The winds of dusk rolled in heavy across the scorched remains of Banner 4E, casting long shadows over the rubble that once housed generations of aura-wielders. Fires had long been extinguished, yet the stench of burnt iron and memory still clung to the air. Thalen stood at the perimeter, the tip of his training sword buried in the cracked earth, his gaze locked on the blackened insignia of the banner's crest split clean down the middle.
Behind him, Captain Rendra knelt silently beside a fallen soldier, placing a hand over the man's still chest, muttering something beneath her breath. She rose slowly, her voice carrying across the hollow silence.
"Only one survivor… barely breathing," she said. "Everyone else was erased. Not killed. Erased."
Thalen furrowed his brow. "What do you mean erased?"
Rendra turned, her usually firm expression tinged with hesitation. "Aura burns away flesh, but it leaves a residue. What happened here left nothing behind. No signatures. No echoes. Just absence."
Thalen's hand twitched around his blade. He glanced toward the black smears on the ground places where entire bodies once stood, only now they were as if they'd never existed. "Who could do this?"
"I don't know," she said. "But this wasn't a monster or a natural force. This was orchestrated."
Footsteps approached from behind. Thalen didn't need to turn to know it was Dain, his old friend and fellow trainee, breathing heavily as he joined them, eyes wide.
"I found it," Dain said, thrusting a scorched fragment of armor into Rendra's hands. "Insignia's twisted, like it melted from the inside out."
Rendra turned the fragment over. Her eyes narrowed.
"I've seen this mark before. Years ago. Back when I was stationed near the outer border."
"What mark?" Thalen stepped closer.
She showed them. Barely visible beneath the charring was an etched spiral a broken flame curling inward until it vanished into a dot.
Thalen's pulse quickened. "What does it mean?"
She hesitated, then spoke carefully. "It's the emblem of an outlaw sect. The Quiet Flame. Supposedly disbanded. They believed aura was a blight upon the world… that its presence corrupted peace."
Dain scoffed. "So what these maniacs just appeared out of nowhere after twenty years?"
"No," Rendra replied. "Someone brought them back."
A cold wind surged through the remains of the banner grounds, as if in response to her words.
Thalen instinctively grasped the hilt of his sword tighter. He didn't need to hear more. The unease in the air said enough. There was a storm brewing one that would not wait for permission.
Later that evening, back at Tempest Hold, Thalen sat cross-legged in his chamber, his blade laid across his lap. The Tyrant Spirit, newly awakened within him, was quiet calm even but every now and then he could feel it throb faintly beneath his skin, as if sensing the world around it.
"Something's coming," he whispered.
The chamber door creaked open. A figure stepped in tall, wrapped in an aura of dull amber light. The same SSS Hero who had begun Thalen's early training: Arkan of the Stonewind.
"You've felt it too," Arkan said without asking. "The hunger in the wind. The silence that stalks."
Thalen looked up. "Who is he?"
Arkan took a seat opposite him. His weathered face bore lines that spoke of countless battles. "His name was once Vael Seros. One of us. He was a Tyrant aspirant, and my comrade during the First Era Trials. But the Spirit rejected him."
Thalen's eyes widened. "That's possible?"
Arkan nodded. "Rare, but yes. Some aura types don't resonate with the Tyrant's nature. And those who are rejected… not all of them recover from the shame."
"So what happened to him?"
"He disappeared. We assumed he took his own life. But fragments of intelligence over the years spoke of a group… The Quiet Flame. Aura-deniers, as they were called. But none were ever powerful enough to be a threat. Until now."
Thalen looked down at his blade. "He's coming for the Tyrant Spirit, isn't he?"
"No," Arkan said. "He's coming to extinguish it."
Thalen fell silent, but a fire began to kindle in his chest. He had fought for his awakening, trained relentlessly with the Blade Aura even when it marked him the weakest of his circle. He had earned the Tyrant Spirit. And he would not allow it to be torn away so soon.
Arkan rose, his gaze stern. "Your training intensifies tomorrow. This is no longer about proving yourself. It's about survival."
The next morning, the training fields were sealed off. A private session, sanctioned only for Thalen.
He stood in the center ring, sweat already trailing down his brow, watching as Arkan brought forth a sealed box wrapped in silk. From within it, he withdrew a sword unlike any Thalen had seen before curved, deep silver with threads of black weaving through its surface like veins.
"This," Arkan said, "is a Rare-class blade. Still beneath the Legendary tier, but unlike the training swords you've used until now, it can harmonize with the first strains of your Tyrant Spirit."
Thalen reached out and took it. The moment his fingers closed around the hilt, a thrum rippled through his bones. His aura stirred Blade Aura flickering outward like heatwaves and from somewhere within, the Tyrant Spirit pulsed, slowly feeding into the metal.
The sword responded.
Crimson light seeped from its edges, the air trembling faintly around it. Arkan stepped back, nodding.
"Good. Now strike."
Thalen moved. Blade met stone. The earth beneath cracked.
But Arkan wasn't done. He raised his hand and from his palm burst a wall of stone.
"Again," Arkan said.
Thalen struck again. The impact shattered the stone, but his arms buckled from the force. He grit his teeth, barely managing to stay upright.
Arkan's voice was calm. "To be a Tyrant Spirit wielder, your body must endure the strength of two forces. Until then, your own power will crush you."
Thalen nodded, wiping blood from his lip.
"I'll survive."
That night, alone in the courtyard, Thalen sat beneath the stars, the new sword across his knees. The Tyrant Spirit was awake now restless and growing.
Somewhere out there, a man named Vael Seros was watching. Waiting.
But Thalen wasn't the same boy from Banner 4E.
He had been forged by rejection, sculpted by struggle. He had earned the Tyrant Spirit not because he was chosen… but because he refused to be forgotten.
And if a harbinger of silence dared to erase that
Then Thalen would carve his name into the wind itself.