Marian raised her hand and traced a line in the air with one gleaming finger.

The crystal obeyed.

A vertical ripple shimmered to life, like glass melting from the top down, until it solidified into a tall, mirror-smooth portal, humming faintly with aether. Thorne felt the tug immediately. Not from the spell itself, but from something waiting beyond it.

He stepped through.

The world shifted.

And then heat.

Blistering. Immediate.

Light slammed into him from every angle, white-gold and brutal. The sky above was a bleached void, pulsing with solar fury. The air stung the back of his throat, dry and scorched. A bead of sweat traced his spine in the space of a single breath.

They were outside.

At the base of Marian's tower.

The protection ward, an invisible dome of dense aether shimmered faintly around them. A barrier, yes. But not one that dulled the temperature. It was like standing inside a furnace sealed by silk.

Thorne squinted into the endless red.

All around them, the land stretched flat and vast, a barren ocean of dust, deep crimson, fine as sand, lifting in lazy curls with every breath of wind. There were no trees. No hills. No shadows.

Just the waste.

An unbroken expanse of burning nothing.

Thorne frowned. "What am I supposed to fight?" he muttered. "Air?"

He felt cheated.

All that buildup. All that hunger that had begun curling back up through his ribs like smoke. The memory of blood and motion still lived in his muscles and now this?

This empty, sun-blasted grave?

Had she lied?

Marian glanced sideways at him, her face unreadable. "Your thirst for violence," she said, "is… quite alarming."

Thorne gave a low pff sound. "Call it healthy curiosity."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Fine," he said, running a hand through his white hair, "are we going to fight something or not?"

Marian studied him for a moment. Then asked, "Do you see the aether?"

Thorne frowned again, confused.

Then turned around, just once and let his vision shift.

His eyes slid into aether sight.

And everything changed.

The waste wasn't empty.

It was swarming.

The sky above pulsed with thick currents of raw aether, and the ground, oh gods, the ground was crawling with it. Motes. Hundreds. Thousands. Dancing like fireflies in a fever dream.

But they weren't like the ones at Aetherhold.

They weren't soft blue or silver or pale green.

They were red.

Blinding, searing red.

Thorne's frown deepened.

"What…?"

Every mote carried a flickering tail, sharp-edged and fast, jittering through the air like sparks flung from a blacksmith's forge. The whole landscape rippled with heat-signature trails. He'd never seen aether behave like this.

"Marian," he said, voice low, "what's going on?"

She smiled. A rare thing. Not smug. But close.

"At least there are still some things you haven't figured out on your own."

She turned toward the open desert and folded her hands behind her back.

"You know about elements and ley lines, correct?"

Thorne nodded. "Sure. Elemental influence. Ambient aether shifting into aspects, fire, water, stone, wind. The rarer ones, time, decay, dream, mostly happen around places twisted by mortals."

"Good," she said. "And what about ley lines?"

"They alter aether permanently," Thorne recited. "Create zones of attunement. Magic behaves differently near them."

"Exactly." Her tone turned instructional now. "And here, in the Red Waste, lies the largest fire-aspected ley line known in the world."

Thorne's breath caught as his vision expanded further.

It wasn't just a saturation of fire aether, it was an ecosystem.

"This place," Marian continued, "is home to fire elementals, aetheric beasts, and even a handful of mutated flora, things twisted by centuries of surviving in this crucible. And because of the ley line…"

She gestured out toward the burning plain.

"The moment you step outside the tower's protection..."

She paused.

And smiled again.

"You will be attacked."

Thorne blinked once.

Then smiled.

Not the charming kind. Not even the dangerous kind.

It was the smile of a prisoner hearing the cell door finally creak open.

He flexed his fingers, and the aether within him stirred, answering eagerly, hungrily. The ambient motes outside the dome pressed against the barrier like insects against glass, drawn to him already.

Marian watched him, arms still folded, unreadable.

Thorne exhaled. "You had me worried," he said, stretching one shoulder. "Thought I came all this way to fight a duststorm."

"I wouldn't insult the Red Waste like that," she said evenly.

He stepped forward.

One pace.

Then two.

And then past the threshold.

The barrier shimmered as he breached it, parting like mist around him.

The world exploded.

The ground rumbled, deep and low, a subterranean growl that rolled through the earth like thunder beneath the skin.

Thorne paused mid-step.

His grin widened.

"Oh," he whispered, "finally."

The red dust ahead burst upward, geysering into the air in a whirlwind of ash and glowing motes.

And then it rose.

A shape too big to name.

A ridge of spiked, volcanic chitin burst from the sands, followed by another, and another, like the fins of a buried serpent cresting through a blood-colored sea. Each plate shuddered with molten veins, pulsing red-orange, heat shimmering from its surface.

