“Listen up, kid,” Ave said. “This is going to be simple, painful, and if we don’t win quickly, damage us for a long time, so pay attention.”

  “That’s… comforting,” I muttered.

  “I'm not trying to comfort you,” he said flatly. “Trying to keep you alive. There is only one path left if you want to beat that crimson guy outside.

  The urgency in his voice made my pulse spike.

  “What do I have to do?”

  Ave pointed directly at my soul?tree. “You’re going to stab me into your soul?tree.”

  I blinked. “Into my… soul.”

  “Yes,” Ave replied.

  “Stabbing my own soul is going to do what exactly?”

  “A couple of things,” Ave said, waving lazily. “One: it’s going to hurt like hell. You’ll live. Two: you’re looking at roughly a ten?times stat boost.”

  “Ten?” My voice cracked. “That would shred me before I could even blink.”

  Ave shook his head. “Not if I’m the one directing the power.”

  He stepped in close, beard flickering with quiet fire. “Your body’s nowhere near ready to try this honestly, but I will put myself on the line with you to help guide you to victory. You’re currently too low?level. Your class has not even had its first evolution yet. Your Soul?channels are all but blocked currently.” He looked at my soul tree. “You’re sitting on power you cannot touch. I can change that.”

  “So, what happens after I ram you into the tree that causes the boost specifically?”

  “Our souls fuse temporarily,” Ave said. “You’ll be able to enter a new state, something beyond your normal multiplier. I’ll drag your Class into a pseudo-evolution by brute force.”

  “Does this thing you’re wanting me to do have a name?”

  “It’s called Ignition. It is the natural progression for your class. “But because your Class and body aren’t ready to fuel this state. Will be using the only thing available.”

  I swallowed. “Which are our souls?”

  Ave inclined his head, “You got it, kid.”

  My blood ran cold.

  “We’re burning our souls?”

  “Only temporarily,” Ave said. “You’ve got Resilience as a passive, and so do I, thanks to the soul bond. Souls heal. Slowly, yes, but they do heal.”

  “How slow?” I asked. “Because if we survive this, we’re going to have enemies lined up around every corner.”

  Ave shrugged. “One fight at a time. It depends on how long we stay in the mode. You need to put this guy down fast. The longer we’re in Ignition, the more fuel we burn and the longer the recovery. And once our souls take that hit, we won’t be able to enter Limit Breaker again for a while. You also won’t be able to level or gain new talents. I’ll have to go dormant for a bit too.”

  My jaw tightened. “So, I lose Limit Breaker. I lose you. I can’t progress. And it will feel like my body has a wildfire burning me up from the inside.”

  “Correct.”

  “Anything else?”

  “It’ll hurt like nothing you’ve ever experienced,” Ave said bluntly. “And once we start, you cannot stop. If the fusion collapses prematurely, we will have all the pain and none of the power. Then Robert enslaves you, me and your family and probably brags about it in a speech to his Faction while you have to stand there next to him on a stage like a dumbass.”

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  I let out a shaky breath. “Ave, how do you even know this works?”

  His expression changed, older, heavier. “Because I did it once with my first master long ago. His soul?tree was tiny compared to yours. He lasted maybe thirty seconds before collapsing. You… you’re tree is very large. You will be able to hold the form much longer.”

  “And he survived?”

  “He did, in a way,” Ave said somberly. “But I know of no other way to win this. You in?”

  I was in; there was not a real choice in this. It was go all out and hopefully recover or yield and essentially consign us all to servitude. “Alright. Let’s do it.”

  Ave smirked with something like pride. “Good. Then get over to the tree.”

  He dissolved into a storm of silver?blue light, collapsing into the sword in my hand. Ember’s blade pulsed, glowing brighter with each beat of my heart.

  “Weird question, I will still be able to use you in the real world, right?”

  “Of course you will; the soul realm and the physical realm are two different things.”

  I walked right up to my tree and placed a hand on it and exhaled slowly out.

  Ave’s voice echoed in my skull. “When you’re ready, kid.”

  I lifted Ember and plunged the blade straight into my soul.

