Theon walked back through the palace gates. His clothes were torn. Dried blood still clung to the corner of his mouth. The halls were quiet. Most of the servants had already gone to sleep.
He reached his room and pushed the door open.
He reached for the light.
The moment the room lit up, he froze.
His father sat there. The Emperor. Beside him stood Duke Aldric, arms crossed, his face unreadable.
"...Father." Theon’s voice caught in his throat.
The Emperor didn’t answer right away. He simply looked at his son. At the torn sleeve. At the blood on his lip. At the dirt on his boots.
"Where have you been?" It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.
Theon straightened up.
"I was just out for a walk. I lost track of..."
"Don’t." The Emperor’s voice was calm, but it cut through the room like a blade. "Do you really think a fight could break out in the forest within my vicinity, and I wouldn’t know about it?"
Theon’s mouth shut.
The Duke said nothing. He only watched.
Silence stretched between them. Theon looked down at his hands. Then, slowly, he lifted his head.
"...Alright." He let out a breath. "I’ll tell you everything."
He told them about the cries he’d heard near the forest. About the cages. About the elf children locked away like animals. About the guards, about Malrik Voss, about the ancient magic he had used to bring the hideout down. He left nothing out.
The Emperor listened without interrupting once. Duke Aldric’s expression darkened more with every word, but he still said nothing.
When Theon finished, the room fell quiet again.
His father finally spoke.
"...Be careful." That was all he said.
Theon blinked. He had expected anger. A lecture. Punishment, even. Not this.
"That’s it? You’re not going to..."
"You made your choice out there." The Emperor’s eyes were steady. "I won’t take that away from you. But you are still my son. Next time, tell someone before you disappear into the dark like that."
Theon nodded slowly. "...I will."
The Emperor rose from his seat. Duke Aldric gave a short bow before following him out. Before the door closed, his father glanced back once.
"Get some rest."
The door shut. Theon sat down on the edge of his bed, staring at the wall for a long while before he finally let himself fall asleep.
The next morning, a familiar chime rang in his mind before he even opened his eyes.
A blue screen appeared before him.
World Archive: SYSTEM NOTIFICATION
Skill Leveled Up: Ice Javelin → Level 2
Skill Leveled Up: Ice Wall → Level 2
New Skill Acquired: Shadow Magic
Congratulations.
Theon sat up in bed, staring at the screen.
"...Shadow magic." He repeated the words quietly, as if testing how they sounded. He hadn’t drawn on anything close to that during the fight. But somewhere in that battle, he suspected that something had shifted inside him.
A knock came at the door.
"Young master, breakfast is ready."
"I’ll be right there," he called back.
He got dressed and made his way to the dining hall. The food was simple that morning, bread, eggs, a bit of cured meat, but after last night, it tasted better than anything he could remember. He ate in silence, still turning the new notification over in his mind. "But wait, the World Archive isn’t supposed to have a system notification."Then a blue screen interface materialized into existence.
World Archive
world archive leveled up >10
System Realm open
After breakfast, he headed straight for the training grounds.
Captain Voss was already there, sword in hand, waiting like he always did.
"You’re late," Voss said without looking up.
"Not by much." Theon rolled his shoulder, testing the stiffness left over from the fight the night before.
Voss raised a brow. "You look like you got run over by a cart."
"Something like that."
"Well then." Voss twirled his blade once. "Let’s see if that beating knocked any sense into you. Or if it just made you slower."
Theon drew his sword.
They circled each other for a moment. Then Voss moved first.
His strike came fast, low, aimed at Theon’s leg. Theon pivoted, letting the blade skim past, and answered with a thrust of his own. Voss knocked it aside with a flick of his wrist.
Clang!
The sound rang out across the yard.
Theon didn’t retreat. He pressed forward, chaining strike after strike, the same rhythm he’d used against the guards in the cave. Voss matched him blow for blow, his footwork tighter, his timing sharper than any guard Theon had faced the night before.
"You’ve gotten faster," Voss said between strikes. "But faster isn’t the same as better."
He stepped inside Theon’s guard and drove his elbow into his ribs.
Thud!
