The world split.
Inside Vel'Thara Academy, fire burned not to cleanse—but to survive.
Outside Vel'Thara's shattered walls, entire armies strained to break the sky open.
Inside:
Kael's flame roared against the bleeding stone.
He drove his heel into the courtyard floor, sending shockwaves through Spiral-born forms. His every breath pulled flame tighter against him, not as a weapon—but as armor.
Behind him, Lira held a flank with six second-years, her glaive spinning trails of Ki through the air.
Claire fell back to Sylva's team, bloodied but grinning, a broken Spiral glyph burning on her left bracer.
Tiv and Jace covered the wounded, retreating between collapsing glyph corridors.
Every step felt heavier.
Every breath shorter.
The Shepherd watched.
Unmoving.
A figure of patience in a world drowning in chaos.
He pointed once—
A Spiral fracture tore open near the infirmary wing, vomiting warped memories shaped like children.
Kael spun, sliced the glyph-rooted spawn before they could solidify.
For a heartbeat, he thought he heard Raka's voice guiding his hands.
But there was only flame.
Sylva's line broke first.
The western stairwell shattered as Spiral glyphs bloomed out of the stone like poisonous flowers.
Tiv screamed warning.
Jace detonated three sigil bombs—but it was too late.
The breach widened.
Students poured back, a handful turning to cover the retreat, most running blind.
Claire snapped orders as she carved open a fallback path with clean, surgical Ki strikes.
Lira's voice tore through the din:
"Regroup at the Main Hall! No heroes! Move!"
Kael stayed last.
As always.
Outside:
The woods beyond Vel'Thara seethed with motion.
Dozens of Spiral Titans, twisted monsters of stone and thought, circled the academy in lazy, crushing spirals.
The academy's banners—once flying proud—were shredded.
But the banners outside still rose.
Graduates. Instructors. Wandering masters.
All called back by the academy's flame.
And they answered.
Silver Lance Eirien drove her Ki-forged spear through a Titan's core, rupturing it in a burst of shattered Spiral glyphs.
Master Selk, once called the Stonewolf, shattered three Spiral walkers with a roar that cracked trees for miles.
Teams of former students rallied, shielding each other in coordinated blasts.
"Form breach teams!" Eirien shouted over the din. "Clear a channel! They're still alive in there!"
"But the Shepherd—" someone started.
"He's not ours to kill," Eirien snarled. "He's theirs to survive."
The battle outside was not clean.
Spiral Titans could not truly die.
Each time they fell, they reformed smaller, faster, angrier.
One Titan twisted into six-legged horrors and charged the rescue line.
Selk's team cut them down—but every minute lost meant more death inside.
They fought with urgency born of love and terror.
They had seen students rise.
They would not see them fall.
Inside:
Kael's body strained against the fire growing inside him.
The Flamebrand was not just power—it was memory. Legacy. Weight.
His skin shimmered with gold heat lines, his eyes burned ember-red.
Sylva slammed against a corridor wall near him, bloody but breathing.
She coughed. "You're glowing."
"Always have been."
"No. This time it's dangerous."
Kael smiled grimly.
Claire and Lira dragged the remaining survivors through the wrecked gardens toward the last fallback gates.
Every few seconds, another glyph tore open.
Reality forgot itself.
Rooms folded in impossible angles.
Stone sang names no one remembered.
Kael stood in the courtyard again, breathing hard.
The Shepherd approached across the ruin.
Not fast.
Not hunting.
Just… walking.
Certain.
Kael gritted his teeth.
The fire inside him screamed to be let loose.
He clenched his fists.
He remembered Raka's words:
"It's not the strength of your flame that matters. It's who you burn for."
The Shepherd raised a hand.
And reality shifted.
The sky fractured.
Above Vel'Thara, Spiral glyphs spun a massive sigil across the stars.
Everyone saw it.
Even outside, Eirien and Selk paused, feeling the pull.
A memory glyph.
An erasure mark.
If the Shepherd finished that sigil—
Vel'Thara's very history would burn.
No survivors.
No memory.
No return.
Kael stepped forward.
One foot.
Then another.
The fire inside him roared, cracked, and broke.
He didn't collapse.
He rose.
The flame around him reshaped—not wild, not free.
Purposeful.
Brilliant.
Heavy.
He was not Raka.
He was Kael Velrin.
And he would hold the bridge himself.
He charged.
Not screaming.
Not weeping.
Silent.
The flame around him cut a corridor through the Spiral.
Entities recoiled.
Even the Shepherd paused.
For a heartbeat.
Kael struck the ground at the Shepherd's feet.
The world cracked.
The glyphs faltered.
The sigil in the sky stuttered.
Outside, the reinforcement teams saw the sigil flicker.
Selk bellowed: "NOW!"
Silver Lance Eirien threw her spear, embedding it into a Spiral Titan's throat—and it shattered.
A breach opened—a crack through the perimeter.
Teams poured forward.
Charging the academy.
Inside—
The Shepherd looked down at Kael.
Spoke.
"Not enough."
And stepped into the fracture.
Reality bent.
Spiral glyphs flooded upward.
The battle wasn't over.
It had just begun.