Rebirth: Necromancer's Ascenscion-Chapter 107: Flame That Devours Hope

The glyph beneath Ian’s feet seethed with old power.

Veins of violet light carved through the dust like cracks in reality, they began to beat with rhythm more aged than the bones of the canyon they resided.

The demon hesitated.

It shouldn’t have, but it did.

For the first time, it showed something close to fear.

Ian rose, slowly, shoulders trembling but eyes clear. Blood trickled down his arm, and bone peeked through torn flesh — yet he stood taller with every breath.

A sound had escaped from his lips.

Not a spell. Not a scream.

A word.

"Kael’sythra."

The canyon had stilled.

The glyph exploded upward, a pillar of violet flame that screamed without sound. Not fire as one knew it, but something more destructive.

More cruel.

The demon recoiled.

The flame touched the ground — and reality cracked. Stone warped. Ash turned to glass.

A boulder nearby caught the blaze and vanished, as if it had never been born.

Kaelsythra.

Soul Flame.

But not as Ian had once wielded it.

This was not the raw, unstable ember from his early days in the Arena.

This was purer. Refined through more death.

Forged in silence.

It did not only burn flesh.

It devoured hope.

The demon’s eyes lost their shine first.

Then its stance shifted — just a fraction. But Ian saw it. The way its claws didn’t curl with the same hunger.

The way it flinched before the fire touched it.

Kaelsythra bloomed around Ian like a crown of ruin.

Each step he took cracked the earth. The heat warped the air, bending light into trembling halos around him.

The demon roared and charged.

Ian met it head-on.

Steel was gone. He didn’t need his blades.

He was the weapon.

The demon’s claw slashed low — a strike that could bisect a tree. Ian twisted past it, left hand reaching forward.

His fingers touched the beast’s wrist—

And Kael’sythra surged.

There was no scream.

Just light.

Violet flame coiled up the demon’s arm, eating through flesh, thought, and instinct in equal measure. The monster staggered back, clutching the stump where its forearm had been — but its face showed no pain.

Only hollowness.

Its will cracked.

Ian didn’t slow.

He moved like it were memory.

Like death remembered in flesh.

The demon swung again — desperate, wild — and Ian stepped through the arc, eyes locked forward, unblinking. He let the claw graze his shoulder, tearing flesh.

Then his hand opened over the beast’s chest.

Kaelsythra flared — and punched through.

The demon jerked as the flame carved through muscle, bone, and something deeper.

The fire burned into its soul.

No blood spilled.

Only ash.

A silence followed, sudden and deafening.

Then Ian’s hand gripped what no other could see.

A thread of light, twisted and black-veined.

The demon’s soul essence.

[ Absorb Soul Essence?]

It writhed in his palm, snarling with memories of slaughter, fire, and hatred.

"Yes," It was always yes.

He opened himself.

The soul essence screamed.

Then it vanished — absorbed, torn into his being like a shout swallowed by void.

Power thundered through Ian’s limbs.

His wounds healed.

His vision sharpened.

> [You have absorbed: 1 (Hellspawn) Demon Soul]

[Corruption: +9.5%]

[Soul Essence: +10400]

[Warning: Corruption level approaching threshold]

Kaelsythra coiled back into his chest, its purpose fulfilled, leaving scorched ground and shadows that refused to move.

The demon’s corpse collapsed — more flesh than spirit, smoldering.

Silence.

For a heartbeat, it was as if the canyon held in stillness.

Then came the sound of metal scraping stone.

Ian turned.

The others — the ones who had faced the demon before he arrived — stood again.

Scorched, bleeding, wide-eyed.

There were three of them.

One held a curved sword with both hands, the blade trembling. Another clutched a spear, the haft splintered at the base. A mage with burns across one eye raised a broken staff, her lips white with fear.

But they all pointed their weapons at him.

The eldest of them — the swordsman, maybe mid-twenties, skin darkened by sun and streaked with soot — stepped forward half a pace.

His voice cracked.

"Who... are you?"

His hands trembled slightly.

"What do you want?"

Ian stood there, still breathing hard.

The Kaelsythra still lingered behind his eyes — not fire, not smoke, but that terrible hunger. It tugged at his soul, whispering that these too were prey.

That their fear was sweet.

He didn’t answer at first.

Didn’t move.

Instead, his eyes swept them, one by one.

Measuring. Not with hatred — but with the cool detachment of one who had seen death too many times to care about fear.

Their injuries. Their ragged breathing.

Their lack of coordination.

But most importantly, their skepticism.

They hadn’t planned to trap him.

This wasn’t an ambush.

They were just... caught in a battle they couldn’t win.

So why had someone—

His thoughts paused.

His eyes lifted.

Back toward the canyon ridge.

Where the voice had called to him.

A whisper in the smoke. A name spoken not just aloud — but directly to him.

"Ian!" He heard.

It wasn’t an illusion.

He was sure of it now.

Whoever it was... knew him.

And they had chosen that moment to speak.

Why?

He narrowed his eyes.

The wind stirred ashes at his feet, swirling them around the crater left by Kaelsythra. The broken spires of stone still hissed with residual heat. His shadow stretched long behind him.

The three warriors still waited, weapons shaking.

Ian didn’t lift a hand.

Didn’t make a threat.

He turned his gaze from them, back toward the canyon’s heights.

There, through the haze, something moved.

A figure. Cloaked.

Then gone. ƒrēenovelkiss.com

He exhaled slowly, letting the heat ebb from his blood.

A whisper passed from his lips, so soft the others didn’t hear it:

"...Is it time?" His eyes narrowed.

Ash still hung in the air, bitter and hot, when Ian finally spoke to them.

"I’m not your enemy," he said, voice calm, quiet, but holding that unmistakable edge of command. "I have no interest in hurting you. I’m only trying to reach the First Descent Tournament."

The three didn’t lower their weapons.