The camp is close.
You feel it before you see it.
The air changes.
Burned wood. Heated iron. Old blood mixed with damp earth.
And the screams.
Closer now.
Sharper.
"Run."
My voice tears out of my throat.
We run.
Boots crush leaves, slip in mud, slam against roots. My lungs burn. Every breath hurts. My mana is nearly empty, but my body moves anyway.
Brask is there.
That's all that matters.
Behind us, the forest erupts.
Stone spikes burst from the ground.
"Down!" Kaïros shouts.
I dive.
A rock spear slices past my head and impales a tree with a violent crack.
Serah doesn't fully dodge.
Stone tears through her shoulder.
Blood sprays.
She screams—but keeps running.
"Keep moving!" she hisses through clenched teeth.
Selene stumbles, barely catching herself.
"They're everywhere…" she whispers.
Ahead, Earth soldiers emerge in formation.
Hands raised.
The ground trembles.
No strategy now.
No precision.
Just forward.
"MOVE!"
I push my mana.
Too much.
Far too much.
Carmine Fire erupts from the earth.
Not flames.
Spikes.
Dark red lances tear upward, impaling soldiers from below. Bodies lift for a fraction of a second before collapsing, burned from the inside out.
Screams cut short.
I fall to my knees.
Empty.
Dry.
Serah staggers. She can barely stand.
Kaïros keeps walking.
And I finally notice—
The stones avoid him.
Spikes rise—
then bend away.
Celestial Fire hums faintly around him, nearly invisible.
"Aydan," he says calmly, "stay up."
Then—
Everything fractures.
An Earth soldier screams an incantation.
The ground splits.
A massive stone spear erupts.
"SELENE!"
Too late.
It pierces straight through her abdomen.
The sound is sickening.
Wet.
Heavy.
She freezes.
Looks down at the stone exiting her body.
Blood pours out.
"…huh…?"
Her legs give out.
She slides down the spike.
Falls into the mud.
Serah screams.
A broken sound.
"SELENE! NO!"
She drops beside her, hands shaking.
Selene's fingers twitch weakly.
Reaching.
Her mouth opens.
No sound.
Her eyes lock.
Something inside me snaps.
"KEEP MOVING!" I scream.
Serah looks at me like I'm insane.
"Aydan—she—"
"She's gone! MOVE!"
The words cut.
I hate myself for them.
But I don't stop.
Because if we stop—
we die too.
We break through the final line.
And then—
Silence.
The camp is already destroyed.
Bodies everywhere.
Burned.
Cut apart.
Impaled.
Palisades shattered. Tents ripped open.
Students stumble from broken cages.
Dozens of them.
Starved.
Injured.
Brask.
On his knees.
Wrists marked by rope.
Beside him—Oryn. Rhaen.
Our eyes meet.
"Aydan…?"
Then—
A figure steps out of the central tent.
The air warps.
Carmine Fire forms a complete armor around him.
Perfect.
Stable.
Alive.
In his hand—
A severed head.
The Earth Master Warrior.
Eyes still open.
Frozen in horror.
"…Uncle…"
Elëv Arin turns toward me.
He tosses the head to the ground.
"Say your prayers."
The skull cracks.
Carmine spikes erupt outward, pulverizing nearby soldiers. A wall of fire rises behind him, swallowing the rest.
No survivors.
Silence.
Rhaen drops to his knees.
"…Selene?"
He walks among the freed students.
"Selene?"
No one answers.
He stops in front of me.
"Where is she?"
I hold his gaze.
"She died. Earth spike."
He shakes his head.
"No… she was supposed to come back…"
He collapses.
"I should've been with her…"
Brask approaches.
Rhaen shoves him away.
"Don't touch me!"
A laugh cuts through the quiet.
"Seriously…" Oryn mutters. "She wasn't built to survive."
Serah slaps him.
The sound echoes.
"Shut up," she says quietly. "Or I'll finish you."
Oryn laughs again.
But a tear slips down his face.
I lower my eyes.
"Her body's still in the forest."
Rhaen rises slowly.
"I'll get her."
No one stops him.
Brask sinks down against a broken cage.
"We're alive…"
I stare at my hands.
Selene is dead.
Brask is alive.
And the fire inside me—
isn't fading.
It's settling.