The monster erupted skyward, a hundred feet or more, its segmented body coiled and endless. Its maw opened in a hellish spiral of jagged, grinding teeth, no eyes, no face, just hunger and heat and rage. A furnace given form.

It screamed.

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The sound was like a mountain breaking.

Thorne's hair whipped back from the force of it.

He didn't flinch.

His heart thundered in his chest, not with fear, but with delight. The aether around him surged, answering like hounds to a call.

He didn't even draw his blades.

Not yet.

He just smiled wider, fangs gleaming in the blistering sun.

"Let's see," he said softly, "what all the training was for."

And he ran straight toward it.

The creature roared again, a tremor that cracked the red earth beneath Thorne's feet. Its segmented body coiled like a living mountain, and burning saliva hissed from its spiraling maw.

[Red Waste Devourer — Level 64]

Thorne's smile didn't falter.

He didn't reach for a blade. Didn't even slow.

He simply raised his hand and whispered.

"Let's see how well you fare against me with Aether Surge unleashed."

A pulse of white light burst from his core, invisible to normal sight but radiant in the aetheric spectrum. The surge flowed through his limbs like liquid lightning, strengthening muscle, sharpening reflexes, heightening perception. His aura expanded in a sudden flash, scattering the fire-aspected motes near him like frightened birds.

The beast lunged.

Thorne vanished.

Or so it seemed.

He had kicked off the ground with a burst of raw aether, and midair, he willed the motes around him to solidify.

A platform formed beneath his foot, thin, glowing, and there for only an instant.

He launched from it like a cannonshot, arcing high above the Devourer's head.

The creature snapped upward, but Thorne was already moving, bouncing between temporary platforms like a dancer on invisible stairs. The air shimmered with every leap, red motes swirling in his wake.

He raised a hand.

The aether obeyed.

A searing bolt of condensed force, raw, unshaped aether lanced down from his palm, not refined like a spell, but vicious in its purity.

It slammed into the Devourer's back.

The beast shrieked, its armor sizzling, blackened.

Not killed. Not even staggered.

But marked.

Thorne hit the next platform and launched himself higher, spinning midair.

Below, the beast twisted to track him.

He raised both hands now.

The motes answered instantly.

Two spears of solidified aether formed in the space around him, jagged, crystalline, and blazing white. He didn't throw them.

He dropped them.

They fell like divine judgment, slamming into the creature's flank with thundercrack impact. One shattered on impact, sending a shockwave through the dust. The other buried itself deep, pulsing as if alive.

The beast howled.

Thorne grinned wider.

He wasn't just fighting.

He was playing.

He dropped low now, unravelling the platform beneath him and letting himself fall.

The Devourer lunged upward, maw wide, ready to swallow him whole.

Thorne reached out with both hands.

And tore the aether apart.

Aetheric pressure surged in a sphere around him, then condensed in an instant into a repulsion wave, slamming downward with raw force.

It hit the monster in the face just as it closed its jaws, cracking its armored lips with a sound like stone breaking under the ocean.

Thorne landed on another platform a second later, breath steady.

His body gleamed faintly with aetheric overflow. He was glowing now, eyes brighter, hair lifted slightly by the currents. The raw red aether motes circled him like a storm of embers, drawn to him even as they burned.

He raised one hand again and this time formed a blade of aether.

Not like his daggers.

No elegance.

Just power.

A cleaver of searing white energy, jagged and unstable.

He didn't throw it.

He charged.

Running across invisible steps, each one appearing as he thought it, zig-zagging across the sky like a lightning bolt in human form.

The Devourer tried to rear up again.

Too late.

Thorne descended in a blur, blade raised, and smashed the weapon into the creature's side.

The explosion rippled outward, an arc of red and white light.

The Devourer finally staggered. Screamed.

Thorne landed on its back.

And stood there.

Balanced.

Untouched.

Grinning.

Like this was all just a game.

Thorne stood on the Devourer's back, the scorching winds of the Red Waste tearing through his clothes, his hair crackling with motes of wild aether. Beneath his boots, the monster trembled, its armored spine flexing, shuddering under the weight of his fury.

He exhaled.

Aether pulsed at his fingertips.

The Devourer began to twist, trying to buck him loose, but Thorne was already moving. He raised both hands and called.

The sky listened.

Motes spiraled inward, drawn not by spellwork or incantation but by will.

His.

He called for one of his new aetheric abilities.

The motes screamed.

A dozen needles of solid aether formed midair, thin, white-hot, like slivers of a dying star. They hung around him for a heartbeat, then launched downward with impossible speed.

Aether Barrage.

