The world had narrowed to a single point—a blade's edge, a breath held too long, and the quiet between heartbeats where everything could break and fall apart in an instant.
And Eryk Thorn stood on that edge, teetering.
He wasn't breathing. Not really. Air came and went, but it did nothing to ease the tightness in his chest. He couldn't feel his hands, couldn't even tell if his feet were still on solid ground or if the floor beneath him had disappeared the moment those words left Kael Thorn's lips.
"I'm sorry, Eryk."
Two words.
And yet they hit like a collapsing star.
Kael had never said those words to him before. Not when he missed a casting sigil during training. Not when his control slipped and the house burned. Not even the night the Null Grimoire awakened inside him.
But now he said them.
Not as the Firebrand. Not as the man who once bent flame to his will with a flick of his hand.
He said them as a father.
And Eryk… couldn't bear it.
Kael stood before him without armor, without the blaze that had once made the world tremble at his feet. There was no heat in his voice. No fury. Just… sorrow. His shoulders hunched slightly, as though the weight of everything he carried had finally proven too much.
And yet he stood there. Still between Eryk and the Council. Still protecting him. Still calling him son.
Eryk's throat closed. The void in his chest twisted into something he couldn't contain. It pulsed with guilt. Not the quiet, lingering kind, but sharp, invasive, and all-consuming.
He had done this.
He had taken his father's fire.
Not just his magic. Not just the blaze. But the part of Kael that stood tall, that defied the world, that once whispered to Eryk in the night that no one could touch them as long as they were together.
He had made him less.
And Kael was still here.
Still choosing him.
Eryk's fingers curled into fists. He wanted to speak. To fall to his knees and scream that he hadn't meant it, that if he could go back, he would, that he'd burn his own soul if it meant restoring what he'd taken.
But the words didn't come. They died in his mouth with as heavy as ash.
Because nothing he said could fix this.
The damage was done.
"He's going to strike! Protect the Firebrand!"
Magister Dain's voice cracked through the moment like a lash, breaking it clean in two.
A calculated, venomous lie. And the Council didn't hesitate.
The silence shattered.
Spells bloomed in the air—fire curling like serpents, ice shards gleaming like razors, lightning crackling from the tips of gloved fingers. A dozen incantations whispered through clenched teeth, all pointed at Eryk and all pulsing with the same truth.
Kill the Hollowborn.
Eliminate the threat.
Eryk didn't flinch. He didn't raise a hand. Didn't even blink.
But Kael did.
The Mythblade ignited in his hand, runes pulsing to life like a long-slumbering beast roused from the deep. He moved—not with magic, but with memory. With muscle trained from decades of war.
Steel met spell. Flame collided with flame.
The world screamed with clinks of the sword and the spells.
The blade didn't sing, but it wailed around the Wastes. A shriek of dying stars and metal being torn apart, and in that noise was everything Kael had ever been. Everything he still was.
The first spell exploded against the Mythblade's edge, fizzled into sparks and smoke. The next shattered in a spray of frost. The third, lightning, cracked in midair, scattering harmlessly across the ground.
"HE IS NOT A THREAT!" shouted Kael. "HE'S JUST A BOY!"
His voice was a roar born of desperation.
Magister Dain's lips twisted into a sneer. "Then why do you defend him?"
Kael said nothing.
The Mythblade was answer enough.
The fight began in earnest.
And Eryk could only watch.
Kael moved like a man possessed, a soldier refusing to die. He couldn't call fire anymore, couldn't weave walls of heat or summon rivers of flame like he once did. But he had the blade and will and skill.
The blade danced.
Spells fell like stars. Kael Thorn met each one. Every cut cost him. Each deflection took a fraction more of what he had left.
But he never stopped.
And Eryk stood frozen, nails digging into his palms.
His father was fighting for him.
A bolt of pure light slipped past Kael's side and struck his shoulder. He staggered, teeth clenched, one knee nearly buckling, but he didn't fall.
Another caught him in the ribs.
Then his leg.
Blood painted the earth, red against cracked stone. It sizzled where it fell, steaming in the cold air. Eryk tasted metal on his tongue.
"PAPA!" he choked, but Kael didn't turn. He couldn't afford to.
Magister Dain's arms rose, power rippling in thick waves. The air warped around him, bending and twisting like heat above a forge. He whispered something in a tongue older than fire.
"Enough! This ends now!"
The magic that erupted from Dain's hands wasn't a spell Eryk recognized. It wasn't fire, or ice, or any of the classical elements.
