The Lord stared at Rose's still form before bursting into laughter.
"HAHAHA! This is what you get for looking down on me!"
Silva's fists tightened. He could sense her aura fading, and any irritation he'd felt over her reckless actions on the volcano vanished in an instant.
She was their companion, their friend.
Yet this man had struck her from behind, all because his pride had been bruised.
Silva spun around to face him.
"How dare you attack our friend!"
The Lord scoffed.
"Hmph. You children just don't get it."
He strode forward with confidence, his guards closing in around him, while the two robbers stayed sheltered behind.
"I am the authority here."
He spread his arms wide, motioning toward the settlement and the land around the volcano.
"The soldiers answer to me. The merchants pay taxes to me. The people follow my orders. I decide who's innocent and who's guilty."
His gaze locked arrogantly on Silva.
"Here, my word is the law."
June slipped quietly to Rose's side as Julie rose to her feet.
The Lord went on.
"If I say that woman's a thief, then she's a thief. If I say she attacked those men, then that's what happened."
One of the robbers smirked.
The Lord gestured toward Rose.
"And if I decide attacking an accused criminal is justified, who's going to punish me?"
Silva locked eyes with him.
The Lord's grin widened.
"Now you get it."
Silva's face grew grim.
"No."
The Lord's smile faltered.
Silva moved in front of Rose, blocking the guards.
"I get that you're a coward."
The guards fell into a tense silence.
"You attacked someone from behind just because she bruised your pride," Silva said, lifting his wooden staff.
"And now you're hiding behind your title."
The Lord's face contorted.
"You insolent brat!"
From behind him, June's voice cut through the moment.
"Silva."
Something in her tone made him turn immediately.
She was kneeling beside Rose, one hand pressed to her neck, her expression deadly serious.
"We don't have time for this."
A cold dread washed away Silva's anger.
"How bad?"
June met his eyes.
"Very."
Rose's life was slipping away.
The Lord lifted his hand toward his guards.
"Arrest them."
The soldiers moved forward.
Julie stepped in front of her sister and Rose, her usual playful smile gone.
Silva's grip on his staff tightened.
They were surrounded. Rose was dying. And the one responsible kept laughing.
No one noticed the lone figure approaching from the road to the settlement—black hair, green eyes, a crimson arm covered in scales.
Rin had descended from the volcano.
The guards were nearly upon them when slow, deliberate footsteps echoed from the same road.
Everyone turned.
A man with black hair, green eyes, and a dark crimson, scaled arm approached.
Silva recognized him instantly.
"Rin...?"
The Lord's expression shifted. His arrogance vanished for a heartbeat, replaced by disbelief.
He knew that face. Older now. Sharper. Stronger.
The Lord pointed at him.
"You—!"
Rin stopped.
The Lord's eyes widened. "How is this unlucky child still alive?!"
The words dredged up memories the Lord had long buried.
Years ago, Rin had lived here with his parents. His father was an ordinary man until the war against the Dune Empire began. Like countless others, he was conscripted into the Dacian army and sent to fight.
He never came back.
Years later, word arrived: Rin's father had died in battle.
The Dacian Kingdom sent compensation to support the family he left behind—a widow and her young son.
But the money never reached them.
The Lord had taken it.
To him, it was just another pouch of gold disappearing into his treasury.
To Rin's family, it was everything.
Without her husband and with nothing to keep them afloat, Rin's mother fell into despair. Her health declined until, eventually, she died too.
Rin was left alone. Instead of helping the orphan, the villagers whispered.
His father had gone to war and died. His mother had followed soon after. Misfortune seemed to cling to him. They began calling him the Unlucky Child. The Lord encouraged the rumor—it was convenient.
If Rin disappeared, no one would ever question what happened to the money meant for his family.
Eventually, Rin was driven from the village. But even that wasn't enough. The Lord had secretly sent a man after him with orders to make certain—
Rin strode forward.
"Stop!"
Several guards lowered their weapons, but he kept walking.
"I said stop!" the Lord bellowed. Rin didn't even glance his way.
The guards hesitated—something about him made none of them want to be the first to strike.
