Add this to your library!!!!!
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Five months have passed since the day Aster discovered Soul Heat.
The rhythm of the island remained unchanged, but its sole, young occupant was transforming at a terrifying rate. Aster was on the cusp of his third birthday. The relentless, grinding routine of Haki drills, physical conditioning, and axe work had forged him. He was still a child, but the lingering softness of infancy was a distant memory, his small body humming with a coiled, contained energy.
He stood on the white sand of the cove, the morning sun just beginning to warm his back. The ironwood axe was gone.
In its place, he held a weapon of lethal purpose. It was a steel battle-axe, salvaged and reforged by Eris from the wreckage of a ship that had long ago met its end on the island's hidden reefs. She had worked for weeks at a simple, hand-bellowed forge, pounding and shaping the metal into a tool scaled for his small hands. The handle was a dense, dark hardwood, wrapped tightly in cured hide, but the head was all business: a heavy, bearded blade of dark, polished steel on one side, a wicked, armor-piercing spike on the other. It was a true, balanced weapon, and it felt cold and perfect in his grip.
The ironwood axe had not broken. It had burned.
It was the inevitable casualty of his new training.
That pathetic stick of kindling was holding us back. Flamey's voice, a familiar, high-pitched, and fiery shriek, echoed in his mind.
Fire needs a proper vessel, Aster! Steel. Steel holds the heat. Steel holds the will. Wood just... well burns. Honestly, it was embarrassing.
That "burning" had been the crux of his last five months of training. After discovering 'Soul Heat,' Aster and Flamey had embarked on their next logical step: imbuing his weapon.
It had been a disaster at first.
The moment he tried to channel the dark, clinging Inferno flame, the ironwood had sizzled. The power was too much, the wood too eager to burn. He couldn't sustain it. Worse, the stamina drain was immediate and catastrophic. He'd spend five seconds coating the axe head in a weak, smoky black-red flame, and the next ten minutes passed out on the sand.
NO, NO, NO!
Flamey had shrieked during one such failed attempt.
You're a vessel, not a leaky bucket! You're dumping your stamina into it! You can't just set it on fire! You have to edge it! Focus, you little moron! Make it a line, not a bonfire!
So, he had learned. Through endless, frustrating, exhausting trial and error, he had learned control. It was less about brute force and more about meticulous, mental discipline. He learned to project a layer of his will, a thin, controlled sheath of Armament Haki over the weapon first. A feat that had taken him two months alone.
His Armament Haki was no longer just a reactive shield. He could move it, willing the invisible, cold, hard plating from his hands into the steel. He couldn't maintain it for long, but he could do it.
And then, he'd learned to paint that Haki-infused steel with a paper-thin, impossibly dense layer of his Inferno flame.
The result was a weapon of terrifying potential. The black-red flame didn't roar; it clung, a dark, energy-absorbing edge that sizzled faintly in the air, seeming to consume the light around it. And, to his immense satisfaction, it had a new, secondary property.
He held the steel axe now, his small arms thrumming with the low, internal power of Soul Heat. He was breathing steadily, his Observation Haki a passive, 360-degree sphere of awareness. He felt his mother in the cottage, a warm, steady presence. He felt the gulls crying overhead, their minds simple and bright. He felt his new axe in his hands, its "voice" clean and sharp, a "song" of contentment that loved the fire, unlike the "screaming" of the old wood.
Alright, Aster,
Flamey's voice said, the teasing "brat" and "axe-child" mostly gone, replaced by the stern, focused tone of a coach.
The recap is over. You know your Haki is stable. You know the edge is ready. Stop stalling. Today's the day. You've been failing this for a week. Let's see the real thing.
Aster nodded, his focus narrowing. His target was a thick, gnarled tree stump twenty yards away, a stubborn, dead thing that had resisted his physical attacks for months. Behind it, half-buried in the sand, sat a massive, smooth boulder, easily twice his height.
His "homework." Split the sky. This was his version.
You are not your father, Aster, Flamey coached, his voice a low, intense hiss in his mind.
His Haki is a chaotic, conquering ocean. It's... disgusting. Yours is a focused, consuming void. His attack broke the world. Ours will unmake it. Now, focus! Build the power. Slowly.
Aster took a deep breath. He closed his eyes.
