[Oliver’s PoV]

  Prometheus was a far more complex technique, one that allowed him to do more than ignite flames around his limbs. The Energy could flow anywhere: arms, legs, heart, lungs. Every cell in his body could burn brighter if he were willing to pay the price.

  But this time, he didn’t need power. He needed clarity.

  He needed to see.

  Using Prometheus in his eyes alone would sharpen his vision. It would let him trace the arcs of battle, the flow of Energy in the air, but that wasn’t enough. The False Sovereign moved faster than sight, faster than his thoughts. Oliver didn’t need to see what was happening. He needed to catch up to it.

  And there was only one way to do that.

  The most dangerous technique he knew.

  One he wished he would never have to use again.

  He inhaled sharply, the golden fire in his veins flaring, before turning it inward.

  He sent the flames into his brain.

  The world slowed.

  It wasn’t a sensation of speed but of stillness.

  Every heartbeat stretched into eternity. Every flicker of light bent and elongated until it became a frozen wave in the air. The Sovereign’s movement, once blinding and erratic, now unfolded into a predictable pattern.

  Oliver could see everything.

  The subtle twist in the creature’s stance. The faint shift in its shoulders before it struck. The way the black ooze rippled across its blade.

  He could finally follow it.

  But perception wasn’t the same as speed.

  He might see the attack coming, but he couldn’t move fast enough to stop it. His limits still bound his body.

  He was a mind trapped in slow motion, watching inevitability unfold.

  The Sovereign’s sword cut through the air with impossible precision, its path aimed directly at Katherine.

  His mind screamed, 'Move!'

  And his body obeyed before he even realized it.

  It wasn’t rational thought. It was pure instinct.

  He didn’t decide to protect her. He simply did.

  By the time his consciousness caught up, his body was already between her and the Sovereign.

  The blade filled his vision.

  He saw it all, every detail, every second of it, stretched into infinity.

  Then came the impact.

  The sword pierced his chest, sliding through his uniform, through flesh, through bone.

  He felt it, the unbearable pain. Followed by a crushing force that expanded outward from his ribs, flooding his senses.

  The golden flames of Prometheus roared to life inside him, reacting violently to the intrusion. His body convulsed, Energy crackling across his skin.

  He could feel the blade’s tip emerging from his back, droplets of his own blood suspended in the air.

  Seconds continued to stretch into minutes. Minutes into hours.

  Time had almost stopped.

  Oliver thought and thought, but there was nothing left to think about. Nothing left to plan. Nothing left to do.

  His body was failing. His mind was unraveling. Every nerve screamed, every heartbeat felt like it might be his last.

  He had reached his limit.

  And yet, somewhere in the haze of burning neurons and flickering vision, a single thought surfaced.

  'There’s still one last thing.'

  It wasn’t salvation. It wasn’t survival. It was the kind of choice that meant nothing to him. Yet, everything for the others.

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  If he was going to die, then he would make sure the False Sovereign went with him.

  Slowly, so painfully slowly, he raised his arms. The movement felt like dragging mountains. His muscles tore, his bones ached, and his vision blurred with white-hot pain. Every second stretched into eternity as his trembling hands rose higher, until finally both palms pressed against the creature’s face.

  The Sovereign didn’t even flinch. His golden eyes gleamed with amusement, his lipless smile mocking.

  He could feel the Energy surging inside him. His brain was overclocked far beyond what it could handle. The power he had forced into his neurons was now eating them alive.

  Even if he survived this, even if someone dragged him out of the wreckage and shoved him into a cryo-VAT, his mind would be nothing but mush.

  He knew that.

  And he didn’t care.

  'If it’s already too late,' he told himself, 'then we go all the way.'

  He stopped holding back.

  For years, he had learned to control Prometheus better than any Ranger alive. He had spent his life mastering it, walking the edge of destruction without falling in. He had learned how to keep the inferno from turning on him.

  But not this time.

  This time, he tore down every barrier.

  He let it all in.

  The fire surged through him like an avalanche of molten light. His veins became conduits of Energy, his blood liquid fire, his bones glowing beneath his skin.

  He could feel every crystal, every reserve of Energy stored within his body. He reached for them all, every drop, every spark, and fed them into the inferno.

