"Your soul is the fuel. Magic is not free."
---
Elric bled again.
The wound was shallow—just above his wrist—but the pain seared through his nerves like acid. The Demon Codex pulsed in the dirt beside him, open to a page that shimmered with black runes and flame-shaped margins.
> ASHBIND – LEVEL II
"Flame shall obey you when you offer flesh."
He gritted his teeth and pressed his palm to the sigil drawn in ash. The symbols rearranged instantly, forming a serpent-like ring of script. The Demon Crest on his chest pulsed once… then burst into light.
Fire poured from his arm.
Not magefire—not the clean, crystalline energy of the nobles—but dark, molten ribbons of ash and smoke, coiling around his forearm like living chains. The power surged.
And then—his skin tore.
The veins blackened. Bone sizzled.
He screamed.
Fell back.
The spell collapsed.
The fire died with a sharp hiss, leaving his arm steaming and raw, muscle exposed beneath split flesh.
---
He lay there, panting, vision spinning.
"Too fast," he whispered. "Too much."
The Codex's pages flipped on their own, then stopped.
> You are not ready.
> Your soul is the fuel. Magic is not free.
"Then why show me this spell?!"
> Because one day… you'll have no choice.
He wanted to curse. He wanted to burn the book and walk away. But even as his arm screamed and his skin peeled—the crest throbbed with hunger.
Part of him had felt alive while channeling it.
That terrified him more than the pain.
---
High above, hidden behind a moss-covered stone wall, Rin watched everything.
She hadn't meant to follow him.
Not at first.
But Elric had started leaving the camp at odd hours, making strange excuses. And then she saw it—that strange, burning crest on his chest.
Not noble.
Not natural.
Now she watched him scream as demonfire devoured his flesh.
She clenched her fists. Part of her wanted to rush down. Help. Heal.
But another part—the part that remembered old war scrolls and burned cities—whispered:
> "That is not magic."
> "That is something older. Something wrong."
She'd read about the Codexes in forbidden records.
They weren't books. They were bindings. Pieces of demon souls trapped in ink and paper, born in the Age of Erasure.
Powerful.
Unstable.
Corrupting.
And Elric had one.
---
Later that night, Elric returned to the tent, his arm wrapped in scraps of old linen. He was pale, lips cracked, and fever-sweating.
Rin didn't ask. Not yet.
But the silence between them had changed.
It wasn't caution anymore.
It was fear.
---
The next day brought worse news.
Rumors rippled through the slums like wildfire.
A beast had breached the outer canals—a summoned thing, half-shadow, half-marrow, shaped like a horned hound with six legs and no eyes. Locals whispered the name:
> "Ashrot."
A minor demon.
But still deadly.
Velden's outer district had no guards. Only magewatch towers, which wouldn't send help unless nobles were involved.
So it wandered.
Killing.
Tearing.
Feeding.
---
That night, it came near their shelter.
Elric and Rin woke to the sound of stone cracking.
Then came the screams.
Real ones.
Nearby.
"Stay down," Elric muttered.
But Rin was already strapping on her blade. "People are dying."
"You can't fight that. Not with steel."
"And you can?"
"…No."
But he could burn it.
---
They found the creature near the ruins of an old mill tower.
The Ashrot was monstrous—thrice the size of a horse, crawling with limbs that bent the wrong way, its hide made of ash plates fused with bone.
It had already slaughtered three people—slum scavengers who'd tried to fight with makeshift spears.
Elric saw the blood.
He felt the Codex stir under his cloak.
> "Let me out."
> "Feed me."
He stepped forward.
Rin grabbed his arm. "Don't. You'll die."
He looked at her.
"I'll die if I don't."
She looked into his eyes—and for the first time, saw not a slum rat, not a liar, not even a friend…
…but a wellspring of something ancient and hungry.
She let go.
---
Elric stepped into the open, heart pounding.
The beast turned toward him.
Its mouth opened—not jaws, but a void. Inside was flame.
Not real fire.
Hellfire.
The Codex opened in his hand.
Pages turned in a wind that didn't exist.
The crest on his chest exploded with light.
> "Ashbind."
He roared the word. This time, he didn't offer just flesh—he offered memory. A day of starvation. A year of pain. The moment his mother's body was taken away, wrapped in cloth.
Pain was the price.
The Codex answered.
Chains of red-black fire lashed out and bound the demon's limbs. The creature shrieked, ash flaring from its back as the binding seared through its joints.
It lunged—he ducked.
Then—
> "Ruin Flame: Breath of Hollow Fire."
The spell erupted from Elric's hands like a dragon's roar.
Not a beam.
Not a bolt.
A torrent of withering flame, stripping the Ashrot's hide, tearing bone from muscle. The beast collapsed mid-lunge, screeching, before it imploded into a pile of molten ash.
Elric collapsed seconds later.
His arm was gone to the elbow.
Rin screamed.
Ran.
She caught him before he hit the stone, dragging him from the burning circle. The Codex lay beside him, its pages smoking, still whispering:
> "You survived."
> "You burned. But you survived."
---
Elric awoke hours later in a haze, feverish, pain gnawing his nerves like rats.
Rin sat beside him, silent.
Her hand was pressed against his chest, drawing cooling wards with chalk.
"You… can do magic?" he whispered.
"A little," she said. "Enough."
"You saw it."
"Yes."
"You scared?"
Rin was quiet a long time.
Then she said, "I was. But now I'm angry."
"…Why?"
"Because whatever that was... you shouldn't have had to use it alone."
---
Elric cried then.
Not because of the pain.
But because someone stayed.