Step one: Soul Heat. He drew the latent, internal fire from his core, spreading it through his limbs. The familiar, comfortable warmth surged, his muscles tightening, his reaction speed heightening. The world seemed to slow by a fraction, the details of the sand grains and the distant clouds snapping into sharp, perfect focus.
Step two: Armament. He pushed his will, his Haki, down his arms. He felt the invisible, cold armor flow over his skin, down his hands, and into the axe. The steel thrummed, its "voice" singing a higher, sharper note as it was reinforced by his spirit.
Step three: Inferno. He didn't dump it. He edged it. With a painter's precision, he willed the black-red flame to life, not as a chaotic blaze, but as a perfect, clinging, molecularly thin edge that coated the Armament-hardened steel. The axe-head shimmered, a dark, negative image of a blade. It made no sound, but the air around it grew cold and dead.
Step four: The Will. He opened his eyes. They were blazing gold. He remembered his father's stance. He remembered the feeling of that day. The overwhelming, arrogant, joyful will that had commanded the world to break.
He was small. He was only three. But he was his father's son. And he was the wielder of the Inferno. He was someone who was meant to stand at the top of the world. A KING in the becoming.
ALL OF IT, ASTER! Flamey roared, his calm coaching shattering into a scream of pure, ecstatic hype. EVERYTHING YOU HAVE! PUSH THE STAMINA! BURN IT ALL! SHOW ME THE INFERNO! SHOW ME THE KING'S FIRE! NOW!
Aster let out a guttural cry, a sound that was a shocking, raw echo of his father's own roar. It was a sound of pure effort.
He didn't just swing. He unleashed.
(The pic above is of the slash, the MC did)(Kind off)(A lot smaller)
He poured every drop of his stamina, every spark of Soul Heat, the full, desperate charge of his Armament, and the entirety of his Inferno's will into one, single, perfect, horizontal strike.
The axe tore through the air.
It did not make a swoosh. It made a low, guttural, tearing sound, a VWOOM that sounded like the fabric of the air itself was being ripped in two.
A perfect, crescent-shaped wave of pure, black-red darkness erupted from the blade. It was not fire. It was not light. It was an absence. A flying, crescent-shaped void that consumed the light in its path.
It moved with impossible speed.
The tree stump did not splinter. It did not crack. The black-red crescent passed through it, and the entire, gnarled-foot-thick stump simply... disintegrated. It did not burn; it was unmade, turning into a fine, black cloud of swirling ash.
The attack did not slow.
It slammed into the massive boulder behind it.
There was no explosion. No shattering impact. The black-red void-slash passed through the stone as if it were water.
For a long, terrible second, nothing happened. The boulder just sat there, a new, pencil-thin black line across its center.
Then, with a sound like a giant's sigh, the top half of the massive rock slid sideways, grinding as it separated from its base. It toppled over, crashing onto the sand with a BOOM that shook the entire cove. The cut was perfect, a smooth, polished, obsidian-black surface.
Silence.
The only sound was Aster's ragged, desperate gasping.
Then, in his mind, Flamey exploded.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA! YEEEEEEEEES! THAT'S IT! THAT'S IT, ASTER! YOU DID IT! YOU BLOODY, BRILLIANT, AXE-WIELDING PRODIGY! YOU DID IT! THAT'S THE TRUE INFERNO SLASH! THE CUT OF CONSUMPTION! THE FIRST LAW IS FULFILLED! WHO IS THE DEMON NOW, HUH?! WHO IS THE SCOURGE OF THE VOID?! WE ARE! WE ARE!
Aster's legs were liquid. His arms felt like they were full of wet sand. The Soul Heat was gone, his internal fire extinguished. He was empty. The steel axe fell from his nerveless fingers, thudding onto the beach.
He fell to his knees, panting, his small body trembling violently with the aftershock of channeling so much power. He looked at the bisected boulder. He looked at the cloud of ash that was all that remained of the stump.
Then, he remembered. He looked up at the sky, a clear, sterile blue. He pictured his father's attack: a monstrous, chaotic, red-and-black scar that had broken the sky itself.
He looked back at his own: a controlled, precise, black-and-red cut that had unmade stone.
They were different. They were completely different.
And in that moment, he understood.
His father's task, "Replicate this", it wasn't literal. It was a philosophy. His father, the man who roared at the sea, hadn't wanted a copy. He didn't want a miniature version of himself. He wanted a successor.
