The closer they got to the Obsidian Spire, the quieter the world became.No birds.No wind.Even their footsteps seemed to sink into silence, swallowed by the dead air that surrounded the ancient tower. The structure itself loomed impossibly high, black stone glinting faintly like glass, as if it drank the last light of day.Elyndra’s voice broke the stillness. “It feels like the world stops breathing here.”Collins nodded. “That’s because it does.”The shard he carried — the fragment of the Spire — had begun to vibrate, tugging gently toward the colossal door at the tower’s base. Strange runes pulsed faintly on the black surface, shifting like living symbols, rearranging themselves every few seconds.He placed his palm on the cold stone. Instantly, the runes flared red, and a thousand whispers flooded his mind.> Collins Lutherchris... you return to the flame that birthed you...He pulled his hand away, gasping. “It knows me.”Elyndra frowned, readying her blades. “Then it’s alive.”

Heat.Endless, suffocating heat.Collins couldn’t tell where the ground ended and the sky began. Everything was red and gold — a storm of flame swirling around him. It wasn’t just heat that burned his skin, but memory, emotion, willpower. Every ember in this place pulsed with life.He realized, with a shudder, that he was standing inside the Fifth Flame itself.A vast plain stretched before him — molten rivers cutting through glowing sand. Strange shapes moved in the firelight, like creatures made of smoke and sparks, watching silently.Above them, the sky burned with shifting faces — the echoes of souls who had once tried to control this power and failed.> The Heart welcomes you, a voice murmured — deep, ancient, neither male nor female. The heir of the sealed fire returns to claim his fate.Collins clenched his fists. “I didn’t come to claim anything. I came to understand it.”> Understanding demands surrender.The flames surged, swirling into a vortex before him. Slowly, a figure

The road north was silent.Too silent.Collins had been walking for hours, each step crunching against frostbitten ground. The air grew colder with every mile, the warmth of his inner flame barely holding back the creeping chill. The pendant around his neck — once golden and warm — now pulsed faintly blue, as though the artifact itself was guiding him toward something hidden in the tundra ahead.The world had changed since his encounter with the Warden. The crimson skies had paled into gray, and the wind carried voices — faint, broken whispers that faded whenever he stopped to listen.At first, he thought they were memories of the battle echoing in his head.But tonight, as the moon rose over the horizon like a silver wound, he realized the whispers were coming from the ice itself.He reached a frozen ravine that split the land in two. At the bottom, half-buried beneath the ice, lay what looked like the ruins of a cathedral — its spires snapped, its doors sealed in frost. He climbed d

The journey to the Dead Peaks took six days and six nights.Through endless snowfields and valleys buried in mist, Collins and Avera pressed forward — the faint blue and red glow of the pendant guiding them like a twin star.By the seventh sunrise, the ice began to give way to barren rock. The wind carried dust instead of frost, and the ground vibrated faintly beneath their boots.In the distance rose the mountains — black, jagged, and unnaturally still.“The Dead Peaks,” Avera whispered. “Once the heart of a kingdom. Now, nothing but stone.”Collins adjusted the cloak around his shoulders. “What happened here?”“Pride,” she replied softly. “The people of Craven believed themselves unbreakable. They mined too deep — searching for the Crown of Stone. When they found it, it gave them the power to shape earth itself… until it claimed them in return.”They climbed through the narrow mountain path. Every few steps, Collins noticed strange shapes in the rock — not boulders, but statues. Men

The sky trembled.The two Collinses faced each other across the glasslike expanse of the Stormland’s core — one blazing with gold and scarlet fire, the other shrouded in a cold, black flame that devoured light instead of casting it.Wind hissed through the silence like a whisper from the dead.Avera stood frozen behind him, her sword half-drawn. Elyndra’s face had gone pale; she had seen things beyond the veil before, but nothing like this.The darker Collins — older, sharper, with eyes that seemed to see through time itself — tilted his head slightly. “You look surprised,” he said, voice eerily calm. “Did you really think the Fifth Flame could be so easily forgotten?”Collins swallowed hard. “Who are you?”The figure smiled, though it wasn’t warm. “I’m you. Or what’s left of you from the last time this world burned.”The words hit like a spell. The air thickened. The wind stilled completely, and for a moment, all Collins could hear was the thud of his own heartbeat.“That’s impossibl