The skies over the empire's eastern stronghold of Halcyon Bastion rippled with unease. Midnight clouds twisted like coiling serpents, and the scent of scorched iron crept along the wind. Watchtowers flickered with uneasy flame. Soldiers whispered about omens, about firebirds glimpsed circling above, about tremors felt but never seen.None of them knew what was coming.Inside the command hall, General Tavros stood before a glowing map of the empire's defensive grid. His fingers tapped the hilt of his sword, agitated. “Still no response from Velundar?” he snapped."None, sir," the aide said, swallowing hard. "Council silence. No new orders."Tavros muttered a curse. “They expect us to hold the eastern front with no reinforcements? Preposterous. Tell the scribe to send a raven—"A scream interrupted him.It came from the gate.And then another.And then the sound of fire.Not the crackling of torchlight or the controlled burn of siege weaponry. No. This fire screamed. It howled like it h

The infirmary reeked of blood and incense.Elira Moonveil lay still.A girl who once danced through visions now trembled on the edge of death, eyes fluttering beneath shut lids, skin pale as ice. The Oracle, the voice of the unseen, the seer who carried fire in her mind—was fading.Rey stood beside her, fists clenched at his side."She took the full force of the backlash," whispered Zayne from the doorway, voice hoarse. "No one's survived that kind of feedback before.""She did it for me," Rey said quietly, staring at Elira's face. "She looked too far. And now she's paying for it."A gentle gust of wind crept through the open window, stirring the edge of Elira’s sheet. The sunlight filtering through the lattice caught the faint shimmer of glyphs along her arms, pulsing dimly.Aeris, seated at the foot of the bed, murmured, "These runes... they're breaking. Whatever she saw, it tore the last of her psychic shields."The room fell silent.Then—Elira inhaled sharply. Her back arched fro

The wind over Velundar howled like a wounded beast. From the shattered balcony of the Black Spire, Lyra Kael stood alone, her silver hair whipping around her face, eyes cast toward the twilight-stained horizon. Blood painted her knuckles. Smoke drifted lazily from the burning wreckage behind her—the last remnant of the Imperial Archive.But that was not what made her tremble.It was the name.Her mother’s name—burned into the secret scroll tucked beneath her blood-soaked armor. A classified document unearthed from the forbidden archive that should never have existed. The contents unraveled her world in six words:"Execution ordered by General Veyron Kael."Her father.The man who raised her with steel and flame. Who taught her that loyalty to the Empire was loyalty to order. Who told her her mother had died in childbirth during a rebel ambush.It was a lie.A beautifully polished, painfully designed lie. And now, every moment, every memory was collapsing beneath the weight of the trut

The sky wept fire.Over the shattered cliffs of Velundar, smoke unfurled in dark serpents, coiling over the blackened banners of the Empire and the crimson crests of the rising Drakar Rebellion. The air trembled with power—elemental cries clashing like ancient titans awakening after centuries of silence. Lightning crackled in unnatural hues, arcing above the battlefield as though the heavens themselves could not decide which side to smite.Rey stood at the head of the insurgent lines, Emberclaw clenched in one hand, flames rippling up its runes with each breath he took. The earth trembled beneath his boots as war chants echoed behind him, voices once silenced now raised in rebellion. He turned to face them—former students, outcast mages, defected soldiers, even scholars wielding arcane relics retrieved from the Forbidden Vault."No more hiding!" Rey bellowed, the Dragon System pulsing like a second heart in his chest. "We are fireborn—not slaves to a broken Empire! Today, we rise!"Th

The ashes whispered.Around him, the scorched battlefield of what was once the Black Spire lay in ruin. Soot choked the air. Corpses—both of man and beast—smoldered beneath cracked stone and molten steel. But in the center of the devastation, where the Flame Titan had crushed Rey’s chest and buried him beneath flame and fury, a new fire kindled.Golden. Alive.The world held its breath.Then—FWOOOOOM!A pillar of pure phoenix fire exploded upward, burning through the heavens like a sun reborn. Soldiers on both sides fell back, shielding their eyes. The sky, once grey and wounded, turned molten orange. At its heart, a figure rose—body engulfed in sacred flame, wings of fire unfurling behind him. His skin shimmered with scales of gold, hair dancing like a wildfire. His eyes were no longer just Rey’s.They were Rayden Drakar’s.No—something even older. Something more.He had been reborn."He lives..." Aeris whispered, crumpling to her knees."The Flameborne," muttered Zayne, wide-eyed a