Darkness closed in around the four travelers before suddenly letting them go. Silva felt solid ground beneath his feet once more. As his vision cleared, the Holy Empire was gone. In its place lay Rila, a quiet village tucked between forested hills in northern Dacia.
Stone houses lined narrow roads, with smoke curling lazily from their chimneys. But none of them spared the village much attention—their eyes were drawn upward.
The volcano towered over the horizon, its massive black slopes vanishing into drifting clouds. Smoke streamed endlessly from its peak, painting the sky gray, while faint red glows flickered through cracks near the summit. Even from here, the wind carried its heat.
Rose stood in silence, feeling the fire mana even from here—dense, restless, powerful. Talon had been right; there was something strange about this mountain. Silva sensed it too, though in his own way.
Deep inside, Pandora stirred—just a little, but enough for him to notice. "You know this place?" he asked. No reply came, only an unusual quiet from Pandora. Soon after, the group reached Rila, a village that owed its survival to the mountain.
Miners worked its lower slopes for rare ores, herbalists sought plants nourished by volcanic soil, and adventurers came in search of valuable fire-aspected materials. Finding someone willing to guide them, however, wasn't so easy.
The upper slopes were treacherous—choking fumes, unstable ground, fire beasts, sudden eruptions. Most villagers turned them down the instant Rose mentioned reaching the summit. Their search eventually led them to a bustling tavern, where two men approached claiming they knew the mountain better than anyone in Rila.
Rose weighed their steep but fair price—time was more important, so she hired them. By afternoon, the six began their climb. Verdant forests gave way to scorched trees and black volcanic stone; the air grew dry and heavy with smoke and sulfur.
The guides proved capable, steering clear of unstable paths, skirting steaming fissures, and warning of shifts beneath their feet. Rose's doubts faded, but Silva's didn't. The men asked too many questions—about their origins, Rose's armor. June and Julie noticed too, saying nothing but keeping watch. Hours later, Rila was just a speck far below. The upper slopes were almost entirely black, lava glowing in deep cracks, smoke drifting across blistering rock. The heat was suffocating, sweat constantly running down Silva's face. At last, one guide stopped. "We're here." Rose looked around. There was...
"Where's the route to the crater?"
Neither man replied.
The second guide drifted behind them.
Then the first let out a laugh, the friendliness vanishing from his face.
Rose's hand inched toward her sword.
"I asked you a question."
The man turned, his expression completely changed.
"You're surprisingly trusting for someone carrying so much"
Silva's fingers moved to his staff.
June and Julie traded a glance.
The second man drew a blade, stepping behind them to block the way down.
The first scanned Rose's armor, her sword, their packs, and the pouches hanging from their belts.
His smile grew.
"Four fat sheep walked straight up the mountain with us."
He held out his hand.
"Empty your pockets."
Rose stared at him.
"Money. Weapons. Storage items. Everything," he went on.
His partner drew his sword.
"And don't try anything clever. People disappear on this mountain all the time."
Silva glanced at the long drop behind them.
So that was the plan—lure wealthy travelers somewhere remote, rob them, and, if needed, make sure they never saw Rila again.
Rose stayed calm.
"You brought us all the way up here..." Her fingers wrapped around her sword. "...to rob us?"
The first man laughed.
"What did you expect?"
Julie's expression soured.
Rose slowly drew her sword, steel rasping against the sheath.
The robbers tensed.
Julie stepped forward with a smile.
Silva recognized it—the same smile she'd worn before humiliating Marcus.
He almost felt sorry for them. Almost.
The first robber raised his weapon.
"Last warning."
Julie stopped beside Rose, crimson eyes faintly glowing as the air on the plateau seemed to ripple. Before they had a chance to react, the molten pool began to shift.
A thick bubble burst on the surface, then another, as something began to emerge. Both men froze, eyes wide, when a hand rose from the lava, gripping the black rock at the edge—a human hand. Slowly, a figure pulled itself free from the blazing molten fire, and the robbers' faces drained of all color.
