Chapter 13: The Flameborn Duel

Ash rained from the heavens as Elian lunged forward, his sword igniting with the golden blaze of the Ashbound Flame.

The Seeker didn't flinch.

He stood in the clearing like a shadow carved from obsidian, eyes gleaming with cold calculation. Where he walked, the grass withered. Where he breathed, the wind screamed.

And now, he raised a single hand—two fingers outstretched.

Clang!

The collision sent shockwaves tearing through the earth. Trees cracked and collapsed. The sky darkened.

Elian was pushed back several meters, feet dragging scorched lines into the ground. But he didn't fall. He dug his heels in and exhaled a stream of golden mist.

The Seeker examined his smoldering palm. "Interesting. You've awakened more than I expected."

Elian didn't answer. His mind burned.

Ilara was gone.

His first mentor. His guide. She had sacrificed herself for a moment of escape—and the Seeker had crushed her in an instant. That death, that loss, it wasn't just grief.

It was fuel.

He charged again, and this time the air shattered around him. A ring of flame spiraled outward as his body blurred, propelled by spiritual veins no one had ever recorded before.

Not red. Not blue. Not even the rare silver veins seen in ancient bloodlines.

Elian's veins shone gold-white, alive with primal heat.

The Seeker moved faster than sight.

His body flickered, phasing through Elian's strike. But Ashbound caught the edge of his robes—and burned them away. The fabric didn't catch fire. It dissolved, like it had never existed.

The Seeker's eyes widened.

"That blade… it's not just a tool. It's bonded to your core."

Elian twisted mid-air, landing with feline grace. "And it remembers."

Ashbound pulsed, its hilt vibrating with resonance. It wasn't a mere weapon. It was a key.

The Seeker struck back.

His attacks came in bursts of darkness—slivers of compressed Void Essence that tore through space like claws. Elian dodged the first, blocked the second, but the third—

Boom!

It caught his side, sending him flying.

He slammed into a tree trunk, bones rattling. Blood painted his lips. But something inside refused to let him collapse.

Ilara's voice echoed in his mind.

"You are not a torch. You are the forge."

He rose.

The wound sizzled. Not from pain—but because his body was already healing.

The golden flame wasn't just offensive.

It regenerated.

The Seeker hesitated for the first time.

He tapped two fingers to his forehead. "Very well. You've earned this."

Black chains burst from his spine, circling him like serpents. They coiled with crackling energy, pulsing with concentrated Void Qi. Each chain bore a mark—ancient runes glowing in blood-red light.

"I am Ashen-Kai, Hallowed Seeker of the Ninth Pillar," he intoned. "Bearer of the Chains of Submission. Kneel, Flameborn… or burn alone."

Elian's laugh was quiet.

Then it rose into something raw.

"I told you before," he said, voice layered with flame. "I never wanted this. But now that it's mine…"

Ashbound ignited.

"…I'll master it."

The earth cracked beneath him as he leapt. The chains whipped toward him like snakes.

Elian moved through them.

His body flickered in golden afterimages, too fast for the eye. He struck from above, below, behind—slashes of burning light that danced around Ashen-Kai's defense.

The Seeker was skilled.

But Elian… was evolving.

For the first time, Ashen-Kai bled.

A diagonal cut across his chest hissed with golden fire. The Void tried to reject it, but the flame clung—eating into his essence.

"This… isn't possible," the Seeker murmured.

He raised a palm.

A sphere of pure blackness formed in the air, heavy and humming. "Then you'll die with me."

Elian's instincts screamed.

This was a forbidden technique—a Void Singularity. It would swallow everything around it, including its caster.

But Elian didn't retreat.

He did something no cultivator should ever do.

He stepped forward.

Ashen-Kai's eyes widened. "You fool—!"

Elian raised his blade and stabbed it into his own chest.

Golden fire exploded outward.

Ashbound roared—not in pain, but in liberation.

The flame surged around Elian, not consuming him, but merging. He became a silhouette of gold, his figure indistinct from the blaze.

He raised his eyes.

"I am not your pawn."

The singularity collapsed—not inward, but outward, forced apart by a force older than Void itself.

Ashen-Kai screamed as the golden light engulfed him. His body twisted, shadows flailing in every direction.

When it ended…

There was silence.

And ash.

Only ash.

Elian collapsed to one knee.

The fire faded from his body, revealing torn robes and skin etched with glowing runes. His veins still pulsed with golden warmth, but the exhaustion caught up to him all at once.

He'd won.

But at a price.

Ashbound lay beside him, its blade cracked but still glowing.

He touched it gently.

"Thank you."

From behind him, a soft wind blew.

A voice.

"The first has fallen. The others will come."

He turned—but saw no one.

Then he looked at his reflection in a pool of water nearby.

And saw not just himself.

But the eyes of the Ashbound.

The legacy had accepted him.

But it was no longer passive.

It was awake.

Far away, in the floating citadel of the Ninth Pillar, cloaked figures gathered in a circle of black marble.

Ashen-Kai's death had not gone unnoticed.

A new name was whispered in the void.

"Elian Flameborn."

They would remember it.

And they would hunt it.

But the flame was no longer in hiding.

It had been reborn.