Theon staggered, but recovered before Captain Voss could follow up, sweeping his blade low to force the captain back a step. For the first time, Captain Voss’ easy smile faded into something more focused.
They clashed again and again. Sparks of steel meeting steel. Theon’s arms burned with every parry, sweat running down the side of his face. The captain didn’t hold back, not even a little. Every opening Theon left, the captain found it and punished him for it.
At one point, Captain Voss caught his blade at an angle and twisted, nearly tearing the sword from Theon’s grip. Theon held on by sheer stubbornness, wrenching it free and countering with a strike aimed at Captain Voss shoulder. Voss barely dodged in time, the tip of the blade grazing his sleeve.
"Tch." Voss exhaled sharply. "Close."
The fight dragged on. Both of them are breathing hard now, movements slower but no less deliberate. Theon could feel his legs shaking beneath him, but he refused to drop his guard.
Then, in one final exchange, Theon read the captain’s feint a half-second before it came, twisting his body just enough to slip past the strike and press his blade against Captain Voss neck.
Both of them froze there, chests heaving, sweat dripping onto the dirt.
Voss let out a short laugh and lowered his sword. "...Alright. That one’s yours."
Theon dropped to one knee, sword planted in the ground, using it to hold himself up. "Barely."
"Barely is still a win." Voss clapped him on the shoulder as he passed. "Don’t get used to it. That won’t happen twice."
Theon managed a tired grin. "We’ll see about that."
Later that afternoon, he took a walk through the palace gardens to clear his head. His legs still ached from the match.
He found his older sister, Yrsa, exactly where he expected, seated at the base of an old stone monument in the far corner of the garden, surrounded by scrolls and half-finished notes.
She was staring at the ancient ruin carved into the stone in front of her, her brows knit together in frustration.
"Sister."
She didn’t look up right away. "...Theon."
"Still at it?" He glanced at the scattered notes around her.
"Two years." She let out a long breath. "Two years I’ve been trying to translate this thing." She gestured toward the worn symbols etched into the stone. "And I just realized something."
"What is it?"
"It’s flawed." She said it flatly, almost in disbelief. "The inscription itself. Whoever carved this centuries ago made an error somewhere in the third sequence. I’ve been trying to solve something that was broken from the very start."
Theon crouched down beside her, looking over the faded runes. "How do you know it’s an error and not just... something we don’t understand yet?"
"Because the pattern breaks the rule it sets up two lines earlier." She traced her finger along the stone. "It’s like reading a sentence that contradicts itself halfway through. Whoever wrote this either made a mistake, or something interrupted them before they could finish."
Theon studied the ruin for a long moment. "So two years of work, and it comes down to a mistake made hundreds of years ago."
Yrsa let out a tired laugh. "Exactly."
He gave her shoulder a light pat before standing back up. "Don’t push yourself too hard."
"Look who’s talking," she muttered, glancing at the faint bruise still forming along his jaw.
He just smiled and continued on his way.
That night, he made his way to the smaller training ground near the eastern wing of the palace, the one reserved for the younger royals.
There, he found his junior sister, the eighth princess, Lyra, standing in the middle of the yard. A small flame flickered weakly in her palm before sputtering out entirely.
"Again?" Theon asked, stepping closer.
Lyra jumped slightly, then relaxed when she saw it was him. "It keeps happening. Every time I try to call more than a spark, it just... dies out. Like something’s holding it back."
Theon watched her try again. The flame rose for a second, bright and full of promise, then collapsed in on itself as if smothered from the inside.
He frowned. Something about it didn’t sit right with him.
An idea came to him.
In his thoughts, he called out.
*"World Archive, explain. Open access."*
The blue screen appeared before him again.
WORLD ARCHIVE
Access granted but limited
Hidden Record Unlocked
Subject: The Primordial Flame Empress
Classification: Restricted
Access Level: Incomplete
The blue screen flickered several times before lines of ancient text slowly appeared.
«During the Age of the First Civilization, when magic flowed freely across the world, there existed an individual whose mastery over fire surpassed all known limits.
History remembers her only by one title...»
The Primordial Flame Empress.
No true name remained.
