Meeting the Caldera in the Giant Forest might have been a coincidence. Perhaps the Katrak, too. However, Wesley’s Charm and search for something hadn’t been a coincidence. He was searching for an Emperor – the Elemental Phoenix.

  As more and more information trickled in, something clicked in my head. Yet it was not until the embodiment of humanity’s might, the Ruler of Fire, emerged from the Space Ruler’s portal at the far edge of the expanse before me that the seriousness of the situation truly dawned on me.

  I stumbled backward, gasping for air as my throat tightened. My head spun, and I lost control of my body as I doubled over, gagging.

  The Rulers. They… They were never here for negotiations. Their plan had never been to become allies with the Caldera. They used them to find the Phoenix. We used them.

  Ruler Maximilian distorted space and emerged to the Phoenix’s right, his hand cleaving down like a war axe. Space ripped apart, tearing through the vast expanse and the ocean of liquefied ether that stretched between them, slicing off the Elemental Phoenix’s wing effortlessly.

  Ruler Maximilian smiled in delight as the Phoenix screeched, but it cracked when the severed wing detonated into a myriad of orange, red, and bright blue flames, consuming the Space Ruler. In the same instant, a massive pillar of fire shot from the heart of the ocean below, engulfing the space Ruler Maximilian’s position. A scream tore through the air and Maximilian rematerialized beside Raffael Torch.

  Flames spurted from the Elemental Phoenix’s wing stump rather than blood. They flared up and surged outward, replacing the severed wings within seconds.

  The fire that coalesced the Elemental Phoenix flickered and shifted, but there was no pained screech or sign of weakness from the creature. It had yet to move, but it did not have to, when all it needed was a long-range attack.

  It summoned a second pillar of fire directly ahead, where the two Rulers stood side by side.

  A scream ripped through the air; space distorted, only to fail a moment later. Immense power ruptured through the expanse, and the Space Ruler’s power skyrocketed momentarily, but it was to no avail. The fire pillar turned black, swallowing the screams alongside the immense power reverberating through the expanse. The pillar vanished as a sonic boom tore through the air, and the Ruler of Fire stepped forth from within the dissipating smoke, his body clad in thick, heavy plates. Flames crackled across the black armor; his body expanded until he was three meters tall, and massive wings resembling magma burst from his back.

  The Ruler of Fire ascended into the air, glancing momentarily at the charred corpse that had fallen to his feet before his attention snapped back to their target.

  But I couldn’t. I could not ignore the dead. My eyes locked on the burned remains of Ruler Maximilian. The Space Ruler had tried to teleport – I was certain he’d used his Soulfusion to escape the confines of the Phoenix’s fire pillar – but he failed.

  One of mankind’s greatest forces – gone, just like that. Too weak to defend himself. He couldn’t even flee.

  It had been painfully obvious before, but the Elemental Phoenix was clearly stronger than the Rulers. It squashed Ruler Maximilian like an ant, and even Ruler Sera stood no chance. The Phoenix was immensely powerful, stronger than a Monarch, for it was an Emperor.

  And that was what they came for; an Emperor. To crush it, to force it into submission. For the Ruler of Fire to bind, to gain power and reach the next Rank, to surpass the Rulers.

  The Phoenix’s screech echoed in my ears when the Ruler of Fire’s fist found purchase. It impacted with unimaginable force and propelled the Elemental Phoenix across the expanse, away from the liquefied ether. The beast crashed into the ground only dozens of meters away from me, its body melting the stones in the vicinity. What it didn’t destroy, however, were the dozen shambling skeletons the size of Cyclopes that surrounded its impact crater in a loose ring.

  The skeletons appeared out of nowhere, and they unfolded at once; their bodies fell apart and reassembled, with familiar obsidian chains shooting from the ground beneath the Phoenix’s flaming body. Another dozen beasts, Soulkins, emerged in a widening circle around the Elemental Phoenix. Four Grand Spirits – one Earth, three Aqueous – followed by a few Vampiric creatures, a Greater Demon I’d seen in a Beastology book included, emerged and struck out as their Blessed attacked from the perimeter of the battlefield.

