The world was breaking. The scarred cavern split wider as Jason took another step forward. The ash beneath his feet ignited into streaks of red fire, but this was no ordinary flame.It burned without smoke, without heat, fire that did not consume, only revealed. Everywhere it touched, reality warped. Shadows cracked like glass.Stone pulsed like flesh. The Sovereign King, half-shattered and bleeding void, staggered backward with a cry that was more terror than rage.Jason raised his head fully now, the hollow sockets of his eyes blazing with crimson light. His voice, when it came, was layered: a chorus of the man he had been, the flame that had carried him, and something stranger, rawer, the echo of ashfire itself.“You should have left me in the dark.”The King’s ruined jaw clenched. “You are not alive,” he hissed. “You are an aberration. A mistake!”Jason’s ashfire shape pulsed brighter. “Then I’ll be the mistake that ends you.”The Sovereign King lunged. Shadows lashed out like spe

The titan’s claw closed around him. Jason’s body splintered into ash, fragments torn loose and sucked into the storm. His ember-heart flared wildly, cracks spiderwebbing across its surface as the pressure mounted.The sound was deafening, a chorus of grinding stone, screaming voices, and the low, endless hunger gnawing at existence itself.He couldn’t breathe, though he no longer needed breath. He couldn’t think, though his mind burned. Every part of him strained to hold together under the titan’s grip, but piece by piece, he was unraveling.The Nameless Hunger’s voice resonated through his very core: Fragile ember. I will hollow you. I will wear you. Through you, I will walk this world again.Jason spat a curse, his voice raw and ragged. “You’ll wear nothing but my ashes.”His ember erupted, spearing light through the titan’s hand. The claw recoiled, but not fully. The titan laughed, an awful, cavernous sound that bent the storm around them.Jason dropped, slamming into what passed f

The claw sank deeper. Jason’s roar tore through the storm as the titan’s hand wrapped around the reforged ember inside his chest.Every nerve ignited in pain, every vein became a conduit of molten fire. The storm around them bent and twisted, drawn into the clash between titan and man.“You… cannot… hold it,” the titan thundered, its voice shaking the sky. “The ember is not meant for flesh. It belongs to me.”Jason’s knees buckled. The pressure was unbearable, like the weight of a collapsing sun pressing down on his ribs, grinding bone to dust. He felt his heart hammering against the titan’s claw, threatening to shatter.“No,” Jason growled, ashfire crackling across his skin. He seized the titan’s massive wrist with both hands, his arms trembling as they burned to bone. “It doesn’t belong to you. It doesn’t belong to anyone. It’s mine.”The titan bared its fanged maw. A void opened within it, sucking in shards of lightning and stone from the storm. Around them, reality buckled.Mounta

Jason’s scream tore the silence. He clawed at his chest as if he could rip the ember out with his bare hands, but the fire only pulsed harder, and with it, the shadow coiled deeper into his veins.The rain striking his skin hissed into steam, black tendrils crawling beneath his flesh like serpents searching for escape.“No… no, this isn’t me,” Jason gasped, stumbling backward into a collapsed wall. The stone cracked under his weight, half-melted by the heat radiating from his body. “You’re not in control. You’re not!”The titan’s voice rumbled through his skull, deeper than thunder, sharper than steel. “You think fire exists without shadow? Fool. You are the ember because I allow it. Without me, you are ash.”Jason slammed his fist into the wall, shattering stone into dust. His breathing came ragged, fire leaking from the corners of his mouth.His own heartbeat didn’t sound like a pulse anymore. It sounded like chains clanging against iron. A sharp cry cut through the chaos.“Jason!”

Darkness. Jason’s scream tore through the void as he was dragged downward, chains constricting his body, his wings, his throat. He tried to fight, to flare his ember, to push back, but every spark only fed the titan’s laughter.“Struggle,” the voice hissed, echoing endlessly. “Struggle, little flame. Every thrash binds you tighter.”The abyss swallowed him. He hit the ground hard, stone cracking beneath him. His vision blurred. The chains evaporated, leaving him sprawled, gasping, in a cavern of obsidian walls.Black fire ran like rivers through cracks in the stone, illuminating carvings etched deep into the rock, runes that pulsed with hunger.Jason forced himself to his knees. His chest heaved, his ember dim, but still burning. He clenched his fists. “I’m not yours.”The void chuckled. From the shadows, a shape emerged. It wore his face. Jason staggered backward as the figure stepped into the dim light, same features, same frame, same golden eyes. But twisted. Pale skin cracked with