Dancing on the golden ashes

The system message carves itself into my vision, each word like a blade through my chest.

[Your familiar—Malrang—has activated her final skill: Soul Ignite.]

I can't breathe. My body seizes, trembling against the cage of light. My hands claw at nothing, tearing blood from my palms as if I could rip the words from existence.

"No… not you. Not you too…" My voice fractures, too weak to even echo. The battlefield's roar drowns it, yet inside me it tolls like a funeral bell.

Her voice follows, faint but steady, carried like the last fragile thread between us. "Gaon… don't cry, okay? I'm not gone yet, and even when I am… please, don't cry. Don't make this harder for me. You must live. You must fight. I will give everything for you. The day we shared that bond, the day I was tied to you, I swore I would offer this life to you—my only friend, the only one who ever saw me for who I truly was. So fight, Gaon. Fight. And when you break free from that cage, tear him apart for me… alright?"

I slam my forehead into the cage, again and again, Wrath howling, Pride burning, Greed clawing at the impossible. But nothing breaks. I can only watch, powerless, as the fire inside her ignites.

The light swells in the distance—too bright, too final. My scream tears my throat raw, but even that sound is swallowed by the storm of her sacrifice.

"AWOOOO!"

A howl like death itself rips from Malrang's body, shaking the heavens. Before my eyes, the purple fox swells in size, rising as tall as a mountain. Her nine tails blaze with violet hellfire, each one scorching the firmament until the sky melts and drips to the earth like candle wax.

"Oho? Now that is something I did not expect." The Creator's disgusting voice slithers from my side, his fingers brushing idly against the bars of my cage. He rises slowly, savoring the moment, his eyes fixed on the inferno before us. "To think that such a creature slipped past my grasp. You never cease to surprise me, Gaon. Even a legendary being like this… became your pet. Hahaha!"

The realm quakes to her roar. Space itself trembles as if refusing to hold her form. Her power is so overwhelming it makes even me shiver. For the first time, I feel a flicker of fear—just how far has she risen in this final blaze?

"Kill the other two! Don't let them reach Lee Gaon! If you fail, your heads will fly!" The Creator's command splits the air, and in an instant, several figures flash forward, moving as fast as light itself to intercept Seong-hoon and Jieun.

"Piss off!" Seong-hoon's roar echoes from the distance, his sword clashing against the emperor of the angels. Jieun, meanwhile, is swallowed by ten Immortal Emperors from distant realms, her blade blazing as she faces them all at once.

"Listen well, Gaon." Malrang's voice pierces my mind, steady and resolute. "When I find an opening, I'll rush you. I'll tear this cage apart and set you free. And once I do… kill him for me."

You idiot… what are you even saying? My body shakes, tears scorching my face as despair devours me from the inside. And yet, in the same breath, something else coils beneath it—fury, raw and empowering, clawing its way into my veins.

I watch as the two forces collide. Malrang hurls herself at the Creator, her colossal form blazing, while he merely punches the air before him. The impact detonates like the end of the world, the ground evaporating into nothing, a massive crater yawning wide beneath them. Again and again they clash, each strike tearing at the fabric of this realm. Malrang exhales a torrent of hellfire, drenching sky and earth alike in purple flame. The heat scorches even me inside the cage, searing through my immortal flesh.

But the bars do not yield. The celestial metal glows faintly under the inferno, unbroken, untouched. Not even Malrang's burning fury can melt it.

The heat scorches even the heavens, Malrang's flames wrapping around the Creator, cooking him alive as they clash. Fire dances endlessly across his body, trying to burn him to ash, but his cursed, unyielding skin refuses to give way. A sword blazes into existence within his grasp, and suddenly fire meets fire—matter itself bending to his will. For thousands of exchanges, the two of them rip the battlefield apart, neither side giving ground.

And then, at last, something shifts.

Malrang unleashes a devastating blast, her jaws and nine blazing tails merging into a single beam of world-destroying fire. The inferno splits the realm, burning a path straight toward him.

The beam crashes into the Creator, and for the first time, he falters—forced to block. His expression hardens, no longer mocking, his face carved into seriousness. The impact hurls him across the broken sky, and before the light fades, Malrang moves, lightning-fast, her soul unraveling with every step.

Her colossal jaws clamp down on my cage, teeth gnashing against the celestial bars, tugging, tearing, desperate to break it apart.

"Malrang…" My hand reaches for her, trembling, useless. I feel her slipping through me, her desperation bleeding into my own, but no matter how much I strain, nothing works.

AWOOOO!

Her howl splits the realm, and her eyes blaze with something new—desperation transformed into resolve. Her entire body ignites, purple hellfire consuming her form, and I feel her agony tear into me. She is burning her soul away, suffering the cruelest death for the chance to fight one last time.

And then she lunges.

The Creator steadies himself above, descending like judgment itself, sword raised.

"Gaon… this is my final attack. I'll try to kill him. But if I fail… know that I love you. You've always been like a sister to me. Thank you for being with me… all this time. Goodbye."

"No… MALRANG!" My scream rips me apart as the two collide.

One is a blazing comet, a fox turned into a star, so bright the cosmos itself seems to recoil in fear. She burns with such brilliance that even my immortal eyes water, yet I cannot look away.

The other stands like eternity given flesh, his sword descending with the weight of a universe.

KABOOOOOM!

The collision detonates reality itself. Fire and celestial power clash in the void, sweeping the battlefield clean. The sky shatters into splintered glass, the ground heaves like a dying ocean, magma erupts in volcanic torrents, and winds sharper than blades shred the air. The weak are erased in an instant, their screams snuffed out. Even the strongest stagger, bloodied and broken.

Only I remain untouched inside the cage—safe, but not alive. Not truly.

Because in that moment, I die a little too.

"Malrang…" I whisper, blood tears streaming down my face, despair pulsing like poison through my heart.