"L-Lava demon…"
The figure looked up.
That was all it took.
"LAVA DEMON!"
They took off, stumbling down the mountainside, tumbling over one another as their screams faded into the distance.
Silva watched them vanish.
"...Well."
Julie pouted.
"I didn't even get to do anything."
June ignored her, eyes fixed on the stranger.
The man stepped fully out of the lava.
He looked young, maybe just a few years older than Rose, with dark skin, short black hair, and striking green eyes. His bare upper body revealed a lean, powerful build shaped by years of training. But the most unusual thing about him was his arm—ordinary skin gave way at the shoulder to dark crimson scales, layered like natural armor, thicker near his hand, reflecting the lava's glow.
Silva stared, while Pandora fell silent deep within his soul. The stranger's gaze swept over the four intruders, his expression darkening. "What are you doing here?"
No one spoke. His eyes narrowed. "Don't you know this area is forbidden?"
Rose recovered first, sheathing her sword and stepping forward. "My apologies. I'm Rose. I heard there might be powerful fire treasures in this volcano." His eyes flicked over her armor. "I came here for something to help me break through my bottleneck." Silence, then simply: "There isn't."
Rose frowned. "You're sure?"
"I live here." Hard to argue with that. He stepped from the molten pool, steam rising off him. "I'm Rin. You've wasted your time." He pointed toward the path down. "Leave." Rose didn't move.
Talon's lead had taken her a long way, and the heavy fire mana saturating this place was impossible to ignore. The man before her had just climbed out of molten lava without a scratch, making his claim that nothing was unusual here hard to believe.
"I can't do that."
Rin halted, and Rose pressed on.
"The fire mana is far too concentrated. Something's creating it."
Rin's eyes hardened.
Her gaze narrowed. "Also why is this area forbidden?"
That seemed to snap something in him. Fire mana burst from his body. The sudden pressure shoved Silva back, while June and Julie braced themselves, faces sharp. Rose skidded across the volcanic rock before dropping to one knee. Heat washed over the plateau, and the cracks around Rin glowed, as if the mountain itself shared his anger.
Silva gasped for breath. ''He's strong.''
Rin's scaled fist tightened. "I asked nicely."
Rose rose slowly, red hair whipping in the heat, one hand gripping her sword hilt.
"Don't," Rin warned.
She drew it anyway. "If there's something here that can make me stronger, I'm not leaving without it."
Rin's eyes narrowed. Rose's Aura flared as she lunged, sword sweeping with enough force to scatter stone. Rin didn't dodge—he stepped forward. One fist moved. That was all.
Rose barely saw it.
His scaled arm slid past her sword and struck her squarely, stopping her charge in an instant.
The air rushed from her lungs, and her sword slipped from her grasp. Rose dropped to her knees, gasping for breath. Silva stared—one punch, no technique he knew, no drawn-out fight—Rin had simply crushed her.
June's face turned serious, Julie's smile vanished. Rin looked down at Rose. "I told you to leave." She tried to rise, but her body refused. He picked up her sword and planted it in the ground beside her. He could have done far worse, and they all knew it. His eyes shifted to Silva and the twins. "Take her."
When Silva hesitated, Rin's fire mana flared. "Now." June pulled Rose up, Julie took her other side, and Silva grabbed the sword. Rose was furious, humiliated, and still catching her breath, but she knew the difference between persistence and throwing herself into a fight she couldn't win.
They started down the path. Silva glanced back—Rin was already walking toward the molten pool, as if nothing had happened, and then stepped into the lava. The molten rock climbed past his legs, his waist, his chest—until only his head remained. For a moment, his green eyes met Silva's, stirring something deep within, something that answered from Pandora's broken memories: fire, endless, ancient fire. Then Rin sank beneath the lava and was gone. Silva stood staring until June called him, and he followed the others down the mountain. Rose had come seeking a treasure to help her reach the Master Aura Stage.
The journey down the volcano was considerably quieter than the climb.
