Roderic05

In a world where every human is granted flames that decide their fate, society is divided between those sworn to the White Flame of the Gods and those who embrace the Red Flame of the Devils. The flames govern power and status, even personality.

But Ren Kaizen is different. His classmates woke their flames while young, but he was still powerless, a “Flameless”—an outcast. Branded as weak, he was ridiculed, overlooked, and fated to lead a mundane existence.

Until one fateful night.

Ren unwittingly signs a contract in a moment of desperation, and in doing so resurrects the forbidden Blue Flame — an impossible thing, a cursed union of divine and demonic power. His fire doesn't reach its truest potential until he enters a state of absolute rage, though it tends to appear calm on the surface, much like more familiar flames.

Whispers claim the Blue Flame is a curse, a flame birthed by an ancient war between gods and devils. Those who use it are doomed to ruin — or glory.

Now on the run from both divine knights and hellfire cultists, Ren must uncover the truth of what his flames mean, the contract he signed without knowing it, and the dark history buried under the world’s immaculate equilibrium.”

Will he become a savior? Or will the blighted fire consume him entirely?

Infernal Fate

The ruins were as motionless as tombs.

Ren huddled low behind a shattered pillar, his fingers zinging with excitement. He could feel them.

The initial wave of Black Ember Syndicate assassins had come to their doorstep.

They came near invisibly—silent shadows, invisible to the naked eye. If Ren's senses had not been heightened, he would not have noticed them at all.

But now, having been prepared by Kaela, he was attuned to the subtlety of the changes in the air, the light kiss of heat and cold.

Four of them—spaced, probing the ruins from every point.

Scouts. Feeling the battlefield out.

Sera, sitting on the broken archway, nodded very slightly. She could see them too.

Kaela, crouching in the inner shadows, grinned. She was already in motion.

The trap was set. They only needed to wait.

One of the killers came up, stepping over wreckage on the floor.

Ren observed how the man unknowingly brushed against a virtually invisible steel wire.

A line of Blue Flame burst from the ground, incinerating the air he breathed. The killer didn't even have time to scream before he was incinerated.

The others moved right away—but too late already.

Sera fell from on high, her katana glinting in moonlight. One swift slash—sharp and certain—through the throat of the second assassin.

Kaela, ghost among mortals, moved into position behind the third. Her dagger plunged into his heart before he even realized she was there.

The last assassin was quicker than anticipated, dodging back before Kaela could deliver the killing blow.

Ren's eyes widened—seeing the trap had been sprung.

He wasn't battling anymore. He was fleeing.

He lifted his hand—and the whole battlefield erupted into flames.

The hidden flame markers exploded, encasing the ruins in a hellscene of Blue Fire.

The assassin merely dodged the initial blast, rolling out of the fire and fleeing to the rim of the ruins.

If he managed to escape, he'd alert the others.

Ren clasped his flames, pushing them out before him, pinning the assassin between him and the wall.

A black blade materialized from the darkness.

Ren managed barely to parry as it glided through air beside his head, and driven into stone at his back.

Ren's blood numbed with the appearance into sight of someone that seemed to cast the very absence of light from around them.

Dressed in sleek black armor, a mask covering the lower half of his face, he moved with an aura of absolute confidence.

Kaela's voice was tight. "…That's not just any assassin."

Ren's hands burned with Blue Fire as he glared at the new enemy.

The man tilted his head slightly, his red eyes gleaming under the moonlight.

"So. You're the one with the Blue Flame."

This was one of their actual killers.

And the fight was only just starting.

Assassins Strike