The world was white fire. The dragon's beam had not only torn through his armor; it had crawled deeper, gouging at the marrow of him. His flesh blistered, yes, but that was nothing compared to the way his soul seethed. It was as if every thread of Sol within him had been yanked taut, set alight, and left to shriek.

He tried to draw breath and found only knives. His lungs were blackened leather, every attempt to expand them met with a spasm that clawed blood up his throat. He did not scream. He couldn't. His voice was as scorched as his chest.

And still he flew. Below him, the dragon swelled larger, its silver veins blazing, its roar shaking the world apart. The sea writhed green and endless, and the city's spires gleamed cold, uncaring. All of it blurred at the edges, dimmed by the blaze that raged inside him.

The armor that had been his skin cracked away, but he barely noticed. The true assault wasn't against his body but deeper within him. His soul burned. The dragon's Sol beam had pierced more than flesh; it had speared into the core of him, dragging his essence raw against its torrent.

A man should have vanished under such weight. He should have scattered like dust. But then, deep within, his Sol Core surged. It burned hotter, the color warping, deepening, turning the shade of molten metal. Orange. Like a furnace too long left starving that now drank greedily of fuel.

The pain sharpened. His soul spasmed against itself, flaring bright enough that for an instant he thought he might ignite from the inside out. His vision seared white.

And through that fire, a voice cut. Not the roar of the dragon. Not the gasps of his allies. A voice that slid against the walls of his soul as if it had been waiting there all along. Female. Cold. Smooth as silk draped over a blade.

'Pathetic.'

The word dripped disdain, heavy with contempt that went deeper than the dragon's fire ever could. Kaiser's eyes narrowed against the blaze, though he could not breathe, though his throat bled. Inside himself, in the burning dark, his mind sharpened like a knife on wetstone.

Another flare rolled through his Core, and the voice spoke again, closer this time, as though its owner whispered from within the very cracks forming in him.

'Is this all? You, who claims to despise mediocrity, to fall like one of them. You burn like a moth too weak to endure the flame you chased.'

Kaiser's hands curled into claws against the void. His body plummeted, but within, his will held still, cold and furious.

He thought—no, he forced the words out, though no air reached his lungs.

"Who dares?"

The voice laughed. Low. Cruel. And yet, beneath the cruelty, a strange pull. As though it was not only mocking him, but testing. The world blinked out. One instant, fire and sky; the next, nothing. When sight returned, he hung in the air, slightly levitating at an arena's heart, chains of pale light cinched around his wrists and ankles, holding him suspended like a specimen on a pin.

The seats climbed in rings around and above him, endless and empty, tier upon tier of stone staring down without a witness. Besides that, there was only one more thing that caught his eye, tho calling her a thing was an insult.

Her boots rang sharp against the floor as if the arena itself bent to announce her approach. Her black uniform shimmered like liquid night, the white eye stitched across her chest glowing faintly. Her right arm ended in a claw of jagged black metal, its veins glowing ember-red, flexing lazily.

Her eyes found him, two pits of endless black, swallowing light whole. "How unsightly of you."

Her voice cut the silence. She circled beneath him slowly, the boot dragging once to trace idle grooves into the dust, and the marks hissed as though the arena itself recoiled.

"Look at you. Bound. Burned. Crawling back from mediocrity only to fall into it again. Is this what you have become? What I have become?" Her lip curled in something between disdain and grief. "You are my echo, and yet… I do not recognize you."

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Kaiser's jaw clenched. His crimson gaze followed her.

"You speak of strength," she went on, the glow in her claw pulsing in rhythm with her words. "Of worth. Of tools and tyrants. If you truly believed—if you had even an ember of conviction—you would die here. Die, and cede this body to me. I am the one who has earned it. I am the one more worthy of life, then whatever you are right now."

She rose to meet his height in the air without effort, leaning close, her voice a whisper meant to choke. "Do what is right by your own creed. Yield. Vanish. And let me live once more."

Kaiser shut his eyes. His chest rose once, ragged, a shudder that could have been surrender. The chains tightened, biting bright as wire. Her smile, cruel and victorious, spread as she drew closer, her claw lifting toward his heart. And then, a hiss.

