The High Regent fell like a meteor.
Crimson lightning danced around her as her blade—Chronos Fang, forged from collapsed timelines—split the air with a shriek. Ember raised both hands, summoning a phoenix shield just in time. The impact sent a shockwave tearing across the Sanctum cliffs, ripping ancient spires from their roots.
Stone cracked. Fire screamed.
As the dust cleared, Ember and the High Regent stood only paces apart, locked in a moment of frozen silence.
"You've grown into something dangerous," the Regent said, brushing soot from her blood-gilded armor. "But you're still only a vessel."
Kael's voice laughed inside Ember's mind.
"She's not wrong. You're burning from both ends, little phoenix."
"I'm not your vessel," Ember snapped. "And I'm not your tool."
The Regent struck first—her blade moved faster than time itself. Ember barely twisted aside, the world slowing as Kael instinctively took hold for an instant, warping a counter-flame between timelines. The two souls within her fought in perfect disharmony, bending and reforging every second of the battle.
To the world watching, it was chaos.
To them, it was choreographed destruction.
Blows echoed through the fractured magic of the Soulforge. Ember's flames carved phoenix sigils into the air, but the Regent's time-magic unraveled them mid-cast. With every strike, the Regent didn't just fight Ember—she sliced through past and future, trying to unweave Kael's soul from her body.
Behind them, Kaelen led the Flameborn warriors through a collapsing corridor of arcane debris. Lysra flung wide swaths of flame, and even the Shadeborn monk turned assassin moved to intercept the Regent's elite guards, buying Ember precious seconds.
Seconds were all she needed.
Ember whispered the ancient incantation Kael had shown her in a dream. A forbidden merging spell. Her aura flared gold and black.
Kael's voice thundered in her blood.
"This path will consume us both."
"Then let it. For them."
Flame and soul converged.
Ember's form shimmered, expanding, eyes glowing with dual light—hers and his. Her voice echoed as if two beings spoke as one.
"I am not Kael Veradis.
I am not just Ember Solara.
I am the Flameborn Echo."
She lunged.
The Regent met her strike head-on.
Steel met soulflame.
And the world screamed.