Ryen's Judgment
The darkness of the lab was not absence.
It was resistance.
As if light had once entered and the walls had chewed it up, spat it out, and closed their mouths forever.
But that silence shattered.
With a whisper.
A step.
Ryen Sylvan's boots barely tapped the ground as he moved.
He was no longer walking.
He was cutting through air.
A blur of breath and blades. A memory sharpened by war.
> "Phantom Steps," he muttered, not to cast it—
but to remind the world what was coming.
In less than a heartbeat, he crossed the room.
The first scientist—hand trembling, needle poised to inject black liquid into the screaming woman's neck—didn't even see death arrive.
He only saw two blades.
One through his wrist. The other through his heart.
And a boy who had once been nothing, now slicing time itself.
> "You'll inject no one today."
The man gasped—then folded like ash.
Another technician screamed. This one flared with orange fire, flames gathering in his palms. But power summoned in panic burns only the summoner.
Ryen stepped forward, twisted.
One arc of his blade—clean and sure—
cut flame from flesh, and silence from noise.
The second fell.
The third reached for a communicator.
Ryen threw a dagger before thought could reach the man's fingers.
Three down. No breath wasted.
Behind him, Yumi entered slowly.
Her eyes were hard. Her hand hovered near her ring, but she never had to raise it.
Ryen had already written the final sentence in this room's story.
---
The screaming quieted.
Not because the pain had ended,
but because exhaustion claimed what fire could not.
The woman on the slab was breathing. Barely.
Her wrists were red where the cuffs had bitten in. Her legs twitched from nervous spasms. Tubes hung loosely from her veins, and whatever had been injected before had turned parts of her skin an unnatural hue—almost like a black sun had kissed her blood.
Yumi approached slowly, eyes scanning the equipment.
> "Corrupted EB," she whispered. "Modified. Maybe fused with something else."
Ryen didn't answer.
He stared.
Not at the wounds.
But at her face.
There was something tragic in her beauty—long, black hair tangled across her shoulders, high cheekbones half-hidden behind blood-matted strands. Her lips trembled as if fighting words she didn't yet remember.
He reached down gently, pulled the IV from her arm, and knelt beside her.
> "What's your name?" he asked.
The woman's eyes fluttered open. They were dark. Too dark for someone so broken.
> "I… I don't remember."
"I'm sorry."
The apology crushed him more than the answer.
He looked away, but the past had already broken through.
---
The scent of rot.
Metal walls.
Cages stacked like sins.
A child curled in the corner of steel bars.
His name was called—but not like a name.
More like an order.
> "Sylvan! Get up!"
Then the pain.
Then the needles.
Then the hunger.
One scientist always took his food.
Another made him count numbers as they shocked his spine.
And for seven days—
> Seven days, no sun, no sleep, no breath of kindness—
He screamed.
Until one night, he stopped screaming.
And that's when they began to fear him.
---
Now, back in the present, Ryen stood.
His hand trembled once, but only once.
Then he looked down at the woman again. Not with pity.
But with understanding.
> "You don't need to remember who you were," he said.
"Not now. But you're not a subject anymore. You're not a number."
Yumi approached him quietly, her expression unreadable.
> "We need to search the rest of the lab," she said. "If they had her here, there could be others. Forgotten. Dying. Weaponized."
Ryen nodded, slipping his blades back into their sheath.
> "Yeah," he whispered.
"This place doesn't end with her."
He looked back at the shattered door.
At the broken glass.
At the shadows that still clung to the corners.
> "We burn it all. And then we find the others."
The woman reached out weakly, clutching the fabric of his sleeve.
> "Thank you," she said. Voice barely audible.
"For not letting me disappear."
Ryen looked at her—and for once, he smiled.
Not because things were okay.
But because someone was finally seen.
And in a world that turned names into numbers…
That was the beginning of everything.
---
The Line Between Sparks and Gods
Night fell in Flame Land Academy,
but the flames never slept.
Outside, twin moons cast pale halos over floating halls and rivers of molten gold.
Inside a tower-room etched in lava crystal,
Yuji Kazehaya sat in silence.
Aika Miyawaki had fallen asleep first.
Softly, quietly—her chest rose with steady breath.
She was a blade sheathed in kindness. But for now, only the peace of slumber held her.
Yuji, though…
Yuji was not at rest.
He sat at a desk forged of black emberwood, hands stained with ink and thought.
Scrolls sprawled before him like disobedient vines, filled with diagrams—each one a theory dissecting the unknown.
The Three Lines.
He drew them over and over again.
> 1st Line: The Spark
2nd Line: The Foundation
3rd Line: The Strike
These were the rules Master Kraël had declared.
0.3 seconds. One breath. One decision.
But Yuji—he wasn't born to follow lines.
He was born to break them.
So he asked the question none had dared yet:
> "What if I don't wait for the third line?
What if I flood the first with energy?
What if the second becomes the core and the third... never comes?"
Or more madly still—
> "What if I cut the Third Line into a thousand strands?
Can I shape destiny in a thousand directions?"
It was wild.
It was chaos.
It was science as rebellion.
He activated his Bloomies—his green flame petals—letting them float like ghosts above the parchment.
Each flickered in rhythm with his thoughts.
Alive. Curious.
Twelve attempts. Twelve failures.
Each time, the energy fizzled.
The flames danced, but the strike never sharpened.
> "Come on… come on…" Yuji whispered. "Lines are timing, right? Then why can't I—"
And then,
a wind blew inside his soul.
Not air. Not breath.
But voice.
She was back.
---
In the Mind Realm,
Yuji stood inside a vast garden, where fire bloomed like flowers and the stars watched without blinking.
