There was no real light in this place.
All that Rant could see was ash — moving, as if it were breathing on its own.
The sky was endlessly gray,
and the ground stretched like a mirror made of scorched dust.
Everything seemed still... until he heard the first step.
They weren't human footsteps.
They were heavy, slow — sounding as though they crushed restless souls beneath them.
Rant turned, his eyes faintly glowing with a dark, fiery hue.
Out of the fog emerged something — a formless creature,
its body built from compacted ash,
its face resembling a shadow of the past.
It spoke with a cracked voice,
as if the words came from deep inside the earth's chest:
> "You… are the one who came out of the flame?"
Rant didn't answer at first.
He simply lifted his head, calm and steady, and said quietly:
> "I was born from it."
Silence followed.
The creature bowed slightly — as if the mere echo of that name made it tremble.
> "The Heir… then the prophecy was true."
As it approached, the ash began to swirl around Rant's feet,
as though the world itself was responding to his presence.
The creature whispered:
> "But to walk the land of ash, you must leave the fire behind.
Here, fire holds no power… the shadow rules."
Rant's eyes gleamed like embers at the end of their burning.
> "The shadow does not frighten one who has become part of it."
The creature roared — its voice like a storm breaking through silence:
> "You dare defy the law of this world?!"
From its body erupted storms of gray ash,
forging themselves into solid blades,
spinning around it like blackened wings.
Rant extended his hand — not touching anything,
yet the ash around him melted and ignited in the same instant.
The air itself became rings of black flame,
wrapping around his body like a living armor.
> "I do not defy the law of this world…"
"I am the law — when it burns."
The ash blades clashed against the black fire,
and the void filled with a sound like the scream of a dying world.
Everything shattered and reformed at once —
until, for a brief moment, time itself stopped.
When the wind finally stilled,
nothing remained of the creature but a crumbling gray skeleton.
Before it turned to final dust,
it raised its head weakly and whispered:
> "You… are no longer human…
You are the beginning… of oblivion."
Then it vanished.
Rant stood there, staring at the ashes that had become ashes once more.
Yet inside him, those final words sparked something —
A beginning of oblivion...
What did that mean?
The wind lifted his face toward the gray sky,
and for the first time, he saw a slit of light break through the clouds.
He whispered to himself:
> "Perhaps… the world still remembers.
And I am part of that memory."
Then he walked forward,
leaving behind a trail of footsteps made of fire —
fire that refused to die.