Rei stared at the message for several seconds, unsure how to even feel about this. "S-S-Sacrifice... a child?" he muttered through stutters as he swallowed hard, completely unaware of how to feel about this.
He felt his stomach twist, but then, another message appeared, fading the other one away.
[Contractor of Flames, you have denied the False Vison from Vasrukel, the Forgotten Deity.]
[Due to denying the False Vision, you have gained the following.]
[Trait: Vasrukel's Blessing]
[Passive: Poison Resistance]
[Resonance Echo: Poison Enchant]
Rei saw this and wiped the screen away, feeling too overwhelmed with the thought of needing to sacrifice a child. This child would not know what love is, would not ever learn the amazing things that life can bring, a partner, marriage, helping with the community, and this child wouldn't even truly understand how much people loved the child. This moment, for Rei, felt like someone had shot him in his heart with how many emotions he was feeling from it.
He sighed deeply, making a small orb of flames in his hand and turned around, making his way through the hallway. He looked back at the strange wooden box, the cloth with the scribbled writing, and blinked slowly. He left quickly, making his way down the corridor, but he did stop to look at the crown once more.
He looked down, observing the crown before walking away. 'I've read enough books about adventurers finding random objects and activating traps after they took an item, touched it, or moved it. I personally don't want my life to end, at least, not yet. There's still much to do.'
With his thoughts, he made his way all the down, arriving at the stairs, and climbed the stairs. He made it quickly up to the large iron doors before pulling on one of them, the door opening just as quickly as before. Rei walked outside, closing the door behind him.
He glanced over at where the darkened steel plank was laying and decided to just leave it all be the way it is. He walked away from the iron doors, and as he stepped into mud, rain began to pour again.
'It just had to rain, didn't it?' he asked in thought before shrugging his shoulders and began to ran, activating his aura around his legs.
He continued running for only a few minutes, to take a moment to get fresh air.
A hand clawed out from the ground and Rei's eyes widened as he lunged to his left, slamming into the dirt, rolling twice before standing up.
He looked towards where he was, noticing that a skeleton stood where he was standing just a moment ago. It wasn't any skeleton, this one had gauntlets over its bony hands.
"It's... Alive?" Rei asked to himself, under his breath, swallowed slightly as he knew it was the same one he had scorched just earlier. So why, no, how was it alive?
The skeleton's empty sockets shimmered, then suddenly flared to life with a ghostly, frostbitten blue glow, a light like winter breath made tangible, cold and unnatural. But it wasn't just pale. It was luminous, pulsing like trapped moonlight, as if something ancient and unholy had just awakened inside the bones.
Without a sound, it lunged. Its bony arm whipped forward with an inhuman blur, launching a devastating left hook toward Rei's jaw.
Rei's eyes widened, just barely catching the motion. He raised his forearm to block, the blow slamming against his guard with the force of a sledgehammer. A sharp crack rang out as he was launched through the air, his boots tearing through mud and broken roots before his back smashed against a weather-worn headstone, shattering it to rubble.
GUH
Rei grunted violently, his body flipping twice, then skidding through thick, wet earth before crashing to a stop. He coughed out a mouthful of mud-mixed saliva, his breath sharp and ragged.
The skeleton sprinted, feet pounding through the graveyard, and then using a crooked headstone as a springboard, launched itself into the air. The pale blue aura around its frame surged brighter, like frozen lightning, as it brought its foot down in a brutal overhead stomp meant to crush Rei's skull.
Rei rolled just in time, pain shooting through his ribs as he twisted out of the blow. The stomp obliterated the ground beside him, shards of earth and bone flying into the fog.
"Damn you!" he spat, forcing his battered body to rise.
Rei's leg flared with roaring flame, tendrils of fire licking through the mist. He spun, delivering a flaming roundhouse kick directly to the skeleton's skull. The impact was violent—its jawbone snapped off instantly and one of its legs cracked free, sent spiraling into the dark.
The skeleton groaned, a sound like wind scraping through hollow ribs, as its frame was hurled backward, slamming into a crumbled mausoleum wall with a cloud of dust and stone.
But it didn't stay down for even five seconds, it stood and looked to its missing limb. Before Rei could even process it, the broken leg on the ground shuddered, then shot forward, snapping into place with a wet, bone-grinding click. The frost-blue light surged again, swirling around the creature's form like a death-shroud.
Rei staggered, glancing down at his right arm. He tried to move it. Agonizing pain tore through his nerves.
He clenched his teeth, growling low through the pain before a quiet whisper. "Broken…"
He barely had time to register the thought before the skeleton came again.
Its fists blurred, launching a heavy right cross toward Rei's temple. Rei met it head-on, countering with his own punch. Bone met flesh, the shockwave of impact shuddering through Rei's fractured arm and into his shoulder.
The skeleton's left jab came next, quick and precise. Rei jerked his head right, narrowly dodging the strike and immediately stepped in, using his trapped arm to grab the skeleton's wrist, stopping the oncoming blow an inch away from his face.
Rei's breath trembled. The glow from the undead's eyes reflected in his widened pupils.
"Burn!"
Rei's hand erupted with flame, and in a sudden surge of fire, the skeleton's forearm ignited, the brittle bone disintegrating into ash with a hiss of scorched death.
The skeleton recoiled, leaping backward with unnatural speed. It sensed its own destruction within those flames.
Its empty sockets snapped toward a nearby grave.
From the broken earth, a severed arm shot upward, flying through the mist and slamming into its shoulder socket. The bones fused instantly, and as they did, the gauntlets warped, reshaping themselves into a massive revolver, crafted entirely from twisted, bleached bone.
The skeleton locked eyes with Rei. It intended to dominate from range.