  The result was immediate.

  The air around him ignited.

  The Sovereign’s grin faltered for the first time. The golden light in his eyes flickered, uncertain.

  Oliver’s body was no longer flesh and blood. It was a reactor, a living furnace devouring everything it touched. The ground beneath him cracked, molten light spilling from the fissures. The air shimmered, distorted by the raw heat radiating from him.

  The Sovereign tried to move, but Oliver’s hands held firm, locked onto his face like iron.

  “You think you can burn me?” the creature hissed.

  Oliver didn’t answer. He couldn’t. His throat was gone.

  He only thought, 'burn.'

  And the fire obeyed.

  Prometheus erupted.

  Golden flames burst from his palms, flooding the space between them. The light grew brighter, brighter still, until it was impossible to tell where Oliver ended, and the fire began.

  Prometheus had always been a controlled thing. A whisper of flame, a shimmer of gold and white that danced harmlessly across Oliver’s armor. It was fire without pain, power without consequence.

  But not this time.

  This time, the flames were no longer obedient.

  They roared.

  What had once been a halo became an inferno. The small sparks that usually flickered across his body erupted into towering waves of fire, white and gold and blinding. They rose from his skin like a living storm, swirling and devouring everything they touched.

  And for the first time, they burned him.

  The heat seared through his flesh, through the very nerves that screamed in protest. His hands, his chest, his legs, every part of him was engulfed. The pain was indescribable, a raw, consuming agony that blurred the edges of his mind.

  But Oliver didn’t let go.

  He couldn’t.

  The False Sovereign was still in his grasp, its golden eyes wide, its mouthless face twisted in something that was almost disbelief. The creature’s smile, so infuriatingly calm, didn’t falter at first. It held as the flames began to crawl across its body, licking at its armor, burning through the black ooze that coated its skin.

  But then, as the fire grew brighter, hotter, purer, the smile broke.

  The Sovereign’s form began to waver, the black corruption peeling away in chunks that evaporated before they hit the ground. The creature tried to pull free, its movements jerky and desperate, but to Oliver it all happened in slow motion.

  He just had to hold on.

  He just had to keep his grip.

  And, Oliver held on.

  His vision began to blur at the edges. The fire wasn’t just outside him anymore. It was inside, burning through his lungs, his veins, his mind. Every heartbeat sent another surge of molten agony through his body.

  His consciousness began to fray, unraveling thread by thread.

  The world flickered.

  The Sovereign’s movements grew distant, muffled, as though he were sinking underwater. The light that filled Oliver’s eyes grew brighter, bleeding into everything until there was nothing left to see.

  At first, he thought it was the darkness of death creeping in.

  But it wasn’t dark.

  It was white.

  The whiteness started at the corners of his vision, spreading inward until it swallowed everything. It wasn’t heat anymore, or pain. It was silent.

  Moments later, the air was gone.

  The fire had devoured it, leaving nothing for him to breathe. His lungs convulsed, but no air came. The flames had stolen even that.

  One by one, his senses faded.

  The roar of the inferno disappeared first, replaced by a profound, aching quiet. Then the pain melted away, leaving only numbness.

  And then there was nothing.

  No sound. No breath. No body.

  Just an endless, white void.

  Oliver floated there, weightless, alone.

  'Is this death?'

  The thought came slowly, distant, as though it didn’t belong to him anymore.

  He waited for the panic to come, but it didn’t. There was only stillness.

  Maybe this wasn’t death. Maybe it was just the last echo of his mind, stretched thin by the Energy still running wild inside him. His brain was still burning, still processing, still trapped in the slow-motion collapse of his own existence.

  Maybe he was seconds from dying. Maybe hours. Maybe days.

  It didn’t matter.

  The fight was over.

  He had given everything.

  And as the last fragments of thought drifted through his fading consciousness. One emotion broke through the haze: sorrow.

  Not for himself.

  For them.

  For Katherine. Alan. Astrid. Isabela.

  He would never see them again. Never hear their voices. Never know if they survived.

  His last wish was simple, fragile, and human.

  'Let them live. Please... let them be safe.'

  The whiteness pulsed once, soft and warm, like a heartbeat in the void.

  [You have obtained one point in Myth.]

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