Burn This World For You

Something was very, very wrong with Lady Tridnya.

Pink flames crawled over her body, licking at her like they had a mind of their own.

Zephir caught her as she fell—but the moment his hands made contact, a pain unlike anything he had ever known tore through him. It wasn't just fire. It was something worse. Something alive. Something that sank into his very being and gnawed at his soul.

"AAAAAARGH!"

A scream wrenched from his throat as his body convulsed, instinct forcing his hands away. Tridnya plummeted once more.

But he wasn't heartless enough to let her crash like discarded debris. Gritting his teeth, he pushed past the lingering agony and commanded the air. The winds thickened, slowing her descent. She wouldn't die from a mere fall—no, she was far beyond such frailties—but still, to just let her drop? Even he wasn't that cruel.

"I got everything under control here," he forced out, throwing a thumbs-up toward Aleron and Maris. "You squad should engage the Heartbane. I'll join you soon."

They didn't hesitate, dashing forward.

This time, Zephir wasn't taking any chances. He wasn't touching her again. The winds carried him forward, guiding him toward her without making contact.

Then—

ZSUP!

The air twisted unnaturally.

What the—?

Something—no, someone—warped into existence before him.

And then—

A wave of searing flames.

"AAAAAARRRGH!"

The fire swallowed him whole. It wasn't normal fire—it was something far worse. It devoured flesh, thought, and breath. His body, still wreathed in flames, tumbled from the skies—charred, motionless.

Dead? Alive? No one could tell.

But the Heartbane wasn't done.

A twisted, gnarled bow formed in its hands, aged as if it had endured eons of suffering. Two arrows of blackened fire materialized at its string. Without hesitation, it loosed them—both streaking toward Aleron and Maris.

A perfect ambush. Their backs were wide open.

But they were Transcendants. The elite of the elite.

Aleron's armor reacted first—liquid metal surging across his back, hardening just as the arrow struck. It stopped mere inches from his heart, but the cursed flames had already begun gnawing at the metal.

Maris moved faster. She vanished in an instant, leaving only an ice clone behind. The second arrow pierced through it, shattering the illusion into frozen shards.

Their hearts pounded. If there had been even a fraction less distance, they would be corpses.

Then—

"Bullshit!" A sharp voice crackled through their communicators. "That's Cupid's Arrow! That bastard in the Heartbane made a deal with Cupid—get the hell out of there, now!"

Aleron's jaw clenched. "But Tridnya and Zephir—"

"Forget them! You stay, you die! That thing's locked onto its target—it won't stop until everything in range is burned to nothing!"

A terrible realization settled over them.

Zephir… he was already gone.

And Tridnya—she was what it wanted.

Aleron and Maris exchanged one last look before turning away. Without hesitation, they fled, the battlefield vanishing behind them in an inferno of pink flames.

***

Tridnya was barely hanging onto life.

Pain wracked every fiber of her being, scorching her to the core. It felt as if she had been tossed into the sun itself, left to burn in the deepest pits of hell.

Her mind drifted in and out of the abyss. Her body refused to move. She was trapped—somewhere between wakefulness and nothingness.

Then—

A whisper.

It slithered through the suffocating darkness, barely audible at first. It didn't make sense—warped, incoherent, like a language not meant for human ears.

But it was there.

And it was growing louder.

Louder.

It pounded in her skull, splitting her mind open with its presence.

And then—

"Lost in the blood-curled mist, there's still further to doom."

A single sentence.

Clear. Sharp.

Like a knife driven straight into her soul.

The moment she comprehended it, reality snapped back.

Tridnya gasped, lungs convulsing as air flooded into them like ice. She struggled to open her eyes—only for a scorching heatwave to slam against her face.

A whimper escaped her lips as she shut them immediately. Her limbs wouldn't respond, her body nothing more than dead weight.

What… what happened?

Then—

The voice again.

But this time, it was different.

It still carried that eerie, inhuman distortion—like rusted metal scraping against stone—but now, there was something else buried beneath it. Something almost… human.

"I'll burn this world for you."

A low, guttural growl.

A chill ran down her spine despite the unbearable heat.

No.

No. No. No.

Tridnya forced her eyes open again, bracing for the pain.

And she saw it.

The world was gone.

No ruins. No sky. No battlefield.

Nothing.

Pink flames stretched endlessly in every direction, gnawing at reality itself, consuming all that had ever existed. There wasn't even debris left behind—only absolute nothingness, devoured by an unrelenting hunger.

She was lying in the center of it.

A shadow loomed over her.

The Heartbane.

Her breath caught in her throat.

The being before her was wrong.

Neither wholly flesh nor wholly spirit—it flickered in and out of existence, as though the world itself rejected its presence. A mass of writhing fire and something much darker, deeper. Its very existence twisted the air around it.

It was looking at her.

Watching.

A violent shudder ran through her.

Move. Run. Get away.

She forced her fingers to move—slow, sluggish—but they responded. She gritted her teeth and tried to push herself away, scrambling weakly against the scorched nothingness beneath her.

Then—

"Tridnya."

The voice called her name.

Her body froze.

"Can you see it?" That same sick, twisted joy laced its words. "I've finally burnt the world for you."

A sickness churned in her gut. Dread clawed at her chest. No. No, something was horribly wrong.

Her vision blurred, panic gripping her throat. Slowly—hesitantly—she forced herself to look up.

At the Heartbane.

At the thing that had erased everything.

And then—

She saw it. She recognized it. A horrifying realization crashed down on her.

Her lips trembled. Her breath came in ragged, shallow gasps.

She barely managed to speak the name.

"Kou… Kousi…"