The right flank of the southern valley was unrecognizable. The jagged volcanic rock was entirely melted. A massive lake of bubbling, glowing orange magma covered the ground. Standing perfectly in the center of the liquid rock was Ignar, The Raging Fire.

The Warlord did not look like a traditional demon. He had no thick iron scales, no massive horns, and no bat-like wings. He was a towering, ten-foot tall humanoid silhouette constructed out of rigidly shifting, roaring dark red fire. He was a walking, breathing nuclear bomb.

"My turn," Daemon Sylphyros grinned fiercely.

The fiery champion crossed his two curved scimitars and lunged forward, hovering just inches above the liquid magma. He vehemently threw his arms outward, unleashing a massive, roaring wave of wild orange fire that engulfed the Warlord. Ignis Solaris didn’t let Daemon fight alone. He stepped up to the edge of the magma, his bare hands glowing with obscuring intensity. He completely compressed his internal core, firing a single, dense bolt of pure blue fire into the center of Daemon’s wild flames. The combined attack was devastating. The atmospheric temperature spiked so high that the falling gray ash instantly vaporized into thin air.

"We incinerated him!" Daemon shouted over the roaring flames.

"No, you didn’t," Karl Wade Vedaryan grunted, his lone dark eye narrowing fiercely.

The massive cloud of blue and orange fire expeditiously swirled, then rapidly began to shrink. It wasn’t fading; it was being inhaled actively. Ignar stood perfectly unharmed in the center of the magma. The massive warlord simply opened his jaws and sucked the remaining blue and orange fire into his own chest. His dark red flames instantly flared brighter, his body growing another foot taller.

Ignar let out a deep, crackling laugh that sounded like a burning forest.

"Mortal sparks," Ignar mocked, raising a hand made of pure, boiling heat. "You bring kindling to a Cataclysm."

Ignar snapped his fingers. A massive, terrifying tsunami of dark red hellfire erupted from the magma lake, crashing toward the three human champions.

"Get behind me!" Karl Wade roared.

The old Zephyros General slammed his heavy, canvas-wrapped broadsword into the dirt. He didn’t try to dodge. He ignited his own internal core. His veteran, dark red fire erupted from his heavy iron blade, creating a massive shield of heat.

SLAMM!!

The Warlord’s Cataclysm fire slammed into Karl’s shield. The sheer, terrifying impact pushed Karl sliding backward across the dirt, his heavy boots digging deep trenches. The old man gritted his teeth, the veins in his thick neck bulging. His veteran fire held the line, parting the Warlord’s tsunami of flames around them.

But the heat was agonizing. Karl’s heavy leather armor began to smoke and singe.

"We can’t just block it!" Ignis yelled, shielding his eyes from the blinding glare. "He’s absorbing our spells! How do we burn a warlord who is made of fire?"

"He has a Phoenix Core!" Karl shouted back, analyzing the demon’s shifting form. "If you cut his flesh, the wound just burns to ash and heals perfectly. He is birthing and burning himself at the same time. You cannot out-burn him!"

"Then what is the play, old man?" Daemon asked, his scimitars dripping with liquid heat.

Karl pushed the Warlord’s fire away, kicking his broadsword back up into his hand. He took a heavy, ragged breath.

"Fire is simple, boys," Karl stated, his lone eye deadly serious. "It requires three things. Fuel, heat, and oxygen. Ignar is his own fuel, and he provides his own heat. But he still breathes the air of the mortal world."

Ignis’s eyes widened in sudden realization. "You want us to suffocate him."

"Exactly," Karl grinned a fierce, brutal smile. "I need you two to create a heat vacuum. Don’t throw your fire at him. Burn the air around him. Create a firestorm so massive and dense that it vehemently pulls all the oxygen out of the center of the battlefield, and choke the bastard to death."

"A vacuum seal," Daemon smirked, spinning his scimitars. "I like it. Ignis, match my expectation!"

Ignis and Daemon broke from Karl’s side. They sprinted in opposite directions, running in a massive, perfect circle around the edge of the magma lake.

Ignar laughed, throwing massive, explosive fireballs at them. But Ignis and Daemon were too fast, blurring across the jagged rocks as they completely ignited their internal cores to the maximum.

Daemon lunged his raging orange fire outward, creating a massive, towering wall of swirling heat. Ignis ran behind the wall, perfectly shooting his compressed blue fire into the orange flames to increase the pressure. They ran in a continuous, high-speed circle, encasing the Warlord inside a massive, roaring cyclone of blue and orange fire.

"Pull the air!" Ignis roared, violently changing the thermal dynamics of his compressed fire.

The massive fire cyclone acted like a gigantic vacuum pump. The sheer, terrifying heat dragged the atmospheric pressure outward. The air inside the eye of the storm was rapidly, ruthlessly sucked away.

