[ Scorchhold Arena – The Warborn Cradle ]

The sky above Scorchhold was bleeding.

Crimson smoke curled into the clouds like tendrils of war-song. Once a sacred battlefield sealed by divine decree, the ancient dueling ground was now torn open by a single entity’s arrival.

At its center stood The First Ember.

Clad in molten black plate, eyes burning with primal hatred, the First Ember wielded the double-bladed glaive Ashreaver, its edge pulsing with soulfire.

“He comes,” the Ember growled.

Ash and cinders danced across the broken stone as the old warflame sigils awakened—responding not to light, but to memory.

[ Arrival – The Court Beneath Ascends ]

From the shattered gates, Lucien Caelum entered.

Cloaked in flowing shadow, flame-forged embroidery coiled like serpents along his coat. Behind him walked five of his Echo-Knights, forms flickering like dying stars.

Thorne padded silently at his side, eyes locked on the First Ember.

Lucien stepped forward, each footfall burning away the ash at his feet.

“You were forgotten,” he said calmly. “For good reason.”

“I remembered myself,” the First Ember spat. “Now the world remembers me.”

The warflame sigil between them pulsed red.

Duel registered.

Pact Authority Recognized: Crownless Sigil. Warborn Sigil.

Rules dismissed.

[ The Duel Begins ]

No trumpet. No chant.

Only a flash of movement as the Ember lunged—glaive sweeping wide like a flaming guillotine.

Lucien moved sideways. Effortless. His coat barely rippled as he ducked the initial blow.

He raised his hand—

Chains erupted from his shadow, striking toward the Ember’s blind flank.

The Ember burned through them.

“I do not bind. I break.”

Lucien narrowed his eyes.

Then activated the first seal.

[ Lucien’s Counter – Throne Recall: Hollow Sigil Unbound ]

“Court Beneath—stand.”

The Echo-Knights rose from the dust, intercepting the Ember’s next strike in perfect formation.

Each wielded weapons born of their memory: shattered pikes, cursed halberds, glass swords. They weren’t meant to win.

They were meant to teach timing.

Lucien blink-stepped behind the Ember.

His blade—unseen until now—sliced into the Ember’s flank.

“You strike like a god,” Lucien whispered. “But bleed like a man.”

The Ember roared, flames bursting outward in all directions.

[ Phase Two – The Warborn Awakens ]

“ENOUGH!”

The First Ember slammed the glaive into the stone—

—and the battlefield changed.

Ash rose into the air, forming phantom soldiers—the Warborn Legion, once erased by Lucien’s past self, now conjured as twisted wraiths of their former glory.

Lucien stopped.

“You called them back.”

The Ember grinned.

“Let your court face mine.”

“And let the past decide who deserves to rule.”

[ Court vs Legion – Clash of the Forgotten ]

Across the battlefield, The Court Beneath clashed with the Warborn Legion.

Echo-Knights danced through flares of warlight, parrying strikes that echoed from another age. Their forms flickered, half-real—while the Legion moved like revenants fueled by hate.

But even as they fought, Lucien advanced.

Straight toward the Ember.

[ Final Confrontation – Crownless vs Warborn ]

Glaive met blade.

Flame met silence.

The Ember pushed forward with brute fury, each strike fracturing the stone beneath them.

Lucien countered with precision—redirecting, reading. His blade never met the Ember’s full strength… until the moment he needed it to.

“I remember how you died,” Lucien murmured.

“Let me remind you.”

He let the Ember strike again—then channeled the Ashen Pact Seal.

Time around them slowed.

The Court froze.

The battlefield dimmed.

Lucien stepped in close, whispered words only the Ember could hear:

“You lost because you burned everything but your mind.”

He drove the blade upward—straight through the flaming sigil on the Ember’s chest.

The Warborn glyph shattered.

[ Aftermath – The Throne Submits ]

The Ember fell to his knees, smoke trailing from his shattered armor. His glaive clattered to the ground.

The ashstorm ceased.

The Legion vanished.

And behind Lucien, the true Warborn Flame floated, free and unbound—a twisted fire with a sword at its core, hovering above the dueling circle.

Lucien reached out.

It hesitated.

Then bowed.

And the Warborn Flame branded itself beneath Lucien’s Hollow Sigil—its sword crossed beneath the crownless circle.

[ Final Scene – Dominion Flame Archives ]

Clerics screamed as an unregistered flame suddenly entered the chart.

The screen burned red.

NEW DUAL-SIGIL PACT RECORDED.

CROWNLESS / WARBORN.

“That’s impossible,” one whispered. “No one can hold two Primordial Thrones—”

But in the mirror-flame, Lucien’s silhouette stared calmly back at them.

“He doesn’t hold them.”

“They’re following him.”