The heart monitor's shrill scream tore through the penthouse's tomb-like silence.

Varian de Mortain silenced it with a glare. *Weakness*, he thought. Weakness in the trembling hands of his sons. Weakness in the stench of antiseptic and rot clinging to his silk sheets. Weakness in the IV drip feeding him poison disguised as hope.

"Father." Marcus, the eldest, stepped forward. His tailored suit couldn't hide the sweat staining his collar. "The doctors… they've done all they can."

Varian's laugh was a death rattle. "Doctors?" He raised a skeletal finger toward the window. Beyond the bulletproof glass, Tokyo's skyline burned with the aftermath of yesterday's coup—his final masterpiece. "That is my medicine. Power. And you…" His milky eyes swept over his five sons—Marcus, Jarek, Silas, Henrik, Nikolai. "You are the placebo."

Jarek, the youngest, flinched. Good. Let them remember who held the knife.

A burner phone buzzed on the nightstand. Varian's gnarled hand closed around it, muscles trembling not from fear, but fury. Even now, his body betrayed him.

"Prime Minister Sato," he croaked into the receiver. Blood bubbled at his lips, iron-sweet. "Cancel the airstrike on Jakarta. Or shall I send your daughter's fingers to the Diet?"

Silence. Then a muffled curse. The line went dead.

Varian dropped the phone. "Silas. The ledger."

"Father, the offshore accounts—"

"Are mine. Burn it. Or the cartels will carve the codes from your spine."

Silas obeyed, hands shaking as he fed decades of blackmail to the fireplace. Flames devoured secrets—a president's affair, a general's treason, the true owner of a uranium mine. Varian watched, breath rattling. Let them inherit ashes.

The pain surged—a wildfire in his veins. Ninety-nine years of cheating death: surviving poisoned wine, sniper rounds, a plutonium-laced cigar. But time? Time was the one enemy even the High Table couldn't assassinate.

"Henrik." Varian's voice cracked. "The serum."

The fourth son hesitated. "The last dose killed the test subject. It's… it's not ready."

"Now."

Henrik plunged the jagged syringe into his father's neck. Liquid fire seared Varian's veins. Monitors wailed as his back arched, tendons snapping like cables.

For one glorious moment—he felt alive.

Then darkness.

But not silence.

Laughter echoed—deep, resonant, *hungry*.

Varian opened eyes he no longer possessed. Shadows swirled around him, coalescing into a figure cloaked in molten feathers. Its wings spanned eternity, each plume a dying star. Eyes like eclipses bored into his soul.

"**Thirteenth life,**" it crooned. Talons carved sigils into his spectral chest. "**The Tyrant's pyre burns anew.**"

Varian sneered. "I don't believe in hell."

"**Belief is irrelevant.**" The entity's voice fractured reality. "**You are a spark in a dying cosmos. Burn brightly, little arsonist. Burn until even gods choke on your ash.**"

The talons twisted. Agony ripped through Varian—not physical, but *existential*. Memories shredded. His first kill at fourteen. The taste of his rival's widow's lips. The exact pressure point to collapse a trachea. All distilled, reforged, *amplified*.

When he screamed, fire answered.

Heat.

Varian gasped, lungs scalded by air thick with sulfur and ash. His vision blurred—*wrong*. Colors burned too bright. The wailing wasn't monitors but a high-pitched shriek. His shriek.

A slap cracked across his face.

"Quiet, runt."

The woman looming above had wings—crimson, frayed at the edges, like burnt parchment. Her eyes glowed molten gold beneath a nest of greasy feathers masquerading as hair. Taloned hands gripped his ankles, hoisting him upside down.

"Gray wings." She spat. "Trash bloodline. Should've known the Emberlyns would whelp another defect."

*Phoenix*, his new instincts whispered.

He glanced down. Tiny, clawed hands. A scrawny chest ribbed with malnutrition. And wings—small, featherless, the color of gutter ash.

"No ancestral flame. No value." The woman—a midwife, his fragmented memories supplied—carried him toward a cliff's edge. Below, a magma chasm pulsed, its heat warping the air.

"May the Eternal Pyre cleanse our kin."

She dropped him.

DING!

Fiery text seared his vision:

[System Initialized.]

[Host: Varian Emberlyn (Phoenix fledgling, lower caste).

