The ground quaked—a low, thrumming vibration that rattled the broken stones and sent ripples through the smoke-choked air.

  The Eclipse Hunters faltered, their lethal precision disrupted by the sudden shift. Even the living flame wrapped around Pag seemed to pause, sensing something massive approaching.

  Then he saw it.

  At the far end of the ruined street, emerging through the smoke like a nightmare given form, came the boss.

  It towered over the Hunters—easily three meters tall, clad in segmented armor of charred black and molten red. Twin curved blades hung at its sides, each nearly the length of Pag’s entire body. Its face was hidden behind a heavy mask fashioned into a monstrous crescent moon, and from its back rose a writhing mantle of crimson chains that dragged sparks across the stones with every step.

  A name floated into Pag’s HUD, burning gold across the center of his vision:

  >Imperial Executioner: Ma'khor, the Scorchbrand Level: ??? Danger Rating: Catastrophic<

  Pag felt a leaden weight settle in his gut.

  "That," Borin said tightly, "is bad news."

  Ma'khor moved with terrifying grace for something so massive, each step deliberate, measured. The crimson chains on his back twitched as if alive, slithering along the ground in anticipation.

  Pag’s legs screamed at him to run. His mind shrieked warnings, flashing every survival instinct he had.

  But the Emberkin fire coiled tighter inside him, boiling and writhing against his skin. It wanted this. It hungered for this.

  The Executioner stopped twenty paces away.

  The ground sizzled under its boots.

  Without ceremony, it raised one hand—and the broken village square exploded.

  Crimson chains shot outward like spears, tearing up stone, lashing toward Pag and his team.

  "SCATTER!" Ellen shouted.

  Pag hurled himself aside, landing hard against the remains of a shattered wagon. Borin rolled under a crumbling archway, grunting from the impact. Ellen and Faelan disappeared into the smoke.

  The chains ripped through everything—walls, wagons, bodies—shattering the battlefield into a chaos of flying debris and dust.

  Pag struggled to stand, the molten fire inside him screaming for release.

  The Executioner turned its masked face toward him, as if singling him out among the carnage.

  It knew.

  It had come for him.

  The chains coiled, preparing for another strike—and Pag knew he couldn’t survive another barrage.

  Unless…

  Unless he gave in.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, felt the Emberkin energy throb inside him—wild, volatile, alive.

  "Feed the fire," the voice inside him whispered.

  Pag opened his eyes—and surrendered.

  The world erupted.

  Flames—not red, but deep, searing blue—poured from his body. The burning tendrils of Emberkin energy spiraled outward in a massive, swirling storm, consuming the air, devouring the light.

  New alerts flooded his HUD:

  >Full Emberkin Awakening Triggered New Ability Unlocked: Pyroclasmic Pulse Unleash a catastrophic shockwave of elemental flame, incinerating enemies within a wide radius. Warning: Target indiscriminately. Collateral damage likely. Mana Stability: Critical.<

  Pag barely understood the words before instinct seized him.

  He slammed his palms into the ground.

  The flames around him condensed into a singularity of blinding, crackling light—and then exploded outward in a ring of annihilation.

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  The closest Eclipse Hunters didn’t even have time to scream. They simply disintegrated, armor and bodies alike atomized by the white-hot surge.

  The shockwave tore through the square, ripping apart the ruined ground, flipping carts, snapping stone pillars like twigs.

  Ma'khor reeled under the force, crimson chains flailing wildly, the Executioner's massive frame shoved back several steps—the first sign that even it could be hurt.

  Pag stood at the center of the devastation, a living bonfire, his emerald scales now veined with cracks of burning blue light.

  He could feel everything.

  The searing wind on his skin.

  The molten earth under his feet.

  The hammering, furious heartbeat of the world itself.

  For a moment, he was more flame than flesh.

  The Executioner recovered, a guttural snarl vibrating through the air. It shifted its stance, blades lifting into a defensive posture. Now it knew Pag was no ordinary target.

  It knew he was something worse.

  The surviving Eclipse Hunters regrouped around their commander, wary now, slower, uncertain.

  Pag breathed, steam hissing from his mouth.

  He lifted his hands, and the flames spiraled higher, wrapping around him like a cloak.

  "No more running," he growled, voice layered with a deeper, unnatural resonance. "Come and burn."

  And Ma'khor obliged.

  The Executioner charged, chains lashing, twin blades spinning in a whirl of molten death.

  Pag roared, fire exploding from his limbs, and met the boss head-on, the battle for survival—and for the soul of the Emberkin within him—truly beginning.

  The world shattered around them.

  Ma’khor moved like a cataclysm given form, each thunderous step sending cracks racing through the scorched ground. His twin crescent blades spun in wide arcs, trailing molten energy that carved glowing gashes through the air itself.

  Pag surged forward, fire wreathing his body, the very earth melting under his feet as he sprinted. Blue flames trailed from his arms like streaming banners of light. The Emberkin power roared inside him—a wild, barely controlled tempest—and he let it guide him.

  The two collided in the center of the broken village square with the force of colliding storms.

