Thick air filled the room as the smell of burning marble and the electric hum from the dampening batons lingered on the floor.

Leon’s chest rose and fell slowly. His skin radiated a pulse that forced the floor tiles beneath him to cool.

Hayes folded his arms across his chest and pursed his mouth. He frowned at Leon while Lord Luo Fang slowly inspected the ruined room.

"Interesting," Lord Luo Fang said. He stopped by the cracked glass table and rubbed his chin with his left hand. "So, who did this?"

He lifted his gaze to Leon, then to Hayes, and finally to the dead man. "He did it, right? Hayes."

Hayes’s eyes glowed with joy as he nodded.

"You can go now. It’s not your fault," Lord Luo Fang said with a wave of his hand, dismissing Hayes from the room.

Hei Yung’s head snapped back when Hayes reached his side. *Why is he letting him go?*

Hei Yung shifted his gaze to Lord Luo Fang. He exhaled sharply and stepped forward. "Why let him go?"

Lord Luo Fang didn’t reply. He simply snubbed Hei Yung and shook his head.

"Hei Yung," he called out, moving from the triangular glass table toward the door. "Seol-Mujin has nothing to do with this. It’s your men."

He pointed at the dead man on the floor and laughed. As he stepped out of the room, he snapped his head back in to look at Leon.

"You’re now a problem for the Seol-Mujin Council, and a weapon for those of us who know how to aim. Remember that." He left without waiting for a second heartbeat.

Leon sighed heavily. He walked to the only chair that hadn’t burned and cupped his face in his palms.

Hei Yung walked to him and placed a hand on Leon’s shoulder. "I know they planned this."

He shifted his gaze to the dead man and pressed a button on his wrist. In a blur, men in blue robes entered and carried the body away in a sleek black sack.

"I will have the technicians restore the mainframe," Hei Yung said. He sat closer to Leon and wrapped his arm around his neck. "We need to track your daily vitals and give you the proper steps to follow."

Leon glanced at Hei Yung with a side-eye and smiled. "I don’t need eyes in the room."

Hei Yung smirked and shook his head. He removed his hand from Leon’s shoulder and pressed his palms together.

"Trust me, you will need it more than I’m saying." He stood up and walked out without looking back.

As soon as the door closed, Leon relaxed into the chair. He closed his eyes and lifted his gaze toward the burnt ceiling.

*From Tartarus to Seol-Mujin, huh,* he thought as he exhaled. When sleep swallowed him, countless shadows began shifting in the void behind his eyelids instead of the Yrendal he usually found.

...

In the Black Ops room opposite the empty Madhouse at Flint Hall, Tiger’s blue flames glowed. Water slowly spiraled around him in the dark. "I will have to find my own way if Samir doesn’t tell me his."

The swirling water turned into sharp darts of ice when he lifted his head. The door hissed open.

Samir walked in, tossing two Opal stones in his hands while whistling. He paused at the sight of the ice darts and shook his head.

"Those things are useless. They’ll cause him no harm," he said, closing in on Tiger and stopping by the window.

The ice darts melted and vanished into Tiger’s palms. The glow in his eyes dulled as he focused on the stones.

"How did you get access to the Starfire Opal?" he asked. He stood up from the bed and neared Samir at the window.

"Oh, this." Samir looked at the stones as if they were nothing. He lifted his gaze to Tiger’s. "I just borrowed it from a friend."

*Borrowed it from a friend?* Tiger thought. *Only elite soldiers have access to these.*

"You told—"

"Yeah, yeah, I told you I don’t know any elite soldiers here," Samir countered, smiling. "Everyone has what they prefer. You just give it to them, then they become your friend."

He stopped tossing the stones and looked straight into Tiger’s eyes. "These are for you."

"For me?"

"Yeah," Samir said, handing both stones to Tiger. He turned to lean on the window sill. "Hayes just sent word from the Bulwark. Leon didn’t just survive Tartarus. He evolved. He is now manifesting unique Solflare abilities."

"That’s just," Tiger paused. The glow in the Opal stones surged into his veins like hot poison as his grip tightened. "That ability is just in books. No one has ever manifested it."

Samir gave Tiger a side glance and smirked. "You sure?"

"Yeah. The last record was twenty years ago, and even then, the person wasn’t seen again." Tiger paused and sighed heavily, loosening his grip on the pale stones. "Some say he died, others say he vanished."

"Whatever," Samir said, placing a hand on Tiger’s shoulder. "With the power of the Opal stones in you, you have a better upper hand than you did at first."

Tiger looked at the blue glow in his skin and smiled. "Will it bridge the gap?"

"It will do more than bridge it," Samir said in a calm voice. He shifted his gaze to the sky. "It will turn your fire into a vacuum. He wants to be a sun? That’s fine. You’ll be the hole that swallows him and his sun."

Two seconds after the glow in Tiger’s skin vanished, his back arched. A soundless scream tore out of him as his skin began to reshape.

"This is the power of the Opal stone. Acknowledge it," Samir said. He straightened and watched Tiger struggle to contain himself.

Tiger went down on one knee. He closed his eyes and grinned as extreme heat radiated from his body.

When he cracked his eyes open, the blue flames were gone. Black smoke poured out of every pore on his body.

"YES! YES!! YES!!! I CAN FEEL IT," Tiger screamed. He rose to his feet and hovered in the air. He spread his arms and shattered every glass in the room with a thought.

When his feet touched the ground, he felt reborn. He looked at the deep blue flames spiking in his palms.

"This is your end, LEON STORM."

The sky above Flint Hall buckled as lightning tore through the clouds, answering the roar of a man reborn.