Death Healer

Caesar stopped outside the ruined outpost and struck steel against flint, lighting a small fire in the shelter of a half-collapsed wall. The dawn wind blew smoke sideways, swirling it around the broken stones. Lily sat down across from him, still flexing her fingers, the echo of the Sacred Flame's warmth fading in her palm.

Caesar fed a bit of dry wood to the fire, watching the flames take hold. He poked at the embers with a stick, then fixed Lily with a sharp look.

"You've got the Light Affinity," Caesar said, voice low. "That's half the battle for the Sacred Flame. You've proved it. Whatever your parents did for your training… I'm…"

The man was actually speechless.

He had never seen someone with a Light Affinity so powerful that they were immune to the Darkness-consuming aspects of the Sacred Fire.

It was downright insane.

He paused, gestured at the fire.

"But now comes the other half. You don't just need Light. You need Fire. You have to understand it—not just how it burns, but why it burns, what it wants, what it destroys, and what it leaves behind. Most people never get it. They think Fire is simple. They think it's just heat, or light, or a weapon you throw at your enemies."

He picked up a twig, broke it in half, tossed it in.

"Light is pure. It heals, it reveals, it burns away shadows. It wants things to be clean. But Fire? Fire doesn't care about clean. Fire wants to eat. Fire wants to change whatever it touches. It destroys, but it also forges. You have to respect that. You have to accept that real fire will take everything you give it and leave you something different. Maybe stronger, maybe nothing but ash."

Lily stared at the flames, eyes reflecting orange and gold.

Lily nodded. "I know what it does. I've seen the aftermath of when you use it to destroy the Undead corpses. There's nothing left. It burns through the Undead, and it takes a piece of everything else with it."

Caesar's eyes narrowed. "Now you learn what Fire Affinity really means. Not just knowing how to cast. Not just throwing fire around. You have to understand what you're burning away, and you have to be ready to lose it."

He gestured for her to sit. "Stare at the fire. See if you can feel what it wants. Most people just see light and heat. You need to sense the appetite. That's the difference between Light and Fire."

He waited as Lily sat by the flames, shoulders set, jaw tight, watching the wood curl and blacken. Smoke and heat rolled off in waves. The fire burned, and Lily sat there, refusing to blink, determined to face whatever truth it showed her.

Lily sat by the fire, her knees drawn up, hands clenched tight. Caesar watched in silence, saying nothing.

She closed her eyes and activated Mana Sense. At first, she only caught a mess of impressions—heat, brightness, twisting flows that slipped through her grasp. Fire Mana felt wild, jagged, almost violent, eating at the edges of her senses the longer she stared. Every time she tried to follow a thread, it slipped away, swallowed up by brighter streams.

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She reached deeper, letting the world fall away until only the fire remained. The flames snapped and danced, Mana rolling off them in waves. It was nothing like Light or Life Mana. Light Mana felt clear, sharp, pushing shadows aside. Fire Mana tore through everything, leaving nothing but hunger in its wake.

She tried to push past the chaos, searching for a pattern. Nothing came. Frustration clawed at her stomach. The more she stared, the more the fire felt unknowable, a wild force she could never tame. Doubt crawled up her throat.

She clenched her teeth.

This isn't enough.

The fire had burned low. Caesar tossed a splinter of wood onto the embers, but his eyes stayed fixed on Lily.

She sat cross-legged, eyes narrowed, Mana Sense spreading out around her. The world faded, leaving only the lines of fire, the swirl of hungry Mana, the snap of energy devouring wood. The first few times, her senses tangled—she saw only chaos, flashes of color and heat that broke apart before she could grasp them.

She pushed harder. Frustration built. She gritted her teeth. The flames flickered and blurred, but no pattern emerged. The Fire Mana tore itself apart, wild and destructive, beyond any shape she could follow.

She shut her eyes, blocking out everything but the sensation in her chest, reaching deeper into herself, chasing the pattern she knew had to exist. She remembered other breakthroughs, moments when Mana Sense had let her "see" things others could only guess at. Anatomy, disease, the weak points in monsters—always, the difference was in being able to see.

The memory of her old life stirred. Images of classrooms, diagrams of combustion, atoms breaking and reforming, flickered in the dark behind her eyes. Fire was a chain reaction—a hunger, a transformation. There was order beneath the violence, if you looked close enough.

She drew a long breath, let Mana Sense burrow into the fire's core, ignoring the chaos on the surface. Something changed. She caught a flash—lines moving, spiraling, twisting into a structure. The world snapped into focus. The hunger of the fire resolved into a pattern. The destruction became a path.

She exhaled. Her palm came up, fingers splayed.

Mana gathered at her fingertips, so hot it hurt.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, with a silent rush, pure flame burst to life above her hand—a single, perfect wisp, burning white-gold.

The light was so clean it made the dawn seem grey by comparison.

The air bent around it.

The Mana structure inside the fire glowed in her mind.

I can see.

The truth slid into place: she was not just making fire, she was seeing it—each strand, each node, each breath of Mana aligned and bound.

It was the same as the sow's wound, the same as every moment her vision had cut through the haze.

This was not chaos.

It was a pattern that she could follow.

The fire wisp hovered in the air, flawless, almost silent.

Caesar went very still. His mouth worked once before he found words.

"That… Lily, that's not normal fire." His voice was rough. "No one, not even Cassius, made it burn like that. That's the Sacred Flame's core. That's pure."

She nodded, eyes never leaving the flame.

"I can see it. I can see how it fits together. The Fire Mana isn't wild. It's exact. It's ordered."

He stared at her, then gave a short, almost unbelieving laugh.

"That's it. You're ready. The only step left is to absorb the Sacred Flame. If you can do this, you'll master it."

Lily let the wisp burn out, her vision lingering on the afterimage of its structure. She felt no fear. The path forward was visible.

She looked at Caesar, voice steady.

"I'm ready."

He nodded.

"We start tomorrow. Tonight, rest. Tomorrow, you face the Sacred Flame for real."