The Spiral Ascendant remained bowed.
Motionless.
Even the wind seemed to hold its breath. The other Spiral-Bound—those half-rotted husks with stitched skin and ritual masks—knelt in perfect, disturbing unison around the ruins of the tower. Their bodies did not twitch, did not breathe. They were not bound by life, but by something older.
Lira shifted beside me, her voice barely more than a breath."What are they waiting for?"
I stared at the bowed Ascendant and the ceremonial circle around him."They're not waiting," I said. "They're acknowledging."
Me.
I stepped forward.
Each footfall stirred the ash carpeting the temple floor, releasing a faint shimmer of heat. Crumbled bones lay half-buried under stone tiles. Charred roots curled up from cracks like grasping fingers.
A rune flared beneath my boot.
[System Notice: Forgotten Ritual Circle Reactivated][Host Detected – Soulkindled Flame Confirmed][Authority Node Reactivation: 23%...]
The Spiral Ascendant raised its head.
Not aggressively.
Reverently.
I expected rage. A challenge. But what I saw behind that spiral-engraved mask… was grief. Etched deep. Endless.
Then a voice echoed—not through air, but through the system interface itself, laced with forgotten command lines and ancestral permissions.
"You bear the wound that broke the sky," it rasped."You carry her burden. You reignite her flame."
"Seluriel," I said aloud. "You knew her."
"I was her final guard," the voice said. "The last to break. The first to kneel. When she burned the Spiral Mind, I was the one who held her corpse… and sealed her memory away."
Emotion surged—foreign, painful. Not my own. An echo of someone else's sorrow bleeding into me.
"They erased her," I said. "Even her story."
"No," the Ascendant whispered. "They tried."
And the ground trembled as the ritual circle beneath us ignited.
Memory surged like wildfire.
Seluriel, cloaked in silver flame, facing down the High Priests. The spiral moon twisted overhead, turned inside out by ritual corruption. Her followers screaming as they were consumed—not by her—but by the very faith they once served.
A crown of ash. A sword of dying names. A scream swallowed by silence.
And then: stillness.
She had fallen here. Not in hatred. But in defiance.
The system flared again.
[Class Awakening Opportunity Detected][Soulkindled Flame: Resonance Threshold Surpassed]Available Class Pathways:— [Ash Reclaimer] (Uncommon – Hybrid)— [Flamebound Revenant] (Rare – Tank/Survivor)— [Spiral Inheritor] (Mythic – Flame/Authority Hybrid)
'Mythic...?'
Each option pulsed with possibility. But only one matched what I had seen—what I had inherited.
"Spiral Inheritor," I whispered.
[Class Confirmed – Spiral Inheritor]You have accepted the burden of a forgotten flame.
You are no longer bound to silence. You are a vessel of a flame that was meant to be extinguished. You are the beginning of remembrance.
Bonuses Gained:• Spiral Flame Affinity Unlocked• Passive Skill Gained: [Burning Memory – Rank C]• Active Skill Gained: [Moonbrand – Rank B]• Authority over Spiral-Bound Minions: Minor• Resistance to Ritual Influence: Moderate
[Status Updated – Class: Spiral Inheritor | Level 5]
Lira gasped softly as I turned to her. "Your eyes…"
"They burn?" I asked.
She nodded."Silver… with a spiral at the center."
I looked at the Spiral Ascendant.
It lowered its blade, not in submission—but in solemn vow.
"I am no longer your master," it said, tone deeper now. "I am your witness."
It reached down and placed a black crown—one forged of ash and flame—into the circle before me.
"Your reign begins with the truth."
Then it vanished. Not in flame. Not in dust.
In memory.
The rest of the Spiral-Bound slowly rose, one by one, and turned—walking back into the forest, dispersing into shadow and mist like mourning ghosts dismissed from their vigil.
Only silence remained.
No threat.
No war cry.
Just the deep knowledge that I had become something they had not expected.
I stood at the center of the ritual circle, holding the black crown in my hands.
It was cracked.
Incomplete.
And yet… it pulsed with warmth.
A piece of Seluriel. A piece of the flame.
"Let's move," I said.
Lira stared at the crown, then nodded."Where now?"
I looked beyond the ruined tower—where an old path sloped downward, buried in roots.
"Deeper," I said. "To the Temple. If they tried to bury the flame… then that's where the truth still burns."