From Deadbeat noble to Top Rank Swordsman-Chapter 94: Fireborne War

The cracks in the sky did not fade.

They widened.

One after another, long, jagged rifts split through the clouds above as if something enormous stirred beneath them. The air burned hotter than ever. The mountaintop groaned underfoot. Behind the broken seal, the boy stepped back. He didn’t cry. He didn’t scream. He waited.

Because he knew what came next.

Leon stepped forward. His sword lowered.

"Whatever you are," he said, "we’re not here to break you."

The boy’s eyes flicked to the seal behind him.

Elena stood close now. Her fire shimmered at her shoulders but stayed still.

"If we break it without knowing," she said, "we lose more than the war."

The boy’s hands twitched. Gold thread cracked again.

"They already know," the boy whispered. "The ones above. The ones who kept the seals in place. They’re not watching anymore. They’re coming."

A thunderous pulse rocked the chamber.

From above—beyond the peak—a shape began to descend. Not the Vowed. Not the Watchers. Something else. A creature wrapped in molten steel and trailing a chain of flaming hooks. It didn’t walk or fly. It dropped.

Impact.

Stone split. Fire lashed out in a wave, and Leon shielded Elena with his body. The others ducked behind the cracked pedestal. The boy stood in the open. Untouched.

The creature unfolded itself. Nine feet tall. Bladed arms. A helm of black iron fused to its skull.

It spoke. Not words. Screeches—like metal tearing.

But they understood.

"The fire is stolen. Return it."

Leon stepped between it and the boy.

"Then take it," he growled.

The creature moved.

Faster than it should’ve. A blur of steel and flame.

But Elena moved faster.

Her fire exploded. Not outward. Up. A pillar of golden light slammed into the monster’s chest, lifting it off the floor and sending it crashing through the far wall.

Smoke cleared. It rose again. Damaged—but laughing. No voice, but they felt it.

Mira launched her daggers. Tomas charged with blade drawn. Callen muttered a binding spell he barely remembered. Alden flung a burning page that clung to the creature’s shoulder like tar.

None of it stopped it.

Until Leon moved.

He didn’t run. He walked.

Straight at it.

The creature lunged, but Leon dodged—one step left—and carved a line across its leg. No blood. Just sparks. It turned, slashed again. Leon blocked it clean. The impact drove him back, but he didn’t fall.

His sword flickered. Shadow and fire.

He struck again.

And again.

Each blow found its mark.

Elena joined him. Fire met steel. The others formed a circle, pushing back waves of heat and pressure that radiated from the clash.

Minutes passed like hours.

Until the creature faltered.

One knee down. Chains slack. Its helm split slightly.

The boy stood behind them all now. Quiet.

"Don’t kill it," he said.

Leon turned slightly. "Why?"

"Because there are more. Worse. This one came first because it was weakest."

The creature lunged again—but this time, it wasn’t rage.

It was fear.

And that was what made Leon pause.

He knocked it back with one final strike, then let it fall. The flame in its chest dimmed. It didn’t rise again.

The seal behind the boy brightened.

But it didn’t crack.

It opened.

And beyond it—the true battlefield waited.

Not ruins. Not visions.

The world.

Burning.

The seal’s light stretched across the chamber floor, casting long, golden veins into the stone. Every flicker from it pulled at something deep—like a thread buried in the chest, tugged gently, insistently. Beyond the glowing fracture, the mountain no longer ended in rock and sky. It spilled out into a rift, a tear in reality where wind howled sideways and cities shimmered in ruin.

Elena stepped forward. "It’s open."

But the boy didn’t move. He stared at the doorway with a look that wasn’t fear—but knowing.

"It’s not just the battlefield," he said. "It’s where the seals were anchored. All of them. In flesh. In stone. In will."

Leon lowered his sword. "You mean there are more like you?"

"No," the boy whispered. "There were. I’m the last."

Callen stepped closer, flinching as the wind from the portal pushed back against his coat. "Then what’s out there now?"