  Ma’khor’s blade came down like a guillotine.

  Pag ducked low, fire coiling along his spine, and lashed upward with a geyser of searing flame. The molten burst struck Ma’khor’s side, knocking the Executioner half a step sideways—a blow that would have leveled a house.

  But Ma’khor did not fall.

  The Executioner's chains snapped forward, seizing Pag's arm mid-strike.

  Before Pag could rip free, Ma’khor yanked him off his feet and slammed him into the ground hard enough to send a shockwave through the ruins. The ground crumpled beneath him in a crater, flames sputtering wildly.

  Pag’s vision blurred.

  Pain bloomed across his ribs, but the Emberkin fire refused to let him break. It poured strength into his shattered muscles, knitting his battered frame together through sheer, furious will.

  He rolled as Ma’khor’s second blade stabbed down, missing his heart by a hair’s breadth. The tip punched straight through the stone like wet paper.

  Pag clutched the Executioner's trapped blade with both hands. Heat roared up his arms, and the blue fire flared white for a moment, devouring the weapon's metal.

  The blade cracked and exploded, shards flying.

  Ma’khor recoiled slightly—but he was already swinging his second sword in a brutal arc.

  Pag launched himself backward, flames detonating under his boots, flipping through the air with reckless speed.

  He landed in a skid across the broken stones, coughing blood, vision swimming.

  Can’t win like this. Need more.

  The Emberkin fire inside him pulsed, almost pleading.

  Pag closed his eyes—and reached deeper.

  Down through the flame.

  Past the pain.

  To the core of the Emberkin.

  "Kindle the soul. Shatter the world."

  Pag opened his eyes, and they burned a blinding blue-white.

  New notifications exploded across his HUD:

  >New Emberkin Technique Awakened: Soulflare Drive Temporarily overcharge your physical and magical abilities by sacrificing health and stability. Risk of permanent damage: EXTREME.<

  Pag smiled grimly.

  "Fine," he whispered to the flames. "Burn me if you have to."

  He triggered Soulflare Drive.

  The ignition was instant.

  Pag became a streak of blue fire, the very air screaming as he accelerated, launching himself at Ma’khor with such speed that the ground cratered beneath him.

  Ma’khor barely brought his remaining sword up to block.

  The collision was nuclear.

  The shockwave flattened the surrounding ruins, the firestorm whipping into a spiraling vortex high into the sky.

  Pag hit the Executioner like a comet, driving him back, step by brutal step.

  He rained blows—fists wreathed in molten flame—hammering into Ma’khor’s armored chest, ribs, arms. Each strike detonated with the sound of thunder, fracturing the Executioner's armor, sending cracks spiderwebbing through it.

  Ma’khor retaliated with monstrous fury, blade flashing, chains whipping like striking serpents.

  Pag danced between them, a blur of motion and flame, his body barely holding together under the strain.

  The Executioner caught him once—one chain wrapping around Pag's leg, crushing—and hurled him through a crumbling stone wall.

  Pag burst from the rubble almost instantly, trailing fire like the birth of a star, fists cocked back.

  He struck Ma’khor square in the center of the chest.

  There was a deep, resonant crack.

  The Executioner's chestplate shattered.

  The force lifted the towering boss from the ground—and slammed him into the far wall with earth-shaking violence.

  Pag stumbled forward, vision tunneling.

  His heart was a drumbeat of agony. His veins were molten lead. His flesh smoked from the inside out.

  Ma’khor rose slowly, impossibly, blood leaking from the seams of his ruined armor.

  The Executioner bellowed—a deep, resonant howl of pure, inhuman rage—and charged one final time.

  Pag gathered the last dregs of his strength.

  The flames wrapped around him like armor, a burning second skin.

  He sprinted to meet Ma’khor.

  The world slowed.

  Every heartbeat an eternity.

  Every breath a furnace.

  Pag feinted left, then right, evading the Executioner’s desperate strike. He dove under Ma’khor’s guard, slammed both burning fists into the cracked chestplate—

  —and poured everything he had left into a single eruption.

  "INFERNUM REQUIEM!" he roared, the words ripping from his soul.

  The world turned white.

  A pillar of flame lanced skyward, visible for miles.

  When the light faded, Pag was kneeling at the center of a scorched crater, body broken, gasping, the remnants of fire flickering weakly around him.

  Of Ma’khor, there was no sign.

  Only ash.

  And silence.

  Then—faintly, blessedly—he heard it.

  Borin’s hoarse laugh.

  Ellen’s sharp, shaky breath.

  Faelan’s low whistle of awe.

  Pag tilted his head back to the stars—or what little of the night sky wasn't veiled by smoke—and laughed brokenly.

  They had survived.

  But as he slumped forward, consciousness slipping from his grasp, a final, chilling notification appeared on his HUD:

  >Warning: Imperial High Command Alerted to Aberrant Presence Target: Pag Status: PRIORITY EXTERMINATION ORDER ISSUED<

  Darkness claimed him.

  And somewhere far beyond the village ruins, in the cold heart of the Lunar Empire, new hunters began to move.