From outside.
The flames rose high, burning with an unnatural hunger. Fire scaled the walls, melting stone and devouring wood as if both were tinder.
Nothing stood a chance before the massive tongues of heat that swallowed the academy's outer defenses.
Before long, the blaze broke into the school grounds. Inside one of those halls, bodies still lay where they had fallen.
A senior trainee, hand outstretched toward the weapon rack he would never reach.
Two first-years collapsed back-to-back, as though sleep had taken them mid-argument.
An instructor — robes torn, glasses missing — still gripping the broken shaft of a spear.
The fire reached them without ceremony.
Cloth shrank. Wood caught. Heat swallowed breath that was no longer there.
The flames did not distinguish between the living and the dead.
The training halls turned to ash and brine, their reinforced beams collapsing like brittle twigs.
The second-floor library fell next — hundreds upon hundreds of limited texts, scrolls, and materials consumed in moments.
Books that had survived kings, wars, and entire eras were now reminded of a cruel truth: they could not escape the finality of fire.
The flames spread faster when they reached the open fields. Dry leaves carried embers farther than the wind alone ever could, scattering sparks like seeds of ruin.
Then it hit the dormitories.
The fire tore through everything with no regard for persons, positions, or power. In moments, clothes, keepsakes, and lifetimes of small personal treasures were lost — not that such things mattered in the catastrophe Four Stars Academy now faced.
The fire swept through the classrooms, devouring desks, chalkboards, and carefully inked lessons. Maps curled into blackened husks. Glass shattered from the heat, and the air filled with the bitter scent of burning paper and varnish.
Upstairs, the laboratories on the second floor ignited next. Rows of instruments burst under the heat. Alchemical reagents boiled, then exploded, sending brief flashes of unnatural color into the inferno — greens, violets, and sickly blues swallowed immediately by orange flame.
The blaze crawled into the administrative offices, consuming records, seals, and generations of archived decisions. Contracts, student histories, and the academy's legacy turned to drifting ash that vanished into the smoke-choked sky.
At the same time, on the far end of the grounds, the storage wing succumbed. Crates of supplies, training weapons, preserved food, and ceremonial banners fed the fire, each collapse sending a fresh plume of sparks spiraling upward.
The lookout tower burned next.
Flames climbed its spiral staircase as if ascending a throne. The signal bell rang once — a warped, dying note — before the structure gave way, collapsing into a shower of embers that scattered across the nearby fields.
Across the courtyards and shattered training grounds, the remaining demonic beasts descended into madness.
With the boundaries between each dungeon open, the countless demonic beasts flooded in. And with no humans to kill, they turned on themselves.
Horned hounds lunged at scaled serpents. Winged aberrations crashed into stone, tearing at each other with mindless fury. The air filled with shrieks — rage, terror, hunger — until the fire reached them.
Flame did not discriminate.
Fur ignited. Wings caught. Scales glowed and split. Creatures that could rend steel were reduced to writhing silhouettes, their roars turning to choking screams swallowed by smoke.
Some continued fighting even as they burned — jaws locked, claws buried — until both attacker and victim collapsed into the same smoldering ruin.
Meanwhile, at the heart of the academy, the Zengas gathered.
They stood in a perfect ring around the office — unmoving, unthinking, awaiting the only command they had been given: slaughter the trainees within.
Flames crawled along the stone like living veins, threading through cracks, devouring fallen banners, climbing the walls inch by inch.
Heat warped the air. The ground beneath their massive feet glowed.
Fire reached the outer ranks first.
Flesh blackened. Armor fused to skin. Smoke rose from their bodies in thick, greasy columns.
None reacted.
No cries.
No retreat.
No attempt to extinguish the flames consuming them.
They did not break formation.
Even as fire climbed their frames. Even as vision clouded. Even as structure gave way.
They did not break formation.
Inside the office, through cracks in the warped shutters, the trainees saw it.
They saw their instructors in the courtyard — the ones who had fallen earlier — now swallowed by smoke and flame.
One girl pressed her hand to the door and whispered her mentor's name.
No one answered.
Another trainee covered his ears, but it did not block the sound of collapsing beams, or the thunder of stone giving way.
The academy that had shaped them — disciplined them — punished and praised them — was burning.
And there was nothing they could do.
Their mission had not changed.
They would hold their position — even if reduced to ash.
There was nowhere to go.
Beyond the academy grounds, the fire reached the outer fields and raced toward the lakeshore.
Dry grass vanished in a rolling wave of orange. Trees ignited one by one, their reflections shattering in the water below.
Then, at last, the inferno met its limit.
Flame lunged across the surface — and died in hissing steam.
A wall of vapor rose where fire and water collided, swallowing the shoreline in ghostly white. The lake held. The blaze recoiled, raging along its edges but unable to cross.
For the first time since the burning began, something had refused it.
Behind that curtain of steam, Four Stars Academy continued to die — along with the last echoes of those who had once called it home.
---
They moved fast.
The plan was no longer to get to the Dukcilliea chamber. There was no way of knowing if it would even be safe there.
Now they were more interested in surviving and escaping through any means.
Itekan, Itoyea, Kutote and Bukanami had long forgotten about fatigue; hunger was a distant yet ever-present memory.
They had finished their rations a while ago and were surviving on wild berries they found along the way.
Though most of them were poisonous and would have killed them had Kutote not recognized them.
For the past day now they had had an uneasy feeling that they were being watched, but despite Itekan's attempt to find their pursuer there was no result.
They seemed to evade his senses constantly.
This night was particularly numbing. For the past hour and a half they had all felt a presence closing in on them, but Itekan was still not able to pinpoint it.
"Stay on your feet, guys!" Bukanami called out.
Kutote nodded in reply. Itoyea and Itekan exchanged grim looks but agreed nonetheless.
They all knew it was now.
They would not run any longer.
They had made their stand.
And the message was passed along perfectly. Within seconds, horses seemingly appeared from thin air.
Their riders were all distinctively female. Each wore an animal mask and carried themselves with a hunter's gait.
The one wearing a she-wolf mask stepped forward slightly.
"Hand over subject A107p. It is property of the Kingdom of Brandish. To withhold it is considered a declaration of war against the Kingdom of Brandish—"
"Oh shut it! You miserable bunch of people! Kutote is not an item you can reclaim! He is nobody's property!" Itekan shouted, rage plastered over his face.
His shadow tentacles, which had been rooted deep all around their position, came loose like retracted whips. His irises went black. His flesh hollowed as it darkened, absorbing light from his surroundings. His shadow flicks grew a new extension as his rage, amplified by Odieum, forced his shadow spirit to evolve.
Itoyea said no words, but his face was the definition of locked in. His eyes had lost their lustre, and from his lips vapor escaped like boiling steam. To untrained eyes, his hands rested calmly by his sides — but those who knew, knew that he was most deadly now. When he didn't even need a sword. His whole body was the sword.
Bukanami Ao was vexed. He couldn't compose himself in his current state. His spiritual pressure dropped and rose unevenly before going completely blank. A rare source emerged — a violent and unrestrained energy. His very being radiated this force, oozing out of him like a fountain.
Kutote, on the other hand, smiled.
They had truly come full circle. From fighting off the assailants who had tried capturing him months ago at Crooks Lake to facing a new batch of enemies who wanted him again.
It didn't matter.
He had come to accept his situation.
He realized now what he had always known.
He would have to fight again to survive.
And—
Like last time at Crooks Lake, they'd have the final laugh.
---
Spiritual Energy (SE)
Spiritual Sea (SS)
Spiritual Signature (SST)