Something older than destruction. A hunger that slithered through the air and unmade the space it touched. The world recoiled from it. Even the wind stopped.
Kael didn't hesitate to raise the Mythblade.
Steel met spell.
But the Mythsword on Kael's hands shattered into pieces.
The sound was a scream that split the sky. The blade exploded in Kael's hands, its runes blinking out one by one like dying stars. Fragments flew, spinning like shrapnel into the dirt.
The spell hit Kael full in the chest.
"PAPA!"
The scream ripped from Eryk's throat, cracked his bones from the inside. He ran—but the Council moved faster. Magic wrapped around him, a lattice of light and will.
He slammed into it, fists blazing, voice breaking.
Kael Thorn lay crumpled in the dirt.
Magister Dain stepped over his body without looking down, robes untouched, hands clasped behind his back.
"You see now, Thorn? This is what your mercy buys you!"
Eryk didn't hear him.
He was looking at his father.
At the man who had carried him when he broke his leg at age six. Who had pulled him out of a burning wreck when the village was attacked.
Eryk's heart broke and the void inside him howled in rage.
It rose like a tide, dark and bottomless.
Magic erupted from Eryk's hands, not the controlled threads of earlier—but a storm. A living hurricane of negation. The cage around him imploded, unraveling in an instant.
"Eryk, no!" Kael Thorn, who was lying on the ground, shouted.
The world reacted a second too late.
Eryk moved.
Dain barely had time to register the blur before Eryk was on him.
Their bodies collided in a thunderclap, a shockwave splitting the earth. Council mages were thrown back, their spells sputtering like dying embers. The sky itself seemed to recoil.
"You hurt him!" Eryk growled, his voice inhuman, layered with something else.
Dain's face twisted in disdain, hands already forming another spell. "And I'll do worse to you, Hollow—"
Eryk reached forward.
And pulled.
The magic stuttered. Dain gasped, the spell reversing and unraveling, being sucked back. His veins darkened, his eyes wild with confusion.
"W-What—?"
Power flowed into him, sick and sweet and overwhelming. And for the first time, he didn't fight it.
The Council attacked again but the little dragon—a wisp of flame and fury—hurled itself into their path, shrieking defiance. It clawed through air, igniting spells, protecting its master.
Eryk didn't notice it.
All he saw was Dain.
All he saw was the man who hurt his father.
He reached deeper, beyond Dain's spells, into his core—into the part that was his magic. The soul of it.
And he ripped it out!
Dain screamed so hard he couldn't fight it anymore.
Eryk didn't care.
"Eryk!" Kael shouted again.
His eyes fluttered open, pale and glassy, but alive. His grip was a whisper, but it held more weight than any magic.
"Enough," Kael rasped.
The storm halted for a second.
Dain collapsed in a heap—his magic was drained, and his eyes were wide with terror.
Around them, the Council stood still. Fear flickered across their faces.
Kael's hand clung to Eryk's wrist, shaking. His lips moved again.
"Stop..." Kael told Eryk. "You're not... a monster."
Eryk fell to his knees.
"Papa—" his voice broke entirely. He looked around. "Sera!!"
But he couldn't find Sera around. All he could see were the Councils stepping back as they drag Magister Dain far away from Eryk and Kael's whereabouts.
The dragon went to Eryk's side, looking at Kael Thorn as if he was curious.
Only if Eryk could help him, but he couldn't.
Not when he was a hollowborn, and he have no mana core. Only a fucking void inside him who consumes power. Not to heal people!
A few minutes later, with Kael's struggling body and Eryk was with him, they heard some footsteps on their backs.
"Stray Dog!" called Sera to him. Eryk looked at her abruptly. He saw her running towards him. "What happened here?!"
And then Sera saw his father lying on the ground. And he's hurt.
And then after that moment, someone shouted again behind their backs.
"YOU DO NOT TOUCH MY SON IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE EATEN BY THESE WASTES!"
Eryk looked at her. "Mama...?"
"I saw her around the Wastes. She's looking for you, told me she was your mother," explained Sera. "And then we heard the fight."
Eryk's mother, Liora, went to where they were. When Liora saw Kael Thorn's status, she knelt as fast as she could, and then she healed her husband.
When Kael Thorn gained his strength, he hugged his wife and his son tightly.
And Sera just watched them.
And then she saw a dragon on her side, looking at her, as if the dragon was cursing her.
"WHAT THE HELL?!!"