Scar was back in his inner realm, and this time it was likely his last. The past two days had been spent fighting King and Bianca.

He had finished all three books Emma gave him. The first, Fire as the End of Hope, told of a deity cast into endless fire for a crime that had brought the world to the edge of ruin. The destruction he had tried to bring about was turned against him, twisted into his prison. They called it Ragnarok.

The last book was different. Divine Melody spoke of none of those things. No fire, no betrayal, no conflict. Instead, it told of a man born with an extraordinary talent for singing, one who was his father’s favorite above all else.

It was the only one Scar didn’t understand, and a strange one at that, but it didn’t matter now. The second book was what held his attention. Ragnarok. Cartel’s flame, Chaos. That was all that mattered to him at the moment.

Once more he stood in the abyss, his entire body radiating a blinding light, as though he were a star. Five of his predecessors stood at his side now. Kendrick was the only one among them who knew how to fight, but the others weren’t without threat. Their flames were dangerous enough.

He had thought Brenda’s flames of despair were the ceiling, the most dangerous he would face. But even Cartel’s flame of chaos paled in comparison to King’s.

The knowledge he gained from defeating King didn’t explain his flame, it only pointed to nothingness. He didn’t know if that was King’s cowardice, giving up too easily on what he had.

But in the fight itself, whatever King’s flames touched vanished on contact. Leaving no trace or remnant, just gone. That was enough for him to call it the Flame of Void.

The fight with Bianca had been interesting in its own way. Not a difficult one, but Bianca’s will was something else entirely. She embodied Gluttony.

It was like a vacuum, but different from King’s Void in one crucial way. The Void erased but the Flame of Gluttony consumed.

There was greed in it, a hunger that couldn’t be satisfied. Even the smallest ember was enough to stretch over an entire tree and swallow it whole.

The moment Scar saw it, he knew. Defensively, it was invaluable. With enough precision, it could devour any attack, and if pushed further, perhaps even the people behind them.

It was clear why the universe would hate an individual with authority over all those flames.

Five were now under his authority. The only one who hadn’t fallen in line was Bastian.

Bastian had only been terminally ill when he died. But something about him was unusual. His flame was barely visible... he looked shadowy, as though he had already become one with the wind itself. But that wasn’t Scar’s problem.

"There’s an unsettling amount of hatred in this dude. I think I understand why."

Bastian’s rage was aimed squarely at Bianca, and no one could argue that his hatred wasn’t justified. Not even Bianca herself.

Scar had felt the hatred from the moment he awakened. But he hadn’t known it was this consuming. It was so deep and so raw, that Bastian’s flame was already beginning to ignite just from the proximity of Bianca.

He had been born weak and yet Bianca passed the Inheritance to him, and knowing that his own cousin had done so with full awareness that it would kill him, that was what had broken Bastian.

Even at the academy, that horror had followed him, keeping him from dueling, from fighting back, until he was killed without raising a single finger.

But seeing Bastian like this told Scar something. Each of them had inherited a flame that reflected who they were.

"So much for this being easy. Looks like it’ll be a hassle."

Sure enough, Bastian stepped forward. His body morphed... nearly doubling in size, wings splitting free, horns breaking through, his frame jagged and wrong in every direction. He looked as though hell itself had shaped him.

"Shit."

Bastian hadn’t even finished transforming when Scar’s body moved on its own, instinct pulling him back, putting distance between himself and the kid before his mind could catch up.

"This isn’t just anger. There’s regret and sadness mixed into it. Those flames are formed from negative emotions. If they reach me, they’ll be more dangerous than Brenda’s Despair."

Amber was looking after his body in the human realm. But he wasn’t going to leave everything to her.

He began to move, maneuvering around Bastian in search of an opening. The dude was full of them, but his rage was a different problem entirely. Disturbing it could make things far worse for Scar.

"Tch. Playing it safe won’t work anymore. I need to take a risk... and provoke him."

He began toying with Bastian, grabbing whatever the ground offered and throwing it at him. Sand. Sticks. Anything within reach.

He called it. Bastian didn’t take long to get agitated, dashing toward Scar with his wings beating furiously, though for all their effort, they couldn’t lift his weight.

Scar smiled, awkward as it was. This was exactly what he had been waiting for. The moment Bastian was within reach, the dude wrapped his fist in flames and hurled it toward him.

The force of the attack sent Scar moving at impossible speed, nearly bringing him to his knees before his hands caught the ground, and from there he drove a kick straight into Bastian’s gut.

Bastian crashed into the ground, but even the brief seconds Scar had spent within his reach had been enough to send shivers down his spine.

"Shh... that was way too close."

It was over. All his predecessors were defeated. And yet the question that followed was somehow the hardest one. What now?

Before his mind could wander any further, memories of Bastian’s ability flooded in. And before he could even begin to process them, something shifted.

Bastian, who had appeared almost shadowy just moments ago, his flames turned slightly thicker into ash-like flame, scattered enough to remind Scar of burning memories. But like all the others he had defeated, white flames now burned from his hands and head.

Bastian wielded the Flame of Discord. It fed on negative emotions, just as Scar had feared.

But even through that fear, he couldn’t help himself. The thought of pairing it with his threatening presence made him drool over just how powerful a combination it could become.

But then something shifted. His body began trembling violently... not from pain or agony, but as though everything that made him who he was was being rewritten from the inside.

His once pure white body began to glow differently, something between a star and a divine golden light, as though what he was becoming demanded a different kind of radiance.

Four wings emerged from his back. Two were massive, rising from behind his shoulder blades. The other two, nearly half their size, took shape near his waist.

Scar extended his hand and a radiant light gathered in his palm, forming into a flame that slowly took the shape of a star.

Scar swallowed bile. He understood immediately whose power he possessed. But that wasn’t quite right either. It wasn’t just power. It was who he had become.

"...I am Morningstar."