The grass field that once stood between the trees no longer existed.
It had become a broken scar in the earth.
Ice and ash clung to the ground. Charred trunks lay shattered. The air trembled, still echoing from the collision of two monstrous powers.
In the center of it all stood Kael's body.
Unmoving.
Unconscious.
A breath away from death.
Inside his mind, Vela grit her teeth.
'I won't let him die. Not after everything we've sacrificed.'
Ahead of her, the Hailcrown Lotus drifted closer in slow, suffocating silence. Every crystalline petal pulsed with absolute cold, promising an end.
No time. No choices left.
Deep within her soul space, a faint glow stirred.
A small, rotating medal hung suspended in the void, bearing the symbol of a flame-born creature. It carried the presence of Velma. Ancient. Dangerous. Sealed.
Vela extended her will.
"Please… don't fail me now."
Her energy wrapped around the medal and drove forward.
It pierced into the core of the medal and locked in place.
The response was immediate.
A shockwave ripped through her consciousness as violent fire flooded outward, racing into Kael's body like a raging river.
His trembling form ignited, wrapped in a thin, unfamiliar armour of living flames.
Muscles tightened.
Bones reinforced.
Even his very silhouette shifted.
Vela drew back his fist, now drowned in terrifying power, and threw it forward.
The blow collided with the incoming Lotus.
The impact tore the world apart.
The forest froze.
Then exploded.
A colossal dome of bone-chilling ice swallowed the battlefield, dragging with it a raging hailstorm that screamed like a thousand dying winds.
Inside it, Evan stood untouched.
A thin veil of flame coated his body, instantly vaporising any ice that dared approach.
Even he felt the recoil from what he had unleashed.
A sharp chime echoed in his mind.
Ding!
[Detected: Action performed beyond current Tier limits]
[Elemental Manipulation — Ice (E+) has gained massive experience]
[Ice (E+) → Ice (D^)]
[Manifestation, Control, and Transfusion efficiency increased]
"…Damn," Arven muttered. "That one actually hurt the world,"
Evan smirked behind his mask.
"Didn't expect it to get that wild either."
Then his gaze snapped forward.
Kael was still standing.
Not just standing… but changing.
Heat poured off his body in waves. The icy dome around him cracked, melting, hissing into steam.
A golden-red light burst from within, consuming the mist.
His ruined armour repaired itself with fire. Runes lit up across his skin, forming a second, blazing shell around him.
When his eyes opened, the black was gone.
In its place burned a crimson inferno with thin, ashen streaks.
A voice left his lips.
Not Kael's.
Cold. Feminine. Ancient.
"Today, I will show you why I am called the Death Phoenix."
The flames around him died in an unnatural instant… and then—
"Authority Release — Cinder of the Last Dawn."
The world ignited.
His body became a miniature sun.
The temperature spiked so violently that the air distorted.
From his form, small beads of burning red light began to shed, rising into the sky like an inverted rain.
One by one, they spread across the battlefield… surrounding Evan.
A killing move.
Back in the present, Evan stared at one of them floating inches from his skin.
He scoffed and brushed it aside.
The moment his fingers touched it, agony drove through his nerves.
It drilled into his skin, muscle, and even his mana pathways like a burning needle of pure destruction.
His hand snapped back, shaking violently.
"What the hell is that?"
"Now you get it, huh?" Arven's voice echoed. "You don't underestimate someone carrying Authority. These aren't flames. They're death marks."
"Helpful. Really helpful."
"So what, you gonna cry or adapt?"
Evan inhaled sharply.
Ice flooded from his body, forming a dense, jagged armour that locked around his frame like skeletal plating.
He slammed his power into the ground.
A massive ice pillar burst upward, sealing him inside a frozen fortress just as the beads shot forward.
They drilled into the walls from every side, glowing brighter, spinning, tearing holes through the solid ice.
Inside, Evan kept repairing the damage at a terrifying speed, sweat dripping down his jaw.
Then… the attacks stopped.
