The Hollow Earth breathed beneath my claws.
It was not a place.
It was a **being.**
Alive.
Awake.
And watching me.
The sky, a dome of inverted gravity and drifting light, flickered with constellations I didn't recognize. Moons that weren't moons. Shapes that shifted when you didn't look directly at them.
But one thing was clear:
To sit on the Throne of Ash…
I had to **earn it.**
---
### **Narration – Belenus**
The path of flame opened before me — not paved with stone, but forged in memory.
The **Crimson Flame.**
Root of Wrath.
The first of three.
N'ythra the Reflector watched silently from her mirrored spire. Bar'ghul stood beside her like a sentinel of fate. Neither interfered.
This trial was mine.
I stepped forward.
And the world changed.
---
### **Trial of the First Root: Wrath**
The land burned.
Volcanoes erupted in reverse, sucking magma into the sky. Ash rained upward. Rivers of obsidian bled heatless fire, and at the center of it all…
A gate.
Circular. Blackened. Breathing.
Behind it stood a beast as old as war itself.
**Sol'Karun**, the Ember Tyrant.
Once a general of the First Flame. Now, its executioner.
Wreathed in chains forged from fallen stars, his molten form rippled with rage and broken loyalty.
He did not speak.
He **roared.**
---
### **Narration – Belenus**
This was no test of strength.
This was a test of **self.**
He lunged, claws like falling suns. I dodged, but his heat still carved trenches in my armor. My atomic breath lanced out — white-gold fury — but Sol'Karun *absorbed* it, growing brighter, angrier.
Every blow I landed, he returned threefold.
I fought not just him — I fought **my rage.**
Every time I lost control, he grew stronger.
Every time I fought with hate, he *fed.*
It wasn't until I stopped… until I **centered** the flame…
That I understood.
---
### **The Ashen Flame**
I knelt.
Let his claws strike.
And instead of resisting… I embraced the fire.
My body flared not with destruction — but with *resolve.*
Not *wrath.*
**Will.**
The crimson light that had once only danced in my spines now erupted from within. White-hot cracks seared open along my chest, tail, even my horns.
My breath changed.
No longer a wild blast of fury.
But a focused beam of purpose.
I rose.
And roared.
---
### **Victory**
Sol'Karun froze.
Then slowly…
He bowed.
Chains shattered. His molten form melted into dust, and from the embers rose a burning sigil — the first Root, awakened.
It branded itself into my soul.
And I heard them.
The Elders.
The ancient voices of Hollow Earth.
> "First Root kindled."
> "Two remain."
> "The Ashen King rises."
---
### **Narration – Belenus**
I stood taller.
Heavier.
Stronger.
But it wasn't my size that had changed.
It was my *fire.*
It no longer burned *against* the world.
It burned **for** it.
---
### **Elsewhere – High Orbit Rift**
Something watched from beyond the breach in the sky. A shape in the void. Tentacled. Infinite. Patient.
It had many names.
But in ancient titan script, only one mattered:
> **Ny'Orrak — The Hollow Star.**
> The World-Eater.
> The first thing the Elders ever feared.
The sky is cracking.
The stars are whispering.
And I have two Roots left.
Before the storm breaks…
I will become the Ashen king