I stopped just outside the roaring inferno of black flames.
For the grandmasters to enter, I would have to open a path. That part was simple, I could split the flames for a while, make a safe corridor for them to walk through.
I even considered a crueler plan: letting them step inside halfway, only to seal the flames shut and watch as the fire devoured them, leaving nothing behind. The thought was tempting, a brutal end that would rid me of them quickly.
But that would be too easy... and it wouldn’t serve my purpose. I didn’t just want them gone, I wanted them lured. If they died too soon, word of this place would never spread to the ones I needed to hear it.
That was why the first batch had to endure. They needed to fight, to struggle against my summons in a grueling battle. They had to feel the weight of this place and crawl away alive, carrying stories of it back to their masters. Only then would the bait be set properly.
I folded my arms, eyes fixed on the writhing black fire. The flames hissed and groaned like they understood my thoughts, waiting for me to decide who deserved passage and who deserved to burn.
"Ahh, got it." I muttered to myself. With a sharp wave of my hand, I summoned my staff.
Essence churned like a storm inside me, and in the next instant, the Executor’s staff materialized in my grip. Its familiar weight settled into my palm, heavy with authority.
I pushed Essence into it, letting the flow surge outward. The staff responded instantly, swelling with power. With a sharp crack, it doubled in size, then tripled, and soon it was racing upward, stretching like a living pillar. I kept my control firm, shaping the growth, until it was tall enough to pierce past the black flame wall.
By the time I was satisfied, the staff had become a colossal structure, broad enough for three people to walk side by side without brushing shoulders. I wrapped my will around it, and faint runes shimmered across its surface, pulsing like veins of light.
Drawing a deep breath, I tapped into the law of polarity. Energy hummed, and the massive staff began to rise, floating into position. With a fierce swing of my arms, I brought it down.
The impact roared like thunder. Air split apart, and the giant staff cleaved through the wall of black flames.
The inferno shuddered, torn open, as the staff smashed down just outside the Peanu guarding fort.
It appeared like a bridge stretched across the flames, linking the fort directly to the heart of the island.
The black fire fought back immediately, writhing and lashing as if trying to consume the staff. But my will pressed down harder, keeping the flames at bay. The staff glowed faintly, steady against the devouring darkness, and the corridor it formed looked like a tunnel carved through the sea of fire.
A grin tugged at my lips.
"Perfect."
I stepped back into the swirling inferno, hiding myself within the darkness, waiting patiently for the scene to play out. The bait had been laid, and now it was only a matter of time before the drama began.
*******
[Inside the chamber of Grandmaster Roland Max, Lamp Fort]
[Roland Max’s PoV]
I leaned back in my chair, one hand resting lazily on a stack of parchment reports.
The empire was moving fast these days, too fast for some, but for me, it was an opportunity.
New taxes, new trade routes, the military stretching itself thin after that mess in the Zuro Continent. Every change cracked open doors, and I intended to walk through them before anyone else even noticed.
My eyes flicked over one particular report detailing the rise of new underground trade channels sprouting in the capital.
Smuggling routes, hidden slave markets, small but clever groups carving pieces of power from the shadows.
I smiled.
With the right pressure, I could take control of them, bend them under my influence. Under Max family. A single investment here, a bribe there, and they’d be working for me without even realizing it.
I tapped the paper with my finger, already mapping out who to approach, who to silence.
The black flames outside the fort had always kept the island sealed, and within this cage I had built my own quiet dominion.
The inferno wasn’t a prison to me, it was protection. And under its watchful glare, I had grown stronger, wealthier, untouchable.
But then, everything changed.
A weight dropped onto the air so suddenly my chest locked up. My hand froze mid-tap. The parchment slid from my fingers and landed silently on the table.
For a heartbeat I thought I was imagining it, some trick of fatigue, a phantom pressure. But no. The force only grew heavier, pressing down until my very bones shivered.
Essence. Vast, crushing, alive.
Even I, Roland Max, a grandmaster who had faced storms and slaughter, felt my knees weaken. My throat went dry. My heartbeat hammered in my ears. The entire chamber trembled as if the air itself was bowing to something it could not resist.
I slammed my fist against the table, forcing breath back into my lungs.
No. I would not break.
Whatever this was, I would face it with the pride of a grandmaster. I straightened, my jaw tight, and stormed toward the doors.
The moment I stepped outside, it happened.
The inferno that had caged the Lamp island for as long as I could remember, the same black wall of flame I had stared at since I was a child, split open.
A beam, vast and glowing violet, tore through the sky. It ripped straight through the inferno like paper, carving a path where none should exist.
The flames shrieked, curling away from the light as if afraid. And then, with a deafening bang, the beam crashed into the ground just outside the fort.
BOOM!!!
The shockwave hit me like a punch, rattling the walls and making the ground quake beneath my boots. I stumbled back, my eyes wide, my mouth hanging open. For a long, suspended moment, I forgot how to breathe.
This was impossible. Unthinkable.
"What... what is this...?" I whispered, though no one was there to answer.
The sound of rushing air reached my ears.
One after another, the other five grandmasters burst from their chambers, their eyes just as wide, their faces frozen in the same disbelief that gripped me.
Together we stood, staring at the impossible sight before us, the black inferno breached, the fort no longer sealed, the world we knew forever altered.