Silence.
Hope flickered.
He looked up.
His breath froze.
The ceiling was wide open, and dozens of beads hovered above him, pulsing like crimson stars about to fall.
"Oh… no."
They didn't pierce.
They detonated.
A chain of red explosions turned the interior into a living furnace.
Flames roared inward, compressing the air, cooking everything trapped inside.
Vela watched from outside as the once-imposing pillar of ice melted into nothing.
Nobody.
No mask.
No movement.
"…Gone?" she whispered.
Her eyes narrowed.
'He can't disappear that easily.'
Then a voice drifted down from above.
"What? Are you going to stare at the ground all day, or were you actually trying to find me?"
She looked up.
Evan sat on a high tree branch, one leg crossed over the other.
Calm.
Unburned.
Amused.
A thin wisp of steam rolled off his shoulders.
For the first time since awakening the Authority… shock flashed in her eyes.
And Evan's smirk widened.
"Your fireworks were cute. My turn yet?"
She vanished.
Not a sound. Not a ripple.
One blink and the air beside Evan tore open.
"Now try to evade this." Her voice hissed in his ear.
A claw of living flame stopped a breath away from his eyes.
Evan didn't counter.
He let his body fall backwards.
The talons sliced empty air.
In that instant, Vela used the branch beneath them as leverage and twisted, her body becoming a blur of motion as she lunged again.
Mid-air.
Point-blank.
This time, she was certain.
Until Evan raised a single hand.
A familiar pulse shuddered through the ground.
"What… geo?" she realised too late.
A sharpened pillar exploded upward beneath her.
BOOM.
It slammed into Kael's abdomen and hurled his body skyward.
Pain ripped his throat, but she didn't waste the momentum.
Flames coiled around her body.
She turned herself into a blazing comet.
Aiming straight for Evan's skull.
He braced, ice surging over his arm, ready to smash through her attack—
And then Kael's body ignited all at once.
Not flames. An inferno.
The world drowned in red.
Evan disappeared inside it.
Vela hovered back, breathing hard.
''Now, even if he survives the fire… the real surprise will end him.
Hidden within her authority lurked something far worse than heat.
The Abyssal Mutated End.
A poison of void wrapped in flame.
One touch was enough to rot body, mind, and soul.
This was what had allowed her to challenge Kings in the past.
No one walked out of these flames.
Then—
The inferno detonated outward.
A shockwave tore through the field.
From the center stood Evan.
Unburned.
Unbroken.
And now… smiling.
Inside him, something ancient awakened.
[Detected: Abyssal End Flame – Minor Sample]
[Talent: Supreme Adaptation – Activated]
[Resistance achieved. Assimilation in progress.]
"Oh?" Arven chuckled within him. "That's a dangerous authority, kid. You're lucky she's weak right now. If she were even one tier higher, you would've been ash."
Evan exhaled slowly as the remaining flames curled around him… and bowed.
His casual air was gone.
This wasn't a play anymore.
"It's late," he murmured. "Let's end this."
Across the battlefield, Kael's body trembled.
The borrowed authority tore at his flesh.
Vela felt it.
'I can't maintain this much longer. I have to retreat… Kael won't survive otherwise.'
She prepared to pull back.
Then she felt it.
The flames… no longer listened to her.
A foreign dominance seized them.
Slowly, Evan raised his hand.
The fire responded.
"Still alive…?" she whispered.
The cage of her creation shattered into shards of crimson light.
Evan stepped through it.
"The question isn't whether I'm alive, Vela…" his voice turned cold, heavy with something ancient and terrifying, "…it's what you're going to do now that I'm the one holding them."
Her eyes widened as she felt the truth.
The synchronisation.
The theft.
"You…" her teeth clenched. "You thief…"
His eyes glowed with burning, unfamiliar power.
"I simply claimed what failed to kill me."
The air began to scream.
To Be Continued…
Power has changed hands.
Flames have been stolen.
And the real calamity…has only just begun.