Flame struck the sky of Sarexenth.
Beneath it, the sprawling city had turned into a smoldering battlefield. Embers crept among mounds of fallen soldiers, fusing flesh and steel into ash beneath pillars of wild magic fire, consuming everything in its path. Through the thick fog, the faint clashing of steel echoed, accompanied by flashes of mana spells illuminating the silhouettes of ruins and rubble. Every breath was suffocating—thick with ash, blood, and melting iron.
High above the vortex of destruction, at the pinnacle of the obsidian palace tower, the half-shattered doors of the throne room slowly creaked open. From the shadows, heavy footsteps echoed toward the palace balcony.
Albarion.
In his right hand, he gripped a pulsating blade of living fire—Solbrand, its flames cleaving through the smoke of the civil war. In his left hand, he clutched the hair of a freshly severed head. A golden crown still rested upon it—smeared in blood. Dark crimson drops fell from the torn neck, staining the marble floor with every step he took.
The tyrant king had fallen.
Albarion hoisted the king's head high, letting the whole world witness the face of death.
Far below, the thousands of surviving soldiers froze. The clatter of weapons dropping onto the cobblestones began echoing in succession. One by one, they fell to their knees.
Then, Albarion raised Solbrand against the blood-red sky.
"The war is over!" his voice boomed over the burning city. "No more kings will burn the world for a crown! From this day forward..."
His gaze swept over the ocean of kneeling humans below.
"...Sarexenth will be guarded from the Fire!"
And beneath that crumbling sky, not a single soul realized one simple truth: The very same fire had just found its new warden.
The fires of war were finally extinguished.
Yet thirty years later, the flames still lived—in a completely different form.
The Arcanum bureaucracy stood tall. The Yggdrasil Orb—the pure mana source of Sarexenth—was securely locked beneath the Arcanum Tower, far from the greedy hands that once exploited it without limit. The era of wild mana harvesting ended right then and there. In its place, the scholars of Arcanum extracted mana under strict control, compressing it into small tokens known as Seals.
Every single Seal was processed, marked, and registered. Whoever cast a spell beneath the sky of Sarexenth, its glow would be recorded in the Grand Arcane Ledger. This was not done to monitor the safety of its users, but strictly to bill them for its usage.
In a corner of the Darethcross wet market, a group of impoverished citizens huddled beneath a tattered fabric canopy, trying to evade the acidic rain dripping from rusted tin roofs.
"Hey, is this calculation wrong?" grumbled a man, flipping a faded blue Seal in his calloused palm. He held it up to the dim light of the market lamps, as if hoping to find a flaw on its surface. "A Seal this expensive, yet it's only enough for two or three minor spells... just to keep a night warm."
The middle-aged man beside him scoffed loudly, pulling his threadbare cloak tighter around his body.
"Two or three times? You're still in luck," he said bitterly. He lifted his roughly bandaged left leg. "Yesterday, my leg was torn by obsidian shards at the docks. Just a simple healing spell swallowed three pure Seals."
He shook his head slowly, his jaw tightening. "Three Seals... just to heal a small wound."
His eyes stared bitterly at the small token in the first man's palm. "Mana is now more draining than medicine."
Before the complaint could even fade into the air—a black iron gauntlet suddenly seized the middle-aged man's collar with brutal force.
With one violent pull, his frail body was hoisted off the ground. His injured leg hovered helplessly, his worn-out shoe swinging in the air. Two giant figures clad in pitch-black armor had appeared behind them, completely unnoticed.
The Flameguard.
The crowd beneath the market canopy instantly froze. A few stepped back, bowing their heads, as if their mere presence was enough to invite punishment.
"Run out of coin?" a mechanical voice growled from behind an angular rune-etched helmet. The red lenses of its Sight-rune glinted coldly beneath the acid rain dripping from its visor. Its grip tightened further around the old man's collar.
"Keep your mouth shut, old man," he said flatly. "If you can't afford a Seal... take our loan!"
He tilted his helmet slightly, glancing at the old man's bandaged leg.
"...or just let that leg rot."
The guard slammed the old man violently into a mud puddle. His body fell with a wet thud.
The first man instantly fell silent, his face turning pale. He backed away a few steps and bowed deeply, looking at his own stammered feet, holding his breath as if terrified of drawing attention.
The Flameguard looked at him with disgust, then made an offer in a mocking tone.
"We're very generous lenders in the entire Kingdom." He sneered.
"Your only hope."
Without another backward glance, the two iron giants resumed their patrol, laughing in cruel satisfaction. The heavy tread of their steel boots struck the puddles on the market street, splashing filthy mud in all directions—and not a single soul dared to protest.
Left trembling in the mud, the old man clamped his jaw shut to stifle a scream of agony. The violent slam had split his wound open again beneath his soaked bandages, but he didn't dare make a sound until the guards were completely gone.
That bitter reality was the very air they breathed every day.
Not everyone possessed spare coin to purchase miracles. When the Seals ran out while desperate needs remained, the Fire Debt was born—a magical loan system that constantly accrued interest, spreading relentlessly, consuming the lives of its borrowers like wildfire across dry leaves.
The impact was glaringly visible.
Once bustling markets had slowly turned desolate. Rows of houses in the slums choked to death in darkness, their inhabitants shivering, no longer able to afford hearth magic. The protective hero from three decades ago had now fully mutated into a ruthless, unforgiving debt collector.
Albarion kept his promise. The magical fire no longer burned the city of Sarexenth.
It only burned its people.