In the center of the magma lake, Ignar suddenly stopped laughing. The towering Warlord looked down at his own hands. The roaring, dark red cataclysm fire coating his body began to rapidly flicker. There was no oxygen.

Ignar gasped loudly, clutching his throat. He tried to summon more hellfire, but the flames sputtered and died before they even left his skin. Without oxygen to fuel his Phoenix Core, the demon’s rapid regeneration failed. His body of pure fire began to rapidly cool, turning into brittle, hardened black charcoal.

"Now, Karl!" Ignis screamed, his lungs burning from the sheer effort of holding the massive vacuum seal.

Karl didn’t hesitate for a single second. The old general sprinted forward instantly. He leaped through the roaring blue and orange cyclone, ignoring the blistering heat that seared his skin. He landed perfectly inside the dead, oxygen-free zone.

Ignar looked up, his terrifying dark red eyes dimming to a dull, pathetic orange. The Warlord couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t burn. He was trapped in a brittle, hardening shell of his own dead ash. Karl raised his massive, heavy iron broadsword with both hands. He didn’t ignite his fire. He relied on his raw, monstrous physical strength.

"Rest in the ash, monster," Karl growled.

SLASH!!

Karl brought the heavy iron broadsword crashing down. The sheer physical force entirely shattered the Warlord’s hardened charcoal shell. The heavy blade cleaved through Ignar’s chest, severing the demon’s core.

Ignar, The Raging Fire, disintegrated into a million pieces of harmless, dead black ash that fluttered softly to the magma floor.

BOOM!!

The Cataclysm was dead. Ignis and Daemon completely dropped the massive fire cyclone. The ambient air rushed back into the clearing with a loud, deafening boom. The two younger royals collapsed to their knees, panting vehemently, completely drained of their magical energy.

"We actually put him out," Daemon coughed, a tired, victorious laugh escaping his chest.

Karl Wade stood perfectly in the center of the cooling magma, lowering his heavy broadsword. He looked back at his son’s friends, a proud smile breaking through his messy beard.

"Good work, boys," Karl breathed heavily.

But Karl was a veteran. He had forgotten the most dangerous rule of a dying star. The shattered pieces of Ignar’s Phoenix Core lay in the dirt beneath Karl’s boots. The Warlord was dead, but the highly compressed, nuclear energy trapped inside his shattered core had lost its physical containment.

The dead core began to silently glow with a bright white light. Karl looked down, his lone dark eye widening in horror.

"Get down!" Karl roared violently.

He didn’t run. He didn’t dive out of the way. There was no time. The explosion was going to instantly incinerate Ignis and Daemon if it expanded outward. Karl Wade completely threw his massive body over the glowing, shattered core.

BOOOM!

The final, concentrated detonation of the Warlord’s core was devastating. It wasn’t a massive, wide-area fireball. It was a laser of pure, white-hot thermal energy that erupted straight upward. Karl took the full force of the blast to his chest. The old General’s heavy leather armor instantly vaporized. The blast plummeted his massive body fifty feet backward. He crashed into the jagged volcanic rocks, rolling limply until he finally stopped, perfectly still.

"Karl!" Ignis screamed in panic, scrambling across the hot ash.

Daemon ignored his exhaustion, sprinting to the old general’s side. Karl lay in the dirt. His massive iron broadsword was snapped in half beside him. The front of his chest was horribly burned. His breathing was shallow, a horrific, wet rattling sound escaping his lips.

"Medics!" Ignis roared wildly, looking back toward the Solaris lines. "Get Soltheia! Get a healer right now!"

**** 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

A quarter of a mile away, Kairos Vedaryan was sitting on a volcanic boulder, letting Seyana’s golden light heal his cracked ribs. He had promised his father he would stay back and rest his stamina. Then, Kairos heard the massive explosion. He heard Ignis screaming his father’s name. Kairos forced his head up. He looked across the burning, bloody valley. He saw his father’s massive, broken body lying motionless in the dirt. He saw Ignis and Daemon desperately pressing their hands against his ruined chest.

The world completely stopped moving for Kairos.

Seyana gasped, grabbing his arm. "Kairos, wait—"

Kairos pulled his arm away from the Crown Princess. He stood up. The pain in his broken ribs vanished, overridden by a sudden, terrifying flood of cold fury. The shimmering silver light burning in his irises changed. It solidified into a terrifying, piercing glare that petrified the air around him. Kairos reached down and picked up the blackened, heavy hilt of Asteria.

He didn’t say a single word. He stepped past Seyana, walking back onto the bloody battlefield. In the absolute distance, Kaelmorath, the Blood Crescent, was locked in combat with Terravarous. But Kairos didn’t look at the blood mage. He looked at the bottom of the ridge.

Azravel, The Howling Silence, was standing still, watching the human boy approach.