From Deadbeat noble to Top Rank Swordsman-Chapter 123: Through Fire Not Our Own

The Ashline didn’t burn.

It peeled.

With every step forward, the veil shimmered, pulling away in strips too thin to see—revealing not what lay ahead, but what *waited inside* them.

Leon stood first.

Mira to his right, sword already drawn.

Tomas to the left, face pale beneath the soot.

Kairis just behind, her eyes fixed not on the flame, but on Leon himself.

"You don’t have to lead," she said.

Leon looked forward. "Yes, I do."

Then he stepped into the fire.

It didn’t hurt. Not like heat.

It hurt like memory. A scream. A grave.

A choice not taken.

And then—

—he was through.

The world beyond the Ashline was not the one they’d left behind.

It was colourless.

Not black and white. Not drained.

Just bleached.

As if time had given up painting.

The air felt brittle.

The sky cracked in slow, deliberate pulses, revealing glimpses of something not sky beneath.

Mira followed next.

She staggered once, just past the threshold, catching her breath like someone punched her in the ribs.

Then Tomas.

He didn’t scream—but he flinched hard. And when he looked up, there were tears in his eyes.

Last came Kairis.

She didn’t falter.

But when she emerged, her hands were shaking.

They stood together on a flat, endless plain.

No hills. No trees.

Only broken pillars reaching up from the ash—bones of a forgotten city.

And at the centre, far in the distance

A tower. Cracked. Leaning to the side.

Sealed in chains of frozen flame.

Leon exhaled.

"The Fifth Seal," Kairis said.

Mira looked around. "Where are the guards?"

"There are none," Kairis replied. "If you’ve made it here, they know nothing else can stop you."

Tomas sniffed. "Comforting."

They walked.

It took hours—or maybe it took none at all. The ground didn’t hold shadow, and their footsteps left no mark. Time bent strangely here, like it was being rewritten with every breath.

At some point, the tower got closer.

Then too close.

Then above them.

Chains rattled.

The base was ringed with statues—some fallen, some half-buried in the ash. All depicted the same figure:

A kneeling knight.

Eyes blindfolded.

Mouth sewn shut.

Arms spread wide in surrender.

Mira frowned. "Creepy."

Leon stepped forward, placing a hand on the gate.

It didn’t open.

But the *seal* did.

Not with a sound.

But with a *note*.

A single, vibrating hum that passed through their bones, through their teeth, through the shards in Leon’s chest.

And with it came the words—echoing inside them, in the voice of no one they knew

"Only those who’ve bled for others may break the seal."

Leon stepped back.

The tower groaned.

Then, from behind them—movement.

Not from the horizon.

Not from the sky.

From the ash.

It rose.

Shapes.

Figures.

Not ghosts. Not beasts.

But people.

Flickering between real and memory.

Old allies.

Old enemies.

All carrying the same eyes.

Empty.

Waiting.

The Fifth Seal had a price.

And it was one none of them had paid yet.

But they would.

Because they had to. The ash twisted.

Not like wind. Like intention.

The shapes rising weren’t random. They formed a circle around the four of them—loose at first, then tighter. Shifting, adjusting. Not closing in to attack.

Waiting.

One stepped forward.

A woman in a warcloak, eyes gone white, mouth split by a line of ash. Leon knew her. Not by name—but by memory. She was one of the defenders at the Pass of Veyre. She died holding the left flank when the Ashbound first breached the walls.

He’d seen her in the records.

Now she walked again.

"Only those who’ve bled for others," the voice repeated—not from her lips, but from the air around her. The phrase passed through every ash-born figure, echoing like a chorus of judgment.

Tomas flinched. "Leon—this is looking a lot like necromancy."

"It’s not," Kairis whispered. "It’s remembrance."

"Feels the same when they’re staring at you."

Leon stepped forward again. "So what? We show them our wounds?"

The figures didn’t respond.

But one of them moved—slowly—raising a hand.

Not in threat.

In offering.

An old man this time. Scarred. Armour cracked. He held out a broken blade.

Leon approached and reached out.

As soon as his fingers brushed the metal—

His knees buckled.

He collapsed with a gasp, the world around him inverting.

Not visually.

Emotionally.

Pain rushed in.

Not fresh. Not imagined.

But Shared.

The blade had memory.

And Leon saw it all.

The man had died defending a caravan of villagers, surrounded on all sides by enemies. He’d known he couldn’t win. But he’d held his ground so the others could run. And when the final blow came, it wasn’t fear he felt—

It was peace.

Because they got away.

Leon dropped the blade.

His hands were shaking.

Not from fear.

But from understanding.

"That’s it," Kairis murmured. "You don’t show wounds. You receive them."

The ash-figures each held something different. A ring. A child’s shoe. A snapped arrow. A sigil burned half away.

Memories. Sacrifices.

Prices already paid.

But not claimed.

Mira stepped forward next. She approached a woman missing half her face—burned away by flame. The woman held nothing. Just lifted her arm and placed her hand flat against Mira’s chest.

Mira gritted her teeth.

Then closed her eyes.

And nodded.

Tomas looked between them, still frozen.

Then he muttered, "Screw it," and walked toward a tall, horn-helmed warrior holding a cracked medallion.

It hit him the moment he touched it.

He stumbled.

Grunted.

Swore.

Then got up again.

One by one, they took in the sacrifices.

And as they did, the ash-figures began to dissolve—softly, like sand caught in wind.

Until only Leon remained.

The last figure approached.

No helmet.

No blade.

Just a wound across the chest—ragged, blackened.

Leon blinked.

It was his father.

Not the man in life.

Not the cold, bitter strategist who trained him with iron drills and silence.

But the warrior.

The man who led the last stand at the Bastion of Thorn.

The man whose body was never found.

Leon didn’t reach out.

He simply knelt.

The ash-shadow of his father placed a hand on his shoulder.

And the memory came without force.

It wasn’t death.

It was a choice.

His father had known he wouldn’t survive.

He stayed anyway.

Not for glory.

Not for the kingdom.

But for the others.

For the ones too young. Too green. Too scared.

He bled for them.

And now, that memory passed to Leon.

Not like a wound.

Like a torch.

When Leon rose, the final figure dissolved.

And the seal cracked.

The chains around the tower snapped.

Not loudly.

Like a sigh—freed after centuries of holding its breath.

The doors swung open.

Inside?

Darkness.

Then—

A heartbeat. Not Leon’s. Not the shard’s.

Something older.

Something waiting.

Mira stepped beside him.

Tomas behind.

Kairis followed without a word.

Leon stared into the dark.

Then whispered, not to them—but to himself

"Let it end."

And stepped into the final seal.