The sky was quiet.
Too quiet.
The floating islands that once shone like celestial gardens were now stained with smoke, shattered stone, and the ashes of those who fought until their last breath.
And at the center of it all…
Kaelis Vrion stood trembling.
Not from fear.
Not from exhaustion.
But from grief.
The golden runes circling Kaelis thickened, weaving themselves like threads of molten script before plunging into his chest with a burst of light.
His back arched.
His eyes widened.
The sky itself rippled.
[REWARD ACQUIRED]
— Superhuman Strength
— Circuit Mastery +25
— Elemental Circuit Enhancement: FIRE
His veins pulsed bright red like flowing magma.
Kaelis gasped.
His fire circuit… changed.
It was no longer just flame.
It became something deeper, older, more feral.
A fire that intoxicated the air itself.
A fire that clung to anything it touched, unquenchable unless the burning limb was severed entirely.
A fire that did not die — it devoured, endlessly, like a star trying to be born.
Kaelis looked at his own hands as sparks of this new flame danced on his fingertips.
"…Why me?" he whispered.
His voice cracked.
Why was he the one chosen?
Why was he the one left standing?
Why… was everyone else gone?
Kaelis fell to his knees.
He remembered asking why.
"But some fates are inevitable.
Some battles cannot be stopped.
If they die, it is their bad luck…
If they survive, they transcend."
Kaelis remembered clenching his fists at that.
Arata had looked at him, eyes reflecting both sorrow and acceptance.
"Nature has duality.
Growth requires destruction.
Sunshine exists only because there are storms."
At the time, Kaelis thought he understood.
Now he realized he hadn't.
Not truly.
Back in the present, Kaelis stared at the countless bodies scattered around the island — warriors, elders, children of the sky… all fallen.
The wind blew across the silent battlefield, lifting ash into the air like fading memories.
Kaelis lowered his head.
His tears fell silently, dripping onto the shattered stone beneath him.
He did not sob.
He did not scream.
He simply cried — raw, quiet grief that pressed down harder than any monster ever had.
"I can't hate you, Arata…"
His voice trembled.
It wasn't a worshipful tone.
It wasn't submission.
It was understanding.
"It's… duality.Its not like you didn't tell us either," he whispered. "Nature grows. Nature destroys. We rise. We fall. Everything comes with a cost…"
He clenched the ground until stone cracked beneath his fingers.
"…and this is mine."
Fire flickered around him — not out of anger, but out of pain… and evolution.
A fire that burned reality itself.
A fire no water could quench.
A fire earned through death.
Kaelis wiped his eyes with a shaky breath.
"I survived," he said softly.
"And because of that… I have no right to hate fate."
The sky wind grew colder.
The islands groaned under the weight of silence.
Kaelis stood up.
His flame surged behind him like a rising dawn.
The strongest man in the Sky Islands…
had evolved into something far greater.
But at a cost he would carry forever.