Chapter 159: Embers Before the Tempest

Flame Academy no longer slept.

From the tallest spires to the deepest flame vaults, spirits stirred with uneasy breath. The birth of Eiros, the Hollow Flame, had not gone unnoticed. Not by sovereigns, not by fragments—and not by the watchers across the planes.

Rei stood at the edge of the Academy's overlook, gazing into the twilight horizon. The winds carried heat and tremble. The trees no longer swayed—they braced.

Beside him, Mireille stared into her latest readings. "Vildras's emergence shifted the leyline grid across seven domains. Entire spirit clusters have gone quiet."

"Retreating?" Rei asked.

"No," she said. "Waiting."

Eirenne joined them, mist curling around her cloak. "And we're the flame they wait for."

Noira, arms crossed, added, "Then maybe we should remind the world how bright we burn."

---

Vildras's Wake

Far beyond the sovereign reach, across what remained of the shattered northern continent, Vildras stood atop a scorched altar once used to crown gods.

His form was incomplete—a jagged humanoid of raw spirit tissue, constantly shifting. His face bore no eyes, only a chasm where divinity once failed to manifest. Around him, the land wept—a red aurora spiraling from the earth, not the sky.

"Rei…" he growled, tasting the name like flame devours oxygen. "You bind ruin and call it harmony. I will unmake your balance."

He spread his arms. Thousands of Echoborn, failed fragments given incomplete form, rose behind him—shaped from ruin, not resonance.

> [System Alert: Class Omega Fragment Detected — Vildras, Flame of Irreversible Ruin.]

---

Preparations

Back at the Academy, Rei gathered his circle. Not just the core three—Mireille, Noira, Eirenne—but the bound spirits now living within and beside him.

Kuralis spoke first. "His flame is not wild. It is rejection incarnate."

Helvaris added, "And that makes him dangerous—not because he destroys, but because he undoes meaning."

Thrael's voice was quiet. "He will offer despair that looks like comfort."

Even Nyssara's voice wavered. "He feeds on what never was, twisting hope into rot."

Eiros remained silent, glowing faintly by Rei's shoulder.

Karasu landed beside them. "We cannot win this like the others. This is not a battle. It's an undoing."

Rei nodded. "Then we don't fight to win. We fight to remain."

---

The Flame Choir Rises

The team began their preparations. Each spirit-core was refined. The Academy's nexus gates were opened, inviting old allies—former spirit hosts, rogue angelic exiles, even a dragonkin emissary once cursed by the Void.

Rei's sanctuary became a haven not of power, but of memory. For Vildras could erase power. But he could not erase what was held within hearts.

Late into the night, Mireille found Rei at the training yard, practicing alone.

"Everyone's ready," she said.

Rei nodded. "Not for the battle. But for the question."

She tilted her head. "Which question?"

He looked up.

"If the world ends again… what story do we leave behind?"

---

Echoborn Incursion

The first wave struck at dawn. Not from the sky. Not from the land. From within dreams.

Students screamed awake, their spirit-anchors flashing. Echoborn had pierced etheric thresholds—turning emotion into nightmares, memory into weapons.

Rei acted swiftly. With Eiros and Thrael combining light and foundation, he stabilized the dreamscape. Noira led physical defenses. Mireille initiated an emergency resonance lock.

By midday, the breach was sealed.

But it was only a whisper of what Vildras promised.

---

That Evening

As the sun bled into the sea, Rei stood atop the highest peak of the Academy. He whispered into the dusk:

"Let him come."

And ten flames answered.

But it was the eleventh—the Hollow Flame—that made the sky listen.