Hearing his master's voice, Liam's eyes stung, tears threatening to fall. For some reason those words resonated with something deep within him. Something he didn't know he had been searching for his whole life.
Acknowledgement.
He put up a brave face when he faced his parents but when the whole of society looked at him as if he had no purpose…it was difficult to endure. Those mocking stares from his classmates, the bullying he had been subjected to. Even the teachers didn't have much hope for him.
It hurt. It always hurt.
But peering into his master's draconic eyes, a warmth spread to his heart.
His master had given him his legacy and had been fighting this entire time just to help him. Sure, their first meeting was far from ideal and he had tried to kill him several times, but it was also true that he now looked at him differently.
Master was covered in wounds and seemed to be weaker than before but his gaze held nothing but firm belief that Liam was worthy of inheriting his legacy.
Immortal Flame stood with his back straight.
"Young one from this day forth you are no longer just a boy but one who carried my blood. My kin. You are my successor"
Tears continued to build up. He had been trying to hold them back but now he failed to do so.
"However, I must warn you, as my successor you are bound to face those who imprisoned me as they are also opposed to your world. You need to get strong, always seek improvement assimilate with more of my blood, nurture your soul seed and most of all embrace your concept"
Liam felt his chest ache. Those words, why did they sound like goodbye?
"No need to be sad" Immortal Flame looked forward. "You called me master just now but there is little I have done to teach you anything so this will be the first and the last lesson"
"Does it have to be the last?" Liam managed to choke the words out.
Immortal Flame lingered for a moment.
"Yes" Immortal Flame took a step forward and just as he was about to take another one
"C-can you at least tell me you name?"
"Most who know me knew me by my title, Overlord of the Immortal Flame" he looked over his shoulder one more time before he continued to speak. "But you may call me Aragon"
Immortal Flame…no Aragon, looked forward once more. "Now observe, if you wish to oppose your enemies this is the level of power you must have at the very least, the bare minimum"
At that moment the smoke cleared and Yamaru was seen standing in the air just above the deep bowl-shaped crater. The mouth of the cave stood just at the edge of the crater. Aragon's foot leaned just over it. It looked as if he was about to fall off however that was when something strange happened.
A platform made of heat and orange sparks took shape. Aragon continued to walk forward the platform continuing to spread out. There was a change in the air. Not in the way that Yamaru twisted space but more so as if something was being forced to take shape and form upon reality.
"The culmination of all I just told you brings you to the door of the Overlord realm however what truly cements your position is your ability to impose you will upon the world and what greater form is there…" Immortal Flame was now over 20 meters away but his voice rang clearly in Liam's ears. "…than the manifestation of the Sea of Soul into the world itself"
Aragon's aura exploded like a pillar of flames that shot into the sky. His eyes blazed with flames, the blood that covered his skin burnt to ashes scattered in the wind. The pillar of flames seemed to connect the sky and the earth, causing both to tremble almost as though they were struggling to keep themselves stable. It was understandable, after all this realm had endured the ferocity of not just one but two overwhelming beings.
Liam stood at the mouth of the cave. His heart beating erratically in his chest. Just this display alone was enough to make him think Aragon truly was a god but he had a feeling that this was just a prelude to the real thing.
Indeed.
The sound of glass shattering rang like a distant bell and reality itself seemed to collapse. Its very nature changing, its laws being completely overwritten.
The skies that were blue became the color of blood, the ground that was made of earth became cracked and scorched as ridges of molten flame spread across the land, the air itself seemed to become sulfuric, a breath of it enough make ones lungs ache.
Liam's eyes widened when he looked around. He was no longer standing at the mouth of the cave to Aragon's den. Instead, he was standing on a rock surrounded by a lake of fire that flowed from behind him.
The skies were red and cloudless. However, above three celestial bodies stood where the sun should be. They were black in their entirety as though they had once been on fire and the faint lines of red that he could just barely make out seemed to support this. And even beyond that it looked like it extended beyond that, almost as though it made up a galaxy of its own.
'There is no way…' he looked towards his back.
There it stood. The source of the fiery lake that surrounded him. A large bonfire burned. Its flames standing over ten meters. They swayed gently like a flag in the wind.
Liam looked upon it with awe.
Without anyone telling him he felt like he knew what the bonfire represented and where this entire place was.
