Jiyul walked alone, his boots brushing against piles of ash and shattered leaves. The wind behind him had died down, leaving only the mountains and a heavy, suffocating silence ahead.
His thoughts darkened with every step.
"Strength..."
Yes. He needed strength. Enough to crush fate itself. Enough to bend the heavens until they broke. There was too much he didn't understand yet. Immortality? Gods? The secrets of his own blood?
"What if I could live longer?" he thought. "Heal like a god? Maybe not full immortality, but something close. A body that doesn't rot. A spirit that doesn't break. A will that doesn't die."
He clenched his fist, feeling the raw power humming beneath his skin.
"I will find it all."
His breath steamed in the cold air. A faint, twisted grin crept onto his lips as he remembered the spirit's words.
"Velkhan said don't become a monster?"
His gaze turned distant and wicked.
"Monster? Hah."
A low, mocking laugh escaped him. It was cruel and sharp, cutting through the quiet air.
"I was already a monster before I ever held this cursed ember."
His steps quickened. He passed the last crumbled house in the ruins, leaving the tragic history of Velkhan behind. But before leaving the village of bones completely, he stopped.
A whisper of red glowed in his palm. The Blood Ember.
Jiyul raised it to eye level. His eyes narrowed.
"Let's see... what happens if I release this to all of them?"
He inhaled sharply, then poured his will into the artifact.
The Ember pulsed. First red. Then black.
A deep tremor shook the ground. It felt like the mountain itself held its breath in anticipation.
Then came the explosion.
BOOM.
A tidal wave of black-red mist erupted outward, flooding the entire village like a firestorm. It consumed every shattered bone, every broken stone, and every pile of ash. The world turned black in an instant.
Jiyul stood in the center of the vortex, his coat flapping violently in the unnatural wind.
And then it began.
From the bones of the dead villagers and the priests, black light rose. Tendrils of energy, looking like scorched flames, twisted toward him. One by one. Dozens. Hundreds. A storm of forgotten strength rushing to a new vessel.
He didn't move. He let it come.
The black energy stabbed into his chest and vanished inside him.
FWOOM.
More came. His skin sizzled as the power rewrote his biology. Then, it calmed.
His wounds vanished. Not just healed, but reversed. His blood flowed richer. His lungs felt fuller. His heart beat louder, like a war drum.
He looked down at his hands. Veins pulsed beneath his pale skin.
His spiritual qi was no longer red. It was pitch black. Deep. Endless. It was the kind of power that made gods afraid to look down.
And this time, no memories came.
There were no screams, no visions of fire. Velkhan had already forced the history into him. The Ember didn't repeat the pain. It only gave what was left.
Power.
Jiyul chuckled low. Then he laughed deeper. It was a terrible sound. A laugh that didn't belong to a human man.
"This is it."
He looked up at the sky, not as a warrior, but as something else. Something rising.
"This place... once knew gods," he whispered coldly. "I'll find their temples. Their relics. Their ghosts."
His voice sharpened, calm like a sword pressed against the throat of the world.
"And I'll take everything they left behind."
The Ember flickered one last time , then died down. The aura around him remained, clinging to him like a second skin.
He stood silent. Unshaken. Unstoppable.
Then a name passed his lips. A whisper colder than the coming winter.
"Rayel..."
His eyes narrowed.
"Your time is over."
He started walking again. The mountains above grew darker, looming over him. Each step echoed with heavy purpose.
"You were just the beginning," Jiyul vowed to the wind. "There is someone else I've waited to meet... since the day I was born."
And then, he laughed again. Low. Cruel. Empty.
The black flame moved with him. The wind bowed to his passage.