—Flashback: 6 Years Ago—
Darkness.
That was his world.
Not the peaceful, empty kind. This was the suffocating, wet, unrelenting darkness of a cell carved into the heart of a volcano—The Ashen Womb, the Fire Dragons' oldest prison.
Solace hung from molten shackles fused into the walls, his arms stretched overhead, his body riddled with fresh burns and old scars. His feet never touched the floor. Mana in the air was toxic laced with volcanic ash, meant to corrode the core slowly over time.
And worse—his recursion wouldn't let him die.
"You're healing again," one of the guards sneered, dragging a hooked brand from a vat of white-hot coals. "Let's try something deeper."
They branded not just his skin, but his mana channels. They inserted burning rods into his limbs, ruptured tendons, ignited nerves. When he adapted—when his body started resisting fire—they changed tactics.
Acid.
Sonic bursts.
Draconic soulflame, a rare torture meant to burn one's spirit directly.
His recursion would adapt. Evolve. Build resistance. Reconstruct his nervous system.
And then, the cycle would begin again—more brutal, more calculated.
They flooded him with mana, then drained him dry.
They shattered his bones and let them regrow incorrectly, only to break them again.
They whispered to him.
"No one is coming."
"They gave you up."
"Even your wife chose silence."
And he believed it.
Until one day, in the silence between screams, Solace felt something awaken.
A piece of him that had not been born yet.
It didn't scream. It didn't cry.
It watched.
And it remembered everything.
—Present: Above Solara—
The last wave of defenders had fallen. Flames still curled around the ruins of the kingdom's outer districts, and Solace stood at the heart of it, his blade still steaming with residual space-burn.
He wasn't breathing hard. He didn't need to.
His recursion had made sure of that.
A void had opened within him—and from that void, he drew stillness.
Gaia remained in the air nearby, her expression unreadable. Whether she would intervene or not remained unknown.
Then—a ripple.
Space quivered. Light shimmered unnaturally.
Two figures appeared from a golden portal shaped like a sunburst.
They descended in silence, cloaked in regalia that hummed with divine inscriptions. Their presence struck the air like an ancient gong.
The King and Queen of Solara had arrived.
The King's armor was made of Solarite, a metal said to have devoured a sun. His aura was scorching, yet clean—his core pulsing with controlled fury.
The Queen wore flowing robes woven from celestial thread—her affinity a perfect blend of Light and Order. She radiated serenity and authority.
Solace's eyes narrowed.
"Finally."
The Queen spoke first.
"Solace... we never expected to see you again."
His voice was calm, but his tone dripped with venom.
"You didn't want to."
The King stepped forward, voice like thunder.
"You've killed our sons. You've slaughtered our people. Why?"
Solace looked at him, as if the answer was obvious.
"Because you let them feed me to the Dragons."
A pause.
The King's jaw clenched.
"We had no choice. Things were too unstable."
Solace smiled again—but this one lacked humor.
"Then let me show you what unstable really looks like."
He raised his blade.
The Queen's eyes hardened. The King's aura surged.
And just like that, the air cracked—
—and the real fight began.
The skies above Solara crackled with pressure. The wind didn't blow—it was shoved aside by the spiritual weight of the three beings suspended in the air.
Solace hovered alone, blade gleaming with residual voidfire.
Before him stood the King and Queen of Solara, the final line of royal defense—both of them Core Realm cultivators, trained not in survival, but in dominion.
They moved first.
|Solar Flare Spear|
The King's hand ignited, and a radiant spear formed—composed not of simple flame, but of condensed Solar Law. It radiated heat so intense the air screamed.
He hurled it with godlike speed.
Solace moved to dodge—too slow.
BOOM!
The spear struck and exploded in a burst of gravity-bound fire, warping space around it. Solace was flung backward, crashing into one of the few remaining towers. Stone and ash collapsed around him.
Before he could rise, the Queen acted.
|Verdict of Order|
She drew a silvery disc from her side—an artifact of immense power. It hovered before her, pulsing with runes of ancient law.
She spoke a single word.
"Judged."
Chains of light erupted from the disc, binding Solace's limbs mid-air and dragging him upward toward a blinding seal overhead.
"Shit."
He felt his core tightening—constricted by celestial law. His own mana flow began to collapse, unraveling in real time.
The Queen floated upward, her tone still calm.
"You wield great power, Solace. But raw mana and vengeance are no match for order."
The King appeared beside her.
"Submit. Or be dismantled."
Solace's body trembled—not from fear, but from adaptation. Inside him, his recursion churned. The algorithm of his bloodline processed the spells, the timing, the damage.
Then, slowly—he grinned.
"You're the first people I've fought who could actually kill me."
And then—
SNAP.
The chains of light shattered.
Solace dropped downward, twisting midair and landing on his feet. White Flames surged across his body—not from mana, but from will. His muscles tore and rewove. His blood vessels reshaped.
He rushed forward, parrying the King's second Solar Spear with a blast of spatial compression, then ducked beneath a strike of divine light from the Queen.
Each move they made, he learned.
Each technique they used, his recursion dissected.
But the pressure was growing. Wounds were reopening faster than they could heal. Their coordination was flawless, ancient.
[Bloodline response initializing.]
Then—
[Bloodline Perk Unlocked: ECHO.]
Time slowed.
No—he slowed it.
And yet, another version of him stepped out of his body. A translucent figure, a second Solace—a moment from the past, born into the now.
This version repeated his last movement.
SLASH!
The King was caught off-guard. Solace struck, then the Echo followed with a mirrored strike half a second later—double impact.
He spun, kicking the Queen backward, only for the Echo to appear behind her and deliver a follow-up strike before she could counter.
Their coordination shattered. Their flow, disrupted.
Solace's eyes gleamed with power—and clarity.
"I see it now…"
His breathing evened. His stance shifted—not desperate, but refined.
He vanished—reappeared beside the King—sliced through a shoulder.
"Solar Plate Fractured."
He reappeared above the Queen—drove his blade down.
"Order Seal Cracked."
Both staggered back, blood staining their regal forms.
And then, Solace raised his blade to the sky.
"Where is Seraphina?"
The Queen clutched her side, eyes narrowed. "You dare—"
"Where. Is. She."
Neither answered.
Solace exhaled—his Echo emerging again behind him, flickering in sync.
He turned to the burning city below.
"Then you can watch as your kingdom dies."