“Hah…Hah…Hah…”

The ground flew by underneath Sirus as he sprinted towards the eerily violet flames that colored the sky a murky shade of magenta.

This has to be it. He thought. This is the reason Gramps told me to leave. But why are the flames purple? And why did he send me so deep into the forest to gather herbs instead of just waiting outside town? Did he think I wouldn’t believe him?

Sirus still didn’t understand the stampede of animals nor the reason the fires burned violet instead of a normal red or orange. Regardless, he kept running towards the fire, praying that everyone escaped unharmed, though his head told him that couldn’t possibly be the case.

The closer he approached town, the grimmer the situation became. Faces of tired and scared villagers and children peeked out from within ruts and darkened farmhouses, their eyes glued on the roaring flames. The metallic smell of blood cut through the night air, mixed with the smoke from the flames. Several people were lying out in the open, deep cuts and crimson gashes running across their arms, legs, and torsos. Others were having emergency aid applied to their blackened and charred arms and legs, groaning from the pain of the burns and the sting of the medication.

Sirus paid them no attention, instead focusing his eyes on the crowd, hoping to spot five familiar faces. Weaving in and out through expressions of agony and despair, he, at last, saw a familiar head of chestnut brown huddled next to a shed.

“Alrick!” Sirus ran over as the boy wearily turned to face him.

“Sirus?” The boy rose unsteadily to his feet. “Did your job go well?”

“Now’s not the time for that! What happened here? And more specifically, what happened with the other boys and my gr-“

Sirus didn’t even bother to get his thoughts sorted out. He just spoke what came to him first. He didn’t even notice the burly hand placed on his shoulder until-

“’Ey, Sirus. Perhaps this ain’t the best place to ask questions. Alrick here’s already gone through a lot. Same with those two over there.”

Pahn, who had just stepped out of the shed, gestured to the interior, where Matthias and Desmond were presumed to be.

“Pahn!” Sirus paid no heed to Pahn’s words. “What happened here?”

Pahn scratched his chin.

“Ya never believe me, Sirus, but it’s a dragon.”

A dragon. Sirus contemplated. That would explain why the flames were violet. Dragons used the natural magical energy in the atmosphere as a source of fuel for their fire, as opposed to air. The more mana the fire consumed, the more vibrant the colors became, with the strongest flames burning white hot. Additionally, due to the nature of these fires, they couldn’t be easily smothered with water. Instead, a vacuum of mana had to be created around the flame, cutting off its fuel source. Without the proper precautions, these fires would eat away at everything around them until there was no physical matter left to burn.

The dragon would also explain the stampede of animals. Sirus realized. They were fleeing from something that really could put their collective lives on the line.

But that didn’t explain why his grandpa had sent him out so deep into the woods at night. Why couldn’t he have just told Sirus to wait outside of town, or even smarter, to help evacuate those who believed the threat was real?

Sirus turned back to Pahn.

“Pahn, when did the dragon appear?”

Pahn looked to the flames. “I reckon one or two hours after ya left. It was terrifying. Even Mister Chrys- oop.”

At that moment, Pahn suddenly clapped his hand onto his mouth and fell silent. Sirus looked over towards Pahn, who was desperately trying to avoid his searching eyes.

“Say…” Sirus slowly questioned, “Where is Gramps?”

The last he saw of his grandfather was when he was still with Pahn and the trio. Now, the three boys were in the shed, and Sirus was talking to Pahn, yet his face remained missing. Sirus started feeling a sense of dread in the pit of his stomach.

“Pahn? Where is he? Isn’t he supposed to be with you?”

Pahn desperately tried to look away, sweating bullets, but Sirus closed the distance between them, his eyes boring into Pahn’s turned face. No longer able to take it, Pahn turned back and quietly muttered.

“He’s separated from us thirty minutes ‘fore the dragon came.”

“Do you know where he is?!”

“We tried lookin’ for ‘im, but not a single face in the crowd was- Hey! Sirus! Whattaya doin!? Get back here!”

Before Pahn had finished his sentence, Sirus was already plunging towards the hellish maelstrom, heading for the bridge that connected the countryside to Ixos.

“DAMMIT SIRUS!!!” Pahn’s roar fell on deaf ears.

=+=

Sirus ran on, pushing deeper into the inferno. Sprinting over the stone bridge, scalding to the touch, he plunged into the hell Ixos had become. Through the conflagrations of buildings, carts, booths, and even human bodies, he pushed forwards, sweating from not just the exercise but also the scorching heat. Everywhere, he could only see a sea of violet, and every turn he was battered by waves of unbearable heat.

His grandpa was still in Ixos. He was certain of it. No matter what, he had to get them both out alive.

