The ground quaked, countless shards of stone cracked and shattered into the air. Heat layered the earth like a suffocating blanket, creating a pocket where space itself seemed to pause—the violent upheaval surrounding the area slowing to a crawl.
Time itself faltered. Their collision resonated with such intensity that space trembled and the earth—not just the land, but the very foundations beneath—threatened to cave in on itself.
Burning Storm maintained his momentum, still protecting the Complex. It stood as an odd sight; despite the damnation of everything around it, such a fine structure remained untouched.
Calling it a stark contrast was an understatement.
Every building nearby had been leveled to piles of rubble. Some fell when Lieutenant Dante created a reflection strike that battered Burning Storm, crushing and cleaving structures alongside him. Others crumbled when Paragon Raizel rammed through Fractured Light's mirror—a mirror holding hundreds of reflected attacks that, once shattered, spilled into reality, savagely tearing through Burning Storm and his surroundings.
The raging crimson bull of flames that had charged fiercely and fearlessly through the terrain was no more.
Now, only a dying relic of an indomitable battle remained. Yet that green light persisted—that stubborn light still shimmering in the depths of his eyes.
That light refused to die.
Burning Storm would not surrender.
His essence had hit rock bottom. Forcefully maintaining the Essence Manifestation through sheer will was becoming more daunting than the battle itself.
His soul was tearing apart, his mind fracturing too. But his stubbornness burned brighter than his pain.
The question echoed a million times in his head, drowning everything else happening around him beneath its weight:
What was the true breaking point Radiant rank?
What power did a Luminary truly wield?
Fractured Light flashed—trailed by a cascade of slicing attacks that flowed like light itself, too swift to catch with mortal eyes. A terrible tearing of thunder rippled through the air.
Burning Storm coated himself in momentum, but it dwindled; nothing remained to sustain such ability. His talent abilities withered like flames starved of oxygen.
And still he clung—desperately grasping one ability while clutching at another.
"Why?! Why?! What is wrong with you?!!"
The echoing voice of his Revolutionary friend meant nothing as he anchored his will on maintaining this form a moment longer, holding the building intact just one more time.
In that desperate struggle, something shifted within him. He became unrecognizable to himself—sensing every tiny movement yet somehow feeling none of it.
His identity unraveled, leaving only pure motion.
Ironic how he felt like the very anchor connecting his True Name to his Soul Source. In that moment when only raw will sustained him...
He felt so much like...
Paragon Raizel's mind seemed to fade into a muffled haze.
What was the true breaking point into Radiant rank?
What power did a Luminary truly wield?
A Paragon perceived the relationship between their True Name and Talent as an external connection—something to discover, to harness, to express.
But Burning Storm no longer felt like a person expressing... he was it.
A strange seed unfurled in the soil of his mind.
Could that breaking point he had sought be the moment where one ceased merely doing and simply needed to be?
That pivotal threshold where this relationship isn't merely anchored to the soul, but fused into the very essence of one's will.
That sublime instant when you transcend yourself.
The first step on a path stretching far beyond humanity—a journey of transcendence.
Even with a fading mind, Paragon Raizel found profound peace in the revelation. He knew it. He felt it. He had discovered something elemental.
He had become something more.
In that moment, his entire world transformed—everything shifting, reconfiguring, until he himself was the Burning Storm.
For the first time in his entire life, Paragon Raizel glimpsed into his Soul World.
And with that vision came the voice of Ul—unheard for decades, yet instantly familiar.
[Congratulations, you have broken the threshold of your soul]
[Your journey to the Zenith of Transcendent has begun]
[Your soul rank is evolving...]
Paragon Raizel heard Ul's voice with crystal clarity but could scarcely focus on it. The reality of his soul unfurling before him was too overwhelming.
Soul World.
What was a Soul World?
What Raizel witnessed granted him understanding beyond imagination—a thunderbolt of insight striking through his consciousness.
A Soul World: the inner universe of a being—the metaphysical domain reflecting the deepest, truest form of existence. The convergence of True Name, Talent, and Soul Core, projected outward into reality.
When a Drifter ascends to Luminary, they no longer simply wield power—they become a space where their truth governs all laws.
A Soul World operated on three vital engines of functionality.
True Name.
The True Name transcends mere words—it exists as a universal constant defining the essence of a soul across all timelines, iterations, and dimensions.
The Soul World is that name given form: its meaning, weight, and symbolic structure manifested as a living domain.
Talent.
Talent manifests one's connection to the soul source. Within the Soul World, Talent abandons the constraints of mere ability—it transforms into the very law of reality.
In the realm Raizel now beheld, his Velocity Sovereign no longer functioned as simple movement or kinetic force—it pulsed as an absolute law of motion.
In his Soul World, possibilities sprawled before him, mind-staggering in their vastness. Things moved only as he willed. Time itself could stutter at his command, and inertia could reverse its eternal flow.
Soul Core.
While the True Name formed the foundation, and Talent the expression, the Soul Core served as the power plant—fueling the transformation of inner identity into outer reality.
As Raizel sensed the inner workings of his soul, he felt a nudging—a subconscious knowing as his gaze fell upon the world of flames below.
Once his Soul Core evolved, it would channel essence directly into his Soul World, allowing his inner reality to override the environment surrounding him.
As Raizel plunged into something infinitely vaster than himself, he first beheld a sky—not merely above, but everywhere. The horizon curved impossibly in all directions, forming a dome of tempestuous winds and pulsating auroras, each gust emblazoned with veins of crimson fire and molten gold. Clouds refused stillness; they spiraled in perfect orbits around invisible axes, emanating rhythms that mirrored the cadence of a cosmic heartbeat.
The landscape below defied conventional form—jagged yet fluid, like volcanic glass frozen at the peak of cataclysm. Rivers coiled in mesmerizing spirals, twisting upward against gravity's pull. Flames streamed horizontally, suspended along invisible pathways that obeyed no law but their own. Nothing remained stationary—not even Raizel's own heartbeat, which resonated outside his chest in phantasmal echoes that rippled through space.
And at the precise center of this impossible realm—
A colossal obsidian spire hung suspended middair, encircled by concentric rings of perpetual storm.
A throne crafted of ash and gale, eternally in motion. Each rotation a divine decree. Each gust an inviolable edict.
This was the seat of Raizel's radiant will.