The world returned to Albedo in a single, breathless mont. His eyes flying open as he saw himself returned to the villa’s training chamber, surrounded by its obsidian walls.
His chest heaved, the last remnants of crimson starlight fading from his pupils. Even now, he felt heat simring in his blood, like a fire had been planted inside his heart and left to smolder eternally.
The Book of Aevarion rested on the desk behind him, closed once again, but now ready for him to read and understand whenever he wanted.
He had already understood so techniques from his eting with Aevarion, and he was excited to test them. He quickly initiated another combat simulation to check his new skills.
~CLANK!~
From the far edges of the platform, multiple beasts began to form. The first hissed into existence with a writhing body of molten bones and scythe-like claws.
A Hollow Warbeast. The others followed, lithe, swift, so aerial, so armored, all bloodthirsty, eager to take Albedo down.
Albedo wasn’t worried however, he was excited, and his flas answered his call.
Then his flas answered.
The Crimson Moon inside him flared open, and in the center of the room, the shadows bent toward him like worshippers. A ring of spectral embers blood beneath his feet, forming a sigil in the air.
[ Crimson Moon Technique: First Gate – Heartpulse Bloom ]
With a pulse of his heart, the sigil exploded outward. Crimson petals of fire burst from his form like a lotus of fla in full bloom.
The petals drifted lazily, but the mont one brushed against a beast, its body ignited.
The technique synced with Albedo’s heartbeat. Each beat sent a wave of heat into the surroundings, and each wave overrode the mana structure of his enemies, lighting them from within.
One beast screeched and lunged, another one charging at him from behind, but he didn’t flinch at all, instead he stepped forward, and his body flickered between monts effortlessly.
[ Crimson Apocalypse Skill: Flicker in the Void ]
He appeared a foot above the beast, inverted mid-air, hand glowing with spiraling flas. Ti had not stopped, but his position had shifted through the cracks in it.
His hand ca down, a command to combust flowing through his hand, detonating the beast mid air in a showery display of sparks the mont Albedo’s fingers ca in contact with the beast.
He landed in a crouch. Without even looking, he swept his left leg behind him. Flas rolled along the ground in a sweeping wave.
[ Crimson Moon Technique: Embercoil Lattice ]
A serpentine fla trail ford behind the kick. The kick lingered, weaving itself around the battlefield like a living spiral.
The Embercoil was a trap. A lattice of residual heat that responded to hostile mana. Any step, any twitch of mana that wasn’t Albedo’s, would cause it to lash out like a constrictor.
One beast ran at Albedo, but the Embercoil quickly activated, snapping towards it ferociously and wrapping around the monster. It squeezed and squeezed like a snake, all the while its flas burnt the monster to ash, taking it down.
Seeing its partner die, another beast leapt at Albedo from above, shrieking with its wings spread wide, but he didn’t even raise his head, instead Albedo just snapped his finger.
[ Crimson Apocalypse: Tyrant’s Flare ]
From the tip of his finger, a narrow, pencil-thin beam of red-violet light shot upward, nearly invisible and silent, all the way until the beast folded in half as though reality had punched a hole in it.
Tyrant’s Flare had simply erased it completely, every last drop of blood and piece of flesh was burnt into non-existence in an instant.
It was the most refined form of fla possible, fla that did not burn skin, or air, or flesh, but the idea of whatever it touched was annihilated. It sheared through reality with surgical cruelty.
Albedo moved without pause at the sa ti. The Embercoil around the arena lashed forward.
Two more beasts triggered it at once, and the coiling fire slamd into them with feral glee, twisting their limbs and cooking their bones mid-leap.
Still, one more beast remained, and this one was different. Its body shimred with reflective crystal scales. It roared, disrupting the ambient mana around them, creating a null-field bubble that silenced fla and stilled the runes beneath their feet.
Albedo narrowed his eyes as he saw what it was, A fire-nullification field. It was the first ti he had ever faced one.
"Let’s test that, shall we?"
He raised his arms. For a mont, nothing happened. Then, above him, the space warped. From thin air descended a wheel.
A Burning Halo, wrought of twelve rings, each inscribed with different Primordial glyphs.