[Bloodline: Ashwing (Defective).

[Unique Trait: Ashen Inferno – Devour flames, souls, and suffering to evolve.

[Warning: Survival rate in purification pit: 0.3%.]

Defective? Rage ignited in Varian's chest. He'd toppled empires with less.

The magma surged.

[Detect Flames: Magma (Rank F). Devour?]

Yes.

He plunged into the lava.

Pain.

Molten rock scoured flesh from bone. His gray wings disintegrated. Screams died in a throat turned to cinder.

[Ashen Inferno Activated!]

[+1 Essence of Magma Flame.]

The agony lessened—a fraction.

[+1 Essence…]

Muscles regrew, charred and twitching.

[+1 Essence…]

His beak snapped shut on the lava itself. It screamed.

[Essence: 3/10.]

Varian laughed—a rasping, guttural sound. He bit again.

[+1 Essence…]

[+1 Essence…]

[Essence: 10/10. Evolution Available.]

The System's text blazed gold:

[Evolve Wings:

1. Crimson Pyre (Common) – Flight speed +20%.

2. Shadow Cinder (Rare) – Stealth in darkness.

3. Ashen Maw (Unique) – Devour flames mid-flight.]

Varian chose 3.

His wings erupted—not feathers, but swirling black flames. The magma *recoiled*.

[Strength: 0.5 → 2.5.]

[New Ability: Flamewalk (Basic) – Traverse molten surfaces unharmed.]

He soared from the pit, reborn.

The midwife stumbled back. "Impossible! Ashwings can't—"

Varian landed, talons clicking against obsidian. At full height, he barely reached her knee. "Gratitude," he croaked, voice raw but clear. "For the meal."

He lunged.

Talons meant for her throat slashed air as the midwife recoiled. "Filthy defect!"

Her wings flared, bathing the chamber in crimson light. Heatwaves rolled off her in visible ripples.

[Detect Flames: Phoenix Noble (Rank D). Devour?]

Varian grinned. "Yes."

He darted between her legs, claws raking tendons. She shrieked, stumbling. The System hummed:

[+1 Essence of Phoenix Flame.]

[Strength: 2.5 → 2.7.]

Pathetic. He needed more.

The midwife spun, fire coalescing in her palms. "Burn, rat!"

A fireball erupted. Varian leapt, black wings carrying him sideways. The flames bent toward him, sucked into his Ashen Maw.

[+3 Essence!]

[Strength: 2.7 → 3.3.]

He landed on her back, talons piercing wing joints.

"Get off!" She bucked, slamming into walls. Varian clung, teeth sinking into her neck.

[Devour Soul? Y/N]

The midwife's flames guttered. "Please… I have hatchlings—"

Varian selected Yes.

Her body crumbled to ash.

[+1 Soul (Phoenix Midwife).

[Essence: 13/20.]

[New Ability Unlocked: Ember Sight – Detect heat signatures.]

He inhaled her lingering fear. *Power*.

The Emberlyn nest stank of desperation.

Varian's new parents—gray-winged, hollow-cheeked—cowered as he entered. Their hovel was carved into volcanic rock, its walls stained with soot. A cracked obsidian mirror reflected his form: a child-sized phoenix with ink-black wings and eyes like smoldering coal.

"V-Varian?" His mother reached for him, talons retracted. "The midwife said you…"

"Dead?" He tilted his head. "She underestimated me."

His father, wings frayed from decades of cleaning noble plumage, stepped forward. "Your wings… they're not gray."

"No." Varian flexed his Ashen Maw, drinking in their fear. "They're better."

[Detect Flames: Ashwing Parents (Rank F). Devour?]

His mother whimpered.

Varian dismissed the prompt. *Pathetic flames. Not worth the effort.*

"Listen closely," he said, climbing onto the stone table they called a bed. "You will tell the district I survived the Eternal Pyre. A miracle."

"B-but the nobles—"

"Will come." Varian smiled. "And when they do, you'll weep and beg for their mercy. Understood?"

They nodded, too terrified to ask why.

(Good. Let the nobles come. Let them bring their flames.

He had a world to burn.)

[System Alert:

[New Objective: Devour a Noble Phoenix's Soul (0/1).

[Reward: Partial Humanoid Transformation.]**

Varian closed his eyes, savoring the magma's distant roar.