The scorched earth atop the city walls had not yet cooled; fragments of rubble emitted sharp click-clack sounds within the glowing red fire-scars.

  After the "Purgatory Fire Ring" had swept through, a pungent stench of char and sulfur lingered in the air like an invisible fog, clinging to everyone’s throats and nostrils. The surviving dwarven soldiers stopped in their tracks as one; their fingers remained hooked around axe handles and spear shafts, yet they lacked the strength to tighten their grip.

  However, this was merely the overture.

  Yggdrasil stood at the edge of the shattered ramparts.

  His stout, burly frame was like cast iron, his rounded and thick belly bulging and contracting slightly with each heavy breath. His bushy brown hair and silver-white beard, which reached down to his waist, whipped about in the gale; the small metal rings within his beard chimed against one another, as if echoing some ancient and foreign rhythm. Sweat meandered down his sideburns, passing his cheekbones to form glistening lines at the roots of his beard before being instantly dried by the heatwaves.

  He was not a mage from a temple with fluttering robes; he looked like a blacksmith who had just stepped away from a forge—his skin bore the scent of fire and metal, but his chest harbored a flame capable of tearing the world asunder.

  As he raised both hands again, pointing toward the churning heavens—

  Mana surged through the space, pressing down on everyone’s hearts like an invisible giant hand squeezing their throats.

  Metal armor and weapons began to hum lowly, tiny arcs of electricity danced along the edges of shields, and even the grit in the cracks of the city walls floated up and fell again, as if dragged by an unseen tide. The dwarven warriors' faces turned flushed from the pressure, some instinctively reaching out to clutch their chests. Even the monsters below, about to pounce, halted uneasily and looked upward.

  Rumble—

  A dull thrum, like a drumbeat from the depths of the world, descended from the high altitude. Dark clouds swirled toward a single focal point at a visible speed, with flames burning at the edges of the cloud-rings, lighting every face in a bronze hue. As the vortex tightened, the center of the fiery clouds slowly revealed a patch of silver-white night sky—not tonight’s firmament, but a window pried open, revealing stars of an inconceivable distance.

  "Fire clouds... with starlight inside...?"

  Someone murmured, their voice trembling.

  Many more could not even finish a sentence:

  "This—this isn't right... this isn't... this isn't ours..."

  Yggdrasil looked up, a low and clear incantation escaping his throat, like a hammer striking an anvil, causing heaven and earth to shudder simultaneously—

  "—Star-Flame Descent."

  The moment the words fell, the silver-white starry sky deep within the fire clouds seemed to be released from its shackles.

  Points of starlight came in strings, in clusters, in cascades—one after another trailing tails of interwoven gold and white—silently slicing long arcs from the heights. Moments later, the massive, delayed roar swept in like a landslide, slamming hard into everyone’s chest.

  The first Star-Flame struck the distant wasteland.

  The light arrived first, followed closely by a heatwave that pushed forward like a wall of fire, making the soldiers' cloaks flap violently. The vibration surged from the soles of their feet to their knees, numbing the bone; the city bricks shivered. Then, a second, a third—golden-white liquid fire fell in a dense barrage, sewing heaven and earth together with countless brilliant lines.

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  High in the air, the Bone Dragons and gargoyles were the first to suffer.

  Bone wings erupted into cracks the moment a Star-Flame brushed past; shattered bone and black ash drifted down like snow. Stone torsos were lit up before collapsing, crumbling into sprays of dark-red fragments. Their shrieks were swallowed by the greater roar, as if they had been erased from the world’s soundscape.

  On the ground, the black tide was forcibly punctuated by gap after gap.

  Meteors like giant boulders crashed down, exploding into petal-shaped waves of fire that pushed over, rolled up, and hurled away swarms of monsters. Shockwaves sent cracks through distant low walls, and flagpoles wobbled and tilted.

  The ogres, who had been charging all night as they pleased, didn't even have time to raise their morning stars before being torn apart by heat and light. The silhouettes of cyclopes surfaced briefly in the sea of fire before being wiped away like ink by a cloth, leaving nothing behind. The King-class monsters roaring in the distance—the Minotaur Kings, the Bone-Witch Colossi, and other massive shadows—were covered by several Star-Flames simultaneously. They rolled, struggled, and vanished, turning into a sky of flying black snow.

  The entire wilderness looked as if it had been plowed by starlight.

  Furrow after furrow collapsed within the black tide, their edges glowing red, their insides churning with molten mud and metal. The wind shifted, bringing the strong, metallic-sweet scent of char and acrid smoke. Ash drifted back to the city walls like black rain, landing on armor and beards, cold and surreal.

  An unknown amount of time passed—perhaps a few minutes, perhaps as long as an entire night—before the last few clusters of golden-white tail-flames streaked across the sky and slowly extinguished. The roar receded, leaving only tinnitus, the sizzle of cooling molten stone, and the heavy breathing of every survivor.

  Deathly silence radiated outward from the edges of the fire sea in concentric circles.

  On the city walls, no one cheered.

  Some slumped to the ground, the collision of armor and stone bricks making a hollow thud. Some had dry throats and could only squeeze out broken syllables: "No... impossible..."

  Others, their hands shaking, stared too long at the hollowed-out black pits in the distance before tears slowly welled up—not from the joy of being saved, but because their minds could not, for the moment, accept destruction that transcended common sense.

  "That wasn't our magic..."

  "Something like that... how could it be cast by a person..."

  Scattered whispers trembled in the wind, only to be quickly swallowed by the silence.

  At the edge of the fire sea, Yggdrasil remained standing in place.

  His breathing was heavy and coarse; his thick chest heaved noticeably, and his rounded belly vibrated with it. Sweat dripped from his sideburns and beard, merging into dark water-streaks at the edge of his armor. The arms that had just stirred the sky now hung down, yet they still looked as if they could support the entire city wall. The firelight pushed from behind him, casting his stout and burly silhouette into a heavy outline and stretching his shadow exceptionally long.

  Balin stood not far away, the soles of his boots still numb from the vibration.

  He stared at that back, feeling something pushing up in his throat—pride, fear, heartache, and an indescribable throb of emotion.

  He wanted desperately to step forward and embrace him, yet feared crushing the silence of this moment; he wanted to say "You did it," but when he opened his mouth, no sound came out.

  As if hearing the unspoken words, Yggdrasil turned to glance at him.

  In that glance remained the residual glow of the starlight, but there was also exhaustion and dust. Balin finally took a step forward, pressing his palm against the scorching back-plate of the armor, feeling the heat pass through the metal directly into his palm.

  "...I won't hesitate anymore."

  His voice was terribly hoarse, but steady. "No matter what you have to face, I am by your side."

  Yggdrasil did not speak; he only gave a slight nod.

  His breathing was still heavy, but under the touch of Balin’s palm, it stabilized bit by bit.

  The wind blew back from the burning wilderness, carrying the charred fragrance that followed the disappearance of the ash and golden-white tail-flames.

  The dwarves on the wall gradually snapped back from their daze, yet no one dared to break the silence—because they all dimly understood: it wasn't over yet. That stout figure had not yet lowered his hands. The sky was still waiting for the next sight, one even higher and more inconceivable than the Star-Flames.

  At this moment, no one had yet defined him, and no one had shouted any titles.

  But a name that had not yet been spoken was already being slowly branded into the hearts of everyone who survived: Star-Flame.

  The wilderness has been plowed by the stars. Yggdrasil’s power has left the defenders of Khagurem in a state of shock—this is no longer just a battle, but the manifestation of something far beyond mortal limits. As Balin stands by his side, the true "Star-Flame" has been born in the hearts of the survivors.

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