When the grey sky dimmed, I found myself standing on a ground of cracked mirrors.
Every step I took echoed deeply — as if the world was trying to remember its own voice through me.
The air wasn't air anymore; it was transparent ash, breathing slowly with the pulse of the earth.
In the distance, something moved — a colossal statue rising from the dust.
It towered higher than mountains, its body made of compressed ash, split by glowing crimson cracks.
And its eyes… weren't eyes, but molten fire pits staring straight into me.
> "The First Heir…"
Its voice wasn't heard — it vibrated inside me.
"You rose from the Sea of Ash un-erased.
But the question is not who you are — it's to whom you now belong."
I didn't reply.
I could barely breathe, for every word it spoke struck my soul like a hammer.
> "Do you know what it means to carry the names of the dead within your blood?"
It stepped forward, shaking the land beneath it.
"It means you owe them every fire that burns after you."
I lifted my head. The tattoos on my body began to glow on their own.
The ash around me swirled, gathering behind me like wings of black flame.
> "I owe no one," I said calmly, my voice like lightning before a storm.
"I am the one who gave the fire its name back."
The Guardian raised its hand — the sky turned crimson ash,
and circles of fire opened around us like watching eyes.
> "Then prove it, child of the First Flame."
At that moment, something shifted in my mind —
my sight changed; the world began to see itself through me.
That was the first awakening of the Ash Eye —
the heir's power to see the fiery truth within all things.
I saw that the Guardian's body wasn't made only of ash,
but of compressed souls, screaming in silence,
begging for release for millennia.
He wasn't my enemy — he was a test.
I reached out my hand and spoke from the depths of my inner black fire:
> "I will not fight you… I will free you."
A burst of black light erupted from my palm,
piercing the Guardian's body,
turning his ash to dust,
and releasing faces of grey light that rose into the sky whispering my name.
> "The true heir restores balance through fire… not blood."
When the last fragment fell,
his fading voice echoed through the wind:
> "Go forth… for the Third World awaits —
where fire no longer burns… but defies the light itself."