The spears slammed into the Devourer's hide, punching through armor like paper, burying themselves deep and exploding outward with piercing concussive bursts. The monster shrieked, writhed. Dust and blood sprayed upward like a geyser.

But Thorne didn't stop.

He couldn't.

Not now.

The motes around him were pulsing faster. They weren't just answering him, they were whispering to him. Feeding him. Begging him to use more. To burn brighter.

He blinked.

His aetheric vision flickered.

The motes weren't just red anymore.

They were inside his aura. Crawling through it. Spinning too fast. Flashing too bright.

Thorne scowled, but the high hadn't broken.

He leapt again, riding a wave of solidified aether, then flipping midair, gathering energy in both palms.

The Devourer reared again, screaming.

Thorne landed on its chest.

And dropped everything.

"Aetheric Explosion."

A thunderclap of raw energy detonated from his body, a radiant sphere of white light edged with streaks of red. The Devourer was thrown off the ground, all hundred tons of it, lifted by sheer force and hurled backward in a quake of fire and earth.

The impact carved a trench into the Red Waste.

The blast echoed for miles.

Thorne stood at the center of the crater, chest rising and falling, skin glowing faintly with molten patterns of light.

He was smiling again.

But it felt different now.

Tighter. Sharper.

Like something just beneath his skin was laughing with him. Or at him.

The motes around him didn't disperse like they should have.

They clung.

Danced closer.

Burned brighter.

Too bright.

Thorne blinked and saw red aether pressing into his aura, twining around his veins. Not passive. Not ambient.

Invasive.

"...what the hell…"

He took a step back.

Staggered.

His breath hitched.

For a second, he felt it, his core flickering strangely, like the motes were trying to rewrite it. Like the fire-aspected energy was licking at the edge of his identity, whispering more.

More heat. More light. More power.

His hands were still burning. He hadn't summoned a spell, but they hadn't cooled. The energy wouldn't leave.

He clenched his fists and instead of extinguishing the aura, it spiked.

"Something's..." he muttered, but stopped.

The Devourer wasn't dead.

It was dragging itself back up, maw cracked and leaking steam, its armor scorched. But now, it wasn't moving with rage.

It was moving with fear.

Thorne stood there, panting, watching it.

And for the first time…

He wasn't sure which of them was the real monster.

The Devourer dragged its bulk through the dust, carving a fresh trench of blood and ash. Its movements were erratic now, wild, frantic. The hunger was gone. Replaced by something that looked suspiciously like terror.

Thorne watched it struggle.

His hands still glowed. The aether still pulsed through him, stronger than it ever had. Unstable. Too much. And yet…

He loved it.

He lifted his right hand and shaped a blade from the burning air. Not steel. Not crystal.

Pure aether, twisting and seething with barely restrained force. It hummed like a live wire, jagged and asymmetrical, leaking trails of white and red energy.

He didn't leap this time.

Didn't run.

He just walked.

The Devourer reared one last time, roaring to the sun-blasted sky.

Thorne raised the blade...

... and vanished in a blur of motion.

One heartbeat.

Then another.

And then he was inside the monster, slamming down from above, blade-first, burying the weapon through its open maw and straight down its gullet.

The scream died instantly.

The light from his blade flared, consuming everything from the inside out.

The Devourer's body erupted in a dome of white light, tendrils of red flame spiraling outward in coiling waves. Chitin shattered. Molten blood sprayed the sand. When it was over, only scorched fragments and twitching ash remained.

Thorne stood in the center of it all, steam rising from his skin, the aether still hissing around his fingers.

Where the core should have been, where every aetheric beast stored its final breath of power, there was nothing solid. No crystal. No heart.

Only aether.

Flaring. Dispersing. Trying to return to the land, to the ley lines, to the Red Waste itself.

Thorne didn't let it.

He reached out, not with his hands, but with his will and snatched it.

The wild, frantic aether twisted mid-flight, caught in the invisible grip of his core. It fought him for half a second. Then surrendered.

And sank into him.

Burning. Filling. Feeding the endless storm inside.

The aether surged into him.

Warm.

No, hot.

Too hot.

It slid into his veins like lava, burning a path to his core, infusing him with strength then vanishing. Absorbed. Devoured.

He staggered slightly. Smiled.

"Gods," he whispered, "I missed this."

Then he saw it.

The motes.

Still circling him. Still red. Still clinging to him like dust to sweat.

He narrowed his eyes.

What the hell was this?

He turned slightly, ready to call out to Marian...

When the ground behind him exploded.

Three more monsters surged from the dust, each smaller than the original Devourer, but no less deadly. Their forms twisted and molten, spined like living siege weapons, eyes glowing orange with unnatural hate.

They roared in unison.

The Red Waste was not done with him.

And Thorne...

Thorne just smiled again.

Wider.

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