The violet desert stretched without horizon—dunes of shimmering ash under a cracked, dying sky. The wind carried no sound, only the static echo of a world between deaths.
The survivors sat in a circle of broken pillars. Maya's aura flickered like the last light of a star, each pulse weaker than the last. Jessica stared at her missing arm, wordless. Valgor scraped his stone-like knuckles against black shards to sharpen them. Salah mapped invisible lines into the sand with his finger. Eden whispered prayers no one could hear.
And at the center, Lacolone meditated—legs crossed, katana floating upright behind him, humming softly in rhythm with his breath.
"In exile, silence pressed heavier than scars."
Maya rose into the air, threads of starlight weaving from her hands toward her fallen friends. The strands connected to each of them—Valgor's chest, Jessica's shoulder, Eden's heart. She whispered words from the dimension beyond life, syllables that trembled like the language of creation itself.
Their soul scars began to knit shut, light seeping into broken veins and cracked auras. Eden's barrier stabilized, glowing faintly blue. Jessica's stump sealed with luminous new skin that glowed faintly, both scarlet and white.
"Healing meant remembering."
But as Maya healed, she saw flashes—visions of another world, a red ocean beneath twin suns, Lacolone dying in her arms, whispering a name she could no longer remember. She gasped, tears streaming even as she chanted.
"We've been here before… just different walls."
Lacolone opened his eyes, meeting hers. "Then this time we don't die."
"Memory became their compass."
Valgor dragged his blade-fist across the sand, drawing a circle. Inside it, he carved five sigils—the Pillars: Riftquake, Driftform, Whispercall, Veilward, and Thunderbrand. "We'll cycle them all. Even Driftform," he said. "No one gets to rest."
Jessica balanced her pistol in her remaining hand, fusing Valgor's lightning energy into its chamber. Salah meditated, his Whispercall stretching beyond sight, mapping echoes through the dunes.
Lacolone stood at the circle's center, aura growing until scarlet-white flame haloed him.
"They would weaponize their pain."
Night fell, the stars above streaking red across the horizon like bleeding veins. Lacolone whispered, "He took everything from me twice…" His blade vibrated in answer, eager.
Across the firelight, Maya watched in silence. Valgor heard and growled, "Then make him pay threefold."
"Resolve thickened like blood."
Eden drew five overlapping circles in the sand. "Power isn't enough. Balance is."
"But the King bends balance," Salah countered.
"Then we tilt the axis," Maya said softly.
"Or break it," Jessica muttered, loading her pistol.
"The Pillars became a language of rebellion."
The wind shifted. Phantom silhouettes emerged from the dunes—faded forms of fallen Saints, drawn to their training.
"Training here calls them," Maya warned.
Valgor cracked his neck. "Then we spar with ghosts."
Lacolone's blade flashed once, dispersing a spirit into ash. Jessica fired, her bullet splitting another in two.
"Even their practice was war."
Suddenly Salah froze. "Wait." He pressed an ear to the ground. The sand itself hummed. Beneath it—a tone, low and infinite. The Whispercall translated it into light in his mind: a sigil.
Eden traced it in the air, decoding. Maya's eyes widened. "That's the last gate."
"The desert itself was a map."
They trained harder. Valgor's punches shattered obsidian boulders. Jessica's bullets rode his shockwaves like thunder serpents. Salah blinked through Driftform, phasing between attacks. Maya stabilized their burning souls mid-combat.
And Lacolone—he stood in the storm's heart, absorbing every Pillar into his core until his body pulsed with alternating red and white flame.
"They became more than students. They became a storm."
A ripple disturbed the air atop a dune. The boy appeared again—the one with twin ancient knives.
"Interesting," he said with a smirk. "You're not dead yet."
Lacolone met his gaze. "We'll come to your master soon."
"Come stronger," the kid said, knives humming with scarlet resonance. "He doesn't tolerate weak souls."
"He was a living invitation and a threat."
He flicked one knife into the sand; a scarlet hologram burst upward—an enormous door, encircled by seven rotating gears of crimson energy.
"He waits here," the boy said.
Jessica muttered, "A cathedral made of hell…"
Valgor grinned. "Then we burn it down."
"The Seventh Gate loomed like a god's pupil."
Eden stepped forward. "Why follow a monster?"
The boy chuckled. "Because you call him monster. He calls himself surgeon."
Maya flinched—Elito's voice echoed faintly in his tone. Lacolone stepped between them, his silence more dangerous than rage. Salah whispered, "Then we end the surgery."
"Words became blades."
As they prepared, Maya's aura swelled until it became a dome of starlight around their camp. Within it, their souls synced—breathing, pulsing, fighting as one. Her eyes burned twin hues of red and white.
"I can pull you back even from death now," she whispered.
Jessica smirked. "Let's hope you won't have to."
"She became their anchor."
During meditation, Lacolone saw visions—the Scarlet King seated upon a throne of bones, seven gates arching behind him like a spine of godhood. A voice whispered from nowhere: "You can't cut what you are."
His blade fractured, then reformed in scarlet-white light. He gasped awake, sweat pouring down his face. Maya turned instantly, feeling it through their link.
"Prophecy sharpened the blade."
They stood at the desert's edge, a scarlet aurora tearing across the sky. Jessica strapped her pistol to her thigh. Valgor cracked his neck. Salah drew a final sigil in the sand.
"We go," Valgor said, "or we die here."
Lacolone lifted his sword. "We fight together—or not at all."
"The Seventh Gate called."
Then the world opened. A colossal scarlet eye formed in the sky, its gaze so heavy the dunes lifted into orbit. Maya's aura shielded them from the pull. The kid appeared once more, pointing his knife toward the storm. "Step in."
Eden swallowed hard but nodded. Lacolone stepped forward first.
"Their path narrowed to a single pulse of red."
Inside, the Gate was a cathedral of inverted pillars and blood-glass stairs. The air was cold enough to burn. Jessica's breath fogged. Valgor's fists sparked blue. Salah's Whispercall heard thousands of heartbeats beating in unison.
Maya whispered, "He's waiting."
"They entered the King's lung."
And then—
A vast arena. Seven thrones carved from fossilized saints surrounded them. At the center, a scarlet vortex pulsed downward into eternity. From the depths below, a silhouette stirred—a body of shifting light and flesh, wearing the Crown of Runic Fire.
The Scarlet King.
"Beyond this pit, the King's heart beats.
Step too far, and the heart beats back."