Frost bled from his leg, racing upward, crawling like veins of glass across nothingness. His eyes snapped open, a crimson blaze framed by white cold, and the arena shuddered as ice surged outward in a violent bloom. Her smile faltered. For the first time, disappointment curdled into surprise as a tomb of blue crystal swallowed her whole, freezing her claw, her uniform, her strange eyes in a cold prison.

The chains binding Kaiser shattered, melting under the sudden flare of heat from his burning core. Free, he dropped, twisted, and drove a snapping kick through the frozen figure, sending himself skidding across the dirt floor, distance opening between them even though she did not move at all.

His palm clenched. Frost poured from his hand and shaped itself into a perfect blade of ice, edges gleaming with a blue too pure for the world outside. Kaiser leveled it, his voice calm.

"I will not ask again." His words cut like the blade itself. "Do not test my patience, woman. Who dares speak to me in such a way?"

The ice cracked. A sound sharp and delicate, like porcelain fracturing. Then it shattered utterly, shards bursting outward in a shimmer of blue dust.

She stepped free of the tomb as though it had never held her, her smile stretching just a little wider. "I knew it," she whispered, almost to herself. "I knew I wasn't... no, I couldn't be that pathetic. No matter what was made of me. No matter what was left."

Kaiser's blade tightened in his grip. His crimson eyes narrowed. "What are you speaking of?"

Her laughter rang out, unhinged but not uncontrolled. It rose like bells struck wrong, rising into a strange, lilting cadence that rang across the empty seats. And when she looked at him again, there was something in her gaze that froze him.

"Tell me, Kaiser Dios," she said, voice soft, sweet, almost loving. "Did you really think that pathetic display of fuckery was enough to impress me? Enough to make me want to give my life… to you?"

His jaw clenched. For once, the man who never faltered in his perception of others found himself lost. He didn't know what the hell was happening. His mind, quick as lightning and sharper than steel, strained to parse the madness spilling from her lips.

Then she vanished.

Not with a ripple of Sol. Not with a shift in space. One instant she was there; the next, gone. Kaiser hadn't even blinked. She was simply absent.

His senses screamed. No teleportation. The faintest scuff of displaced dust reached his eyes, rising too late, a ghost of her passing. Only now did he understand. Not vanishing. Not magic. Pure, unadulterated speed.

And a wave of dread washed over him. Kaiser Dios, the fastest, sharpest, most reflexive man of a world could not even sense her.

He turned, every nerve aflame, and saw her. Behind him. Smiling.

"You're in quite the tough situation," she purred, her claw flexing, ember veins glowing. "So much power, so much pride… and yet—"

She was cut off. Kaiser's fire erupted point-blank, a detonation of crimson blaze scorching her face and the air itself. The flames ballooned outward, hotter than he had ever conjured, pillars of inferno exploding high, smashing against the arena's upper reaches. Stone cracked, torches guttered, the light drowning the world in fire.

He didn't hesitate.

Kaiser leapt back, boots carving trenches into the dirt floor. His hand lashed out, and dozens of spears of ice shrieked into the blaze, hissing as they struck, driving deeper into the inferno. He snapped his fingers and the very ground obeyed, icicles erupting from the sides, pinning the burning figure from every angle like a beast in a hunter's trap.

Smoke and steam roiled. The fire roared skyward. Kaiser crouched low, sweat crawling down his brow despite the ice-laden air. His chest rose and fell with razor focus, crimson eyes locked on the churning pyre.

And then a voice. From behind him.

"Did you get her?"

Kaiser froze. His mind raced. He'd been certain that was her voice. The flames still raged, the ice still pinned something thrashing within. Yet her voice cut from behind him, filled with amusement at his effort.

He turned sharply, and there she was. Behind him again. Not burned. Not touched. Not even singed. Her hair fell smooth as liquid shadow, her uniform untouched, her black eyes gleaming with joy.

She leaned closer, her lips curving. "How sweet of you," she murmured. "That you would try so hard, just for me. But really—" she tilted her head, "Do you think such little effort could ever impress me?"

Kaiser's knuckles whitened on the hilt of his blade. He breathed, steady, cold, forcing his fury into focus. "Then allow me to try harder."

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