Whispers of Shikiban:The king walks among us-Chapter 51 --

The battlefield was a living furnace. Charred stone pillars leaned at impossible angles, cracked veins glowing molten orange beneath their fractured surfaces. Every breath Reika drew tasted of ash and heat, the air alive with the hiss of steam as molten streams carved rivers through the wreckage. Above her, the sky had bled away—smoke and brimstone swallowing the sun, leaving only the sickly glow of a world on fire.

Reika's coat hung in tatters, one sleeve torn entirely from her shoulder, revealing pale skin streaked with soot and blood. Her katana drooped in her right hand, its edge still hot enough to steam the air with each wavering movement. She breathed raggedly, each inhale a jagged whisper, each exhale a plume of embers. And yet, behind burning eyes that rivaled any flame, she stood unbroken.

Six Flame Shikibans formed a crescent around her, their footsteps stirring sparks from the blackened ground. Obsidian armor pulsed with hellish runes that writhed like living fire—each knot of metal a shrine to cruelty. Their leader, a towering colossus whose gauntlets dripped magma, stepped forward. "Kageshiki girl," he rumbled, voice like grinding boulders. "You should have stayed broken." His words cracked the air, and the others mirrored his fury with distant, furious roars.

A second Shikiban raised a hand, fingers weaving seals that flickered with scarlet light. "FLAME FORM: NINE-FOLD SEAR!" he intoned. Instantly, nine crescent blades of crimson fire erupted from his chest, each one a banshee's scream slicing toward her.

Reika blurred. Her body became water, flowing between attacks: a footstep here, a spin there. She weaved through the deathstorm as if threading a needle in midair. One blade lanced her shoulder—searing flesh—but reflexively her katana snapped upward, catching another blade in a shower of sparks.

CLANG!

Metal rang against enchanted fire. The blade recoiled, but Reika's follow‑through was perfect: a single horizontal slash that severed the flame wielder's head in a geyser of black fire. His body collapsed, the runes on his armor extinguishing with a final hiss. She landed lightly, blood‑slick boots sliding on cracked stone, crimson blossoms spraying from her blade's path.

"One down," she said softly, voice brittle as bone.

The remaining five hesitated—only for a heartbeat. Then they surged.

Flames roared to life in every direction, walls of heat bending the very fabric of reality. Reika met them head‑on. A third Shikiban erupted in a spectral lion's roar, ebony fire coalescing into fanged jaws that lunged at her throat. "FIRE CURSE: ASHEN DEVOURER!" he bellowed.

Reika vaulted. The lion snapped beneath her boots as she flipped over its head, katana arcing in a perfect crescent. The blade ripped through the apparition's core, unraveling it in a cyclone of smoke and embers. She landed on the Shikiban's shoulders, driving the katana through his spine until the hilt bit deep into armor. His falls was a furnace collapsing from within.

Before she could exhale, another stepped in—black flames suffusing the air. "FLAME STYLE: LAMENTING PYRE!" he cried, and the world detonated.

The explosion rocketed her backward like a meteor. She skidded across the burning ground, arms and ribs screaming. She coughed—thick, hot blood spattering against scorched stone. Pain seared each nerve, but she forced herself to rise, grit anchoring her soul.

"Is this all?" she spat, eyes ablaze. "Where's the hell you promised me?"

No answer came. The fourth Shikiban stood motionless, arms raised above his head. The sky split in two—a wound yawning open between smoke and flame. From that crimson tear descended a colossal dragon of pure fire, scales forged from interlocking seals, eyes glowing with ancient wrath.

"FLAME GOD ART: INCINERATION WYRM!" the last Shikiban intoned, his voice lost in the dragon's roar.

The ground quaked. Rocks buckled. Molten rivers surged like tidal waves. And in the center of it all, Reika did not flinch.

She dipped her head, one arm dangling uselessly at her side. Her katana glowed with embered light, its edge dancing with anticipation. The dragon's jaws opened—an inferno within an inferno, a vortex of pure heat that threatened to consume everything.

Reika's lips parted. "Dragon... to dragon."

Then she vanished.

A flashstep of shadow and flame, and she reappeared above the beast, mid‑air, katana poised like a falling star. Its roar became a shriek as Reika's blade unleashed:

"SHADOW‑FIRE BREATHING: THIRD FORM—CRIMSON LOTUS SPIRAL!"

A helix of scarlet energy spiraled outward from the blade's arc, coiling around the dragon's chest like burning chains. The seals on its scales snapped and unravelled, each pop a miniature implosion of fiery light. The beast howled, shaking the heavens as its core ruptured.

Reika was caught in the blast. Her body slammed into the crater like a ruined statue. Bones cracked beneath her, and heat seared through armor and flesh alike. For a heartbeat all was agony—and then she rose.

Purple and black flames blossomed around her, a living aura that sewed her wounds closed in sizzling whispers. A shadow‑dragon silhouette coiled behind her, its horned head grazing the sky. Her hair fanned out, alive with energy. She drew a ragged breath and smiled.

Only two Shikibans remained. They exchanged a glance—no words, just recognition of the inevitability. Both charges rose, crimson flames coursing through their veins, dripping from clenched fists.

"DUAL TECHNIQUE—FLAME REAPER'S DESCENT!" they roared in unison.

Their energies fused overhead into a titanic column of molten death, a pillar of fire screaming downward, warping the air in its wake. It roared like an executioner's axe swinging at the world's neck.

Reika stood still.

Time slowed. Embers drifted like fallen stars. Her aura swelled until it was a living thing—tendrils of purple-black flame lashing the ground, lifting debris into the abyss. She let out a defiant scream, the sound fracturing the air itself.

Her aura detonated.

A shockwave of violet-black flame ripped through the reaper pillar, scattering molten fragments like so much cottonwood in a gale. Reika blurred forward, body melted into pure energy, spirit a tempest of defiance. In one godlike sweep, she sliced through the core of the descending inferno.

Silence.

Both Shikibans erupted into plumes of gore and ember, bisected and atomized in the aftermath. Their armor clattered to the ground, empty shells of obsidian and runes.

Reika stood alone amid the ruin—charred corpses, fractured pillars, rivers of fire now cooling into glassy obsidian. Her katana dripped with a strange ichor of violet flame, and her coat hung in shreds. She drew a deep breath—her lungs searing, her heart pounding like war‑drums.

But her expression held no triumph. Only sorrow, depthless and heavy.

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She looked down at her trembling hands, still glowing faintly with residual aura. The battlefield whispered its name in reverent fear, the wind carrying her legacy across scorched earth: Reika.

"I don't want this," she murmured, voice hoarse from blood and smoke. "But if I must burn the world... to save myself... then so be it."

Ashes trailed her footsteps as she turned away. The rivers of molten fury behind her began to cool, leaving a world forever changed by her passing. And in the dying light, as embers drifted like mourning fireflies, Reika walked onward—her shadow long, her purpose clear.