Rose led the way with an expression dark enough to scare off conversation. Behind her followed Silva, June, and Julie, none of them particularly eager to mention what had happened at the summit.
They had climbed the volcano seeking a treasure rich in fire mana.
Instead, Rose had challenged a strange man who had emerged from molten lava—and had been defeated with a single punch.
Her pride had suffered considerably more than her body.
"Not one word," Rose muttered.
Julie immediately closed her mouth.
She had not even said anything yet.
The four eventually reached the lower slopes, where the mountain path widened into a road leading back toward the nearby settlement.
That was when they found their path blocked.
More than a dozen armed guards stood across the road.
At their center was a richly dressed middle-aged man. A sword hung from his waist, and the insignia upon his clothing immediately identified him as someone of authority.
The Lord of the region.
But it was the two men standing behind him that caught Rose's attention.
Her eye twitched.
"You."
They were the same two men who had offered to guide them up the volcano—the very same men who had tried to rob them. Apparently, after running from the so-called lava demon, they had made it to the settlement first. One of the robbers pointed at Rose with exaggerated flair.
"My Lord! That's them!"
Rose fixed her gaze on him.
The robber kept going, utterly unashamed.
"They attacked us on the mountain and took everything we had! We barely made it out alive!"
Silence hung in the air for a few moments.
Silva glanced at June.
June glanced at Julie.
Julie looked genuinely impressed—
not by how believable the lie was,
but by the sheer nerve it took to tell it.
Slowly, Rose's expression began to twist.
"You..."
She stepped forward.
"You tried to rob us!"
The two men quickly ducked farther behind the Lord.
"Lies!" one shouted. "She's just trying to scare us!"
Rose's cheeks flushed.
"How dare you accuse us of robbery when you were the ones who tried to—!"
She cut herself off.
Her fists shook.
She had already been humiliated by Rin. She was exhausted, irritated, and wanted nothing more than to leave this miserable mountain behind.
Now the very men who had attempted to rob her were accusing her of robbery.
"This is utterly ridiculous."
The Lord raised a hand.
"You stand accused of attacking my people and stealing their possessions. You will come with us until the matter has been investigated."
Rose stared at him in disbelief, then let out a laugh. Not because it was funny, but because she couldn't wrap her head around what she'd just heard. "You believed them?"
The Lord's expression tightened. "I know these men."
She shrugged. "Then maybe you should pick better company." The guards tensed, and his face grew darker, but Rose didn't care anymore. She turned her back on him.
"We're leaving."
Silva paused.
"Rose—"
"I'm done wasting time."
She strode right past the guards.
June and Julie traded uneasy looks before trailing after her. Silva lingered a moment longer, eyes fixed on the Lord.
Something was off.
Humiliation was written all over his face.
His own guards had heard Rose brush him off.
His authority had been publicly challenged.
And Rose had turned her back on him.
The Lord's hand clenched.Aura swirled around his fist.
Silva's eyes went wide.
"Rose!"
She started to turn.
Too late.
The Lord attacked from behind.
His aura flared as his fist crashed into Rose's back.
Rose was launched from the road.
Her body crashed through a wooden fence before striking the ground several metres away.
Silence fell. Silva froze, June's eyes went wide, and Julie's face turned blank. Rose stayed still. The Lord lowered his fist slowly. The two robbers stared, stunned—they hadn't thought he'd go that far. "That's what happens," the Lord said coldly, "when someone forgets their place."
"Rose?"
Silva rushed toward her, but there was no response. June and Julie were right behind. As soon as June reached Rose, the color drained from her face—Rose's breathing was shallow, her once-bright aura fading fast. Julie placed a trembling hand near her, then glanced at Silva. "She's dying." Silva felt a chill run through her. Moments ago, Rose had been complaining, arguing, so full of life. Now, her existence hung by a thread.
Behind them, the Lord ordered his guards forward.
High above the settlement, atop the blazing volcano, a pair of green eyes watched everything.