The compass's barnacle eye quivered in my palm, glowing azure, fixed on the youthful figure ahead. The Eternal Firefly King. Legends whispered that he had been the smallest of sovereigns, scorned by those who measured power only in thunder and flame. Yet when the storms passed, when mountains crumbled and dynasties fell, his light still shone—an undying brilliance that no darkness could smother. They said each firefly was a fragment of his dantian or spiritual pond, born anew each age, an unending chain of rebirth. The statue's carved eyes held a calmness that struck me like a mirror.
Youthful.
Underestimated by all.
But behind that serenity was a promise that mocked eternity itself. My chest tightened. This was not admiration—it was recognition. The eerie familiarity of standing before a destiny that had already written me into its sacred script. Around me, murmurs rippled. I did not need to turn to know rival prodigies were watching and gathering.
"The Eternal Firefly King? That path is too strange… too elusive. No brute strength there."
Others spoke more softly, almost afraid. "They say his light never dies… that even in death, his soul burned on."
The motes swirled faster, orbiting the statue in patterns that made the air itself ring. Fireflies should have been silent, but here their wings shimmered with a faint celestial chime, like the echo of unseen bells. The air cooled, soft and sweet, as though I stood on some eternal summer night. I could almost feel the brush of wings against my skin, delicate but unyielding. I stepped closer. My heartbeat thundered, not with fear, but with recognition. This was not a prize to be seized. This was a calling.
The compass's lidless eye stared unblinking, its glow deepening, as if it too acknowledged the bond. "I see you," I whispered, the words leaving my lips before I had chosen them. The Eternal Firefly King's lights flared in answer, spiraling upward, filling the plaza with their glow. And in that glow, I knew—this was no accident of tokens or tournaments. This was a resonance with eternity itself. Beneath the statue's feet, words shimmered faintly in threads of golden light, almost lost to time: "What is a flame but a brief defiance? What is a firefly but the proof that light returns? Mock my smallness, mock my flicker—yet when your pyres are ash, I will still glow. Eternity is not conquest. Eternity is persistence."
My chest tightened at the words. My hand clenched around the Barnacle-Eyed Compass, feeling the single barnacle eye dig into the flesh of my palm. My thought was cut off. A thunderclap of light split the heavens. Between the massive wings of two spectral dragoons, another Inheritance descended—draped in chains of black flame, its aura sharp, devouring, merciless. The onlookers recoiled as the effigy took shape: a towering obsidian idol with a single baleful eye glaring from its forehead.
The Inheritance of the Evil Eye God. The crowd erupted. Across the plaza, Dimitri snapped to attention, his Psychic Fire Eye blazing with hunger. This was an eye bloodline inheritance! The air thickened with the scent of burning soul essence as his gaze locked on the inheritance. "Mine," he hissed, his voice low but fervent.
But the Inheritance required more than desire. A glowing barrier flared around the idol, etched with the mark of 45 Tokens! The threshold was merciless, claimants must earn their entrance. Dozens of prodigies surged forward, clouds of tokens burning on their golden animus Cords. They roared challenges, weapons flashing as they barred Dimitri's way. The clash was immediate and brutal—lightning blades clashing with fiery spears, shadows ripping at flesh, concussive qi detonating in the plaza.
Dimitri's mind-flames surged, spectral eyes igniting across his body as he screamed in fury. Each gaze he cast devoured an opponent's vitality, leaving their limbs shaking, their souls shrieking. One by one, they staggered. The plaza trembled under the battle. Clansmen shouted from the stands, elders leaned forward with cold smiles, and the draconic wings above beat harder, awaiting the victor.
I stood frozen for a moment between the glow of the Eternal Firefly King and the chaos of Dimitri's slaughter. One path promised endless renewal. The other dripped with devouring power. Two legacies—two destinies—falling at once. The Barrier of the Evil Eye Inheritance shimmered with its 45-token entry mark, daring the bold. Five other strong prodigies stepped forward, united only by their desire to seize it. Dimitri sneered, his single fire eye blazing as glyphs of flame swam across its surface. Garth charged first, his stone maul smashing down. Dimitri's gaze flared crimson, a beam of mind-flame striking Garths chest. The juggernaut staggered—his flesh intact, but his spirit burning. Garth roared, swinging wildly, only for Dimitri to side-step and sear his soul again! With a final thrust of mental fire, Garth dropped to one knee, gasping, his maul crumbling from numb fingers. Seraya Wind veil swooped in next!
Storms shrieking from her twin fans and feathers. Air blades slashed, cutting deep gouges in the ground. Dimitri's psychic fire-eye spun wildly, tracking her every move.
A flash—his gaze locked, and a tendril of consuming fire lanced out! The air itself seemed to catch fire, collapsing her winds. Seraya gasped as the flames sizzled at her spirit, slowing her flight. Dimitri flicked a finger—another mind-flame detonated inside her skull. She crashed to the ground, coughing blood. Korven Black Scale roared, half-shifted into draconic form, lava bubbling across his skin.
His whip-tail lashed, striking sparks. Dimitri bared his teeth, his fire eye glowing brighter—this opponent he could not ignore. Korven unleashed a molten breath of super-heated air. Dimitri screamed, his own blood igniting as spectral fire-eyes erupted across his body! Each one opening to release beams of soul-burning fire! The lava breath was pierced through, the draconic scales blackening under psychic flame! Korven fell, twitching as his lifeforce smoldered away.
Nayla of the Mourning Song stepped calmly through the chaos, bone flute raised. A wail split the plaza, and ghostly phantoms clawed at Dimitri's spirit! Dragging him down with their grief. For a moment, he faltered, knees buckling, lips bleeding. Nayla's eyes narrowed, her flute keening higher. But Dimitri's laugh was psychotic and unhinged.
