The cold was absolute. It was a perfect, crystalline rage that froze the marrow in my bones and burned away every thought that wasn't focused on a single, unwavering point of action. My fault. My resources. My friends being tortured. My responsibility to end it.

"Eren, wait!" Anna's voice was sharp with alarm, her hand reaching for my arm. "Don't go alone! We're coming with you!"

She took a step toward the Sylvandell portal, but I was already moving, my will a blade slicing through the fabric of reality. I glanced back at them, at the shocked, determined faces of my family. "Lock it down," I commanded Jeeves, my voice a low growl that held no room for argument. "No one follows. This one is on me."

A flicker of understanding — and deep fear — crossed Anna's face. She knew this rage. She'd seen it once before, a lifetime ago, a part of me I kept locked in the deepest parts of my memories. This wasn't a mission. There was no strategy. This was an execution.

Then, I stepped through reality.

The transition was a violent lurch, from the quiet order of my command center into the heart of a waking nightmare.

The air was the first assault. It was a choking, acrid cocktail of bitter smoke from living wood being turned to charcoal and the coppery, cloying stench of spilled blood. The beautiful elven dwellings, woven into the very fabric of the forest, were now funeral pyres. Their branches writhed like tormented limbs in the flames, shedding burning leaves that drifted down like tears of fire.

Bodies lay where they had fallen, elven villagers who had tried to fight back, their simple tools and hunting bows lying uselessly beside them in pools of their own blood. The gentle chimes that always hung from the eaves were silent, replaced by the crackle of fire, the cruel, barking laughter of the invaders, and the terrified sobs of their victims.

At the center of the main clearing, hanging by his wrists from the boughs of the great Elderwood, was a sight that turned the ice in my soul to a blade. It was Elder Valerius. His robes were in tatters, his body a canvas of bruises and bloody wounds. He was alive, barely, his head hanging limply on his chest, a testament to their cruelty, an example for all to see.

Dozens of elves, clad in armor of polished green and gold that seemed to mock the burning forest around them, stalked through the enclave. They dragged families from their homes, their beautiful, serene faces twisted into masks of brutal enjoyment. I saw one of them holding a woman by her hair while his companion ransacked her home, tossing family heirlooms into the dirt. They were monsters wearing the faces of angels.

A figure detached himself from a group admiring a pile of confiscated quintessence shards. He moved with a languid, unearned grace, his every step an insult to the sacred ground he walked on. He was tall, even for an elf, with long, silver hair tied back in an intricate braid of golden thread. His robes were a garish explosion of wealth — emerald green silk embroidered with feathers of pure gold, a waistcoat of shimmering mithril scales, and boots of supple, snow-white leather. He looked utterly out of place, a peacock strutting through an abattoir.

He stopped ten feet from me, a smug, dismissive smirk on his perfect face as he glanced at the sky. "Well, well," he drawled, his voice a silken, condescending purr. "So the little rats have a bigger rat on their side. You must be the source of these trinkets." He gestured lazily towards the hanging, broken form of Valerius. "A lesson for your friends. This is what happens when vermin hoard treasure meant for their betters. I am Prince Faelus of the Featherleaf Crown, and by the right of ancestral claim, this entire forest and all within it are possessions of my father, King Thalanil. You will hand over the source of your wealth, and then you may have the honor of kneeling before me. If you impress me, I may even grant you the privilege of becoming a royal servant."

The ice in my soul pulsed. My [Domain of the Ashen Phoenix] remained tightly leashed, a supernova held in check by a thread of will. But my [Prime Axiom's Nullifying Veil]... I let it slip. A fraction of a fraction of my true Tier 5 power bled out, a silent, conceptual pressure that made the air grow still and heavy.

Prince Faelus' smirk wavered. A flicker of unease crossed his eyes, the instinct of a spoiled predator that has just stumbled across something that isn't prey. But his arrogance was a deeper poison. "Quite the little aura you have there," he scoffed. "A powerful mushroom, for a fungus. But you stand against a true, noble forest. Now, kneel."

I ignored him. My voice, when it came, was unnaturally calm, carrying over the chaos with a chilling clarity that cut through the screams and the laughter, silencing everything.

"Anyone here who is not of the Featherleaf Crown, who did not kill today, and who does not willingly fight for these monsters — put down your weapons and your loot. Leave now. You will not be harmed."

The offer hung in the blood-and-smoke-tinged air. For a moment, there was nothing but stunned silence. A few of the conscripted-looking guards, the ones without the gold-feather embroidery, exchanged nervous glances. The pressure I was exuding was subtle, but to those not drunk on cruelty and power, it felt like the air before a lightning strike.

