The war horn's mournful wail still echoed in Adrian's bones as they crossed into the Obsidian March. Here, the Sanctum's bone-white architecture gave way to nature's cruelty - jagged basalt formations like broken teeth, rivers of magma cutting through blackened earth, and an ever-present haze of sulfur that stung the eyes and coated the tongue with the taste of burnt matches.

  Kaelis adjusted the straps of his armored gauntlet with methodical precision, each click of the buckles sounding like a death knell. His demon arm pulsed faintly, the corrupted flesh twitching as if sensing something Adrian couldn't perceive. "Listen close," he growled, his voice rougher than usual. "Ignarax doesn't just incinerate flesh. He burns away what makes you human - memory, hope, the very concept of self. One touch and you'll forget your own mother's face."

  Adrian flexed his marked hand, watching the lightning sigils beneath his skin writhe in response to distant volcanic tremors. The Choir's visions still haunted his peripheral vision - flashes of the crash, of those glowing eyes in the darkness, of his mother's featureless face splitting open to reveal rows of needle teeth. He shook his head sharply, the motion sending fresh pain radiating from his Abyssal eye.

  A tremor shook the ground, sending pebbles skittering across the obsidian plain. The Sanctum soldiers tensed as one, their polished bone armor clattering like dry leaves in wind. Inquisitor Vaulk turned their horned helm toward Adrian, the empty eye sockets somehow conveying more menace than any glare.

  "Remember, initiate," the Inquisitor's voice slithered from beneath the helm, "we're not here to witness your triumph. We're here to harvest what remains when the Pyre Lord breaks you."

  The march resumed in silence broken only by the occasional scream from the wastes - whether animal, demon, or something in between, Adrian couldn't tell. The air grew thicker with each step, the heat pressing against them like a living thing. His corrupted arm burned beneath the scales, the pain synchronizing with some primordial rhythm emanating from deep within the volcanic field.

  Without warning, the ground before them erupted in a geyser of molten stone. The lava hung suspended for a heartbeat before coalescing into humanoid shapes - twelve perfect replicas of armored Sanctum warriors, their forms shimmering with heat distortion.

  "Emberkin!" Kaelis roared, his demon arm extending into a vicious scythe-blade. "They're scouts! Ignarax knows we're coming!"

  The lava-men moved with unnatural synchronization, their molten fists punching through the first rank of Sanctum soldiers before Adrian could blink. The stench of burning flesh filled the air as one warrior's helmet filled with liquid fire, his screams abruptly cut off as his head vaporized.

  Adrian's dagger felt pitifully small against these foes, but when the first Emberkin lunged at him, his corrupted arm moved on its own. Black scales rippled as he sidestepped with impossible grace, his blade finding the exact weak point in the creature's chest. The explosion of superheated rock should have blinded him, but his Abyssal eye simply adjusted, filtering the brightness into manageable wavelengths.

  He moved through the battle like a ghost, each strike precise, each dodge effortless. The remaining Sanctum soldiers stared as Adrian wove through the Emberkin, his movements leaving afterimages in the superheated air. When the last construct collapsed into cooling slag, the silence felt heavier than before.

  Inquisitor Vaulk stepped over the smoldering remains of their forces, their skull-helmed gaze locked on Adrian's glowing scales. "The Choir underestimated you," they mused, running a clawed gauntlet along the edge of their helm. "Pity we'll need to break you anyway."

  The Furnace Gates loomed ahead - two curved obsidian spires rising three hundred feet into the hazy sky, their surfaces etched with screaming faces that shifted when not observed directly. Between them stretched an arena of black basalt, its surface crisscrossed with glowing fissures.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  As they crossed the threshold, the whispers began. Not from any living source, but from the very stone beneath their feet - the final thoughts of every hunter who'd died here, their terror imprinted on the volcanic glass. Adrian's boot dislodged a fragment of bone, its surface frosted with strange blue crystals that pulsed faintly.

  Kaelis gripped Adrian's shoulder hard enough to leave bruises. "When he appears," the veteran hunter hissed, "don't look at his eyes. Don't listen to his voice. And whatever happens..." His gaze dropped to Adrian's corrupted arm. "Don't let him touch the scales."

