Steel and Mana

It was a calm and cold night within Avalon, as dark as it could get, thanks to the fact that no moonlight could break through the thick clouds. Most people were already asleep, but inside the palace, Arthur sat alone in the study, going over multiple reports, mainly focusing on the fresh news of what had happened at the Pride and the fact that Lucca was back in the city, already recruiting. Thinking about how hundreds of Vasas had appeared at the Pride, his eyes and hand subconsciously wandered toward the communicator that had remained dormant for days by now.

For days, he had dreamed of flames, and he couldn't tell if this was the influence of that Ignis beast or simply his brain playing jokes on him. Leyla tried to tell him it was the latter, but deep down, even she was unsure of it. Maybe this was why his sister decided to volunteer to be tested in Lucca's recruitment, no matter how much their mothers tried to oppose it.

Then... just as he was thinking about it, it happened. The runes carved into the Vasa communicator's surface flared up all of a sudden, causing Arthur to almost jump back before he reached for it, and he heard the voice in his mind, but no image appeared from it this time.

"Savior…"

"Yes," Arthur's spine tingled from the feeling he was getting, "Zah'Ratil?" He asked, afraid that... someone else was connecting to him, but then the stone pulsed once.

"It is I. Please..." He started, sounding way weaker than before, "Use more strength... the thread between us is thin."

"I can feel that," Arthur's throat felt dry, sensing way too much heat coming off from the other side, "It's been... What happened? You sound—"

"Weak." A dry laugh answered him, followed by a deep sigh, "I am dying... Nothing can be done about that, but that doesn't matter... Listen well, child of our blood. Because when I'm gone, you will be the Sect Master after me."

"What...?!"

"You will be..." He stopped, as if getting an idea, "the Sovereign ruler of the Vasa bloodline."

As he listened, wanting to ask more questions, the heat had spread further around him, through his bones and muscles, making him frown. It was exciting his magic, not in a good way, causing his mind to try to reject it, pushing it back down.

"Ah, so you can feel it... Yes... Ignis is stirring," Zah'Ratil said, every word weighed down by his fatigue that was affecting the connection between the two. Arthur could not only feel how weak he was, but also that he was... not long for this world. "That's why I made the ultimate sacrifice. I know the beast can no longer be contained..."

"Wait..." Arthur's knuckles whitened around the stone as he kept holding it, "You said you could keep her sealed—"

"For a time, sadly, that time became shorter than I expected..." He grunted, coughing once, "My body is nearly spent, my blood is burning away... I can hold her until she opens her eyes, but that's it. I can not send her back to sleep anymore. But listen to me, this is important. When she rises, I will strike at it through the connection I have with the monster. I will wound her mind, perhaps even cripple her, but that will be my end. The rest must be done by you, our Savior. Our Sovereign."

"Whoa, please, talk a bit more clearly!" Arthur rose so fast his chair toppled behind him, causing a ruckus, "What do you mean?!"

"Our Sect once believed in transcending the mortal flesh," Zah'Ratil continued, his voice drifting between clarity and sounding like a faint echo, ignoring Arthur's question, telling him what he had to. "We sought the path of the Gods through blood and magic... Apparently, we failed. We became half-beasts, half-men, slaves to our own hunger and pride, doing experiments and unforgivable, horrifying things to others that warranted our downfall. But we yet remain, trying to atone for our mistakes. If Ignis can't be stopped, we will have the whole Realm's blood on our hands, so we will stay and fight... But you... You can save everyone... including us."

"You always say only I can do it..." Arthur felt his heart hammer against his head as a headache was coming, but he managed to somehow push it back down, "Why me? Why can't it be everyone? My Father could..." He began but stopped as Zah'Ratil continued, sounding disappointed but not in Arthur, but... In themselves.

"We already tried that path. It's a dead end."

"I disagree." Arthur countered, but Zah'Ratil didn't get angry at him at all.

"I hope you are right." He answered without feeling sarcastic.

Then, the runes flared again, and Arthur suddenly saw images flickering through his mind, figures kneeling in obsidian, dark halls, the roar of a volcano, the echo of drums, flashing so fast it almost made him dizzy. There were techniques, arts, both for the body and the mind, and more importantly, there was history, reaching back, further back... it just kept going, and then... a bright flash. He could see a massive tear in the sky, where shining figures stood, descending from it, and although he couldn't see their faces, he could sense their utter horror as they watched the land before them. Monsters were roaming the forests and the plains, humans living in fortresses, etched into mountain sides or into the ground, trying to eke out another day of survival, yet dying by the hundreds, being nothing more than food. Maybe it was why the Gods took a pity on them... He saw as they came down, and when they walked, they moved thousands of steps at once. They waved a hand, exterminating a horde of beasts, before reshaping the world itself, raising the mountains, separating the world into two... Then he saw himself kneeling before one of these figures, and when he looked into the radiant flames around him, he could see his own reflection, with long, flowing red hair.

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"What?!" Arthur gasped, coming out of the memories, faltering, catching himself on the edge of the table.

