thief of fate-Chapter 103: raine

In a place far from palaces and the sounds of cities, there was a silent forest. The tall trees swayed in a gentle breeze, and the creeping fog clung to the ground.

Amid that stillness, Rain stood.

He hadn’t returned to the palace. He didn’t want the noise of doctors, nor Valerian’s questions, not even Claire’s words. He wanted silence... he wanted to feel.

He stood in the middle of a circle of ancient trees, his body nearly bare, scorched from fire, and the torn bandages falling off one by one. But the skin beneath was no longer entirely human... it resembled the calm surface of a living star.

He closed his eyes.

He breathed.

Then he felt it.

The pathways.

It was as if his very breath moved through channels he had never known existed. A pulsating sensation flowed from his chest to the tips of his fingers, from his spine to his heart... energy moving in clear lines within his body, as if the flames had redrawn his structure from within.

"This... is new," he murmured, then looked at his right hand.

The fire that used to appear was always orange, sometimes golden depending on his anger... but now, his palm blazed with pure white flame, radiant as an unbearable sun.

He ignited the flame with his mind alone—no movement needed.

He stretched out his hand, sensing the energy gather... dense, smooth, obedient.

"Come on... show me what I’ve become."

The flames burst from his palm like an arrow of sunlight. It wasn’t just heat—it was burning purity. The air itself split before it, and the white fire traveled dozens of meters before hitting a massive boulder and vaporizing it in an instant.

But the effect didn’t stop there.

Everything around him fell silent. Trees bowed. The ground trembled. The fog evaporated.

Rain stepped back, breathing heavily. He wasn’t exhausted—he was astonished.

Then he looked at his hand, where the white flame still burned in his palm without harming him.

"It’s not just fire... it’s pure stellar energy. It has no color because it contains all colors. It doesn’t just burn... it erases."

He chuckled to himself, then muttered with calm arrogance:

"I don’t need a palace... or a throne. This... this is enough for me now."

Then he sat on a half-burnt tree trunk and closed his eyes again.

Only now... did he begin to understand what it meant to become a hero.

He closed his eyes, placed his palms on the dark ground, and breathed slowly...

Inhale...

Then exhale...

But the air he released wasn’t normal—it was hot, as if it had passed through a furnace.

At that moment, he began to feel it.

Assimilation.

Every cell in his body, every atom, every drop of blood... began to open like nocturnal flowers responding to a hidden light.

They began to sense.

They began to understand.

And with them... he began to understand himself.

"It’s not just energy. It is me."

The sensation wasn’t just internal. His mind felt like a giant microscope, observing his body from the inside. He saw muscles contracting and expanding, tendons glowing in red-gold, bones absorbing heat like sponges, and neurons sparking like lightning threads.

Then he saw the pathways.

They were like rivers of white fire, branching throughout his body like an inverted tree of life. He had never seen them before... not with his techniques, nor his skills.

Only now, after his breakthrough... did he see them.

He raised his right hand and clenched his fingers. He saw how the pathways converged into his palm, as if all his energy could focus there, into a single point.

Then he tried it.

He sent all his energy to that one point.

It was like trying to pour an ocean into a small cup.

The pain was brutal, as if his veins were exploding from the inside.

But with every moment... his cells adapted, adjusted, matured.

"I won’t just be a fire user anymore... I will be its source."

He began to experiment with other things—things no one should try.

He focused his energy into his heart, made it spin in reverse flow.

His heart nearly stopped, then resumed beating—stronger than ever.

He focused it into his eyes and saw the forest not only as it was... but as it had been, and how it would be. As if granted a glimpse of the future and the past.

He focused it into his hearing, and began to hear everything... the breath of a distant rabbit, the snap of a leaf half a kilometer away, and... the sound of his own footsteps on the ground—from seconds ago.

"I... am reshaping myself."

Then came the most dangerous test.

To gather all his energy into one point.

A point beneath his navel...

He closed his eyes and imagined all his fire rivers returning to that point.

He felt cold sweat trickle down his forehead, then immense heat rising from his spine.

One point.

One mass.

His pure core.

The energy gathered there—dense as a star on the verge of explosion.

And suddenly...

"Fwoooooosh!"

Sparks burst from his body. Not just fire, but raw energy without color—flashing, then vanishing.

His body began to tremble, bones resisting the pressure, muscles clenching onto themselves.

But he laughed.

He laughed loudly, like someone who climbed a mountain after years of struggle.

"I’ve made it..."

His body wasn’t burning. It was transforming. His skin regenerated, muscles thickened, bones were reforged. It was as if he was being reborn... not by birth, but by will.

