The voice of his lost beloved steadied him, if only for a moment. Cyrus rose, trembling but upright, the shard of Sorrow dim against the endless wasteland sky.
Then the air shifted. Heat surged across the cracked ground, and the horizon itself seemed to bleed fire. From the ash emerged another figure — not twisted like the Remnants, but neither bound in light like the chained woman. This one walked freely, flames trailing from each step, his body wrapped in molten scars.
Where Cyrus carried silence, this one carried fury.
Their eyes met, and the stranger's voice thundered like a war-drum. "You are not the only vessel, wanderer. The world is not built on sorrow alone."
In his hand burned another shard, but its glow was crimson, violent, alive with rage. It seared the air, and even from a distance, Cyrus felt its heat claw at his chest.
"Wrath," the man declared, raising the shard. "The second Sentiment. The fire of betrayal, of vengeance, of every injustice that demands blood."
He swung his blade — a weapon of flame and fury — and the wasteland itself cracked. Cyrus staggered, shielded only by the flickering strength of his own sorrow.
The stranger's voice roared again. "I am its bearer, and I do not walk to remember. I walk to burn. Those who wronged us will suffer, and through suffering, we will find justice!"
Cyrus's grip tightened on his shard. He felt the pull — the temptation of Wrath. To surrender sorrow for anger, to turn his grief into fire and let the world burn in answer.
But the woman's golden eyes flashed again in his memory. Not a chain. A blade.
The stranger smirked, sensing his hesitation. "Choose, wanderer. Will you carry sorrow like a crippled beast… or will you wield wrath, and strike the world as it deserves?"
Cyrus's silence was his only answer. His path had crossed with Wrath — and the war of Sentiments had truly begun.