The Fourth Flame didn't just burn.
It cracked.
Heat surged behind my eyes—too much, too fast—like rivers of molten stone tearing through my skull.
The world slowed.
No—
It didn't slow.
It fractured.
Every bandit became pieces. Broken motion. Exposed joints. Weak points laid bare as if the world itself wanted them dead.
My body moved on its own.
Faster than thought.
The second bandit never saw my hand.
My blade tore through his arm like brittle wood and drove upward—through his jaw.
He was still standing when I was already gone.
The third turned—
Too slow.
My blade opened his throat before his eyes could widen.
Two more lunged. Spears shaking.
I stepped between them.
One strike—clean.
The other—
My fist crushed his face inward with a dull crack.
As their bodies hit the ground, I heard the sound of the bowstring being drawn.
Too close.
Too many.
My eyes found them.
They weren't panicking.
These weren't amateurs.
They were waiting for an opening.
…Can I take them all?
No—
Can I control Fourth Flame that long?
"BROTHER!"
Tobe's roar came from the hill behind me. A heavy javelin tore past my ear—
then buried itself in the neck of a bandit ahead, pinning him to the snow.
Tobe, Ushi, and Rin descended the slope like an avalanche.
They dodged arrows with ease.
Ushi hit the center of the line like a boulder.
Without his Second Flame, his "blacksmith-blood" strength was terrifying.
With it—
He was ruthless.
He didn't cut.
He crushed.
His katana tore through a man's arm and half his ribcage in a single heavy slash.
Beside him, Tobe was graceful steel. His katana flickering like a serpent's tongue. Two men tried to pincer him; Tobe moved between them in the blink of an eye, his blade singing a single note, and both men collapsed, clutching gashed necks.
Then there was Rin.
The swing never touched her.
She moved low—almost gliding over the snow.
A shadow in white.
A raven.
Silent. Patient. Deadly.
She didn't waste motion. Didn't waste breath.
She slipped inside their guard—
A hatchet buried in a temple.
Gone before the body fell.
I froze for a moment. Watched her dismantle them—two precise movements of her wrists.
Effortless.
If the world had given her more—
She would be the one leading.
Not me.
I joined my team. We formed a line. Pushed them back with ease.
"Monsters!" one of the bandits shrieked. "Run!"
The remaining ten broke.
Boots scraping, breath ragged, they ran.
Rin didn't let them.
In one fluid motion, she drew two hatchets—
One from each hand.
They spun.
Twin flashes of steel.
Both buried deep into fleeing backs.
The men dropped together.
Tobe stepped forward.
Breathing steady.
He reached over his shoulder—
Two javelins.
The wind pulled at his frame as he stood against the gray sky.
Then—
He threw.
One.
Then the other.
They crossed the distance—
and buried deep into two fleeing men.
Straight through the spine.
Tobe stood atop the ridge, the wind whipping his brown hair back.
Like something out of a campfire tale.
He stared out over the valley with a gaze so intense it could have melted the snow.
"I will protect you, Rin," his voice cut through the wind. "Always. That is my promise."
The silence that followed was heavy.
Rin, who hadn't been in a shred of danger the entire time, was already crouched over a dead bandit. She had ripped a piece of the man's tunic and was wiping the blood from her axe blades. She didn't even look up.
"Ushi," I said. "Check the leader's boots. Looked reinforced with iron. See if they fit you."
Ushi grunted, kicking a corpse over. "Too small. My feet are twice this size. But his belt is decent."