  Pain exploded through me, white?hot, indescribable, a fire ripping through every thread of my being. My knees buckled. My breath vanished. My scream died in my throat before it even formed.

  My soul?tree shook violently, branches flaring with silver?blue fire. Ember sank deeper, fusing, merging. Ave’s presence collided with mine like a second heartbeat.

  “Hold on!” Ave roared inside my mind. “DO NOT LET GO!”

  I held.

  The flames intensified.

  Our souls twisted together; I saw flashes of a man that looked like Ave but only human. He wore a bright warm smile as he talked with someone that I could not hear or see.

  Then the vision snapped and the world outside slammed back into place.

  Cold water. Broken armor. Blood in my mouth. Robert’s footsteps splashed on top of the water as he approached to finish the job.

  And then… the fire came alive inside me.

  It didn’t burn me.

  It became me.

  My aura erupted outward in a violent surge of silver?blue flames that roared from my body like a star being born. The surrounding water vaporized. The air cracked. The ground shook.

  Robert froze mid?step, eyes widening.

  I rose from the lake with both hands on a blade so covered in sapphire fire it was hard to make out its actual shape.

  Ave’s voice boomed inside me, fused with mine. “Ignition successful.”

  Robert brought his axes up and roared like a beast. “WHAT THE HELL IS…”

  I vanished.

  Speed. Power. Heat. All of it, beyond anything Limit Breaker had ever given me.

  I appeared in front of Robert and drove Ember into his chest. The force of the blow was so immense that the lake erupted outward, water blasting away in every direction and leaving a ring of bare earth before it came crashing back in.

  Robert’s body rocketed backward, skipping across the battlefield like a stone hurled across a lake. Each bounce detonated in an explosion of dirt and stone. He tore trenches through the earth, skipping repeatedly until he crashed to a stop.

  Right in front of the watching groups where we started. The pain I was feeling was immense, and I had to control myself not to scream out in pain. If I started to scream, if I gave into the pain for even a moment part of me knew I would not stop.

  I stood at the lakeshore, silver?blue flames rolling off me in waves, Ember blazing like a newborn sun in my grip. I gritted my teeth and moved.

  Robert was pushing himself up, coughing blood, staring at me with a mixture of outrage and fear.

  “Mimi, can you shield them?!” I half roared half gritted out. “She’s already got one up! I heard Balt yell out. Don’t worry about us. Fuck that red bastard up!”

  I would have smiled if the pain hadn’t been eating through every nerve. I appeared beside Robert and brought Ember down in a blazing arc. He caught the blade with his axes, steel screaming against steel as our energies collided. The surrounding barrier flickered violently as it repelled the force tearing through it.

  We locked together for a heartbeat, then another. Then I began to push.

  Robert’s boots carved trenches in the ground as he slid backward, his arms trembling under the weight of my power. His eyes widened, panic bleeding through the bravado.

  “Where is this power coming from?! No one, not even an Outlier, should have this kind of strength at your level!”

  I didn’t answer. Regalia hung from me in shattered pieces, my helm cracked open, and I could feel blood leaking from a dozen wounds. But the sapphire aura roaring around me burned so hot it vaporized the blood before it even touched the air. My body was breaking, but the power, my power, was only rising.

  None of it mattered. Not the pain. Not the damage. Not the cost.

  I leaned in, forcing him down inch by inch, my arms shaking, my aura screaming. Memories slammed into me, faces from the tutorial, broken people crushed under corruption, worlds different yet identical in one brutal truth: When power goes unchecked, it rots. And the ones who suffer are the people with no voice.

  The realization hit me like lightning. I knew who I was. Who I was meant to become. The reason I was brought here. The man I needed to be.

  The words rose unbidden, pulled from some place deep inside my soul, raw, resonant, undeniable.

  “I am who the System called when the people needed help. I am the chain?breaker. The Ranger who walks in sapphire fire. I am the ally of the people… and the enemy of tyrants like you who would choke their world to feed your power.”

  My flames flared brighter, roaring skyward. “I am your reckoning. Your stranglehold on this world ends now!”

  Ave’s roar detonated inside my mind, a battle cry made of fire, and fury. "LETS FUCKING GO!"