Sirus’s head furiously raced. Where would his grandpa be? Perhaps the town square? The nobility district? Their home? The possibilities were endless. Gramps couldn’t have gone to the nobility – they wouldn’t have believed his words. He has nothing to gain from staying in the town square. Nothing there would help his fight or flight. Would it be our home then?

Going off of his hunch, Sirus took another deep breath and ran ahead into the burning abyss. Familiar places passed by him as he ran closer and closer to his destination. Pahn’s café, where he had worked for over three years, was only a burning façade among the other piles of charred wood and ash surrounding it. The festival booths were all going up in flames as the violet flames devoured them. Everything the villagers of Ixos had worked so hard to create – it all went up in flames.

Sirus was almost there. Only a single turn and then he would be home. But just as he was about to make the turn-

“-OOOOOOOOOAAAAAARRHHH!!!”

An immense roar ahead of him immediately stopped him in his tracks. It was the roar of a dragon.

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Sirus caught his breath and winced in frustration. Only a few more meters to his home, and yet the dragon was blocking him off. Slowly, he peered around the corner, hiding behind a charred building, to discover a bewildering sight.

A gigantic dragon, bigger than what Sirus had pictured it would be from the books he read, stood in the middle of a street. Its scales were an onyx black, its enormous eyes deep amethyst. It was currently spewing a giant magenta flame into a shopfront, setting nearby buildings ablaze, using its sail-like wings to fan the conflagration.

However, that wasn’t what startled Sirus.

Dragons were powerful, sometimes even revered as demigods. Their hides were tougher than mithril, and their powerful abilities would dispel any magic thrown at them. Nearly invulnerable, it was said that scratching a dragon was considered an almost impossible feat. Yet, this dragon was different. Along its house-sized body, there were several places that its scales had been knocked off, showing an exposed pink among the jet-black surface. Clinging to its legs and body were chunks of non-melting ice as well as hardened rock. Its emerald blood was spilling out of several gashes along its neck and upper torso. Sirus had never seen such a mythical beast injured to that extent.

That still wasn’t what alarmed Sirus. Instead, his eyes fell on the storefront being torched by the dragon. It wasn’t any random storefront - it was the shop and home of his grandfather. Even more alarming to Sirus, the dragon only seemed to be burning that singular store, ignoring everything else around it.

“No!” Sirus involuntarily cried out, a sense of dread filling him. “Stop!”

To his relief, the assault on his former home stopped. However, the dragon had now turned its head around and focused on Sirus, its angry eyes locking on the small figure who had interrupted its vengeance.

Sirus gulped, realizing the error of his actions. Only armed with a small gathering blade, he was facing a dragon. Even if the dragon was slightly injured, it seemed angry enough to obliterate him in one fell swoop. Forget those direwolves a while back – this had a one hundred percent chance of sending him to another world.

Sirus knew that readying his ten-inch long blade at such a beast would be a laughable joke. His only thought at the moment was to run, but there was a high chance he would be killed. Plus, he had to get to his grandfather, who was still in that house. Surely gramps would be able to think of something, anything, right now.

His time was running out. The dragon unhinged its great maw. A shining light could be seen forming in its throat. Its stomach glowed bright violet as it gathered mana to form its three thousand-degree flames.

On the verge of panicking, Sirus desperately searched himself for anything that may be of help, any tidbit of information, anything, that would keep him alive. His mind, almost fried from heat and exhaustion, couldn’t recall anything helpful. He understood. The last thing he would see before meeting his creators would be purple flames bearing down on him, tearing his body apart, until his even his ashes were vaporized.

“DAMN IT ALL!!!” Sirus screamed at the top of his lungs. Not even comprehending his own actions anymore, he desperately threw everything he had at the dragon – his blade, bag, and lantern.

Time was up. As his futile attempt at defense arced towards the dragon, brilliant, scalding flames erupted from the dragon’s maw, engulfing them in three thousand-degree heat.

A few things happened in those few milliseconds, as all of Sirus’s equipment reached temperatures near that of a volcano.

Past its melting point, the tempered iron shotel immediately glowed white, cracking under the stress of its sudden heating. The fragments soon lost their shape, becoming balls of heated metal. The wooden handle immediately burned up, vaporized in the atmosphere.

The lantern was no better off. Its fuel already depleted, the lantern’s metal body met the same fate as the blade of the shotel, cracking and melting until its shape was no longer recognizable.

The bag of pyrograss had traveled the furthest out of the three. It came within a meter of the dragon before being incinerated. The fire tore away the leather exterior, burning it away in an instant, exposing the bundle of pyrograss inside.

