IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—
Pain.
Searing. Unending. Pain.
Pain was all that remained. No thoughts. Not even fear.
Just pain.
IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—
Aedhira was fading.
IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—
IT HHHHHHHHHHHHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU—
Even the slightest responses he could form were beginning to stretch and strain-
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTSSSSSSSSSSSS—
Coherence was beginning to lose its meaning to him.
All that remained was pain.
Searing. Unending. Pain.
[RUNES 1/4 SUCCESS]
[CONTINUE?]
The voice didn't register.
He couldn't hear it.
Or perhaps, he couldn't recognize it. He didn't know. He didn't know anything anymore.
Pain. That was all. Everything else—the sense of time, the clarity of his thoughts, the soulscape around him—was fading, blurring at the edges, slipping away like sand through open fingers. Aedhira's form within the soulscape quivered, but the trembling didn't feel real, more like a distant memory, as if his very presence was unraveling.
His awareness flickered, and in that flicker, he felt himself fraying.
Like the edges of a page set ablaze, his existence in the soulscape was burning away, piece by piece, crumbling into nothingness. There was no understanding, no reasoning. His subconscious—desperate, flailing—needed something, anything, to latch onto. An outlet, a scapegoat. It couldn't make sense of the agony, but it needed to direct the suffering somewhere.
And so, it chose to blame.
Aedhira's consciousness had long since faded, lost in the storm of torment, leaving only instincts—instincts coded into him, instincts that refused to let him go silent.
A voice, hoarse and broken, barely more than a rasp, echoed through the soulscape. His voice.
"Continue."
[Confirmed.]
[Reigniting Runes 2/4.]
A familiar countdown began again, but it was meaningless to him now.
[3.]
[2.]
[1.]
[IGNITING.]
IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—
His mind couldn't process it anymore. It had reached a threshold beyond comprehension. There were no more screams in his soulscape. No more conscious thoughts.
But the pain continued.
He could feel every searing pulse, every wave of it coursing through him like fire being poured into his very essence. It consumed him, hollowed him out, and yet, it wouldn't stop. And then, through the numbness, a voice—so broken, so faint—whispered.
"...Why?"
It wasn't directed at anyone. It wasn't even directed at the pain itself. It was the most primal, raw instinct his shattered mind could form.
"Why me?"
Then, without warning, the question that had been nothing but a fragile breath turned into a manic scream.
WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—WHYME—
It went on and on, spiraling into madness, no space for rationality, no room for thought. Only the desperate scream of someone whose very soul was being pulled apart.
WHYMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE—
And then, there was silence.
The hollow voice returned, but it felt distant and blurry to Aedhira, an echo distorted by the haze of his agony. He couldn't make out its words, not over the sound of his own broken cries. The small, pitiful sounds seemed to bounce off the empty walls of his soulscape, reverberating through the void like a lost child calling into a chasm.
"Why me?" His voice barely a whisper, yet it seemed to fill the entire space. He cried, but no tears fell—there was nothing to shed. In this place, the raw emotion had no outlet but the burning ache in his core.
Aedhira felt his body instinctively curl into a ball, as if to shield himself from the overwhelming agony. His arms wrapped around his knees, clutching tight, his knuckles white from the strain. His cries echoed, but only he could hear them, swallowed by the unfeeling, cold space around him. The once vast and infinite Soulscape, which had loomed large when he first entered, now felt small.
Suffocating.
The silence, once a comforting balm to his thoughts, now smothered him. It pressed in from all sides, trapping him in a coffin of soundlessness. The shifting, surreal landscapes that had irritated him before now felt like a lost treasure—a luxury he would give anything to experience again. He wanted to go home. Wherever home even was. The cold and bleak nothingness seemed to mock his desperation.
But deep down, he knew. He couldn't leave, not yet. There would be no going back without first enduring more of this.
The hollow voice asked him again if he was ready. Ready to continue with the pain.
Aedhira's hoarse whisper cut through the empty space, filled with nothing but bitterness. "I curse you," he spat, his words dripping with venom, though he had no real target. "I curse this damned voice."
It didn't stop the pain, but blaming the hollow voice felt... easier. It gave him something to focus on, something to direct his hatred toward. But that wasn't enough.
He cursed Nornesh.
For bringing him to this point, for binding him in a way he didn't understand. He cursed the dragon's cryptic words, the weight of their promise, the bond they shared that now seemed like shackles.
He cursed Astiron.
For creating him, for crafting him as a tool to serve an unknown purpose, for the half-truths and mysteries that only deepened his confusion. Astiron had made him strong, yes, but he had made him feel so small in the grand scheme of things.