Ara appeared—not walking, but unfolding.
Her feet never touched the ground. Her hair was a river of vines.
And her eyes… were ancient storms dressed in green.
> "You're thinking too narrowly, idiot," she said, arms crossed.
"Timing isn't enough. You need to ask—what kind of energy are you using?"
Yuji blinked.
> "What... do you mean?"
Ara floated forward, and the world bent gently around her presence.
> "You rely on EB. That's what your ring uses. External, compressed force. But you've been gifted something else too. Something greater."
She pointed to his chest.
> "Flame Energy. FE. It belongs to your soul, not your gear. And your Green Flames… they feed on both. They are the bridge."
She raised her hand, and light formed a ring around it.
> "It's time you learn the Eternal Ring."
> "What is it?" Yuji asked.
She smiled softly.
> "A cultivation cycle that lets you bypass your ADM Ring. To merge EB and FE into one internal engine."
She waved her hand, and a seed of green light appeared in Yuji's chest.
And then—
He felt it.
Inside his heart,
the Green Flames stirred.
They weren't just responding.
They were crafting something.
A ring was forming, not outside, but within his chest.
Half of it forged by EB, sparking with artificial charge.
The other half birthed from FE, drawn from the soul of the Flame World itself.
The two halves struggled to merge. They sparked, collided.
Power surged. Yuji's bones vibrated. His mind buckled.
> "Too much—!" he gasped.
His breath shortened. Vision blurred.
The Eternal Ring was birthing inside him—but his body was the battlefield.
---
In the real world,
his body trembled.
Green light spilled from his hands like roots reaching for something unknown.
And across the room, Aika awoke.
At first, she didn't move—she just watched him.
The way his body glowed. The way his spirit strained.
Like a star trying to be born inside flesh.
Then—
She moved without thought.
Rushed forward.
She knelt behind him, arms slipping around his chest.
He didn't feel it.
His soul was somewhere else.
But her voice—
Her voice reached the places even gods had forgotten.
> "Yuji…" she whispered, her lips near his ear.
"You're always running ahead. Always breaking rules."
She held him tighter.
> "But if I showed you what I am… if I broke the rules, too—"
"Would you still… look at me the same?"
Her eyes glistened with something unspeakable.
Not love.
Not fear.
But transformation, barely restrained.
Yuji didn't hear her.
But somehow,
the flames pulsing from his back settled.
The Eternal Ring did not break.
It merely paused.
Like it was listening.
---
Inside the Mind Realm,
Ara looked at the invisible thread stretching from Yuji's heart to the world outside.
She smiled faintly.
> "She's holding you together, huh?"
Then, softer—
> "Even I don't know what she's hiding."
She turned away, vines rustling.
> "Master this Ring, Yuji. If you do…
You'll never need another tool again.
Your body will become your only weapon.
Your flame… your destiny."
---
And in the quiet room beneath the moons and stars,
Yuji sat still—flames coiled around his hands,
his breath slow, steady.
He had not mastered it.
But he had found the path.
And the goddess?
She was watching.
But so was someone else.
Aika.
And this time, she was the one holding the secret.
---
The Flow Beyond Flames
The forest was silent.
Too silent.
It wasn't the hush of wind or the calm of midnight.
It was the silence of held breath—
as if the world itself paused
to watch two figures meet.
A circle of white trees surrounded them like pale sentinels.
Their leaves never rustled. Their roots never twitched.
This was no ordinary place.
And in the center—
Eylzion waited.
Cloaked in shadows, his breath visible in the cold that should not exist.
He stood barefoot, yet untouched by frost.
No blade.
No ring.
Just presence.
In front of him, lying propped against one of the bleached trees,
was Mina.
Her blue hair spilled around her like flowing ink.
She was still in pain—her body frozen from the battle before, limbs paralyzed,
yet her eyes were defiant flames.
> "You brought me here," she said, voice shaking with fury.
"Why didn't you kill me when you had the chance?"
Eylzion didn't blink.
> "Because answers don't bleed.
And dead lips tell no truths."
He stepped closer, his footfalls soundless.
Mina's aura sparked faintly—barely flickering.
Her control over her body hadn't returned,
but her mind was sharp as ever.
> "Who are you?" she demanded.
"You defeated me without flames. Without any element. Without… anything. What trick is that?"
He looked up at the moonlight bleeding through the canopy,
then turned back to her with the stillness of a blade that hadn't yet struck.
> "It's no trick," he said.
"It's the Artless Flow.
No element. No ring. No cultivation.
Just movement… without resistance."
Mina's breath caught.
He knelt before her, not in reverence—but in study.
> "You fought well. But your power… isn't from this world.
You didn't just find Yuji. You followed him."
> "So now," he said calmly, "you tell me—
How do you travel between worlds?"
Mina's mouth opened—then shut.
Her pulse quickened.
He saw it.
The silence wasn't hesitation. It was fear.
And that, to him, was confirmation enough.
A long moment passed before she answered, voice barely above a whisper.
> "You won't believe me."
> "Try me," he replied.
She looked him dead in the eye.
And said a single word:
> "Time."
A hush swept through the grove.
Even the trees seemed to lean back.
Eylzion's jaw tightened, but he didn't look surprised.
Just… quiet. Calculating.
> "Time…" he echoed.
"That's not an element they teach in the original or Flame World."
Mina smiled, even as her body shook.
> "That's because this world runs on flame.
But I…
I run on moments."
And for the first time since their meeting—
Eylzion stepped back.
Just once.
As if even his perfect flow
had finally encountered a current
he could not predict.
---
END OF CHAPTER 26