He passed between them and reached Rose, crouching beside her. His fingers brushed her neck; her breathing was dangerously faint. His green eyes narrowed.
"What happened?"
Silva pointed straight at the Lord. "He attacked her from behind."
Rin finally looked at him, and a chill ran down the Lord's spine. For a brief moment, neither spoke: the corrupt man who had destroyed a family, and the child who should have died years ago.
Rin looked away—not from fear, but because the Lord simply wasn't important right now. He slid one arm beneath Rose and lifted her with ease, holding her close despite having only one arm.
The Lord snapped out of his shock. "Where do you think you're going?!"
Rin ignored him. "Follow me."
Silva, June, and Julie stared. "Can you save her?" Silva asked.
Rin glanced at Rose, her life hanging by a thread, then toward the looming volcano. "I can try."
"You think you can just walk away?! Guards! Arrest them!" the Lord roared. No one moved.
"DIDN'T YOU HEAR ME?!" Still, the guards stayed frozen.
Rin started walking, Silva right behind him, with June and Julie hurrying to keep up.
The Lord's face burned with humiliation. First Rose defied him—now the child he'd once condemned was doing the same.
"Stop right there!"
Rin stopped for the first time. The Lord swallowed as those green eyes turned toward him—eyes holding no fear, no surprise, not even hate. Only recognition.
Rin carried Rose up the mountain without saying a word.
Her breathing was shallow now, and the comforting heat of her fire aura was fading fast. Silva, June, and Julie followed as long as they could, but soon the sweltering air forced them to stop.
Rin pressed on alone. He climbed past the well-worn trails of miners and travelers, heading for the volcanic summit he had long protected. Hidden deep within the mountain lay a secret cavern, untouched by the outside world. Rivers of molten rock trickled through the walls, pooling around a small black altar of volcanic stone. Hovering above it was a single flame—small next to the surrounding inferno, yet strangely alive. Red and gold danced together in its glow, sometimes forming the faint outline of wings before folding back into fire. Rin stood in silence, watching.
This was what he had guarded all this time.
Not treasure.
Not some rare ember of ore.
It was the Phoenix Spark—the last trace of a long-lost kin.
The final remnant of the Phoenix.
Rin set Rose gently on the stone floor before stepping toward the flame. He had kept watch over it for years, never entirely sure why. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe some distant echo of Blaze still remembered the creature whose power burned within that fire.
But now, Rose was slipping away.
Rin reached into the flames.
The Phoenix Spark wrapped itself around his scaled arm without burning him. For a moment, it resisted being moved.
The flame suddenly flared, and Rin's green eyes narrowed. The Spark slipped from his hand on its own, streaking toward Rose. Golden fire wrapped around her, lifting her slowly into the air as spirals of heat danced around her. Beneath the blaze, her wounds knit together—torn flesh healed, shattered bones reformed, and every trace of the City Lord's attack was burned away. Yet the Phoenix Spark didn't just save her—it transformed her.
Fire mana poured into Rose faster than her body could contain it. Her aura shattered through its previous limits as the Phoenix's remaining power transformed her from within.
The mountain shook violently, then—silence. The flames disappeared, and Rose drifted down, landing softly on the volcanic stone. Her eyes opened as power coursed through her—Aura Master Stage, Third Level. She gaped at her hands, feeling the change instantly: her body stronger, her fire aura sharper, and wounds that should've ended her life now completely gone. Then she realized—the altar's flame was missing.
Turning to Rin, she said, "You saved my life."
He didn't look at her, still facing the empty altar. "No. The Spark chose you," he replied, his tone devoid of the satisfaction she'd expected.
For years, the cavern had given Rin a sense of purpose. The Phoenix Spark was a relic from a time he could barely recall, a link to beings long gone before his current life began.
Now, even that was gone. Lowering his scaled arm, he said, "I only brought you here." Rose glanced at the empty altar and finally understood his distance.
Rin had let go of the one thing he'd guarded for years, yet wouldn't even accept her thanks. "There's nothing for me here now," he murmured, turning toward the cavern's entrance. "You may leave." Rose stayed where she was.
