Snow drifted in lazy spirals, blanketing the rugged peaks of the Arondale mountain range in cold silence.
Death stood alone at the crest of a ridge, his black cloak unmoving despite the wind, his presence like a wound in the world itself.
In the far distance rose the great walls of Carthage, their pale stone faintly aglow under the faint winter light. His gaze lingered on them, but it was not the city that held his thoughts.
Inside him, the itch kept burning. It was an ever present pain that gnawed endlessly at his soul, the same unbearable craving that had driven countless powerhouses before him into madness.
The itch that only the Primordial Flame could soothe. His fingers flexed at his sides as if clenching invisible chains.
'Soon,' he thought. Soon, it would be his.
Something shifted at the edge of his aura. He felt it at once, the brush of another presence entering the absolute silence that was his domain.