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Prince Faelus' face flushed a dark, ugly red. "What is this insolence? You dare give orders on my land? There is nowhere for them to run! After I am done with you, I will have every dissenter flayed and hung from the branches for their cowardice!"

His words had the opposite effect he intended. Two of the guards near the back dropped their looted bags with a clang and sprinted into the smoldering woods. A third hesitated, then followed.

The air grew heavier. The sound in the clearing seemed to dim, as if the world itself was holding its breath. A low, ominous hum started to vibrate through the ground, the song of my Domain stirring from its slumber.

Faelus shrieked in fury. "Kill them! Kill the cowards!" No one moved. His soldiers were staring at me, at the way the light had begun to shimmer and bend around my form.

The pressure intensified, becoming a physical weight, like being submerged deep in an ocean. The hum grew louder. Dust and ash began to dance on the ground in concentric circles around me. "You think you can threaten me?" he spat, his voice losing its silken edge as his arrogance fought against the rising tide of fear. He pointed a shaking, manicured finger at a group of his knights holding Lyraeth and Faelan hostage, blades to their throats. "Kill them! Kill them now! Show this filth what happens when you defy your betters!"

The heat was no longer a suggestion; it was a promise. The air itself began to glow with a faint, incandescent haze. The knights holding the hostages took an involuntary step back, their eyes wide, the instinct for self-preservation warring with their prince's command.

"My father is King Thalanil the Unconquered!" Faelus screamed, his face a mask of panic as five more of his soldiers broke ranks and fled into the darkness. "Our line traces back to the First Trees! He commands ten legions! If you harm a hair on my head, he will hunt you to the ends of the world! He will burn everything and everyone you love!"

The pressure became immense. The very colors of the world began to desaturate around me, the vibrant green of the leaves and the angry orange of the fire muted, as if my Domain was bleeding reality of everything that was not ash and ending.

The prince's face crumpled, his rage collapsing into a pathetic, whimpering wreck. "Please! We can make a deal! Name your price! I will give you anything! I'm a prince! I am royalty!"

The last few loyalists, about twenty of them, seeing their prince break, finally made their choice. They raised their weapons with cries born of pure desperation.

It was too late. Their song was over.

With a silent pulse of will, I fully unleashed my Domain. The world snapped into a silent, monochrome tableau. In the same instant, I activated [Shadow-Weave Stride]. My target wasn't the prince. It was the knight whose blade was pressing into Lyraeth's neck.

One moment I was in the center of the clearing, the next I was beside him, my hand resting gently on his pauldron. My [Blink Echo] flared into existence where I had just stood — a perfect, shimmering copy of myself made of pure, white-hot Soulfire.

The knight didn't have time to register my presence. His eyes widened. My touch was not violent. It was a release. A flicker of my true Ashen Flame, the fire that un-makes, passed from my fingers into his body. He didn't burn. He didn't scream. He simply… came apart. His armor, his flesh, his every being dissolved into a silent, swirling column of fine, gray ash.

The flaming echo I left behind surged forward, a silent, avenging angel, and enveloped the knight holding Faelan. The result was the same. A silent disintegration. Two hostages, freed in less than a heartbeat.

I didn't stop. The clearing became a staccato nightmare of teleportation and silent annihilation.

Stride. An elf who had been kicking a fallen villager. A blink echo flared behind him, engulfing him as I appeared at my next target. Ash.

Stride. Another raising his sword to strike down Orias. A touch to his helmet. Ash.

Stride. Stride. Stride.

One by one, the twenty-odd elves who had stayed, who had chosen violence, were erased from existence. It was not a battle. It was a reaping. The entire process took less than three seconds. The conscripts who had run were untouched, even though I knew many of them did kill.

The clearing was suddenly, profoundly silent, save for the crackling of the dying fires and the soft sound of drifting ash. The surviving villagers, the hostages, just stared, their faces a mixture of terror and sublime awe.

And then there was only the prince.

He was scrambling backwards on his hands and knees, his fine silk robes covered in dirt, his face a mask of utter, mind-breaking terror. He turned and ran, a pathetic, stumbling gait.

I appeared before him in a whisper of displaced air.

He screamed, a high, thin shriek that was an embarrassment to his entire lineage, and fell backwards, looking up at me, at the cold, silent judgment in my eyes.

The burning rage inside me was gone, scoured clean, leaving behind only a profound, weary certainty. I looked down at this creature who represented everything I hated — arrogance built on suffering, a cruelty born from a belief in his own superiority. He represented a story of oppression, a story told a million times across a million worlds. A story I intended to end.

"Every beginning," I said, my voice quiet in the solemn silence of the burning grove, "has an end."

I reached down and placed my hand on his forehead.

He turned to ash.

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