  The ground heaved violently as the arena's center split open. Molten rock surged upward in a spiraling column, taking form as it rose - first a skeletal frame wreathed in blue fire, then layers of semi-liquid stone forming muscle and sinew, until finally the Pyre Lord stood revealed.

  Ignarax towered fifteen feet tall, his body a living sculpture of flowing lava and cooling basalt. Where a face should have been burned six white-hot eyes arranged in a screaming pattern, their gaze sending waves of unnatural heat across the battlefield. The air itself shimmered and warped around him, as if reality struggled to contain his presence.

  "ANOTHER HAND OF SACRIFICES FOR THE PYRE." The voice wasn't sound but pure heat, searing the words directly into their minds. "LET ME SEE WHAT MAKES YOUR FLESH SMOLDER."

  The remaining Sanctum forces attacked as one. It was over in seconds.

  Ignarax moved with terrifying grace for his size, each touch reducing warriors to wisps of smoke and empty armor. One soldier managed to land a blow with a blessed warhammer - only for the weapon to flash-melt in his hands, the molten metal flowing up his arms and into his screaming mouth.

  Adrian's vision doubled as Essence from the dying flooded into him. He saw seconds into the future - watched Inquisitor Vaulk's attempted ambush fail before it began, saw Kaelis' demon-arm blade shear off a chunk of Ignarax's leg only for it to reform instantly.

  Then all six of the Pyre Lord's eyes locked onto Adrian.

  "YOU." The word hit like a physical blow. "THE KING'S LOST LAMB."

  Blue fire erupted from Ignarax's form, engulfing the world in searing light.

  Adrian rolled as the fireball impacted where he'd stood, the heat blistering his back even through his armor. His dagger felt laughably inadequate against this primordial force, but his enhanced vision revealed something crucial - patterns in Ignarax's flames, brief moments when the lava cooled to brittle black glass between surges of power.

  Kaelis moved like a whirlwind, his demon-arm now fully transformed into a massive executioner's blade that carved glowing chunks from Ignarax's form. "Now, boy!" he roared after a particularly vicious strike to the Pyre Lord's knee.

  Adrian didn't hesitate. He sprinted up the buckling stone, leaping onto Ignarax's back as the Demon Lord staggered. His corrupted arm blazed with agony as he drove the dagger deep between the creature's shoulder blades, black scales peeling back to reveal the necrotic bone beneath.

  The scream that followed wasn't sound but pure concussive force, blasting outward in a shockwave that sent Kaelis flying. Adrian clung desperately as Ignarax bucked, the dagger's hilt glowing white-hot in his grip.

  "YOU THINK THIS CAN KILL ME?" The words burned in his skull. "I AM THE FIRST SPARK! THE LAST EMBER! I AM—"

  Adrian's vision went white as the Essence surge hit critical mass. Suddenly he saw the battle from all angles at once - the perfect strike point glowing like a beacon on Ignarax's spine. His corrupted arm moved without conscious thought, the exposed bone blackening as he wrenched the dagger upward with impossible strength.

  The crack that followed shook the entire arena. Ignarax's form froze mid-motion, his six eyes widening as web-like fissures spread across his body.

  "NO! THE KING PROMISED ME—"

  Then he exploded.

  The blast sent Adrian tumbling across the basalt, his body a tapestry of pain. Blue fire rained down around him, each ember whispering fragments of stolen memories as it died. His corrupted arm smoked, the scales now permanently stained crimson.

  Kaelis hauled him upright as the last flames guttered out. Where Ignarax had stood now rested a single, fist-sized ember pulsing with blue light.

  "Take it," Kaelis growled, eyeing the approaching Sanctum forces. "Before they steal what you've earned."

  Adrian's fingers closed around the ember. Agony beyond comprehension ripped through him as the power of the Eternal Pyre flooded his veins. His scream shook the obsidian spires as blue fire erupted from his eyes, mouth, and corrupted arm—

  —when the flames subsided, Ignarax's mark smoldered on his chest, and his left hand ended in claws of living flame.

  Inquisitor Vaulk's laughter echoed across the ruined arena. "Oh yes," they purred, fingers twitching toward their helm. "You'll do perfectly."

  Somewhere in the distance, deep beneath the volcanic wastes, something ancient stirred in its sleep. And for the first time in a thousand years, it began to dream.