shimmering silver lines—each vein of compressed air exploding half a breath later.
The Titan-Beast reeled backward, its armor splitting in multiple places.
Vaibhav dashed in with the Ice Claw, striking its exposed chest. Shards of frost and flame burst outward.
The claw cracked.
The beast roared and swiped—Alicia intercepted with another barrier, but it shattered, sending her sliding across the scorched ground.
Shin jumped again, blade flashing faster than sight—
Vaibhav slammed his final Ice-Claw strike into the creature's throat—
Alicia appeared beside them, her blade piercing the Titan-Beast's heart.
The monster stopped.
The flames in its eyes faded.
And it fell.
[Beast Spirit Acquired: Flame Titan Monarch] — Alicia
[+6 Mutated Transcendent Power Points Gained] — Vaibhav
Steam and molten rock hissed around the corpse.
Alicia fell to one knee, panting. "That… was too close."
"Still alive though," Shin grinned, though his sword-beast-spirit flickered out from exhaustion.
Vaibhav shook his hand—the Ice Claw had shattered completely, leaving only frost dust drifting in the air.
"Let's extract before more arrive."
The trio moved quickly, opening mutated corpses with practiced efficiency. Crimson shards—large and unstable—were gathered beside Alicia.
She absorbed each one in order.
[+5 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 1
[+4 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 2
[+4 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 3
[+2 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 4
[+5 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 5
[+3 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 6
[+6 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 7
[+4 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 8
[+2 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 9
[+5 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 10
[+4 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 11
[+3 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 12
[+6 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 13
[+5 Mutated Mythic Power Points Gained] — Shard 14
Shin extracted only one shard—the massive crimson shard of Flame Titan Monarch.
He absorbed it.
[+7 Mutated Transcendent Power Points Gained] — Shin
Alicia exhaled softly as the last shard dissolved into her aura.
The heat thickened around them.
Then—
A thunderous rumble swept across the entire region.
Vaibhav turned sharply. "What was that?"
Alicia's eyes widened.
Shadows—thousands of them—were moving.
Fire wolves, serpents, titans, mutated beasts of every classification—all stampeding in the same direction.
Shin's expression sharpened. "They're… running."
Vaibhav swallowed.
"Running from what?"
The ground shook again.
The horizon glowed.
Something vast stirred in the southwest.
And every beast in the region was fleeing.