He cursed the refugees.
Those lost souls who followed him, who looked to him for guidance, for hope. He cursed them for the burden they unknowingly placed upon him, for needing him to be their savior when all he wanted was to escape this endless cycle of suffering.
He cursed Argos.
His aide, his companion, his silent shadow—Argos, who remained steadfast despite the pain, who never wavered when Aedhira did. It wasn't fair. Why couldn't he have Argos' strength, that unwavering resolve, without the burning?
He cursed the Ignition Rune.
For turning his very soul into a crucible of agony, for setting him ablaze from within, for demanding so much—too much—of him. The rune pulsed within him, a brand that wouldn't extinguish.
But most of all, he cursed himself.
His cries reached nothing. No one was there to hear them in this dark, silent place. His soulscape, once a dynamic tapestry of light and shadow, now seemed nothing but a cold, black cage. It felt claustrophobic, as if the boundaries of his mind had shrunk, wrapping tighter and tighter around him. He felt small. Too small for the weight he carried.
He longed for the chaotic shifts in scenery, the strange comfort of change, the sight of something—*anything*—other than this crushing void. But there was none of that now. Just darkness and silence. He wanted to go home. Desperately. But a quiet suspicion gnawed at him. A dark truth whispered in the back of his mind.
He couldn't go home. Not yet. Not without enduring this.
The pain was not done with him, and he knew it. He couldn't leave, couldn't rest, couldn't escape—not until it was over. Not until he had survived. Aedhira let out another dry, choked sob, his soul curling tighter upon itself, as if shrinking might somehow lessen the pain.
He wanted to leave. He wanted to go home.
But the suspicion gnawed at him.
He couldn't. Not yet. Not without finishing this. Not without enduring more.
More pain.
He cursed again, but this time there was less venom in it. The curses felt hollow, like the voice that guided this process. He cursed whatever deity or cosmic force might be watching him, laughing at his suffering. But deep down, he knew... there was no one to blame.
There was no divine hand to point at, no great evil to rail against.
It was just how things were.
But blaming was easier than understanding. Blame gave him something to hold onto in the sea of torment.
And then, from the depths of his pain, a voice—a memory—surfaced. The words Nornesh had spoken to him before, casual but heavy with meaning.
"I won't let you down," Aedhira had whispered, with more resolve than he had known at the time.
"I know you won't," Nornesh had said, with that bittersweet smile that lingered in the air like a promise.
He wouldn't let Nornesh down. He couldn't.
No matter how deep the suffering went, no matter how much his soul screamed in the darkness of his own mind, there were people waiting for him. Beyond this torment, beyond this soul-burning crucible, they were there.
Some who knew him, others who only knew what he represented.
Some waited for him to keep them safe, to protect them.
Some waited for his leadership.
Some waited for a hope they didn't even know they needed yet.
They waited for him to return.
And that meant he had to endure this. He had to keep going.
In this dark, silent hell, where only the burn of the Ignition rune kept him tethered to anything resembling life, he clenched his teeth. His hoarse voice rasped out of his raw throat, but this time, it was not manic. This time, it carried the weight of resolve that cut through the agony.
"So be it," Aedhira whispered, voice strained but unyielding. "If I must burn, so be it."
Aedhira burned not for himself, but for those who waited for him. He would not falter, even as his essence felt like it was dissolving into ash. If he had to suffer in order to return to them, then…
"Then I will burn harder and brighter than anything else."
The words escaped his lips, defiant and raw, scraping at the walls of his cracked, weary soul. His body, or what remained of it within the confines of this space, ached under the strain of what was to come next. Yet, he knew the choice had already been made. His suffering had not ended. He had only endured a fraction of what remained.
But he would see it through. He had to.
"...Continue," he said, the word barely more than a whisper, but it was there—solid, resolute.
The hollow voice, that unfeeling, mechanical presence, responded at once.
[Confirmed.]
[Reigniting Runes 3/4]
The countdown began, familiar now, and yet, alongside the fear and anticipation that clutched at his heart, there was something else. Something deeper. A direction. A purpose.
[3]
His breath shuddered in his throat. His body trembled, already anticipating the oncoming wave of unbearable pain, yet he did not retreat.
[2]
The darkness pressed in on him, and for a brief moment, it felt as though he were suffocating beneath its weight. But he stood firm. His mind, fragile though it may have been, braced itself for the impact.
[1]
He closed his eyes, not in resignation, but in resolve.
[IGNITING]