No kingdom remained.
Even the race she belonged to had been erased from history.
Only her title had survived the passage of time.
The World Archive continued.
«She became the first being in recorded history to reach the Primordial Attribute through fire alone.
Her flames could melt mountains, boil oceans, and reduce entire kingdoms to ash with a single thought.
No ordinary magic could stand before her.»
Theon’s breathing slowed.
"...Someone that powerful actually existed?"
The ancient text continued to scroll before his eyes.
But...
«Power beyond the world’s limits eventually became a threat to creation itself.
Every battle she fought scarred reality itself.
The balance of the world began to collapse.
To preserve existence...
Aetherion intervened.»
Theon’s eyes widened.
"...Aetherion?"
His heart began to race.
"What did he do to stop it?"
The World Archive remained silent for a brief moment.
Then, another blue window appeared before him.
ACCESS DENIED
Authority Level Insufficient
Historical Record Locked
Required Clearance: Level Up more
Theon frowned.
"...Again?"
"So even the World Archive has information it won’t reveal to me."
After a few moments, the blue screen flickered once more. Instead of continuing the historical record, a new entry appeared.
Supplementary Record Unlocked
Subject: The Primordial Flame
«The Primordial Flame could not be easily destroyed.
Neither Gods nor mortals possessed the power to erase a Primordial Soul. Only a True God could destroy it, but they never intervene in trivial matters, even Aetherion, who is a True God, sealed part of his own powers so as not to break the rules.
Therefore, he placed an Ancient Divine Seal upon each reincarnated vessel of the Primordial flame empress.
The seal suppresses the Primordial Flame until its host becomes capable of controlling its overwhelming power but if not the host perish
Without the seal... the vessel would perish from the overwhelming power at once.»
Theon read it twice, his eyes narrowing at the last line.
"A seal... to keep her from dying." He looked over at Lyra. "That’s why the flame keeps going out. It’s not that you’re too weak to hold it. It’s being held back on purpose."
Lyra stared at him. "Held back? By what?"
"I’m not sure yet. But I think I can loosen it. Just a little."
He stepped closer, placing his hand gently over hers. He focused on the restraint he could feel wrapped around her magic, the same suffocating weight he now recognized as a seal, and pushed against it, carefully, testing its edges rather than tearing it open.
Lyra gasped as warmth spread through her palm.
A flame rose, steadier this time, larger than before. It didn’t vanish. It held, flickering gently in her hand like a small sun.
"I... I did it." She stared at the fire in disbelief, a smile breaking across her face. "I actually did it!"
"Just a little," Theon reminded her. "There’s still a long way to go before it’s fully free. Don’t push it too far tonight."
She nodded eagerly, still watching the flame dance in her palm.
Back in his room, Theon sat on the edge of his bed, turning everything over in his mind. The Archive’s words echoed in his head.
*The seal suppresses the Primordial Flame until its host becomes capable of controlling its overwhelming power. Without the seal... the vessel would perish.*
If Lyra really carried something like that inside her, then loosening the seal, even a little, might not have been as harmless as he’d thought.
He didn’t get long to think about it.
BOOM!
The explosion shook the entire wing. Theon shot to his feet and ran toward the window. Past the eastern garden, near the old stone guardian statue, flames roared into the night sky.
He sprinted outside.
By the time he reached the garden, half of it was already ablaze. Scorched trees. Blackened grass. Smoke curling upward in thick columns.
In the middle of it all stood Lyra, wide-eyed, hands trembling, staring at the destruction around her.
Theon stared at the wreckage, then at his sister.
"...Are you kidding me?" He rubbed his face. "No wonder Aetherion sealed her powers." He looked at the scorched garden again. "No wonder that seal was placed on both sides of her, not just one."
Far below the palace, deep within the sealed dungeon, the chained man’s eyes opened.
He felt it. Even through layer after layer of stone and seal, he felt the surge of flame that had rippled through the world above.
A slow smile spread across his face.
"I will surely get it this time." His voice was barely a whisper, yet it carried through the darkness like a promise.
He closed his eyes again, chains rattling softly in the silence.
"Just hold out longer."
"...My....."