The courtyard still burned.
The night that had once belonged to stars was now nothing but fire and ruin. The air reeked of molten stone and singed metal. Sparks drifted through the smoke like dying fireflies. Every breath seared Jayden's throat. His water essence trembled, instinctively shrinking away from the red inferno that ate through the academy grounds.
Somewhere beyond the haze, alarms screamed. The mechanical kind — not magic, but the sound of the Academy's emergency systems forcing the dorm gates shut.
A figure moved through the fire.
The Gate Guardian — a tower of flame and bone — rose from the shattered remains of the training plaza. Its body was half armor, half molten core, dripping rivers of magma that solidified into glass as they hit the floor. Every step carved glowing scars into the stone.
When it roared, the sky itself burned white.
"Everyone fall back!" Instructor Dall-e's voice cut through the chaos, her gauntlets glowing as she struck the ground. Waves of stone surged upward, forming barricades around the students. They lasted all of three seconds before the Guardian's blade tore through them like paper.
The blast threw Jayden off his feet. He crashed into a half-melted column, smoke filling his lungs. Kael landed beside him, coughing, lightning twitching faintly along his arms.
"Tell me this isn't real," Kael rasped, voice breaking halfway through.
Jayden didn't answer. His gaze was locked on the far side of the courtyard — where Headmaster Varrick walked through the wreckage.
He didn't rush. Didn't shout. He just walked. The heat bent around him. Embers went out when they came close. Even the flames seemed to pause, held in the grip of something they didn't understand.
Students were being dragged away by the instructors. The courtyard sigils flickered, trying to contain the firestorm. It wasn't enough.
Varrick stopped a few paces from the creature.
The Guardian loomed above him, a mountain of molten hatred. Veins of magma pulsed across its chest, feeding the blade it held — a weapon as long as a tower beam, dripping molten light.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then the Guardian roared — a sound that made Jayden's bones vibrate — and swung.
The sword came down like a falling star. The courtyard cracked open. Fire poured across the plaza. The blast swallowed everything.
Jayden raised his arms, bracing—
Then silence.
When he opened his eyes, Varrick was still standing.
The stone beneath his boots was untouched. The fire bent away from him, as though the world had been rewritten in real time. His coat fluttered in the heat, his expression calm — not cold, just certain.
"You do not belong here," he said quietly.
The Guardian's molten frame shuddered. Its roar deepened into something uglier — a guttural wail of defiance. Fire burst from its back, spreading into wings that stretched across the courtyard. The heat warped the air, burning the very mist that hovered over the sea.
Then it unleashed everything.
A storm of flame the size of a mountain fell toward the headmaster.
Jayden couldn't even think. His body moved on instinct, curling tighter behind the broken pillar.
But Varrick only lifted his hand.
The storm folded inward — compressed, crushed, and extinguished with a sound like glass imploding. The courtyard lights flickered. The Guardian stumbled, magma leaking from new cracks in its shell.
Varrick exhaled. "You were warned."
The Guardian lunged again, faster — a blur of molten light. It struck where he stood, splitting the plaza into a crater. But Varrick was already gone.
A shimmer. A pulse of air.
Then the world snapped — thunder splitting the night in half.
The Guardian's back erupted in flame as its spine bent unnaturally, magma spraying into the air. It screamed, the sound shaking the dorm towers.
Kael's voice trembled. "He's not fighting it… he's tearing it apart."
The creature spun, bringing its molten blade around again. Varrick caught it — with his bare hand.
Jayden felt the entire courtyard freeze.
The blade hissed against his skin but didn't cut. It didn't even move.
Then, with a twist of his wrist, it shattered — molten fragments scattering like dying suns.
The Guardian retaliated, its clawed fist slamming into Varrick's chest, launching him through a half-collapsed tower. Stone exploded outward in a rain of debris.
Kael winced. "Got him—"
He stopped.
From the dust, Varrick walked out again. His coat torn, his hair singed, but his steps were steady. Each footfall echoed like a hammer. The air around him shimmered — not from heat, but from pressure.
He raised a single finger.
The Guardian froze mid-swing, body trembling, magma cracking under invisible force. The air whined, folding around the point of his focus.
"Return," he said.
The world obeyed.
The Guardian imploded — fire collapsing inward, bones snapping, light crushed until nothing remained but ash and steam. The sound rolled out like a distant thunderclap, then vanished entirely.
Silence.
Jayden realized he hadn't breathed in almost a full minute.
The courtyard was gone — reduced to glowing rubble and drifting smoke. The instructors stood still, eyes wide. Students whispered prayers they didn't remember knowing.
Varrick turned toward what remained of the Gate — a circle of molten runes hovering in the sky, flickering between open and closed. They pulsed erratically, wounded, alive in the wrong way.
He extended his hand. The runes dimmed, one by one, until the Gate collapsed with a whisper.
The night fell quiet.
Jayden stared at the ruin — at the cracked earth and burned air, at the students who would never forget this night.
Kael broke the silence first.
"Remind me," he muttered, voice hoarse, "to never piss off the headmaster."
Jayden didn't answer. He couldn't.
His gaze stayed on the fading embers where the Guardian had stood.
He thought of the Water Trial. Of how close he had been to death — and how far beyond that the Headmaster now stood.
Power like that wasn't something you earned. It was something you became.
And for the first time since unlocking his essence, Jayden wondered if the path he'd chosen was something he could ever reach the end of.