Ash sat motionless at the heart of the Greater Chamber, cradled inside a cushion of living cloud that felt like the universe itself had decided to keep one promise. Cherry petals hung suspended around him, refusing to fall, while the ceiling of liquid starlight rose and fell in the same slow rhythm as every soul he had ever shielded.
Ten months here for every single month the outside world spun forward; time moved like honey here, thick, golden, and forgiving. Eyes closed, he turned inward and summoned the memory of the only S-rank being he had ever known personally, Vaeloria.
The memory had been simple, almost cruel in their clarity. To step beyond A-rank was to carve a path so absolute it would define everything you were, everything you refused to be, and every future you would ever claim.
A vow.
So, he looked into the mirror of his own soul and spoke the truth he believed was his.
"I am someone who has lived two lifetimes," he said, voice low, steady, each syllable striking the silence like iron on iron. "Someone counted out, spat on, looked down upon again and again, yet I never once complained. I simply rose."
Mana answered instantly, gathering in shimmering strands that braided themselves into a cocoon of pure energy around his seated form.
"I will be the one never looked down upon again. The one who stands on thrones it took kings, queens, and emperors millennia to build. I will be the end of every throne that will ever dare to look down on me." The cocoon tightened, sealing him inside a sphere of blinding white.
"I vow to sit above every crown, every god, every regret. I will gather power until power itself kneels and calls me master. I will become the apex no hand can ever reach again, the hunger that devours hunger, the vengeance that forgives nothing—"
The words were cut off as the cocoon hardened into something denser than any metal. Inside, his closed eyes saw nothing but darkness, and then that darkness twisted. The void swallowed him whole.
When his vision cleared, he was standing in the empty void.
'Uhh... another memory? I've completely fused with this body.... the memories should've ended long ago' He thought as he looked around.... but as he looked around the emptiness around him made him shudder with something older than age.... deeper than fear.
For the first time in either lifetime, Ash felt the cold prickle of genuine dread crawl across his skin.
He continued looking around, searching, and then he saw it.
The void itself peeled open like a lid. An eye. A single, colossal eye whose pupil blazed pure white against absolute black. As he stared at this eye.... time lost meaning. He floated in front of that unblinking gaze for what felt like years, then decades, then centuries, half a million years reduced to the span of a held breath.
The eye never moved.
It simply watched.
Then it did.
The pupil contracted, and the void folded itself into the shape of a man. Features impossible to grasp, gender however... it was unmistakable. Standing in the void as Ash watched was a Male.
Each step the figure took erased distance as if the concept was nonexistent.
Ash was dragged behind like an anchor chained to fate itself. Thousands of years of walking through nothing, until the figure dissolved into particles of light. In that final instant the void exploded into blinding dawn, and ancient words, words Ash had never heard yet somehow already knew, tore themselves from his throat inside the cocoon.
"I vow to one day.... retrieve all that is mine, but I will never create the same… As I am The One True Architect."
[You have ranked up.]
[Rank | Low S Rank | Existence Level 35,543.5]
While Ash had unknowingly completed the final step, Nia sat beneath the waterfall he had shaped for her long ago, legs folded, palms open on her knees, water roaring down like liquid diamonds around her small frame.
This place had become holy to her, the one patch of the Lesser Chamber where she could still smell him on the air. Vaeloria's explanation of A-rank ascension had been brief.... look inside, find the single truth you will never betray, and let it burn you into something stronger. Memories came unbidden...
The marble halls of Solace, the endless praise, the weight of being the kingdom's perfect golden blade. Her twin mutations, fire that fed on light and light that scorched like fire, had marked her for greatness since birth. If the process had not demanded absolute focus on self, every memory would have been Ash.
His face. His voice. His rare, crooked smile that belonged to her...
Mana roared up from the stone beneath her, answering the shape of her obsession. A cocoon of white fire laced with molten gold swallowed her whole. Above the blazing sphere hung her soul brand, newly forged and already searing itself into reality.
The rune was a slender, vertical torch formed entirely of golden flame. At its core burned a single black tear, an unquenchable drop of shadow that refused to evaporate no matter how fiercely the torch blazed.
Nine hair-thin rings of white light orbited the flame in slow, possessive spirals, each ring linked to the next by delicate chains of living ember. The entire symbol pulsed like a heartbeat that had decided the world could keep beating only as long as she allowed it.
Nia opened her eyes inside the cocoon and spoke the name with soft, terrifying certainty.
"Obsidian Wick of the Ever-Burning Claim."
The rune sank into her soul like a brand into soft flesh.
[You have Ranked Up.]
[Rank A | Existence Level 2,600]
[Soul Brand Myth – Obsidian Wick of the Ever-Burning Claim - Immunity to all lesser forms of fire and light.
- The brighter the surrounding light, the hotter your flames climb without limit; sunlight turns the user's fire stellar, moonlight turns it ghostly-cold, absolute darkness transforms your fire into a black flame that consumes hope itself.
-The black tear at the wick's heart devours any attack made of pure light or fire and adds its strength to your next strike.
-Once per battle: You may feed the tear one drop of your own blood. For ten seconds every flame and photon on the battlefield belongs to you alone; enemies wielding fire or light find their techniques stolen and turned against them in the same breath.]
The cocoon shattered into drifting sparks. Nia descended slowly, bare feet settling onto the surface of the river as though it were solid ground. Her hair, once simply black and white, now carried streaks of fiery crimson that caught the light like fresh blood on snow.
A tiny white sun, no larger than a coin, had etched itself dead center on her forehead, its edges flickering with gold. Her petite frame had softened into subtle, dangerous curves, every line promising ruin to anyone who tried to take what was hers.
She hovered above the water, golden eyes narrowing.
"I can't get complacent," she whispered, voice sweet and lethal. "Ashy mentioned the Greater Chamber last time he was here… I have to reach S-rank before the time limit... I won't stand on the sidelines this time..."
With that, she turned moving towards the Greater Chamber, the Obsidian Wick already burning quietly on her soul, waiting for the day someone tried to blow it out.