Kael: Rise of The Fire Heir

Chapter 05

Chapter 5. Meeting a New Enemy

Kael gripped the stone box tightly, feeling the warm pulse spreading from its surface into his palm. Above him, the sound of Xarath’s claws tearing through the ruins grew increasingly frantic. The monster general wasn't digging to save him; he was digging to loot.

I am no longer your prey, Kael thought.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let the heat in the pit of his stomach flow fiercely throughout his body. This time, the fire didn't feel like a crushing burden, but like a bloodstream that had finally found its way home. Kael could feel the fragile structure of the cave ceiling above him. With a roar that erupted from the depths of his soul, he thrust both hands upward.

Boom!

It wasn't just an explosion, but a pillar of pure orange fire that shot up vertically, shattering the remaining stones that pinned him down. Kael shot out of the hole along with dust and sparks that soared high into the dark forest sky. He landed firmly on the trembling ground, both hands still enveloped in a dancing aura of fire.

Xarath staggered back, his red eyes narrowing from the glare. "Boy... you managed to open it?" the monster growled, his gaze fixed greedily on the stone box in Kael's hand. "Give it to me, and I might consider not eating your mother's heart right in front of your eyes!"

Kael stood tall. In the distance, he saw Master Selama lying weak while his mother, Mara, tried to protect him with her own body. Kael's anger peaked, causing the fire on his arms to blaze higher until it scorched the dry leaves around him.

"You won't touch anyone ever again, Xarath!" Kael shouted.

However, before Kael could lunge, the atmosphere in the forest suddenly changed. The sound of night insects died instantly. The air temperature plummeted drastically, causing cold vapor to escape Kael's mouth even though he was shrouded in flames. The darkness between the trees seemed to come alive, creeping across the ground like spilled black ink.

Xarath, who had previously seemed so dominant and terrifying, suddenly froze. His giant body trembled violently. The smirk on his monstrous face vanished, replaced by an expression of pure terror.

"That's enough, Xarath. You are wasting time with your toy."

The voice was calm, yet its coldness seeped into the very marrow of his bones. From behind the thick shadows of black mist, a man emerged. He wore a long black robe whose hem seemed to merge with the darkness beneath his feet. His face was covered by an expressionless silver mask that left only two narrow slits for eyes emitting a faint purple glow.

"M-Master Sovereign..." Xarath knelt, his head bowed deep to the frozen ground. "I almost have the artifact. This boy—"

"This boy possesses something you will never understand with your dull brain," the figure called the Shadow Sovereign interrupted. He stepped forward, and each footstep extinguished the small fires that had ignited on the ground from Kael's power.

Kael felt an incredibly heavy pressure. It felt as if an invisible mountain was weighing down on his shoulders. This was different from Xarath. Xarath was a physical threat, a powerful beast. But the figure in front of him... he was the manifestation of nothingness itself.

"Who are you?" Kael asked, his voice trembling even though he tried hard to remain firm.

"Just a spectator bored of watching this broken world," the Sovereign replied. He turned toward the stone box in Kael's hand. "You are the new Fire Conqueror? Too young. Too raw. You do not yet know how vast and cruel this world you are trying to protect truly is."

Kael didn't wait any longer. He gathered all his energy, creating a giant fireball in his hands and hurling it at the masked figure. "Get out of here!"

The fireball shot out at high speed, scorching the air it passed through. However, the Shadow Sovereign didn't even blink. He simply raised one hand casually. As Kael's fire touched his black palm, the orange blaze was sucked away, as if swallowed by a bottomless black hole.

"Fire is will, Kael. And your will is still too fragile," the Sovereign whispered.

In the blink of an eye—a movement that even Kael's sharp vision couldn't catch—the figure was right in front of him. A heavy blow landed on Kael's chest, not with a fist, but with a dense wave of dark energy.

Kael was thrown far back, crashing into a large oak tree until it toppled. The stone box in his hand slipped away, falling onto the blackened moss. He coughed up blood, his chest felt crushed, and the fire on his arms was instantly extinguished. For the first time, Kael realized how small he was. Eldara and this forest were just specks of dust in a world that turned out to be inhabited by entities as powerful as dark gods.

The Shadow Sovereign walked toward the stone box, but he didn't take it. Instead, he looked at Kael, who was struggling to crawl back up.

"Don't die too soon, Kael," the Sovereign said, his voice now sounding right in Kael's ear even though he stood several meters away. "Your journey is still long, and I want to see if you will end as tragically as the one who passed that blood down to you."

Kael looked at him with blurred vision. "What... what do you mean?"

The Sovereign leaned in slightly, his voice turning into a sharp whisper that made Kael's heart feel as if it had stopped beating.

"Your father didn't disappear because of an accident, Kael. He ran because he knew that possessing that fire was a mistake. And he paid the price at my hands."

Kael's eyes widened, his breath catching in his throat. "You... you know about my father?"

"I don't just know," the Sovereign straightened his body again as black mist began to envelop his figure to disappear. "I am the reason he begged for mercy before I erased him from this world."

With one wave of his robe, the masked figure vanished into the darkness of the night, taking the suffocating cold aura with him. Xarath, still trembling, immediately sped away after his master without looking back.

Silence once again enveloped the forest, leaving only the sound of Mara's sobbing in the distance and Master Selama's groans. Kael lay sprawled on the ground, staring at the starless night sky. The stone box lay not far from him, but his mind was no longer on the artifact.

The Sovereign's words kept echoing, burning hotter than any fire within him. His father. The secret his mother had kept so tightly all this time. A reality that had just transformed his quest from mere survival into something much darker and more personal.

"Father..." Kael whispered, his hands gripping the earth until his nails bled.

The world he knew had ended completely tonight, replaced by a labyrinth of betrayal and shadows of the past that had only just begun to chase him.