  The Vampiric creatures applied curses and other traits to weaken the Elemental Phoenix, though it shrugged most of them off effortlessly. Then they started to drain the Elemental Phoenix, their bodies bubbling as they killed themselves in a desperate attempt to steal the Emperor-ranked beast’s lifeforce. Yet, no matter how painful it was, the Soulkins had to follow their Blessed’s command.

  As the Vampiric creatures performed their task, the Spirits shaped the surroundings. The Aqueous Spirits drowned the Elemental Phoenix in freezing water that cascaded down from above like falling rivers. The temperature in the expanse dropped, albeit only a little, all while the Elemental Phoenix screeched. However, the more it moved, the more ether it released to escape its confinements, and the more the obsidian chains strained. The Earthen Spirit pulled the Elemental Phoenix deeper into the ground while the obsidian chains, amplified by the bones of a dozen massive skeleton Soulkins, kept it in place.

  A pillar of fire devoured four Vampiric creatures instantly. The Phoenix thrashed, its flames erupting and consuming the creatures nearest to it. It fought valiantly and successfully kept everyone at bay. Until the Ruler of Fire retrieved a white, fist-sized orb from his spatial storage. The moment the orb appeared, the heat in the whole expanse vanished. No, it was sucked into the orb. It tremored faintly and turned red. At first, it transitioned slowly, but the more heat and fire-attuned ether it absorbed, the brighter the orb glowed.

  The Elemental Phoenix screeched, and this time it was accompanied by a wave of surprise and… fear.

  A blinding light tore through the air as its body’s flames condensed rapidly. The light shone so bright it resembled a miniature sun. The Phoenix released the miniature sun toward the nearest Ruler at blinding speed. A shockwave reverberated through the expanse as the miniature sun whistled through the air, burning through several hastily erected barriers; it left trails of molten glass, scorched stone, and a massive hole in an aghast Ruler as he collapsed to the ground.

  “No…” Ruler Kazriel’s eyes were wide, the disbelief in them overwhelming as he looked down at his missing chest.

  “Kaz!! Stay with me, you old fog!” Ruler Sera hissed, appearing beside him to cover him in a gelatinous membrane. The membrane didn’t last long. It evaporated, exposing a massive gaping hole.

  “Looks like we found a feisty one,” Raffael Torch hollered, excitement filling his voice as he watched the remnants of the miniature sun getting sucked into his orb.

  He paid no heed to Ruler Kazriel or the boiling pool of blood forming beneath him as Ruler Sera frantically cast her healing abilities. She tried to cover him in a thicker membrane, but it was to no avail. Her healing was repelled, the gelatinous membrane evaporated.

  “Help me and remove the Lifeseal Flame, Raffael! Or do you want Kaz to die?” Ruler Sera shouted and froze, her eyes growing wide when the Ruler of Fire strode off.

  Raffael Torch did not even spare the dying Ruler with a glance, his gaze flitting back to the Elemental Phoenix restrained at the far side of the expanse. “You will fit perfectly into my World!”

  The Elemental Phoenix tried to access its power, but the flames that formed its body were already dimmer than before. Whatever that orb was, it was strong enough to weaken an Emperor’s Elemental Aspect considerably. Not only that, but the beast’s resistance to the Rulers’ and Soulkins’ attempts at weakening and restraining it crumbled.

  Despair crept into the Phoenix’s voice, the intensity resonating with my World.

  I want to help you. I almost screamed as the scene unfolded before me. The mark on my chest flared up again, burning bright in the desire to help. Power seeped into my World, strengthening it, filling it with a fire I didn’t know I had in me, yet I didn’t move. My legs didn’t obey me even as the Ruler of Fire’s fist crashed into the Elemental Phoenix. His fist hit the mark, the pained screech tearing me apart.

  And I was not alone in this.

  I had totally forgotten about the Caldera in the cavern tunnel, but they were furious. They roared and rushed out of the tunnel entrance behind me into the expanse, power flooding their limbs as fury and bloodlust consumed them.

