Vulcanos stood in the center of the hatch, taking in the strangeness of the world he suddenly found himself in.
How much time had passed since he had entered that pod?
Before him stood a small army of humans. The very same ones who had just attacked him. Fire Mages, one and all. Their leader even seemed to be an Archmage.
Not too far away, he spotted Zelkara and the Bloodguard. They seemed to have gotten ready to face these enemies. Poor bastards. He knew from firsthand experience how fragile those snakes were when faced with real heat. He himself had roasted hundreds of their tribesmen during the war. It wasn’t hard to imagine how much worse they would fare against a genuine Archmage.
The fact that they had still mustered their forces spoke volumes to their courage.
Or their lack of survival instincts.
But if it had only been those two groups, he wouldn’t have been so shocked. Wherever he looked, cataclysmic battles were raging. Archmages seemed to have become as common as cabbages. There was even a Titan fighting in the distance, locked in a gruesome battle against a human Mage.
Wait…
Was that Rhea? Damn. How much had he missed? Could it have been years?
This battlefield was far grander than anything Vulcanos had ever experienced before. The battle in the wilderness could only be called a squabble among children compared to what he suddenly found himself in the middle of.
But where was his Master?
The white woman had told him that Zeke needed him, but no matter how much he looked, he wasn’t able to find him.
“…Vulcanos!”
He heard a voice calling him. It wasn’t a telepathic message, but somebody shouting in the distance. It seemed to come from overhead.
Finally, Vulcanos lifted his head.
There, he found the person he had been looking for all along. His Master stood high above the battlefield, looking down at him while surrounded on all sides by an enormous flock of red, scaled birds.
Vulcanos got a strange feeling when looking at these creatures. A sense of kinship, though he couldn’t explain exactly why he would feel that way. Never in his life had he felt such a bond with any species. Strangely, these scaled birds managed to awaken such a feeling in him.
“…Vulcanos!” his Master called again when he didn’t respond.
Vulcanos snapped out of it and began to wave.
“MASTER! I AM HERE!”
He saw a quick smile bloom on his Master’s face. Had he said something amusing?
However, it lasted only an instant.
“Vulcanos. Listen carefully. I need you to stop the Fire Mages,” his Master called. “Can you do it?”
Vulcanos looked down.
Stop them? All of them? Even the Archmage?
Vulcanos felt conflicted. The logical part of his mind was telling him that this was suicide. How would he be able to face such a force? That was an Archmage! A genuine Archmage! The very symbol of human supremacy.
Early in life, all Chimeroi learned that they would never amount to anything before such a being. For many, it was a lesson branded onto their very bodies. Vulcanos himself had often tasted that same humiliation while still fighting in the arena.
Archmages were monsters. Their bodies were equal to those of Chimeroi, and their Magic was far more sophisticated.
But… then what?
Would his Master truly send him to his death?
Vulcanos looked up. His Master was looking back at him with those same emotionless eyes he remembered. When meeting that gaze, the same feeling of kinship struck him again, but this time, it was many times stronger than what he had felt from the red birds.
His Master felt like a completely different being. Ancient. Wise. Powerful. As if everything in the world was subject to his wishes.
That was all it took.
A single glance at those golden eyes was enough to make up his mind.
Did it really matter what his Master had planned for him? Even if his Master was sending him to his death, would it really change anything? Would he refuse?
Without another word, Vulcanos took a single step forward, leaving the plank extending from the hull and stepping into empty air.
He was surprised by the violent pull of gravity. It felt as if his body suddenly weighed several times what he remembered.
But he didn’t panic.
The feeling was exhilarating.
The roaring air. The sight of the ground racing closer.
Just before the impact, Vulcanos braced.
He hit the ground like a meteor.
Charred dirt and stone erupted outward, leaving a massive crater around the point of impact.
Vulcanos looked down at his legs.
They had barely moved. A slight bend was all it had taken to halt his momentum.
A grin slowly crept onto his face, but it lasted only for an instant.
“You there…” someone called. “Do you know what it means to block our path?”
Vulcanos looked up and saw that the small army of human Mages had come to a halt not too far away from him. Some of them were eyeing him warily. But the woman leading them remained calm. Her face even held a trace of mockery.
The moment he met her gaze, something deep inside him began to stir. It was a feeling he had often known in his younger days, an old companion. The years had almost made its call fade from his mind, but now he heard it clearly. More clearly even than before.
Competitiveness.
He wanted to fight this woman.
“This is as far as you go,” he said.
The woman’s face broke into a smile. A small, mocking thing.
“You are different from the Elementals I know. You seem to have more of an edge to you. But at the same time… very familiar.”
Vulcanos paused for a moment.
Elementals? What was that?
“Curious,” she continued, studying him like a test subject on her dissection table. “Tell you what, little mutant. If you come with me willingly, I will make sure to take you in as a pet.”
Vulcanos’s expression didn’t change. He had heard worse from lesser humans. Still, it reminded him once more that not everyone was as kind and wise as his Master.
Speaking of which…
“My Master has a liking for beautiful women,” Vulcanos said, eyeing her critically. “I don’t have much of an eye for humans, but you seem acceptable. So I will extend the same favor to you.”