And with all this... came an inner calm.

After an hour of full assimilation, Rain opened his eyes.

The air around him was thick with energy, as if the whole place had become a center of radiation.

He stood up.

He felt no pain.

His body was lighter... and stronger.

His soul clearer... and his mind sharper.

And yet... he didn’t smile.

Instead, he looked to the sky and whispered:

"This is only the beginning."

In the aftermath of his deep assimilation and mad training, after touching the core of his new power, Rain sat on a blackened stone in the middle of the scorched forest. Sweat evaporated from his skin as if he were placed on a blazing plate, but his heart beat with unyielding resolve.

He closed his eyes again, trying to reanalyze everything he had discovered.

Yes, he had broken through... yes, he had reached the rank of Hero...

But the Starform he had used in battle... was not complete.

He felt that clearly now.

Yes, the flames were white, pure, and devastating.

Yes, his body had burned, shattered, then come back stronger.

But there was a limit.

A hidden limit... invisible, but present—standing between him and perfection.

And with deeper focus, he found it.

His problem was dual, clear, and deadly:

A body not enough to endure absolute heat.

Despite all he had done, his body was still flesh and blood. Strong, yes. Evolved, yes. But not enough to be a walking sun.

An energy source that never runs out...

which is an impossibility in itself.

He spoke it in a faint voice:

"Stars don’t need to recharge... they burn from themselves... for ages beyond comprehension."

He sat there, staring at his glowing hands.

The white fire danced across his skin, weaving between his fingers as if it were feeding on him... not from him.

Then he rose slowly, stepping toward a small pool of water formed by the explosion of his energy.

He looked at his reflection...

It resembled him... but it wasn’t him anymore.

The look in his eyes wasn’t that of a warrior, nor even a hero...

It was the gaze of a dying star.

"If I use it again... the Star Form... I’ll die. Slowly... or all at once."

Unless...

The thought came in a rebellious, mad tone—his own voice, but unhinged.

Unless I create a sun within. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

And so began the mad attempt.

He knelt to the ground and slowly began gathering his energy.

This time, he didn’t want to release it—but recycle it.

His idea was something like blood circulation...

To create a "closed loop" of stellar energy within him.

To make it flow, move, be consumed, then regenerate... endlessly.

He started channeling his power from his center—from his "soul point"—and sent it rising through his spine, rushing into his chest, flowing into his arms, and then back to feed the heart, and from there, return to the center again.

A stellar circuit.

At first, it seemed promising.

He felt the heat spreading, then contracting, then returning again.

As if his body had become a sealed furnace generating its own inner power.

But then... the pain came.

The energy pathways ignited.

The heat rose uncontrollably.

His tissues began to melt... from the inside.

The energy, instead of nourishing him, began to burn him.

He was drenched in sweat—but the sweat evaporated before it reached his skin.

His blood started to boil in his veins, his eyes rolled back, and his breath turned ragged.

Then... he stopped.

He slammed himself to the ground, gasping like someone nearly drowned in molten lava.

"Impossible..."

He said, coughing faint smoke.

"What I’m trying to do... it goes against nature itself."

He was trying to create a closed system—one that didn’t rely on external renewal, only on itself.

But the problem was... energy, when circulated this way, accelerates and escalates.

Instead of keeping him alive... it almost tore him apart.

In a moment of daze, he looked up at the sky...

The sun hung there—spherical, radiant, silent...

"You stay burning for millions of years... why? How?"

He sat down, closed his eyes, and surrendered to meditation.

But his mind didn’t stop.

He began recalling his studies, his understanding, his battles...

The true nature of a star...

It wasn’t just a burning being.

It was a whole system balanced between two opposing forces:

Nuclear fusion pushing outward, generating heat and light,

And gravity pulling inward, holding everything together.

Then came the revelation.

"If I want to become a star... it’s not enough to have fire. I need balance."

He now realized that what he lacked wasn’t just a body that could endure, nor an energy that wouldn’t run out...

But a counterforce. Something to balance his energy.

"Gravitational force... something to pull me inward, just like stars do."

Suddenly, it wasn’t about burning anymore... but about stability.

"If I don’t find this balance... the Star Form will remain my killer."

He smiled, despite the exhaustion.

This was a new kind of challenge... one not solved by fighting—

But by understanding.

He began to see that his journey wasn’t just about climbing in power...

It was a voyage of discovery—of the very limits of the universe.

He stood slowly, his body groaning—but his eyes glinted:

"The balance point... where do I find it?"

"And where do I get gravity...?"

"Or... can I create it?"