The revolver was enormous, nearly three feet long, heavier and bulkier than a greatsword, yet the skeleton held it like a dagger, effortless and confident. As it glanced at the weapon, the barrel began to shrink and shift, reforming into a more compact, streamlined version that fit perfectly into its left hand.
Without warning, bones from the ground surged upward, drawn by unseen command. Seven small, finger-length bones flew into the open cylinder, locking into place with a clicking clatter—each one a bullet carved from the dead.
The skeleton raised the revolver, the frostbitten blue glow in its eyes flaring. It aimed directly at Rei.
Rei's eyes widened. This wasn't just a weapon. It was the first revolver made of bone, crafted from death itself. The skeleton's jaw twisted into a crooked grin as it pulled the trigger.
A thunderous crack tore through the graveyard. The bone bullet ripped across the air, trailing a streak of icy blue light. Rei lifted his good hand, flames bursting forth just in time to collide with the shot. The impact unleashed a shockwave that shattered the ground around him. Seven headstones were obliterated, reduced to clouds of dust and stone fragments.
Rei skidded back, boots buried in churned mud. His arms shook from the force. Breathing heavily, he looked around at the destruction.
Then something stirred inside him.
A voice echoed in his mind. The voice of his old combat instructor. The one who trained him during his detective days. The one who made him who he was before he met Zay.
Rei's eyes sharpened. He slowly lowered his hand to his side. His aura began to flare, a deep, growing azure-blue that pulsed with raw intensity.
"My commander…" he muttered under his breath. "Back when I was training to become the Scythe of Gyro... He always warned me."
The skeleton leapt back, the revolver in its grip disintegrating into dust. Bone fragments twisted and reshaped, forming into a long, curved katana of skeletal ivory.
"He told me to never use my full strength."
He opened his eyes and were no longer emerald. They now burned with piercing light blue fire.
"I was trained to protect. I was trained to bring justice. I was trained to keep those…"
He took one step forward. The ground fractured beneath his foot. The sparks of his aura became visible lightning, dark blue tendrils lashing out, scorching the earth.
"...CRIMINAL BASTARDS BEHIND BARS!"
His shout boomed across the field as his aura exploded, flooding the graveyard with violent light. Blue sparks danced in every direction, lashing at the stones, the fog, the bones beneath the soil. His eyes, once emerald, now glowed with a bright, piercing blue.
The skeleton tightened its grip on the katana. Rei stood tall, body burning with purpose.
The skeleton stood motionless, its glowing frostbitten eyes dimming as it faced Rei's crackling aura. Without a word, it stepped forward. Its left foot slid back, right foot planted ahead, knees slightly bent. It leaned forward, lowering its center of gravity, then slowly turned its katana in its grip and gripped tightly.
It didn't need to speak. The pressure Rei exuded was enough. The skeleton could feel it. The air had changed. The aura surrounding Rei had grown dense, sharp, and overwhelming.
Rain continued to fall, but the drops hissed and sizzled the moment they touched Rei's aura. Steam rose in wisps around his body.
He raised his eyes, locking onto the skeleton.
"Even Zay told me to limit myself," he said, voice steady, but heavy. "But I'm sorry. I can't hold back in this fight."
He took a breath, exhaled slowly, and stepped forward.
"I hereby invoke my contract."
The aura around him pulsed as the flames on his skin began to rise higher.
"Ancient Spirit of Flames," he continued. "Because of its harshness toward contractors... from what I know, I'm only the fifth in history to invoke this bond after the formed contract."
He closed his eyes for a brief second.
"I'm sorry, skeleton."
Flames erupted violently around his body, no longer flickering or fading beneath the rain. The fire clung to him like a living thing, dancing along his arms, his back, and his face. The very air around him shimmered from the heat.
[Ancient Spirit of Flames demands eight years.]
"TAKE THEM!"
[The bond has been formed.]
His flames erupted violently, surging upward in a spiral that reached into the clouds above. The column of fire twisted like a living dragon, tearing through the sky. The storm above didn't smother the fire, instead, the clouds began to wither and burn, their moisture sucked dry, feeding the inferno further. The heavens ignited.
The ground beneath Rei cracked, blackened, then caught flame. Grass, stone, even mud itself turned to cinders. The temperature around him soared to the point where the air shimmered and warped with heat.
Yet the skeleton did not move. Its katana, once bone-white, had turned pure white-hot, glowing as it absorbed the surrounding fire. The blade drank in the heat, its surface pulsing with restrained destruction. Steam hissed from the ground around its feet, but it didn't shift, didn't waver.
Its glowing eyes had faded, yet it stood, defying every instinct of its kind. Undead were meant to follow primal urges: hunger, survival, fear of obliteration. But this one rejected all of it. It stood firm in front of a force that could erase its very essence.
It broke the laws of the undead. It faced annihilation willingly.
A sword of violet flame formed in Rei's grasp, its edge wild and flickering, yet deadly sharp. He gripped it tightly as the searing heat consumed the last of his clothing. The fabric on his back turned to ash, disintegrating into the storm of fire that roared around him.
The great spiral of flame reaching into the clouds had shifted, now burning violet, radiant and unnatural. The very sky seemed to pulse with it. Deep in the forest, creatures stirred. Boars stampeded away from the wave of heat. Even fire-seeking beasts halted in their tracks. A towering entity, known only as the Flaming Tree, opened its eyes for the first time in over a century and turned its gaze toward the battlefield.
Rei's chest tightened. His heart felt as if it had caught fire from the inside, each beat sending waves of scorching pain through his body. His skin burned, muscles strained, but he endured. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself into a stance, holding firm through sheer willpower.
Flame erupted from the earth, spirals upon spirals, bursting upward like volcanic geysers. The land was scorched clean. Gravestones liquefied into molten stone. Even the iron doors of the nearby crypts melted in seconds, dripping like candle wax.