### **I. THE MOURNING MOUNTAIN**
The mountain's death throes lasted three days and three nights.
Lionhart emerged from the ruins like a sword pulled from a forge - his body radiating such intense heat that the very air around him shimmered and warped. The once-proud peak had become a funeral pyre, its slopes weeping rivers of molten stone that carved glowing scars into the earth below. The sky itself had fractured during his awakening, great jagged wounds in the atmosphere bleeding crimson light that painted the devastation in hues of fresh blood and old bruises.
The Keeper lay where the cataclysm had thrown them, their body partially buried beneath a cairn of blackened bone shards that had once been warriors. Their mask - that sacred shield against the world's corruption - had fused with their face, the leather warped into grotesque new contours by the heat. What remained of their features was a nightmare tapestry of flesh and fire. The left side of their face pulsed with an eerie silver light, tendrils of alien flame branching beneath the skin like lightning frozen mid-strike. Their left eye socket wept glowing embers instead of tears, each drop hissing as it struck the ground.
When Lionhart knelt beside them, the earth recoiled. Stone cracked and blackened beneath his knees, the very mountain trembling at his presence. His right arm blazed with primordial light, the ash markings now replaced by glowing sigils that pulsed in time with some distant, deeper heartbeat. In his left hand, the broken sword shard had transformed into something both less and more than steel - a jagged length of crystallized flame that bled sparks into the air like dying stars.
"You were supposed to die at the shrine," the Keeper rasped, their voice layered with harmonics no human throat could produce. Beneath the words ran a deeper current, a vibration that made Lionhart's teeth ache. "That was the bargain we made with your fire."
Lionhart's response emerged distorted, his voice carrying weight it shouldn't possess: "Where is Ixion?"
The Keeper's remaining eye rolled wildly before focusing. Their lips split in a rictus grin that showed too many teeth, each one filed to a sharp point. "Where you left him, brother. In the belly of the beast you created."
As they spoke, the silver fire in their ruined eye flared, projecting images against the smoke-choked air:
- A vast crater where an entire city had been digested alive, its marble spires stretched into bridges of glistening sinew
- Towers of fused bone pumping liquid fire through pulsating venous channels
- A lone figure in white robes standing before a maw of teeth the size of siege towers
The vision ended with the Keeper's body arching off the ground, their scream blending with the mountain's death rattle in horrific harmony.
> **[Celestial System Override]**
> **SUPPRESSION FIELD:** 5% Integrity (Catastrophic Failure Imminent)
> **FIRE ASPECT SYNCHRONIZATION:** 99.5% and climbing
> **BIOLOGICAL INTEGRITY:** 32% and failing
> **WARNING:** Hostile energy signature detected (Designation: "The First Spark")
> **ADVISORY:** Containment breach inevitable
---
### **II. THE ROAD OF GNASHED TEETH**
The journey east became a walking autopsy of Lionhart's crumbling humanity.
**The Bone Prairies** stretched beyond the horizon - an endless expanse of interlocked skeletons frozen in their final moments of agony. Some clutched weapons in bony fingers, others cradled the remains of children against shattered ribcages, all fused together by whatever apocalyptic heat had scoured this land generations before Lionhart's first birth. Their hollow eye sockets wept continuous streams of molten silver that collected in glowing rivers, hissing and spitting where they touched his bare feet.
At dusk, the bones began whispering.
*"King of Ashes..."*
*"...burned us clean..."*
*"...never asked to be saved..."*
Their voices crystallized in the air, forming jagged shards of black glass that shattered against his skin with sounds like breaking promises.
**The Weeping Vault** rose from the wastes like the ribcage of a dead god. Its arches moaned with remembered pain, the stones reshaped into screaming faces that turned to follow Lionhart's progress. Within its shadowed nave, reflections moved without source - figures of smoke and scorched armor that mimicked his movements a heartbeat too late, their hollow eyes burning with accusation.
One reflection stepped out.
It wore his face from the Before Times - the unblemished features of a prince who still believed in justice and honor. When it spoke, its voice was the cracking of thin ice over bottomless water:
"You were always the flame, brother. Ixion merely held the torch."
**The Hollow Legion** joined him at midnight. They emerged from silver fire that left no heat - hundreds of figures clad in armor fused to their flesh, their faces hidden behind visors of black glass that reflected only endless fire. They moved in perfect, terrible unison, their whispers weaving into a chorus that vibrated in Lionhart's teeth:
*"The Scourge was mercy."*
*"Ixion lied."*
*"Remember what you buried in the White Maw."*
Celestial's warnings grew increasingly fragmented, the messages overlapping in his vision:
> **MEMORY FRAGMENT RECOVERED:** "The Purification Protocol" (87% Corrupted)
> **FIRE ASPECT SYNCHRONIZATION:** 99.8% (Threshold breached)
> **ALERT:** Biological limits exceeded (Core temperature: 1,502°F)
> **ADVISORY:** Shed mortal shell immediately
The system went silent as the earth split open before them, revealing the road's final destination.
---
### **III. THE WHITE MAW**
The crater pulsed like a living heart ripped from some unimaginable beast.
What remained of the holy city had been reshaped into something obscene - its marble spires stretched into bridges of glistening sinew, its temples transformed into throbbing organs that pumped liquid fire through veined channels carved into the earth itself. The air smelled of burning sugar and opened graves, a cloying sweetness that clung to the back of Lionhart's throat.
At the center gaped the Maw itself - a ring of teeth each taller than ancient oaks, their surfaces carved with billions of tiny screaming faces frozen in eternal torment. Between them, the darkness shimmered with captive flames that moved in perfect military formation, like soldiers awaiting orders from a beloved general.
Ixion stood before the abyss, clad in robes woven from still-living skin that twitched and trembled. His face was exactly as Lionhart remembered from their childhood - the same soft features, the same delicate hands that had once tended his wounds after training sessions. But his eyes...
His eyes were pits of absolute void that drank the light around them.
"Little brother," Ixion called, his voice sweet as a poisoned kiss. "You're just in time for the reckoning."
Behind him, the Maw exhaled - a gust of wind carrying the screams of every soul Lionhart had ever burned.
---
### **IV. THE THIRTY-THIRD SCALE**
The battle began not with a clash, but with a sigh.
Ixion flicked his wrist, and the earth erupted in geysers of liquid fire that climbed toward the bleeding sky. Lionhart moved without thought, his body leaving afterimages of incandescent light as he wove between the blasts. The crystallized flame in his hand extended into a whip of pure annihilation, lashing out to carve wounds in reality itself that wept silver fire.
"You gave them your fire!" Lionhart roared as their clash sent shockwaves through the corrupted city. "You fed them to the Scourge!"
Ixion laughed - a sound that cracked the sky like thin ice. "No, brother. You did."
The memory struck like a falling star:
- The Scourge wasn't an invasion. It was a purification.
- The wars weren't fought to stop it, but to direct its hunger.
- The Suppression Field wasn't a prison - it was a dam holding back the flood.
And Ixion...
Ixion had been the keeper of the floodgates.
---
### **V. THE UNMAKING**
The realization broke the last chains.
Lionhart's scream ignited the atmosphere, the force of it shattering the crystallized flame in his hand. The shards hovered in midair, each reflecting a different moment of his fractured past:
- A child handing him poisoned wine with trembling hands
- A general plunging a dagger into his back with tears in his eyes
- A brother whispering "I'm sorry" as silver fire consumed the world
As the fragments exploded outward, Lionhart finally understood the terrible truth.
The fire had never been his to control.
He had always belonged to it.