However, instead of burning with the rest, the pyrograss reacted differently. Due to the nature of the sap within, the stalk of the plant had evolved to be extremely durable and heat resistant. It was that heat resistance that allowed the stalks, when exposed to extreme temperatures, to hold on for just a few milliseconds. In that small timeframe, the heat transferred to the sap within, still inert from the lack of exposure to air, and superheated it past its boiling point. Finally, when the stalks succumbed to the heat, breaking apart into ashes, it released the superheated pyroil trapped within. The pyroil, free from its containment, rapidly expanded and mixed with the air. Already energized from the heat, its immediate reaction with the atmosphere formed a chain reaction with the other molecules around it, instantaneously releasing an enormous amount of energy – in other words, an explosion.

“FOOOOOM!”

The bag detonated in front of the dragon with an electric blue blast. The violet fire bearing down on Sirus was suddenly shattered by the shock wave emitted, while Sirus himself was thrown onto the ground by the burst. The dragon had it worse. Due to its proximity to the explosion, the blast had forcibly torn the scales off the dragon’s neck and chest, splashing burning oil onto its defenseless, already bleeding skin.

“GROOOOOAAAAAAHHH!”

The dragon writhed in agony, trying to use its claws to scrape off the oil. However, much like the direwolf, the oil sank into its armor, burning it even more. In its pain, it blindly trampled and rampaged, smashing buildings and scattering debris.

“Ugh…” Groaning, Sirus pulled himself to cover behind a large cement block. His whole body screamed from the heat, and his eardrums rang from the concussive blast. However, if he wanted to get to his grandfather, he knew it would be now when the dragon was distracted.

“Have… to… get… gramps…”

He unsteadily pulled himself upright. Under the cover of the debris, he stumbled towards his goal, praying his grandfather was still alive. The fires had weakened due to the explosion, but they were still burning bright as Sirus tripped his way into the remains of the small potion shop.

It was horrifying. Sirus gasped at the scene in front of him. Potions lay scattered and cracked. Everything was either burning or already charred. There were crimson puddles on the floor, something Sirus knew wasn’t the result of alchemy. As for the origin of those puddles, Sirus followed their small streams to underneath a large ceiling beam, where a pair of frail legs protruded.

“NO!!!”

Adrenaline replaced fatigue. Sirus stumbled over to the beam, fearing for the worst. Unfortunately, his fears were confirmed. Pinned underneath the log was his grandfather, battered, bleeding, and burned. Elder Chryssa turned his eyes towards Sirus, the life in them fading away.

“… Sirus.”

“Gramps! I… I’ll get you out… Somehow! I promise!”

Sirus, with what strength remained, tried his hardest to push and pry the beam off of his dying grandfather, with no success whatsoever.

“…Sirus.” Elder Chryssa gently smiled. “This is my journey’s end... But for you... I can see that your road has only just started.”

“No! Gramps! What’re you saying? Now’s not the time to be philosophical! We’re gonna get out of this alive!”

Moisture formed at the edge of Sirus’s eyes as he pushed and pulled with all his might, frustrated to tears at his own weakness. His grandfather was dying in front of him, and there was nothing Sirus could do to save him.

“Sirus… this is all I have seen… You need to understand that at any moment... the dragon will be back. Your own life will be in danger… Forget about me. You need to go.”

“Grandpa...” Sirus remembered the countless days he spent with his grandfather here. Every moment of happiness, every moment of pain. It was his grandfather who shared and bared them with him. And now… this would be the last moment between the two. Sirus knew, seeing his grandfather’s resolved face, that there was no changing either of their fates. This was where their roads diverged.

“Heh...” Elder Chryssa reached one hand out, slowly stroking Sirus’s face, a fragment of the playful old man resurfacing one last time. “I’ve raised a fine lad. Sirus… Continue living. That’ll be my final request.”

As Elder Chryssa uttered the last word, an enraged roar resonated from outside the shop, bringing grandfather and grandson back to reality.

“Now leave!” His grandfather mustered, “The cellar’s your only hope now. Go!”

“Right…” Holding back his tears, Sirus stood up, running towards the back of the shop.

His grandfather watched him go. As Sirus’s figure disappeared, Elder Chryssa chuckled to himself.

“You’ve been my pride and joy for seventeen years. Despite who you appear to be, despite what you think you are, know that you will always be much more. Farewell, Sirus.”

Elder Chryssa closed his eyes. Purple flames filled the shop, bringing with them the light of a thousand suns.

=+=

Alone in the dark, Sirus huddled next to piles of dried herbs and vials of liquids. A shimmering black flower was the only source of light in the darkness, with glowing, ash-like white particles floating from its center. Sirus recognized it. A vivibloom. A flower that bloomed during death.

Suddenly, magenta light lit up the whole cellar through the cracks in the wooden door. Sirus watched, frozen, as the light glowed more and more intensely. Then, after what felt like an eternity, it faded, and darkness returned.

Sirus, now truly alone, couldn’t hold his emotions back any longer. Tears fell from his eyes, splashing onto the cold stone floor.

In the darkness, as alarm bells rang in the distance, only a few words could be heard.

“Goodbye, gramps. And thank you for everything.”