Prologue – The Final Flame
The world was quiet.
Above the dying lands, in a realm cut off from time, a figure sat in the heart of a broken throne room. The skies had long since burned away, the stars hidden behind waves of flickering flame. The walls surrounding him had collapsed, charred symbols of ancient power crumbling into molten stone.
Only the fire remained.
At the center of it all stood the last god of flame—his body cloaked in embers, his presence heavy enough to warp the world around him. His eyes, molten gold and dimming, gazed down at the thing he was building.
It wasn't a weapon. It wasn't a fortress.
It was… a seed.
A system. A legacy. A spark meant to outlive him.
Floating beside him was a small wisp of flickering fire—alive, but barely contained, its heat pulsing with something more than power.
"Master…" the wisp whispered, its voice quiet, trembling, "Why are you… Why are you placing the core of all your flames into that construct? You'll die. You know you'll die."
The Flame God didn't look up. His fingers weaved through the air, crafting runes of power older than the stars. The system crystal before him spun faster, absorbing trace after trace of his divine essence.
"Because I have no choice, Pyra," he said calmly.
"But you—"
"I am hunted. You've seen the signs. The other gods are coming. Not just for my power… but for the possibility that I may be reborn. That I may start again."
He turned now, for just a moment, and looked at the small flame—Pyra, the last of the Time Flames. She hovered in place, trembling with flickering guilt.
"If I fall here and try to reincarnate, they'll track my soul. Erase me. Erase even the memory of me." His voice dropped, hollow with finality. "There won't be a next life."
"Then don't fall," Pyra said softly. "Burn them all."
A faint smile touched his lips.
"I already have. In more ways than they know. But this," he said, placing one hand over the core, "this is more important than vengeance. This is the key to something beyond gods. Beyond law. Beyond fate."
He channeled the final embers of his divinity into the system, and one by one, the sixteen flames responded—Void Flame, Soul Flame, Devour Flame, Phoenix Flame, all of them. Their cores condensed into pure essence and vanished into the spinning crystal.
The last to remain was the Time Flame.
"I won't seal you away like the others," he said. "You'll be its guide. The voice in the dark. The one who helps my heir rise… and survive."
Pyra flinched.
"No. Please… don't make me watch you die."
"Watch?" the Flame God chuckled. "No, Pyra. You're not watching. You're becoming."
He lifted one hand, placed it gently over her flickering core, and whispered a command.
"Become the soul of the system."
There was a flash of light. Pyra screamed—and then was silent. Her body vanished into the crystal, which hummed with energy far older than creation.
Far below the floating platform, the skies cracked.
The gods had arrived.
Golden lights. Wings that stretched beyond the horizon. Weapons that sang with judgment. And a thousand voices crying out in unison—
"You cannot escape fate, God of Flame!"
But the Flame God was smiling.
He raised the system into the air—his last hope, his final defiance—and cast it into the void beyond time.
"Fate can burn."
As the gods descended, the Flame God rose to meet them.
And in the deepest part of the void, something small, and ancient, and burning with potential… began to drift.
Waiting for its chosen heir.