  It was useless. Foolish even. Raffael Torch didn’t grace them with a single glance. However, his molten wings collapsed and a towering Magma Dragon materialized in front of the charging Caldera, blocking their advance.

  A body made of magma, fifty meters long, massive wings dripping with magma…and a Monarch.

  The Caldera stood no chance. Their innate fire resistance was exceptional, their physical strength supernatural. However, the globs of magma spewed by the dragon and its massive tail rocketing across the ground at blinding speed were lethal even for Grandmasters.

  “Oh no…” I gasped as the charging Caldera’s bodies were smashed or molten alive barely a short distance away from me.

  I was almost relieved when the Magma Dragon disappeared. The Ruler of Fire struggled momentarily but regained full control of the situation when molten wings sprouted from his back once more.

  Suddenly, a hand shrouded in flames lunged at me from my left, yanking me toward the wall. I found myself in Zegrath’s deadly grasp, a blade pressed firmly against my neck.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “What did you do?!” betrayal seeped into her voice, and anguish burned in her eyes as crimson tears trickled down her cheeks.

  “I-I…” I did nothing, but there was no way she’d believe that.

  My neck burned under her grasp, blood dripping to the ground, when a wrinkled hand reached for Zegrath’s blade from behind her shoulder. Bony fingers coiled around the weapon, pulling it back and forcing the young Caldera woman to look to the side, to meet the Spiritcaller’s hard gaze.

  “He didn’t know. He was but a pawn in their grasp.”

  My eyes widened, and tears welled in them. I didn’t know any of this would happen. How would I? I…I would have never accepted this. If anything, I’d have told Zegrath and the others. I did not want to betray the Caldera. Hell, they were more likable than most half-talented Blessed. But how did they know? How did the Spiritcaller know I wouldn’t betray them?

  “Volca would never have recognized you. The Spirit of Volca does not bless those with ill intentions.” The Spiritcaller looked over and exhaled deeply. “I don’t understand much about your kind, but it seems the old folk among your people haven’t changed. They are the same. However, I do trust in Volca’s vision. We all do. And Volca wanted me to bring you here. For a good reason, I’m sure.”

  A screech resounded as the Elemental Phoenix burst through an obsidian chain, then two. The beast’s head shot upward, its pristine eyes flicking toward us, the defiance burning within them reaching the deepest parts of my soul.

  “Yes!” Raffael Torch shouted, excitement filling his voice as he leaped at the beast, fists shrouded in magma, his punch impacting heavily, “Show me more, little chicken. MORE!!”

  Ruler Xadrak coughed up blood as the skeleton Soulkins under his control collapsed one by one before him, crumbling to dust.

  “Just kill that thing!” He shouted, fear crossing his features as he released pitch-black beams of energy. They struck true, all while his complexion worsened considerably.

  Ruler Sera didn’t fare much better. Her attempts to help Ruler Kazriel failed as a second miniature sun headed their way. I couldn’t even see the projectile, but it must have nearly burned the Ruler. She screamed, her left arm consumed by the sun. However, she was fine and could recover, regrowing her arm within seconds once the arm stump was cut off as well. That was until the last of her Vampiric Soulkins died and her natural recovery plummeted drastically.

  The difference was stark enough to catch my attention, but so was the charred mess of what was left of Kazriel. The Ruler had been the phoenix’s target, ending his life once and for all. Just like that the second Ruler, one who’d lived centuries, died. It looked almost effortless.

  It was terrifying, but the fight had yet to end.

  The Elemental Phoenix was being torn apart, pierced again and again by death beams coming from multiple angles, yet Volca’s Voice regenerated near-instantaneously.

  Blue flames erupted and engulfed the Ruler of Fire, who hovered directly above the Phoenix, his attacks never stopping even as phoenix fire devoured him.

  As the battle continued, my mind reeled. I still hoped it would end soon – that everything would end well – but it was far from over.

  Even if the Phoenix–

  No. I quashed my wishful thoughts and let reality sink in. No matter how today’s battle ended, humans and Caldera would be at war.

  Fuck!

  The Elemental Phoenix’s flames grew weaker until the treasure in Raffael Torch’s hands, hovering between them at this point, resembled a miniature sun. However, the orb burned on – it was not done yet.

