The heat radiating from the crater was oppressive, smelling of sulfur and burnt ozone. As Silas reached the lip of the impact zone, he slid down the ashen slope, his boots crunching on crystallized data.
At the center of the crater lay a girl.
She looked entirely different from Aria's elegant, divine aesthetic. This girl was draped in a torn, gothic black dress accented with crimson ribbons. She wore dark, thigh-high boots with heavy silver buckles, and her hair was a wild, jagged mane of jet-black and crimson streaks.
She pushed herself up on her hands and knees, coughing up a cloud of pixelated black smoke.
"Foolish mortals..." she rasped, her voice dripping with artificial edge and menace. She slowly raised her head, glaring at Silas with eyes that burned like dying coals. "You dare approach the Abyssal Ruin? I am the World-Eater Flame! Tremble before my—"
She tried to conjure a massive sphere of black fire in her palm. A tiny, pathetic blue spark popped out of her fingers and fizzled into nothing.
The girl froze. She stared at her empty hand. Her terrifying, edgy persona instantly shattered.
"No, no, no," she whimpered, frantically rubbing her hands together like she was trying to start a campfire with wet sticks. "Come on! Burn! Consume the heavens! Just... light a little bit, please!"
Silas slid the rest of the way down the crater. "Hey. Take it easy."
The goth girl scrambled backward, her back hitting the charred dirt. "Stay away! I'm highly volatile! If you touch me, my corrupted code will incinerate your soul!"
"Your output is dampened," Silas said calmly, recognizing the specific type of glitch tearing through her system. "The System Admins threw you in the trash, but they locked your core directory first. You're trying to pull mana through a firewall."
She looked at him, her tough exterior entirely gone. She was shaking violently, her crimson eyes wide with absolute terror. "They labeled me a weapon of mass destruction. They said I was too dangerous for Version 9.0. But... but I didn't want to burn that city! The user forced me to!"
Tears, thick and glowing like liquid magma, spilled down her cheeks. "I'm a monster. Just let me delete."
Silas felt a sharp pang in his chest. He knew exactly what it looked like when a System treated a living thing like a disposable gun. He walked over and knelt down in the ash right in front of her.
"I don't think you're a monster," Silas said softly. "I think you're just scared."
Before she could respond, a mechanical screech echoed from the top of the crater.
Silas whipped his head around. Crawling over the lip of the crater were three [Purge Hounds]—four-legged, metallic constructs made of jagged silver polygons. They were automated anti-virus programs that had latched onto her data stream during the fall to ensure she was permanently erased.
Their faceless visors locked onto the girl. [CORRUPTED ASSET DETECTED. COMMENCING FORMAT.]
"Silas!" Aria called out from the top of the ridge, her hands glowing, but she was too far away to cast a shielding rune in time.
The lead Hound lunged, its metallic jaws unhinging to unleash a beam of erasing white light.
Silas didn't hesitate. He threw himself in front of the goth girl, slamming his bare hands directly onto her shoulders.
"Sync with me!" Silas roared.
"I can't!" she screamed, covering her face. "I'll burn you alive! I only know how to destroy!"
"Fire doesn't just destroy!" Silas yelled over the whine of the charging Purge Hound. He forced his mana circuits wide open, bypassing her firewall by linking his own administrator signature directly to her locked core. "Fire keeps the cold away! It protects the home! Give it to me!"
The connection snapped into place.
It felt like Silas had just swallowed a star. Agonizing, blistering heat surged up his arms, but he didn't let go. He routed the violent, chaotic energy of the World-Eater Flame through his own body, filtering the destructive intent through his own desperate desire to protect his sanctuary.
Silas spun around, thrusting his right hand toward the lunging Hound.
Instead of a chaotic, city-destroying explosion, a perfectly condensed, razor-thin whip of pitch-black fire erupted from Silas's palm. The black flame lashed forward with absolute precision, slicing the lead Hound cleanly in half. The construct dissolved into harmless gray code before its pieces even hit the dirt.
Silas didn't stop. Empowered by the girl's immense, untamed mana, he snapped the whip of black fire twice more. The remaining two Hounds were instantly incinerated, leaving nothing but a faint smell of ozone.
The crater fell completely silent.
Silas dropped to one knee, gasping for air, his right hand smoking. The physical toll of channeling an Abyssal spell was staggering, but he was alive.
He looked back at the girl. She was staring at his smoking hand, her jaw dropped in absolute shock.
"You... you controlled it," she whispered. "You didn't let it go wild. You made it... safe."
"Like I said," Silas panted, offering her his unburnt left hand. "It's all about how you write the code. I'm Silas."
She looked at his hand for a long time. Slowly, hesitantly, she reached out and took it. Her skin was incredibly warm, but it no longer burned.
"Vera," she muttered, a dark blush spreading across her cheeks as he pulled her to her feet. She quickly crossed her arms, trying to regain a fraction of her edgy persona. "But do not think this makes us allies, mortal! I am simply allowing you to bask in my dark glory for a short time!"
"Right, sure," Silas chuckled, too tired to argue.
Aria slid down the crater, her elegant dress gathering ash. She looked at Vera, taking in the torn goth dress, the wild hair, and the overwhelming scent of destruction. Vera glared back, her chuunibyou instincts immediately threatened by the tall, beautiful, and composed silver-haired woman.
"Silas," Aria said slowly, raising a delicate eyebrow. "Who is this highly unstable, poorly dressed application?"
"Who are you calling poorly dressed, you obsolete dictionary?!" Vera snapped, a tiny, harmless spark of black fire popping from her teeth.
Silas sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose as the two legendary, world-ending spells immediately began bickering in the dirt. He looked up at his tiny, one-bedroom wooden cabin in the distance.
"Come on, girls," Silas grumbled, already dreading the incoming roommate drama. "Let's go home. I need a very long nap."