[ Crimson Moon Technique: Celestial Brand – Halo of the First Pyre ]
The Halo embedded itself behind Albedo’s back, spinning slowly, and with each revolution, the temperature in the room rose, but not through mana. It rose through principle. Through law.
The null-field scread as cracks appeared in the air. The beast charged ferociously, its fangs wide as it tried to take down Albedo before he took it down, but the beast was still too slow.
Albedo t it head on, clenching his right hand with flas swirling around his fist, the halo blazing brighter and brighter as Albedo casted his final spell.
"Fall."
[ Crimson Apocalypse: Crown of Ashes ]
The world responded. A shockwave of ash and pressure radiated from his body. The fla wrapped around his hand froze for an instant, compressing into a grey-red crown-shaped symbol on his knuckles.
And then the punch landed, and everything around him turned to ashes. The walls, the floor, all the projections and simulations, everything turned grey and crumbled.
The beasts were all gone, with only Albedo standing in a field of ash that was once the training room that was quickly reforming itself with the system’s influence.
Once the room was rebuilt, it recognized the sheer destructive overload and ended the simulation, giving him a score he had never ever seen before.
[ Simulation Terminated: Instability Detected ]
[ Performance Grade: ∞ ]
Albedo looked around, it seems he was even stronger than he recognized now. He was extrely excited about the potential the Book provided to him.
He glanced over his shoulder, about to approach the desk again, when the door slamd open with a bang.
"ALBEDO!?"
Two figures darted into the chamber, their voices echoing in unison.
Gwen’s silver hair bounced behind her, her eyes wide with panic. Diona was right beside her, dual daggers in hand, already half-crouched like she was ready to take down an army.
Both girls froze at the sight of him, alone, standing amidst a crater of residual heat and swirling ash.
Gwen blinked.
"...Did you blow up the house again?" she asked, incredulous.
Albedo raised an eyebrow, "No."
Diona gestured vaguely at the still-repairing walls, "It looks like you blew up the house again."
"I didn’t." He folded his arms calmly, though the faint scorch marks along his sleeves said otherwise.
Gwen marched up to him, fists on her hips, "You made the whole villa shake! It felt like a teor hit us. I nearly fell out of bed!"
Diona sheathed her daggers, letting out a slow sigh. "And I thought we were under attack. I was halfway to stabbing Ember when she jump-scared ."
Gwen looked up at him, narrowing her eyes, "Are you okay?"
Albedo paused, then nodded, "Yeah, just training, do you think your Big Bro ranks #1 in the Myth Class by slacking off?:
There was a pause, a heavy silence filled with unspoken understanding. Gwen stepped forward and tugged lightly at his sleeve, brushing off a bit of lingering ash.
Diona squinted at him, then let out a half-sigh, half-laugh. "Just make sure you don’t set the villa on fire next ti. Or collapse it. Or kill us all with one of your God-era death rays."
Gwen frowned, stomping lightly, "Don’t encourage him!"
Albedo smiled softly, "I’ll try to keep it... restrained."
Gwen puffed her cheeks. "You better! You promised we’d have pancakes tomorrow and I’m not eating ash pancakes!"
He raised an eyebrow, "Ash pancakes?"
"You know what I an!"
Albedo gave a faint chuckle under his breath.
"I’ll keep that in mind."
The girls turned to leave. Gwen paused in the doorway and glanced back one last ti.
"...Just don’t forget to rest too. You don’t have to burn yourself every ti to get stronger."
Albedo t her gaze for a beat.
"I’m not burning myself," he said softly, eyes glowing, "I’m becoming the fla."
Gwen blinked, then rolled her eyes, "Ugh. You’re starting to sound like a cultist."
Diona snorted, "You’re right Gwen, this guy really always has been dramatic."
The door shut behind them with a quiet click, and Albedo was left alone once more. The mont they were gone, his expression shifted, calm turning to focused hunger. He turned to the obsidian desk, where the Book of Aevarion now hovered silently.
It opened of its own accord as he reached for it. This book was his future, a guide on all the mistakes to avoid and all the techniques that will increase his power.
Albedo’s hand rested on its first glowing page, the words shifting before his eyes, alive, ancient, unknowable, and yet his to claim.
A slow smile ford across his lips.
"Let’s see what else you’re hiding..."
He leaned forward.
And the flas rose once more.
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