For the first time since meeting the strange man in the volcano, she didn't see an obstacle to her ambitions, but someone who had surrendered his last treasure—and walked away as if it meant nothing.
Rin said nothing as he stood at the cavern's mouth, gazing out over the burning mountain. Behind him, the place where the Phoenix Spark had blazed for years now lay in darkness.
For the first time in ages, he thought of the life he'd lived before Blaze awoke within him—before the scales, before the volcano. Back then, he had simply been a boy. His earliest memories were of his mother; it had always been just the two of them. His father was seldom home, sent away to fight for the Dacian Kingdom. Rin remembered waiting for him, listening to returning soldiers and hoping one would bring his father back.
Eventually, news came of his father's death in battle for the kingdom. His mother never really recovered. She kept working, feeding Rin, and smiling whenever he looked at her, though those smiles grew weaker over time. Without his father, life became tougher—money vanished quickly, and the promised compensation for fallen soldiers' families never arrived. She worked until exhaustion became routine. Grief slowly took what hardship hadn't already claimed. Then one morning, when Rin was still too young to fully grasp death, his mother couldn't get out of bed.
He remembered sitting next to her, her hand oddly cold in his. She gazed at him with weary eyes.
"I'm sorry, Rin."
Those words stuck with him—not advice, not some deep final wish, just an apology from a mother who believed she was leaving her child behind.
Then she was gone, and Rin was alone. The villagers' sympathy didn't last. Misfortune seemed to cling to him—his father gone, his mother soon after. Crops near his home withered, accidents happened, and it was easier for fearful people to blame the orphan who had no one left to speak for him.
First, they called him unlucky. Then cursed. Eventually, the village lord decided Rin had no reason to stay. The son of a fallen soldier was cast out from the same village his father had died defending. With nowhere to go, Rin wandered beyond its borders until a man spotted him on the road. Rin never knew if the man wanted his few belongings or just saw an abandoned child as easy prey. All he remembered was running—running until his legs burned, straight toward the one place everyone else feared: the volcano.
He climbed, unsure where the path would lead. Heat seared his lungs, sharp rocks tore at his hands and feet, but fear drove him higher.
Eventually, he stumbled into a cavern—where he saw it: a lone flame in the darkness. The Phoenix Spark. Rin had never seen anything so beautiful. As he stepped closer, the fire mana within the mountain shifted. Flames leaned toward him, molten rock quaked, and streams of mana swirled around the trembling boy until the cavern became an inferno.
Something ancient stirred within his soul, and strange memories flooded his mind—vast wings shadowing the sky, mountains swallowed by fire, beasts long forgotten. One name echoed among them: Blaze, the Fire Dragon. When he opened his eyes, part of his arm had transformed, dark crimson scales glinting, the deadly heat now no more than gentle warmth. That day, Rin stopped being ordinary. But the Phoenix Spark remained, and so he stayed—perhaps because, at first, he had nowhere else to go.
Later, because protecting it became the only purpose he understood.
Years passed.
The frightened orphan became the strange man people whispered about. Travelers told stories about something living inside the volcano. The villagers who had once called him cursed eventually feared approaching the mountain at all.
Rin could have gone back. With Blaze awakened inside him, the Lord who once drove him away was no longer someone to fear. He could have taken revenge, but he didn't. What would it change? His father would still be gone. His mother would still be lost. Punishing the Lord wouldn't erase his last memory of her apologizing. So Rin stayed on the mountain, watching over the Spark, protecting it—day after day, year after year—until Rose appeared.
He glanced into the cavern. The altar stood empty. The Phoenix Spark had chosen Rose, using the last of its strength to save her. He didn't regret it, yet there was an emptiness inside him. For so long, he thought he'd been protecting the Spark. Only now did he see—it had been protecting him, giving an abandoned child a place to belong, something to wake up for.
Now it was gone. Rin looked at his crimson-scaled arm. Blaze remained. The power remained. The memories remained. But his purpose was gone. For the first time since arriving here as a frightened child, he had nothing waiting for him tomorrow. No parents. No home. No Spark to guard.
Rin stared across the horizon. He had spent years safeguarding the last remnant of another's existence. Now he had to find what was left of his own.