The Bone Marches were aptly named. A place where the and itself seemed to remember death. Bleached stone jutted from the earth like broken spines. Dust clung to the air, and nothing natural grew for miles. Long ago, this had been the site of the final rebellion against the Ashborn's reign - a massacre so absolute it had twisted the land's essence. Now, it was happening again.
But this time, the enemy was not human.
The Riftborn had arrived.
They tore through the Bone Marches like a plague of living nightmares. No two looked the same - some were shifting shadows with too many limbs, others were walking puzzles of bone and light. They moved with jerking, unnatural precision, feeding not on flesh, but on memory. Victims didn't just die - they were erased. Whole villages became blank voids where nothing had ever existed. No corpses. No ruins. Just silence.
Kairo stood atop a ruined watchtower, staring down at the horror with a hollow chest. His cloak billowed in the fetid wind. Around him, a makeshift alliance of former enemies gathered - Sylven archers from the Verdant Pact, flame monks from the Pyre Order, and even deserters from the old Hollowguard. They had nothing in common but one truth: if the Riftborn weren't stopped here, there would be nothing left to save.
Their goal was clear - shut down the Rift gate pulsing in the heart of the Marches. But as they descended into battle, something was wrong. The Riftborn were waiting. Anticipating. As if they knew.
It was a trap.
Halfway through the assault, the ground erupted in pale light. Dozens of Riftborn surged up from beneath, overwhelming the allied troops. Screams echoed through the dust. Kairo fought like a burning tempest, his flames cleaving through the unnatural darkness. But for every Riftborn he destroyed, two more replaced them. Worse - they weren't just attacking.
They were feeding on him.
Whenever his fire touched, the Rift twisted faster. The gate pulsed with increasing speed, tearing wider. And then, at the centre of the battlefield, a voice spoke.
From the ranks of the allies, a woman stepped forward - one of the supposed Pyre monks who had fought beside Kairo since the Verdant campaign. Her form shimmered, peeled, and reformed - not with magic, but with dimensional displacement.
She wasn't human.
She was Rift-touched - a being from Earth, or something caught between. Her face was familiar. Her eyes were not.
"You never asked who built the gate," she said calmly. "You assumed this world was the origin."
Kairo froze. The wind died.
"The truth is," she continued, "Earth sent us first. Your academy? Your world? Your entire life… a project. A containment field. You weren't exiled here, Kairo Orin. You were released."
Time seemed to pause as her words settled. Everything - his nightmares, St. Kareth's lies, the Soul Scanner's reaction, the Council's fear - it all pointed to one truth:
The Rift wasn't opening because of Amaranth.
It was opening because of him.
The Riftborn were following the echo of his flame. He was the key. He was the tear.
Something inside him snapped.
A massive surge of heat exploded outward from his core, pulsing like a heart set ablaze. The flame burst from his chest - but it was no longer red, or gold, or anything human. It was white. Fire without warmth. Fire that devoured not just matter but meaning. Stone turned to dust. Shadows disintegrated. Time rippled and collapsed. A Riftborn lunged - and ceased to exist mid-leap.
Even his allies stepped back in terror.
Kairo screamed, not from pain, but from the weight of it. The fire inside him wasn't just power - it was a wound in reality. His body became the epicentre of a localised collapse. Lightning arced through the clouds above. The Rift gate shattered like glass. And when the light finally died…
Nothing remained.
No bodies. No weapons. No architecture.
Just scorched earth and the outline of Kairo standing alone at its centre, steam rising from his skin. He trembled, eyes still glowing like miniature suns. A reflection flickered in a nearby shard of obsidian - not his face, but the face of the Tyrant King, white flame dancing from his crown, expression unreadable.
Behind him, Faela and two surviving monks stared in silence, unable to speak. They didn't cheer. They didn't approach. Their eyes were filled with fear.
And Kairo knew why.
Because he wasn't sure if he'd won… or if something inside him had.