"I will not see my world die without leaving its wisdom behind," Zah'Ratil muttered, even weaker than before. "You now inherited the Vasas' history, as I bore it from my master, and he from his. What you have seen is our history, from the Founder to this day. You have all the knowledge, and I just hope you will be able to use it to correct our mistakes."

The stone brightened again, and for an instant, Arthur saw Zah'Ratil as if he were standing in the room before him. Currently, he no longer looked like a human but rather a silhouette of fire and smoke, his red hair streaming like molten metal behind him, his robes smoldering, embers flying off them and disappearing into thin air.

"I still have a little time left... The transfer must begin now as my blood calls to yours. I will do my best, with the little time I have, to help you sort through the thousands of years of memories, separating them into our techniques, our records, and the patterns that govern the magic of our world and the power of the beasts alike. You will need all the knowledge we own to stop Ignis."

"..." Arthur hesitated, watching the figure of Zah'Ratil as he noticed that he was indeed burning away, "If I take it… will you die faster?"

"Perhaps." He smiled, faintly at him, "But at least I will die knowing Ignis can't win because you will stop him."

...
....
......

High above the raging volcano, Zah'Ratil hovered cross-legged, unbothered by the smoke and the lava spilling over the mouth of the volcano. Under him, deep grumbles and roars were echoing off the glowing walls of earth, resonating through the flowing magma, but they were not the mountain's groans. It was something else, borrowing the power of nature itself. Yet, ignoring it all, Zah'Ratil simply smiled, his eyes reopening, knowing he did what he had to. Slowly, almost ceremoniously, he began to stand, merely stepping back a few meters, letting the eruption shoot to the skies as molten earth and lava spread high into the air, melting the snow around it, spreading like a burning tsunami, destroying the Vasas' last city for good.

As it rained down, all that they called home was gone under the red waves, spreading in all directions, turning trees into ash and evaporating the snow, letting the world sizzle like a broken egg on the top of a stove.

However, the fire did little to Zah'Ratil, as he was no longer flesh and bone, only fire, his body melting away, leaving behind a glowing, burning spirit tethered to the beast emerging from beneath him. First, two red-scaled paws were reaching out, grabbing the mouth of the volcano, and cracking the basalt edges with their black, obsidian-like claws. After getting a grip on the muscles flexing under the scales, the beast began to pull, lifting its body from the flowing magma, looking like someone emerging from underwater, almost as if it were... smiling. What appeared first was a massive, heart-shaped head, akin to a salamander, with two spiraling, twisting horns on the top of its head. Floating before the primordial creature, Zah'Ratil looked minuscule, barely the size of its nostrils, which opened wide, taking a deep breath and exhaling sulfur and noxious, dark ash, spreading it forth like a cloud of rot, following the rolling magma everywhere it went.

Slowly, Ignis's eyes began opening, revealing a pair of golden eyes, gradually coming into focus, its pupils narrowing to a slit. At the same time, the rest of its eyes' colors began shifting from gold to orange and then to burning red as they came to rest on Zah'Ratil's spirit. For a moment, the beast kept watching him, opening its mouth, revealing the row of teeth behind its lizard-like lips as a forked tongue came out, nearly reaching the Sect Master's ethereal form... as if... Ignis was licking him, like a pet would do to its owner's hands. Undeniably... there was a certain intimacy in it, no matter how weird it felt for both of them.

"You have been a bad son... Little Vasa," a voice echoed in Zah'Ratil's mind, both female and male at the same time.

"Son?" He chuckled, "I am your Father, Ignis."

"Are you?" She asked back, "No... No. My Father had died a very long time ago." She formed something akin to a genuine smile, "Everyone after him was given my and his blood. So... in a way, you are all my children."

"If you are arguing about semantics," Zah'Ratil shrugged, "You have indeed reached a level of intelligence that makes you understand what you are about to do."

"Oh yes." The massive head nodded slowly, its body still half-merged in the bubbling, flowing lava as if it was enjoying a hot bath, "But it is something I learned from you. I had the time to do it... I learned to think, to understand, and, most importantly, to be patient. I have grown enough, and my last step is to gather all that is mine, all that this world has... and then break through." she cackled, its whole body shaking, its mouth opening, sounding like thundering noise as its head looked up towards the sky, "Then, I will devour the Gods themselves and grow even stronger, to understand even more."

"I heard once," Zah'Ratil shook his head, "That the Cosmos, the land of the Gods, has something that would look at you as its food. You think you know much, yet you know nothing."

"Says who? You?" Ignis growled, its tongue snapping out, but it just passed through Zah'Ratil's spirit, "You are already dead."

"Soon," He nodded, "You will be too."

With that, without any warning, the spirit of Zah'Ratil winked out of existence, surprising even Ignis herself. She whipped its head around, looking everywhere, but she couldn't see him; worse, she couldn't perceive him at all. What she actually couldn't sense was the extra presence, within its own mind. What Zah'Ratil did was not to injure the beast physically or through any magical ways he knew... but to wound Ignis's weakest part: its psyche. No matter how much she thought herself, no matter how much she believed she was the ultimate creation of the Realm, its mind was still new. Fresh... and vulnerable.

And it would be what could be exploited by their Savior...