Granalth moved like a blur.

  One moment, William was snarling, his burning form locked in a deadly stare with his enemy. The next, the prince was upon him.

  Granalth was a hurricane of spinning spear strikes, each one igniting on contact with William’s molten body. But William was no longer merely burning—he was fire itself. A living inferno.

  Every strike from Granalth’s weapon only made him stronger. The fmes surrounding him roared higher, his molten muscles swelling with unnatural power. Yet Granalth refused to relent. His spear flickered and spun like a dancer’s bde, weaving a net of fire around William’s limbs.

  But even as he fought, a terrible realization crept in.

  This thing… this abomination wasn’t just resisting his attacks—it was devouring them.

  Granalth tightened his grip on his spear. He could not falter.

  "You are a monster, and I will kill you to take your power for my own!" he roared, pouring the st of his strength into a single, decisive thrust aimed at William’s heart.

  Then—

  All the heat in the air, in the battlefield, in his very body—vanished.

  The spear slowed mid-thrust, the fire surrounding it flickering and dying. Granalth gasped as the warmth bled from his limbs, his strength draining away like water through his fingers.

  Cold.

  Unfathomable, suffocating cold.

  "You would have made a much easier vessel for my blessing," a voice rasped from within William’s form. The sound was ancient, unnatural—an echo that should not exist. "But the dice have not favored either of us."

  Granalth tried to move. Tried to summon fire, to call out, to do something—

  Nothing.

  Even the heat of his core had been stolen from him.

  Desperate, he reached out with his mind, attempting to send a telepathic warning to Mars, to his father, to anyone—but his consciousness was already fading.

  His vision blurred.

  His limbs stiffened.

  The st thing he saw before everything went dark was William’s eyes—cosmic bck, filled with unrelenting malice.

  Then—

  Silence.

  Time itself crystallized, freezing the battlefield in an instant.

  Somewhere beyond the stillness of the world, a voice spoke.

  "So, you are the one the dice chose to bear this blessing?"

  Zephar appeared beside William’s barely glowing form, his golden eyes gleaming beneath the grin of his jester’s mask.

  William’s head turned slowly. His cosmic-bck eyes met Zephar’s, and for a long moment, neither spoke.

  "What did you do to your race?" the raspy voice inside William finally asked, its tone ced with something between curiosity and disdain. "Why has it been reduced to… this?"

  "A dice throw here and there, and suddenly the world ends," Zephar said lightly. "Weren’t you watching?"

  William’s head shook. He crossed his arms, his burning form dimming slightly.

  "I have been occupied… dealing with my own race." His voice carried an undeniable weight. "This universe’s Highnder Event—your doing, I assume?"

  Zephar shrugged. "Oh, probably. But not many races are ready for it. You do understand what that means, don’t you?"

  William—or the entity within him—studied the jester god. "I have seen many events, but your actions risk tipping the scales too soon."

  Zephar chuckled and waved a hand, conjuring a beach chair out of nowhere before dropping zily into it. A reflective panel floated before him, dispying a live feed of a reddish-purple pnet. He didn’t bother looking at it.

  "Whether we work together or not, these dice roll on their own," he mused, idly tossing the three golden Infinity Dice into the air. "And I’ve been forced to roll them a lot over the eons. But even with all my interference, I’ve yet to affect anything outside of my current star system. That might pose a problem ter… but you and I both know what will happen if another race gets a hold of your pathetic kind."

  William’s cosmic eyes flickered. His hand reached up, brushing against the floating dice.

  A wave of cosmic energy pulsed outward, rippling across the entire universe. But the dice remained still.

  Zephar sighed. "Not that simple, I’m afraid."

  "They should listen to you," the raspy voice muttered. "If you were more serious, perhaps they would."

  Zephar let out a short ugh. "Oh, please. You’re hardly one to talk. Look at you—you tried forcing your silly ideals on your race and lost your tool, the Tear of Inferno. And what did you get for it?" He gestured dramatically. "Fairies that turn into dragons—who are bullied by fauna, of all things?"

  The voice inside William growled. "Enough."

  Zephar smirked but said nothing.

  "If you can bring my race under this child's protection," the raspy voice said at st, "we will submit to you. But I have terms."

  Zephar waved a hand dismissively. "Fine, fine. Just ease off on the visions and leave William to me."

  But William's head shook.

  "I have no control over the visions," he admitted. "This ability should have been given to someone made of stronger stuff. Not someone who has seen so much tragedy and failure." A pause. Then, quietly, "If he becomes consumed by the fantasies, I will gain a vessel into this universe. From there, I will save my race—and you will be forced to work with me."

  Zephar’s grin faltered.

  Before he could reply, the time lock shattered.

  William fell to his hands and knees, gasping for air.

  The battlefield was silent.

  And in that silence, the dream was gone.

  The golden city? Gone. His wife’s smiling face? Gone. The people he had saved? Never real.

  William’s breath hitched. His hands trembled, fingers cwing at the empty air where his wife had stood just moments ago.

  “No…” His voice cracked. “No, no, no—”

  The fire within him dimmed, its warmth draining from his body like lifeblood. His chest ached. His limbs felt hollow. The weight of reality pressed down on him, suffocating, unbearable.

  And then—

  He screamed.

  A sound of agony, of fury, of betrayal.

  “IT WAS SO REAL!” His voice was raw with grief. “IT FELT REAL!”

  His fists smmed into the frozen ground. Once, twice—his molten rage surging, then dying, leaving only a broken man kneeling in a field of cold ashes.

  The molten earth beneath him froze over, as if reality itself sought to smother the st remnants of his fire.

  His breath came in heaving gasps. His shoulders shook.

  And then, in the dead silence, his whisper came—hollow, resentful.

  "Cruel… This power is cruel."

  No answer came. Only the wind over the ruined battlefield.

  Auracea did not approach. Not immediately.

  She had known William was powerful. But this?

  For the first time, she felt true fear.

  Had she just witnessed the birth of something worse than the Ashborn?

  Zephar, standing beside her, chuckled. But there was something… different in his ughter. Less amusement. More understanding.

  He stepped forward, kneeling beside the broken man.

  “Oh, William…” he murmured.

  His hand rested on William’s shoulder, his voice barely above a whisper.

  "How does it feel… to be exactly what the universe feared?"