  Raffael Torch towered above the Elemental Phoenix, smiling broadly as he spread his arms. A globe emerged from the Ruler of Fire’s chest. It was small at first, but it expanded rapidly until it filled the entire expanse. A World of Fire came to be, enveloping all and everything.

  “You are mine!” He screamed, his voice demanding submission as blazing particles, much like the golden particles of my soul energy, rocketed through the World of Fire toward the struggling Phoenix. Yet before they could force their way into the beast, the Phoenix stirred.

  “The time has come. A mishap turned into fortune, a new path unraveled. May the tethers of fate be with us and transform betrayal into a neverdying spark of change.” The Spiritcaller said in reverence, kneeling down next to me, as the Phoenix made its move. “Only when all is reduced to ash can one remember what it means to take flight and rise,”

  Its shape destabilized suddenly and burst apart into the very flames that had shaped the sacred beast. It burned through shackles, flesh, and even the World of Fire that threatened to consume it.

  An inferno of glistening, almost white-blue flames poured out of what remained of the sacred beast, Raffael Torch, and the World of Fire. It spread throughout the vast expanse, and swallowed it whole. The mountain trembled as the flames washed over me against the cavern wall and the kneeling Caldera clustered behind me.

  I screamed instinctively, but there was no pain. Only searing heat that should have consumed me and those around me. Yet all I heard was a crack.

  It echoed with a strange bliss and spread outward, creating a cacophony of cracks that overlapped and vanished as a mighty, primordial scream rang out.

  The Ruler’s relic had been destroyed; the Elemental Phoenix’s power had returned.

  The temperature skyrocketed further, the stone underfoot melted at a visible pace, and I was certain my body would follow at any moment. Yet, it never did.

  Instead, I felt power, unfathomable might, enter my body. My neck heated up, and my chest felt like it was melting, even though there was no pain. Through Predator, I watched in stunned silence as the glistening flames poured into the mark, feeding the weave.

  Flames circulated through the weave like burning tides, but they healed the damaged network rather than worsening its condition. Phoenix flames reached the Ether Gates as well. They forced their way inside the leaking Gates until it looked and felt like they were on the verge of bursting. Only then did the flames disappear, but not before dumping a tremendous amount of ether throughout the inner World, enough to fill the Gates to their previous limit…and more.

  My Ether Gates expanded as more and more flames were sucked into the weave, only to guide it toward my inner World. Phoenix flames entered the World and propelled toward the epicenter, where a spark and the World’s core were already waiting. The spark ignited back into a flamelet once more as the phoenix flames merged with it.

  A brilliant sun formed from the flames coalescing in the inner World’s epicenter, but its existence was temporary. Not temporary were the Ether Gates resembling embers forming throughout my body, or the crimson bond shaping and shifting, turning into something else. Something true.

  Enormous power flooded me. It urged my body to recover all the damage it had sustained since I was born, taking only seconds to heal everything, only to simmer out and vanish in the next instance.

  As harmless as the glistening flame had been to me, not everyone was as lucky.

  I couldn’t see anything beyond the dazzling flames, and all I could feel was unbearable heat, but I heard it: the screams. The despair. Death.

  Yet, even as the Rulers’ despairing screams reached me, all I could think of was the familiar tug of my inner World as the phoenix flames within me erupted once more, consuming themselves until no more than a fragment remained. As for the excess energy, my World devoured it without hesitation, turning the mountains of energy into nourishment for it to grow – to expand rapidly until the flames dissipated.

  The first thing I noticed when the glistening flames faded was the World of Fire. It prevailed. The Phoenix had failed to shatter the World. It sustained some damage, though; several spots covered in cracks caught my attention from my vantage point before it returned to its owner.

  As the World faded, the pressure I didn’t even know weighed on me evaporated. My legs disobeyed my command and caved in. I half expected the same to happen to all the Caldera standing behind me – if there had been any to begin with. The Caldera were nowhere to be seen. Even the mangled and molten carcasses of those who’d charged at the Ruler of Fire, squashed by the Magma Dragon, disappeared.