The bonfire was Aragon's Soul Seed and this world…was his Sea of Soul.
Just then Aragon's words echoed throughout the entire world.
"SEKAIGEN: World of Everlasting Flame"
***
Aragon stood in the air. His appearance having changed once more. His scales sparked with orange, his hair became fire itself and from his eyes a trail of smoke arose. Even his wings seemed to be shrouded in orange.
World Manifestation.
The final stage of a Soul Seed. Where if one refined their will enough, they could force it to manifest into reality itself like a true overlord imposing his desires upon the world.
It could be said that while everything within this manifested world existed to support its wielder, the exact opposite was also true for those who were deemed enemies.
Across from him, Yamaru struggled to stand in the air, his hold over space weakening with every passing moment. Sweat covered his body in its entirety. The temperature of this world was no different from standing close to the sun not just one but two of them. The only reason Liam wasn't feeling anything was because he designated him as an ally, it was his world after all how could he not define its rules.
Yamaru on the other hand...
Aragon shot forward. His body surrounded in a shroud of flames that made him look no different from a meteor.
On instinct, Yamaru released spatial attacks from his claws but they couldn't even travel 5 meters before they were burnt to ashes.
Aragon appeared before him, his fist flying in a whirlwind of flames that seemed ready to burn him to ashes. Yamaru's eyes widened and with a flicker he vanished and appeared in the distance. His body slumped. Even teleporting in this world was difficult, the space itself felt heavily restricted.
He had just appeared when a swirling tunnel of fire hurtled towards him. Yamaru's eyes must have been the size of saucers. With everything he had he pulled on the space, creating a wall to block the attack, at the same time he tried to stretch the space between himself of the attack.
"Futile" Aragon's voice was as arrogant as it was authoritative.
A chill went down Yamaru's spine when he heard that. True to his word the flames merely burned through the stretched space like it was made of paper before it tore right through the spatial wall, shattering it.
He couldn't react before he was completely engulfed by the flames.
"ARGGGH!" Yamaru's agonizing screams filled the skies as he plummeted to the ground.
His skin blackened and cracked. He looked like an overcooked mussel of meat. One could barely see a hint of his pale skin. He stood upon the scorched earth, his legs threatening to fall beneath him.
Yamaru's expression twisted into something ugly.
In a desperate attempt he tore a rift right above Aragon and a blazing ball of flames the size of a miniature sun fell towards him.
From Liam's perspective it looked no different from a meteor falling from the sky. However, Aragon merely stood he did not even bother to look up even when it was just half a meter from his head.
He looked in Yamaru's direction and sneered.
"Desperate, are we? That you dare use flames against me?" He raised his left hand into the sky and with a single palm…he caught it.
He caught the blazing ball of fire the size of a miniature sun as though it was just a soccer ball carelessly kicked in his direction.
"In this world I am emperor. Begone"
With a flick of his wrist, Aragon hurled the ball of flames down. He didn't just throw it either, as it fell it doubled in size and then it doubled again. Until it no longer resembled a miniature sun but well and truly was one.
From the ground Yamaru saw the entirety of the sky bloated out. The attack filling his entire vision. Still, he pulled on space trying to teleport one for his hold on space to wither away like ashes in the wind.
There was nothing he could do but be devoured by the explosion of light and heat that befell him.
Boom!
The explosion was no different from that of a supernova that came from the death of a star. It covered the entirety of Aragon's world in a blazed of light that so intense even Aragon himself had to look away.
When everything cleared, there was nothing left of Yamaru but a gaping hole in the ground that seemed to lead to nothing. Almost like a hole to the Abyss.
Where Aragon stood in the skies, a trail of blood fell from the corner of his lips.
This entire time he had been suppressing the space with the help of his world's rules but what he did just now was to completely strip Yamaru of even the ability to control space itself something that caused more backlash than he expected.
It burned through his remaining will far quicker than he anticipated.
'So this is the limit of what I can do in this state' he smiled in melancholy. 'He looked into the distance his gaze landing on the bonfire or at least what remained of it- now the flames barely burned with noticeable flames.
'Ah'
Aragon's World manifestation crumbled. It slowly began to peel away like withered paint on a building. Even his dragonoid form could no longer be sustained as he flew towards Liam who was standing right beside the bonfire.
His body reverted back to his large dragon form. His body became 100 meters long more, his wings seeming bloating out the world.