The boy’s eyes dimmed. "The leftovers."

Suddenly, another shadow passed above. No impact this time. Just a sweeping gust that ripped a column of smoke from the seal’s edge.

A massive shape flew overhead—wings made of folded ash, body draped in cloth that burned without flame. It didn’t descend. It watched.

And then more came.

One by one, silhouettes lined the rift’s edge—too far to name, too many to count. Creatures tall as towers. Beasts made from the skeletons of cities. Some crawled. Some drifted. Some simply stood.

Tomas swallowed hard. "We’re too late."

"No," Mira said, stepping beside him. "We’re exactly on time. This is what the fire was waiting for."

Alden opened his notebook. His hands shook, but he found a blank page. He dipped his pen and wrote just two words: Flameborne march.

The boy stepped past Leon and Elena now, barefoot and steady. The golden thread that once bound his hands had fallen away, disintegrated into dust. His palms glowed with a soft, quiet heat.

He turned to them once more. "You can’t win this with weapons alone. Not with blades. Not even with fire."

Leon nodded once. "Then what?"

"Choice," the boy said. "What to burn. What to save."

He looked out at the rift.

"Who you’re willing to lose."

The wind tore again across the seal’s edge, and this time, the path extended—a bridge of blackened glass and embered stone, suspended in the air with no supports, leading into the horizon of fire.

Leon stepped onto it first.

He didn’t look back.

Elena followed, then Callen, Tomas, Mira, Alden. ƒгeewёbnovel.com

And the boy.

Behind them, the chamber that once held the eighth seal crumbled—not in ruin, but in peace. Its duty was done.

Ahead, the first of the ash-beasts turned.

And screamed.

Not in challenge.

In warning.

Because the fire had found its bearers.

And the war had finally come home.

The scream echoed across the bridge like a funeral bell.

Then silence.

Not stillness—never that again—but the kind of silence that lives just before a world is torn open.

Leon didn’t flinch. His boots struck the bridge like hammer blows. One step. Then another. The ash-beast that screamed had vanished into the haze, but its echo lingered, twisted by the wind. The others hadn’t moved yet. They watched.

They judged.

The further they walked, the less the bridge looked like glass. Flames pulsed beneath each step—old ones, red-orange and deep, not wild like Elena’s fire but slow, patient, ancient.

"They’re measuring us," she said beside him.

Leon kept walking. "Let them."

The boy behind them didn’t speak. His eyes were fixed forward, jaw tight.

A new sound rose—the shifting of limbs. Bone scraped stone. One of the ash-beasts stepped forward. This one taller than the rest, its ribcage open, a throne carved into its chest. Something sat there.

Not dead.

Not alive.

It wasJust waiting.

"Hold," Leon said.

They stopped.

The beast knelt. Slowly. With a sound like trees snapping.

The thing on its throne—once a man, now bound in roots and metal—opened its eyes. White. Clouded. But not blind.

It spoke. Soft. Clear.

"You carry the fire of the seal."

Leon nodded.

"You were not meant to."

He didn’t answer.

"You crossed the seal."

Still, no answer.

"Now You walk into our end"

Finally, Leon spoke. "It was already ending. We just stopped pretending it wasn’t ."

The beast’s eyes flicked to the boy.

"You let him live."

"He chose it."

Another pause. The wind roared between them.

Then the figure leaned back.

And smiled.

"Then your war begins here."

The bridge ended.

The land before them cracked with veins of light and coal. Smoke poured from ruined towers and hills that bled molten rivers. Shadows danced in the sky—too large, too fast, too wrong.

A battlefield—but not in motion.

A graveyard still waiting for war.

Elena stepped beside Leon again, her fingers brushing his.

"They’re not attacking."

"Not yet."

"Why?"

Leon’s eyes narrowed as the ash-beasts slowly pulled back into the smoke, clearing the path forward.

"Because they’re not ready."

He drew his sword.

"We are."

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