The flames of Vel'Tharon lit the horizon like a second sun. Screams and steel clashed below a sky split open by stormclouds and artillery fire. The final battle had come.
On one side, the Flameheart Legion, with their scorched sails and fire-bending warpriests, loyal to their burning sovereign. On the other, the united rebellion — pirates, outlaws, broken kingdoms, former slaves, and forgotten nations — rallying behind one name: Raizen.
And at the center of it all stood the colossus: Flameheart Drax.
Clad in living magma, his body fused with the heart of a Flame Titan, Drax stood atop the ruined citadel of Vel'Tharon like a god of wrath. The air warped around him. Each step cracked the stone. His crown burned with cursed embers — the last relic of the Crown of Shadows, now twisted into a weapon of rage.
Below him, Raizen climbed the scorched tower alone.
His crew fought in the chaos below: Zuri cutting a path through a squad of fire-bound zealots, Juno turning warships against each other with stolen codes, Varro shielding rebels with electrified walls. But this final ascent — this fight — was Raizen's alone.
As Raizen reached the top, wind and ash whipping around him, Drax turned.
"You've come to watch your world burn?" the warlord asked, his voice like a furnace. "Or to kneel before the truth you feared?"
"I've come," Raizen said, drawing the twin blades of Koba and Zuri's fallen brother, "to end your lie."
The duel began in fire.
Drax struck like a volcano. Each blow split stone, melted steel. Raizen dodged, weaved, countered — not with brute strength, but precision, fury honed by every loss he had endured. Fire licked his coat. His blades steamed from the heat.
They fought atop the dying heart of Vel'Tharon, each clash echoing like a war drum across the battlefield. Raizen's sword met Drax's flaming gauntlet, sparks igniting midair. Lightning met fire, wind met ash. Above them, the sky cried thunder.
But Raizen was more than a swordsman now.
He was rebellion given form. He moved with the memory of every fallen comrade, every freed slave, every kingdom crushed and rebuilt. His will burned brighter than the fires that had consumed the world.
And at last — he broke through.
With a scream of effort, Raizen drove his blade into the crystal embedded in Drax's chest — the Crown Core. Flame burst out, wild and white-hot — then died.
Drax stumbled.
Smoke rose from his mouth. He fell to his knees.
But before he died, he smiled.
"You think this ends with me?" Drax rasped. "You think I was the storm?"
Raizen stepped closer, blade trembling in his hand. "Then what are you?"
"I was the fuse," Drax whispered. "The world... was always meant to burn."
And with that, the warlord collapsed. The fires receded. The battle outside slowed, then stopped.
Vel'Tharon fell silent.
Cheers broke out. Raizen's crew stormed the citadel. Prisoners were freed. Flags were raised. Across the world, the message spread: Drax is dead.
The rebellion had won.
But peace didn't come.
Because beneath the ruined throne of Vel'Tharon, Raizen found something older than Drax — a vault sealed with shadow-wrought chains, marked in a language older than the World Government itself.
Inside, a single phrase was etched in obsidian:
"The Warborn King was merely the herald."
"The Deep Flame stirs."
Raizen's heart went cold.
Drax had not been the master — only the messenger.
And beyond the horizon, beyond even the reach of the World Government, something darker moved. Something ancient. Something waiting.
As the seas began to calm and the rebellion licked its wounds, Raizen stood at the edge of the citadel, wind blowing through the ashes, watching the dawn rise.
Not in triumph.
But in warning.
Because the true war… was just beginning.
END OF THE CHAPTER15