  Only the Rulers were sprawled all over the floor, two dead and another pair squirming in unbearable pain. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Ruler Xadrak and Ruler Sera would die in the next minute or two. That, however, didn’t seem to concern the Ruler of Fire.

  Raffael Torch stood amidst the charred bodies, his chest burned, his limbs black like coal. Yet there was no ounce of pain in his face. Just anger. Uncontrollable anger as he stared at the spot he’d pinned his prey.

  Bones cracked as he snapped his fingers, a deep, guttural roar escaping his lips. “FUCK!!”

  As for the Elemental Phoenix, it was no more. It died, killing itself to escape the Ruler of Fire’s grasp.

  Raffael Torch seemed to understand that as well, but his anger faded quickly when he recognized something else. His demeanor shifted, and he methodically scanned the surroundings, hoping the Phoenix would rise from the ashes at any moment.

  But that wouldn’t happen. The Phoenix would not resurrect in the ashes of the Elemental Spires. Maybe it should; I didn’t know enough about Phoenixes to tell that much. What I knew was that the Elemental Phoenix would not rise here. After all, the beast was with me.

  Even as the phoenix flames across the ocean of liquefied ether dissipated, a flicker of it prevailed, hiding within the flamelet in my inner World.

  A flame formed in the Pyrosh, a bond shaped in the forges of the phoenix flames. It was beautiful. Magnificent. But as beautiful as it was, if I learned anything from today’s fight, the Ruler of Fire was willing to risk everything to obtain what he wanted.

  And he did want the Elemental Phoenix.

  Oh no. I gasped and froze the moment Raffael Torch’s eyes met mine. That was the moment I knew I was going to die.

  “You survived?” The Ruler of Fire asked rather than attacking, sounding more surprised than angry. He hovered a few meters above the molten ground, towering over the scattered corpses and struggling Rulers. Retrieving a few serums, he emptied three and flicked the rest toward Xadrak and Sera.

  He regarded me again, this time more thoroughly, and it felt like he was going to crush me with his sheer will, his gaze scanning my body and mind effortlessly. He reached into my mind, squashed my will, and inspected everything he wanted to see. Not even my greatest secrets stood unchanged before the Ruler of Fire’s deep, ancient eyes, and he nodded toward me, almost like he was satisfied with what he saw.

  “What a shrewd kid. Adam, right? Ruler Kazriel picked wisely. You did well tricking those vermin.”

  Vermin?! I wanted to scream, but my body wouldn’t move. Frozen in place, I couldn’t betray my deepest feelings.

  As quickly as my survival had piqued his interest, so quickly did the Ruler of Fire discard my existence. He turned around, greed filling his voice.

  “Where are you, little chicken?” he growled, turning away, ignoring the spasming bodies of Rulers Xadrak and Sera lying across the molten ground. “Come here…you’ve been gone long enough, haven’t you? Playing dead doesn’t suit you. Hiding in your ashes like a coward chick.”

  His eyes flicked over the molten ground and the distant cavern walls, his voice slipping into a rasping chuckle.

  “Ah, but I can smell you. Burnt air, phoenix fire, and pride – your scent, isn’t it? Still think you can fool me, hmm? You always come back, don’t you? Always do. Or…no, you are a phoenix, aren’t you?”

  A line of confusion streaked his hardened face. “Come now, show me those pretty feathers of yours, little phoenix.”

  “Don’t you worry. I will find you. You are mine, and you always will be.” His mad laughter cracked the silence, low and hoarse, making my skin crawl.

  “Continue to hide away. I have spent decades finding something like you, and I can spend a few more to hunt you down!”

  If my legs hadn’t been jelly before, they’d be now. I somehow survived this madness, but how much longer would I survive?

  The Ruler of Fire had missed the Elemental Phoenix’s presence lingering within me somehow, but I knew better than to feel safe. The Phoenix was hiding inside me – hibernating until it would be born from the ashes once more.

  Worse still, it had become my third Soulkin, our bond already too firm to sever.

  And that promised to be a lot of trouble. Enough to get me killed if anyone were to find out.