The task wasn't to "split the sky like me." The task was: "Find the absolute limit of your own power, and then shatter it. Do the impossible. Do it your way. Push past your limits, every single day."
His father hadn't given him a goal. He had given him a law.
A faint, tired, but profoundly proud smile touched Aster's lips. He had done it.
"I... did it," he whispered, his voice hoarse.
Through the Voice of All Things, his new, steel axe, which had been 'singing' just moments before, was now crying. It wasn't a song of contentment; it was a high-pitched, painful, metallic shriek of pure agony.
The steel, despite his reinforced Armament Haki, had been put under an impossible strain. The sheer, corrosive will of the Inferno he had channeled through it was too much. The power that unmade the boulder had fundamentally damaged the weapon, scouring it from the inside out.
The steel is weak, Flamey's voice noted in his mind. The triumphant, ecstatic yelling was gone, replaced by a tone of calm, satisfied analysis.
It cried out. It couldn't handle the pact-flame. It's already bygone.
Need... new... axe... Aster thought, his mind already fuzzy and distant.
Damn right, Flamey agreed. We're going to need a much better weapon. Something legendary. Something that can actually withstand our power without... crying about it.
The spirit's voice softened, losing its manic edge, replaced by a tone Aster had never heard before, something that sounded almost like genuine, grudging respect.
...But that's for tomorrow. Rest, Aster. You've earned it.
The world went gray at the edges. His consciousness, utterly spent from the massive, total expenditure of Haki and stamina, simply... switched off. He toppled over sideways onto the cool sand, fast asleep before his head even hit the beach.
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In the cottage, Eris was washing the lunch dishes when she felt it.
It was not a sound. It was a feeling. A sudden, violent lurch in the world's spiritual pressure. It was a wave of Haki so dense and complex that it made her drop the plate in her hand. It shattered in the sink, unnoticed.
She felt Aster's Haki, his Armament, a sharp, cold spike of steel, and the faint, but unmistakable, kingly thrum of his father's Haoshoku. But this time, it was blended with something else. Something new.
It was the void. A cold, consuming signature that she knew, with a mother's dread, was the true, awakened voice of his Devil Fruit. It was a wave of power so potent, so dark, it made her blood run cold. It was the power of 'The Consuming End.'
Her heart seized. Had he lost control?
She didn't walk. She ran. In one fluid motion, she snatched the long, well-used spear from its place by the door and burst from the cottage, sprinting barefoot across the sand, her own silver Haki flaring around her. She skidded to a halt at the edge of the cove, her eyes wide, her spear leveled, ready to face a Sea King, or a monster, or...
The scene before her was one of quiet devastation.
The air was still. The stump she had seen every day for years was... gone. A cloud of fine, black ash was settling on the sand. The massive landmark boulder, the one that had never moved, was cut neatly in two.
And in the center of it all, lying facedown in the sand, was her son. He was small, still, and completely motionless beside his new steel axe.
"Aster!"
Her terror was a cold blade in her chest. She was at his side in an instant, her spear clattering to the ground as she fell to her knees, her hands flying over him, checking for blood, for breath.
He was fine.
His chest was rising and falling in the deep, steady rhythm of sleep. He was just... exhausted. Utterly, completely drained, as if he had run for a hundred miles. But he was safe.
Eris knelt there for a long moment, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She looked from the sleeping, peaceful face of her child, then at the impossible, clean cut in the massive boulder. She reached out a trembling hand and touched the steel axe. It was still faintly sizzling, the dark, cold Inferno flame just barely clinging to the edge.
She could feel the damage to the weapon, the metal itself warped and crying in a way only she and Aster could sense.
She understood. He hadn't lost control. He had focused it. He had done... this.
Her fear vanished, replaced by a complex, terrifying, and overwhelming wave of pure pride. The texts, the legends, her ancestors, they had all been wrong. They feared the fruit, sought to contain it. Her son... her tiny, stubborn, polite, serious son... he commanded it.
She gently, tenderly, brushed the black ash from his cheek.
"Oh, Xebec," she whispered to the empty, silent sea. "You have no idea what you've started."
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Please leave some reviews! I would motivate me to drop more chapters.
That's the first devil fruit move. What are your thoughts on that? Let me know.
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