Vulcanos paused, reconsidered his offer, and added, “Probably.”
Just to be sure.
The flaming wreath hovering over the woman’s head flared up briefly.
That was the only sign that she had even heard his words. Her face remained placid, and even the disdainful smirk on her lips didn’t budge.
Vulcanos felt it before he saw it.
The heat rising from the ground. The scent of burning air.
A moment later, all he could see was flames. Left, right, above, below. It was everywhere. Everything. All-encompassing.
These were not regular flames either. He could feel it in the way his feet began to sink. Earth and stone alike were softening beneath him, turning into molten sludge in mere seconds.
Vulcanos slowly raised his hands to his face, inspecting his fingers.
This feeling.
The feeling of heat on his skin.
It was… incredibly, unbelievably comfortable. Even bathing in the heart of a volcano had never made him feel this good.
This was, without exaggeration, the most blissful sensation he had ever experienced.
This heat, this texture, this purity.
This was not merely fire.
This was fire refined to its purest form.
Vulcanos licked his lips greedily. If it already felt this good on his skin, then how delicious would these flames taste?
The lines across his body began to pulse, mirroring his hunger and eagerness.
Vulcanos took a deep breath, and then, through every pore of his body, he began to feast.
Almost immediately, he began to lose himself in the delectable sensation. His body felt as if it might burst from the sheer excess of it. From the top of his head to the tips of his toes, every part of him drank in the heat like a starving thing finally tasting food.
However, almost as soon as it had emerged, the feeling ended again. The inferno collapsed inward, vanishing into him as if it had never belonged to the world at all.
Vulcanos slowly opened his eyes, the remnants of bliss still etched across his face.
The woman in front of him looked entirely different now. Her confidence and bravado had vanished, replaced by a deathly seriousness. Even her cheeks had gone pale.
“What…” she said, her voice thin.
She caught herself, forced strength back into her tone, and asked again.
“What are you?”
“…I am Vulcanos.”
“Did I ask for your name, fiend? I want to know what you are!” she barked, forgoing any sign of decorum as she yelled. “How can you consume my flames?”
Vulcanos tilted his head. “Does it matter?”
“…What?”
“Does it matter what I am, or how I am able to do what I do?”
The agitation slowly vanished from the woman’s face as she returned to a state of detached calmness.
“Right you are, beast. It makes no difference.”
She turned her head slightly as she called over her shoulder. “Listen up. We are facing a level four threat. We are switching to the Sun Blast protocol. Full output.”
“Understood!” the entire troop called back, their voices resounding as one.
Vulcanos leaned forward, a grin naturally forming on his face.
Would these fools continue to feed him?
He certainly wouldn’t turn down a free meal.
Dozens of burning beams illuminated the area a moment later. One from each of the Mages following the woman. They all had the same endpoint: the wreath of flame above her head.
So much power, all converging on a single spot.
Vulcanos could feel it. The sheer magnitude of power concentrated there. The heat. The pressure.
This was unlike anything he had ever felt.
The woman raised her hands, sweat beading on her brow. Both palms pressed inward, as if she were holding a tremendously heavy load.
Then it happened.
Between her hands, a dense bead of flame began to form.
This was not heat that spread outward to devour.
It was heat compressed until it became weight.
The air around the bead bent away from it. The molten ground beneath it hissed and receded. Even the light seemed to sharpen, as if the world itself wanted to look away.
Before he even knew what he was doing, Vulcanos took a step backward.
Then he caught himself.
Did he just… run?
From fire?
Him?
But when he looked at the bead between the woman’s hands again, he couldn’t help himself. This thing. He was sure of it. It would tear him to pieces the moment he made contact with it.
The only saving grace was that it didn’t look like it would be a particularly fast attack. He likely could…
“Thinking of dodging?” the woman taunted.
Despite the obvious strain this Magic was putting on her, there was a triumphant grin on her face.
“I wouldn’t mind if you do,” she continued. “But ask yourself this… can the ones behind you get away too?”
Vulcanos’s feet froze.
He didn’t have to turn to know who was behind him.
Zelkara. Rhea. The Bloodguard. Ash. Gravitas. The Icefang warriors…
If even he feared this flame, then what would it do to them?
Vulcanos took a deep breath.
Right.
His Master had not told him to survive.
He had told him to stop them.
So Vulcanos would stop them.
He reached deep inside himself, taking hold of an old anger that was always present in his chest, a rage that never fully went away. It was the source of the meditation technique his Master had developed, the very one that seemed to have been tailor-made for him.
Blood Boil.
The moment he used it, all hesitation burned away. All doubts vanished.
His heartbeat thundered once, twice, then became a war drum. Heat surged through his veins, no longer gentle and nourishing, but violent and red.
Vulcanos’s eyes became bloodshot as he eyed the humans in front of him with a gaze that promised death. His eyes were saying it all. If this spell failed to kill him, then it would be their lives that would be over.
Then, without waiting for the humans to finish their spell, he charged.
Straight toward the blazing bead between the woman’s hands.