### **I. THE PATH OF SCORCHED BONES**
The mountain breathed.
Each step sent plumes of ash swirling around Lionhart's boots, the remains of countless sacrifices ground to powder beneath his weight. The air itself felt alive—thick with the metallic tang of old blood and the acrid sting of lightning-struck stone. Above them, the peak loomed like a broken crown, its jagged spires spearing the hemorrhaging sky where storm clouds churned in perpetual fury.
The Keeper moved like a shadow ahead of him, their bare face turned upward—the scarred half glistening with a sheen of sweat, the good eye reflecting the distant fireglow. Three days of silence stretched between them since the shrine. Three days of the Keeper's wound knitting itself shut under Lionhart's reluctant care, the flesh mending but the tension between them festering like an untreated burn.
Lionhart's mark pulsed in time with his heartbeat, the fourth ash line squirming against his skin. The higher they climbed, the louder the voices grew—not in his ears, but in the marrow of his bones.
*"Welcome home, little spark,"* the mountain sighed through the cracks in the earth. *"We've kept your seat warm."*
> **[Celestial Update]**
> **SUPPRESSION FIELD INTEGRITY:** 83% (Critical Threshold: 80%)
> **FIRE ASPECT RESERVES:** 19% (Depletion Imminent)
> **WARNING:** Ambient energy signatures match historical records of "Scourge Cataclysm" (99.1% correlation)
The broken sword shard burned in his palm, its edges biting deep enough to draw blood. He welcomed the pain—it grounded him against the whispers.
---
### **II. THE GATE OF A THOUSAND SCREAMS**
The fortress wasn't built—it was *forged*.
Great ribs of some primordial beast formed its archway, the spaces between filled not with mortar but with the petrified remains of the fallen, their faces frozen in eternal agony. Heat radiated from the blackened bones in visible waves, distorting the air like a desert mirage. The stench of seared flesh clung to every surface, so thick Lionhart could taste it on his tongue.
The Keeper stopped abruptly, their hand flying up in warning. "They'll taste your fire before they see you," they rasped, fingers brushing their sewn-shut eyelid. "Even caged, it sings to them."
Lionhart flexed his marked arm, the ash lines writhing. "Who?"
The answer came not in words but in the shriek of rusted chains. The gates yawned open, revealing a courtyard where seven armored figures knelt in perfect formation—each clad in plates of blackened bone that had fused with their flesh, their helms grotesque mockeries of human faces. At the center burned a pit of silver fire that cast no heat, only a cold, gnawing light.
The largest figure rose with the groan of grinding stone.
"Little brother," rumbled the armored giant, its voice like a rockslide. "You've come to pay your debts at last."
> **[Celestial Emergency Alert]**
> **IDENTITY CONFIRMED:** General Vareth, First of the Betrayer Host
> **STATUS:** Scourgebound (Undying/Corrupted)
> **WARNING:** Suppression Field origin detected (Primary Architect)
Lionhart's knife was in his hand before he'd consciously decided to draw it. The blade trembled—not from fear, but from the memory screaming just beyond reach.
---
### **III. THE TRIAL OF BROKEN PROMISES**
They didn't attack. That was the first cruelty.
The Scourgebound simply watched as Vareth approached, each step making the earth tremble. Up close, the general's armor was a nightmare—living bone threaded with veins of molten silver, his visor a cage of human teeth filed to points. The stench of rotting meat and charred metal rolled off him in waves.
"You don't remember," Vareth said, tilting his head with a sound like cracking stone. "They carved the guilt from you. The grief. The *weakness*." He gestured to the firepit with a gauntleted hand. "But the flames remember everything."
The Keeper moved then—not toward Vareth, but in front of Lionhart, their scarred face twisted in defiance.
Vareth backhanded them with a sound like a tree snapping in a storm.
The Keeper hit the ground hard, blood spraying from split lips.
Something in Lionhart's chest *ruptured*.
Fire Aspect exploded from his mark—not the controlled trickle he'd used before, but a *torrent* of white-hot fury that turned the ash lines to glowing brands. The Suppression Field screamed in his skull as chains of light burst from his skin, straining, *shattering*—
> **[CELESTIAL CORE FAILURE]**
> **SUPPRESSION FIELD:** 78%... 59%... 31%...
> **MEMORY QUARANTINE:** Critical Breach
---
### **IV. THE RECKONING OF FLAMES**
The past returned not in flashes, but in *infernos*:
- *A war council.* His three generals—Vareth's brute strength, Ixion's cunning smile, Sera's quiet devotion—kneeling as he anointed them with sacred flame. The weight of their trust like a physical warmth.
- *A child's hand* slipping a vial into his evening wine. Not poison. *Something far worse.* A concoction to dull the fire, to make the chains go on easier.
- *Waking chained* to the great altar, his own flames being siphoned into the earth to cleanse the world of life. The betrayal not in the act, but in the *methodical precision* of it.
- *The moment he recognized* his younger brother's face among the executioners. The boy he'd raised from infancy now holding the knife that would sever his soul.
The memories burned worse than the fire ravaging his veins. Lionhart collapsed to his knees, screaming as the mountain shook—not from pain, but from the awful, undeniable *truth*:
They hadn't betrayed him for power.
They'd sacrificed him for *peace*.
---
### **V. THE KEEPER'S SACRIFICE**
Through the haze of fire and memory, Lionhart saw the Keeper move.
Not toward him. Not toward escape.
Straight into the silver flames.
Vareth roared—a sound that cracked stone—but too late. The Keeper plunged both hands into the pit, flesh sizzling, the stench of burning meat overwhelming. When they wrenched free, they held something—a sword hilt, its blade long since melted away, its crossguard shaped like wings.
"*Remember!*" the Keeper screamed, hurling the relic toward Lionhart.
The moment his fingers closed around it, the final memory *detonated*:
- *Himself* clad in chains of light, begging his brother through broken teeth to finish it.
- *The knife plunging*—not into his heart, but into the Suppression Field's core.
- *A whisper* as the world went dark: "Run, you fool. *Burn again when the world needs it.*"
---
### **VI. THE FIRE AND THE FURY**
Lionhart *stood*.
The mark on his arm blazed like a newborn star, ash flaking away to reveal raw, pulsating flesh beneath. The broken sword shard in his other hand *sang*, its edges sheathed in white fire that danced up his arm in hungry arcs.
Vareth took his first step back in centuries. "You don't understand what you're unleashing—"
"I understand *everything*," Lionhart said.
And brought the mountain down upon them all.