His psychic fire eye burst open wider, spilling flame like liquid. The phantoms shrieked, ignited, and one by one dissolved! Nayla's eyes went wide as the fire consumed her own spirit! She dropped the flute, falling silent, her qi extinguished. Rikkar Sun brand was the last. Calm, steady, his spear leveled like a line of dawn. "Your fire is chaos," he said evenly. "Mine is clarity." A spear thrust blazed, faster than lightning, radiant with solar flame.
Dimitri dodged—barely.
Another thrust, then another, each more precise, pinning him into a corner! For a heartbeat, it seemed Dimitri might actually falter. But his grin only widened.
"Clarity burns bright…" he hissed, psychic fire eye blazing until veins of flame crawled across his whole face, "…but brightness always fades." A torrent of mind-flames erupted, and not just one eye, but from dozens of eyes manifesting in the air around him! Each one fired beams of soul-searing flame at Rikkar from impossible angles!
The spear master deflected three, four, even five strikes—before the sixth pierced through his spirit, and the seventh burned his heart. Rikkar fell, spear clattering against the stone.
Silence.
Dimitri stood amidst five fallen prodigies, his chest heaving, eyes blazing with fanatical triumph. The 45 tokens pulsed toward him, sucked into the barrier. With a sound like shattering chains, the obsidian idol's gaze turned to him, its eye igniting with abyssal flame.
The Evil Eye God had found its claimant. And above it all, I still stood before the Firefly King's quiet glow—two inheritances revealed, two destinies diverging. The plaza was hushed for a heartbeat after Rikkar fell. Then the murmur broke like a storm. From the Granite Ox Clan, an elder slammed his palm on the railing.
"Garth felled in three strikes of soul-fire… The boy wasn't even wounded! That eye… it devours life essence itself."
The Sky feather prodigies hissed in disbelief, one whispering, "He caught Seraya mid-flight—her winds, broken as though they were nothing but paper!" The Ember Serpent Clan erupted in outrage. "Korven bore the serpent's scale, and still he burned! No fire should overwhelm draconic blood—unless…" Their patriarch's face darkened. "Unless this is the forbidden flame art!" The Dirge clan fell silent, Nayla's kin staring pale-faced at her corpse. Their matron's voice was a chill whisper.
"He burned the dead. Even our spirits could not bind him." From the Dawn fire clan, Sun brand disciples wept and raged as Rikkar's body was carried away. One shouted, "Precision means nothing against madness!" The Dawn fire Elder only shook his head. "No… against inevitability." The plaza reeked of smoke and blood. Dimitri stood amidst five fallen prodigies, his Fire Eye blazing, his lips twisted in cruel triumph. The obsidian idol of the Evil Eye God opened its abyssal glare to him, and chains of flame wound into his flesh catching him up into the heavenly Inheritance palace!
But even as his victory solidified, another light stirred. The Eternal Firefly King's statue shimmered, its swarm of luminescent motes suddenly vibrating, wings thrumming like chimes. The light bent away from Dimitri's carnage, shunning the devouring aura of the Evil Eye. Instead, the fireflies drifted—slowly, deliberately—toward Ash. One by one, the motes settled onto his shoulders, his hair, his outstretched hand.
Their glow was soft, cool, timeless, a balm against the suffocating heat of Dimitri's mind-flames. A hush fell. "Do you see? They… they favor him," whispered a Sky feather prodigy. "Impossible," hissed a Granite Ox elder. "The Firefly King has never stirred for anyone in centuries." And yet the truth was plain: where Dimitri's inheritance devoured, Ash's inheritance embraced. The murmurs grew into a tide.
"Two paths… two kings revealed."
"A cursed flame, and a flickering eternity."
"Which one will outlast the other?"
I lifted my gaze to the glowing youth carved in stone. For the first time, the statue's eyes seemed not serene, but alive—shining with approval. The fireflies spiraled faster around me, weaving patterns that seemed like constellations, like the beginning of a mandala. My heart pounded. I whispered, not for the crowd but for myself, "Then… you've chosen me."
At that moment, the Eternal Firefly King's glow flared brighter, bathing me in a halo of light, while across the plaza Dimitri roared in triumph beneath the Evil Eye God's shadow. The obsidian idol's abyssal chains coiled tighter around Dimitri, lifting him into the air. His body arched as the Heavenly Palace of the Evil Eye God unfurled above—a towering citadel of black flame and spectral eyes that blinked across its walls. The plaza shuddered as the draconic wings that bore it beat once, twice, pulling him higher.
But before the palace swallowed him whole, Dimitri turned his head. His one blazing eye locked onto Ash. The sight of the fireflies glowing around Ash made his lips curl into a jagged sneer. "So… the Firefly King chose you," he spat, voice dripping venom. "A flicker of light, clinging to eternity. Pathetic."
The chains tightened, lifting him further—but he wrenched free one last word, his tone sharp enough to cut through the plaza. "Let's do battle in five years' time, Sovereign-Slayer! When next we meet, I'll extinguish your light and claim eternity for myself!" The Evil Eye Palace roared in answer, its obsidian gates slamming shut as Dimitri vanished within. Silence fell across the Inheritance Plaza. Only the soft hum of fireflies lingered, settling on Ash as if to shield him from the shadow of that threat.
The murmur among the clans rose again, half in awe, half in fear:
"Five years…"
"The Sovereign-Slayer and the Eye of Madness…"
"Two legacies destined to clash."
And above, the Eternal Firefly King's light pulsed once more, as if whispering that eternity was not to be stolen—but to be endured.