Chapter 52. Sacrifice of the Flame

The internal conflict was more agonizing than the silver chains, more consuming than the fire that had once seared her veins, and far more torturous than the wounds that still bled beneath her armor. It was the soul—the terrible tearing of it—that brought Neriah to her knees in a pain that no mortal tongue could describe.

She stood at the edge of the mountain pass, high above a world torn by centuries of war and treachery. The wind cut across her face like knives, but she didn’t flinch. Her body radiated with terrifying, uncontainable power: the Final Bond—formed of the Ashen Flame and the Hearthstone, now fused into a single, blinding essence. It was everything the ancient texts had foretold: a power of absolute cleansing and incorruptible judgment.

The Ashen Flame—once the chaotic, untamable fire of annihilation—had been purified. It burned now not red or gold, but a white so brilliant it fractured the surrounding air into prismatic shards. Merged with the Hearthstone’