The Heartforge screamed.
Molten walls twisted under the weight of the Voidbound Echo's presence. Its form—shifting like broken obsidian—moved with unnatural weight. Tendrils of collapsed light writhed from its back, dragging scars through the old runes lining the forge.
The creature let out a pulse—a soundless roar that vibrated through bone.
Erza stepped forward, eyes ablaze, cloak burning away in the flare of his awakening fire. The Blade of Coronis pulsed in his grip, glowing gold with threads of crimson spiraling toward its tip.
Ignatius shouted something behind him, but Erza didn't hear.
All he could see was the thing before him—a monster shaped like everything that should never have existed.
Selene drew her sword and charged to flank, but the creature moved—too fast.
It blinked forward like a shadow shifting between suns, and in one swipe, slammed her into a pillar. The impact cracked stone.
"Selene!" Kale shouted, rushing to her side.
"Stay back!" Erza called, voice fierce. "This thing... it's mine."
The Voidbound Echo hissed.
Its chestplate split open.
Inside, a false constellation spun—a mirrored Leo sigil, inverted and broken. Each point of starlight seemed to bleed shadow, dragging the forge deeper into a pocket of astral corruption.
Then the real battle began.
The Echo lunged.
Erza met it mid-leap, the Blade of Coronis flashing upward in a golden arc. Fire met shadow in a titanic clash, shaking the entire mountain. The heat turned the forge air into smoke and mirage.
Erza spun low, ducked under a tendril, and launched upward with a spiral of flame. The Leo mark on his chest pulsed.
The blade cut through the Echo's arm—only for it to reform, darker and stronger.
This wasn't just a monster.
It was a reflection.
A warning.
The creature's chest flared—and this time, its mirrored Leo mark pulsed with terrible resonance.
Suddenly, the world went silent.
And Erza was no longer in the Heartforge.
He stood in a field of starlight.
Everything was still, bathed in gold—but cracked.
Before him stood a boy his age.
Identical face. Sharper glare. A mane of golden flame coiling behind him.
The other Erza.
His brother.
The imprisoned soul—Azren.
The other half of Leo.
Azren smiled. But there was no warmth. "You came too close to the fracture."
"Who are you?" Erza asked, even though he already knew.
"I'm the roar behind your silence. The wrath they sealed. You carry Leo's Light. I carry its Rage."
Erza's hands clenched. "Why now?"
Azren's eyes narrowed. "Because the gate is cracking. The Void feeds on imbalance. Every time you hesitate, every time you fight without control... I bleed through."
Erza's flame began to flicker.
Azren stepped closer. "Let me in. Together, we can destroy the Echo. We can take back our kingdom. Burn down the Consortium and everything else that dares stand before us."
Erza hesitated.
The anger surged inside him.
He remembered the broken crest. His father's body. His people slaughtered.
He remembered running.
But then...
He remembered Selene's hand on his shoulder.
Ryse's awkward smile.
Kale's rambling warmth.
No. He wasn't alone anymore.
"I don't need your fury," Erza whispered. "I have my own."
Azren's smile faded.
A ripple tore through the field of starlight.
"You'll regret this."
Erza raised the Blade of Coronis.
And drove it into the illusion.
He snapped back to reality.
The Echo loomed above him, about to strike.
But now, the Leo mark on his chest blazed with clarity—no longer flickering, but balanced.
Erza twisted his body, slashed up in a perfect arc.
The Blade of Coronis found the false constellation and split it in half.
A roar like a dying star erupted from the Echo.
Its body unraveled into glass and flame.
Erza stood in the center of the crumbling forge, surrounded by cinders.
Breathing hard.
Burned.
But standing.
Ignatius approached slowly, eyes unreadable. "You saw him, didn't you?"
Erza nodded once.
"He offered you power."
"Yes."
"And you said no."
Erza looked down at his hand. The Blade of Coronis flickered, now dim.
"I said not yet."
Outside Emberhold, night fell over the ruined lands.
Far beyond the mountains, in the inverted sky of the Second Sky, Noctyros opened another gate. The constellation of Orion the Hunter shimmered—and began to twist.
One by one, the stars were falling.
But Erza Black now knew the truth of the flame within him.
And he would not let it burn alone.