Chapter 16
The journey to Tir Envala was not mapped, because no maps dared to name what no longer existed.
Centuries ago, it had been a cradle of celestial learning — a city built atop the Skyroot Tree, where the roots held the bones of the First Mages and the leaves touched the stars. But during the Third Godfall, it vanished from history. The world claimed it had fallen into the sea.
That was a lie.
Nezutsu now knew: lies were the world's only defense against the truth he carried.
A March Through the Dead Winds
The terrain beyond Varellen Hollow was known as the Dead Winds — a land of still air, dried blood rivers, and howling echoes that repeated your deepest regrets in a stranger's voice.
"I hate this place," Velgrim muttered, slapping away the ash-bugs that kept circling his sword.
"It's not real," Kaelith reminded him. "The winds feed off the cracks in your will. Ignore them."
"Easier said when they're not whispering your dead brother's name."
Nezutsu walked ahead in silence. He was different now.
Since the battle, the violet fire no longer needed summoning. It followed him — like an afterimage burned into reality. Animals avoided him. Shadows tilted unnaturally. Even the air seemed to shift around his body like it feared to offend.
But none of it mattered. Not now.
In his hand, he held the obsidian key.And ahead lay the ruins of a city that had once ruled the heavens.
The Gates of Envala
Tir Envala had not fallen. It had folded.
The ruins were built inside the corpse of the Skyroot Tree — its bark now obsidian, its roots twisted into cathedrals, its branches reaching into the void like petrified limbs.
The gates weren't doors. They were memories.
"This isn't a city," Nezutsu muttered, standing at the threshold. "It's a… grave."
Kaelith placed a hand over his chest. "No. It's your birthplace."
Velgrim placed the key into the altar.
It melted into light, spreading across the ruin like veins reawakening after frost.
A whisper rode the wind.
"Nezutsu…"
He turned, but no one had spoken.
"It knows I'm here," he whispered.
"Or perhaps," Kaelith said, "it never forgot."
The Throne of Dust
At the heart of Tir Envala was a throne — not of gold or steel, but dust. It hovered inches above the ground, held together by strands of time, impossible to age or destroy.
Carved on its back were the words:
"Let the one with no flame inherit the last."
Nezutsu approached it.
The air screamed.
Time resisted.
And the moment he touched the throne—
—he remembered.
The Shard Within
He wasn't born in a village.
He wasn't found.
He was forged in this very city — in the fires beneath the Skyroot's core, where the last of the Celestarchs shattered their own souls to create the Sovereign Flame, a power that defied all laws of magic.
They split it into seven.
Six were hidden across the world.
The seventh… was placed inside a vessel made to be invisible to all forms of magic.A vessel with no mana.No presence.
A void.
That void was Nezutsu.
He was the Final Seal.
Not a boy. Not a man. But a shard of something greater—the last ember of a god the world was too afraid to remember.
When he opened his eyes, he was kneeling. Tears poured down his face, unbidden.
"What… am I?"
Kaelith knelt beside him.
"You're not who they told you you were. But you're still you. The boy who never gave up. Who fought for answers."
Velgrim stood quietly behind.
"You're a mirror shard of the Ash Sovereign. And the Council… will stop at nothing now."
The Gathering Storm
From the skies above Tir Envala, a roar thundered. Storm clouds turned black. And from the shadows, hundreds of Soulbrands — the Council's elite assassins — descended like vultures.
Kaelith drew both blades.
"They sent them all. They're going to wipe this city again."
Velgrim cracked his neck.
"We don't have to win. Just survive."
Nezutsu rose, violet fire erupting around him like a solar flare.
"We'll do more than survive."
He turned to the throne.
It hovered, pulsing with ancient resonance.
He stepped into it.
The moment he sat — the earth trembled. The Skyroot Tree screamed.
Above them, the clouds split open again, revealing the Eye — larger now. Closer.
But something else awakened below. Deep beneath the roots, something began to stir.
A heartbeat. Not his.
The Ash Sovereign was beginning to remember him, too.
The Oath of Embers
As the first Soulbrand leapt forward, Nezutsu raised his hand.
No spell.
No chant.
Just one word:
"Remember."
And the entire city responded.
Old flames ignited.
Statues wept blood.
And behind Nezutsu, seven seals burned into the air, each shaped like a different ancient rune.
Velgrim whispered in awe.
"He's not unlocking magic…"
Kaelith's voice was trembling.
"He's unlocking himself."
And as Nezutsu stood once more, the throne dissolving behind him into a storm of embers, he spoke the words not written for centuries:
"I am the Forgotten Flame.The Will That Was Buried.The Fire That Won't Fade."
The storm fell silent.
The Soulbrands paused.
The sky burned.
And somewhere in the distance, in a temple not yet revealed, the voice of the Ash Sovereign echoed once more:
"He remembers."
[TO BE CONTINUED…]