Chapter 36. The Shadow Behind Him

The howl swept through the clearing like a wave torn from something deep and it was painful, far worse than the one Levin released while trapped in his hallucination.

Everything paused.

The fog froze mid-drift, curling inward. The Mega Tusk paused, lowering its tusks and tilting its head slightly, almost uncertain but then it moved again. The hoof kept falling.

I surged forward and reached Lyra’s side, pushing my mana to the edge. I grew fast. Too fast. I screamed inside my shell as the expansion surged past control. My outer cube body ballooned outward, slamming into her side and shoving her clear of the hoof’s impact line.

The Mega Tusk’s hoof came down and collided with me instead.

The weight pressed down like a mountain. My core trembled under the weight, it pulsed wildly, each surge flaring against the inside of my shell. The pressure warped my edges, bending them inward, but I kept forcing them back into shape and pressed harder. My enlarged body refused to yield. Inside the cube, I could see my left palm start to fade, turning faint and half-transparent.

The Mega Tusk hadn’t expected resistance. It stumbled from the counterforce, its momentum broken. I kept expanding, pushing against the beast until its balance broke, and its massive form tilted sideways with a low, guttural thud.

The moment it started to fall, I shrunk.

I pulled back into the smallest version of myself. A tiny dice no bigger than a coin and zipped behind Lyra. Then, with one sharp burst of mana, I embedded myself into her back, right between her shoulder blades. From there, I expanded again. My cube body grew just large enough to cradle her weight. With her limp form resting against my surface, I rose from the ground and fled.

We ran. I didn’t look back.

I carried her through the mist as fast as I could, drifting between trees and roots, dodging through the silence. Every movement felt borrowed. Every second stretched longer than it should have.

And then I saw him.

As I neared Levin’s location, my core pulsed once, then split. A thin splinter ran through the center of my shell. I shrank and lowered Lyra, then drifted toward him. Earlier, we’d left him sitting against the tree, wounded but upright.

Now… he was on the ground.

His body lay across the dirt, twisted slightly to the side. One hand was folded beneath him at an unnatural angle. His mouth hung slightly open. His eyes were shut. No breath stirred his lips.

I didn’t trust my senses. I moved closer, hovering directly above his nose, waiting for the faintest sign of breath. Nothing came. I waited anyway.

Still… nothing.

I hovered above him, sparks trailing from my edges, watching the boy who had fought harder than anyone else lie completely still. I wanted to believe he was unconscious. I wanted that more than anything. But the air felt thinner now. The pressure was gone. And the world had gone quiet in the way it only does when something important is no longer part of it.

Levin had fallen.

And this time, there was no one left to catch him. It was the loneliest thing I had ever seen. My thoughts scattered. My mind refused to understand.

No.

No.

No.

This couldn’t be real. The light that was Levin had vanished. He was gone and in that moment, something broke loose inside me. I let the ugliest part of myself crawl out.

Blame.

I needed to blame someone. I turned toward the one person who could have done something. Kevin, still trapped in the mist, bound to the tree like some half-frozen statue and I screamed at him.

Toward the one person who could have changed something.

“KEVIN! YOU JUST STOOD THERE DOING NOTHING!” I shouted. “YOU WERE RIGHT THERE! You could’ve burned the forest down, shattered the ground, anything!!! But you just watched!”

The fog rippled slightly at my scream, but Kevin didn’t respond. His jaw clenched. Mana sparked faintly around his wrists, still bound in mist but his eyes were red.

Which somehow made it worse.

“YOU LET HIM DIE!” I roared. “YOU FUCKING WATCHED YOUR OWN SON DIE!”

I floated higher, trembling. “What were you waiting for? A dramatic cue? A sign from the heavens? You stood there like some cosmic extra while your son got torn to pieces!”

“You weren’t even background. You were scenery.”

Kevin opened his mouth, nothing came out.

His eyes, bloodshot and distant, stayed locked across the clearing on Levin’s body, folded into the dirt like a broken memory.

“You think you’re strong? You think you’re above this? Look at him. He fought when his ribs were cracked, when his mana was dry, when there was nothing left. He still stood up. Where were you?”

Kevin didn’t even try to struggle anymore. He just stood there, blank and still. I hated that more than if he had screamed back. The fog pulsed once around him, then unraveled. The tendrils slipped away, and the restraints vanished without resistance. As if the fog was laughing at all of us.

I trembled.

My core cracked further along the same fracture line already breaking me open. The light around me dimmed. Then I fell.

I let my body drop. No more floating, gravity claimed me fully, and I struck the earth with a hollow thump, a dull weight sinking into the dirt and that’s when it all hit.

The truth.

It wasn’t Kevin.

It wasn’t the fog.

It was me.

I was the one who powered the Mega Tusk. I was the one who healed it. I turned this battlefield into a nightmare. I gambled with everyone’s lives like a broken arcade machine that didn’t care who lost. The ugliest part wasn’t what Kevin failed to do.

It was everything I had done. For a second, that when Kevin opened his mouth earlier, I thought he was about to scream back at me. To blame me and maybe he should have. But I got there first.

“I made this mess,” I said quietly. No one heard it.

Maybe not even me. “The most useless one here... is me.”

And I lay there, broken and flickering, watching the Mega Tusk gather speed again. Its body shifted forward, dragging the ground with its hooves. It had found us. Kevin moved now, freed from the fog. He was running this way.

I didn’t move.

Everything looked darker than before. The light was gone from the sky, swallowed in gray. The sun had disappeared. The forest was dim and drowning.

I was too tired for this.

Then behind me, something twitched.

***

Something had shifted. Breathing came without strain. Pain slipped away, peeled off along with everything else. My body felt distant. I remembered screaming.

Then I died.

But one thought stayed with me, is this the afterlife? My chest tightened at the thought of Lyra. I prayed, quietly, that she was safe. If she was still breathing, that would be enough. I opened my eyes into a place that held nothing. Darkness stretched flat and endless. I couldn’t feel the ground beneath my feet, but I stood. The air was heavy. It pressed in around me, thick and silent.

Then I saw him.

Someone stood across from me, barefoot in the same empty dark. The figure matched my height, my face, even the old scar above my brow. Every detail drawn from me without flaw. He stood motionless, eyes locked on mine.

His face carried no emotions, only a heavy stillness. His stare carried the weight of something worn down, something that had already given up on words. It was tired. Disappointed.

Me, looking at me.

I stepped forward. He didn’t. The space behind me stirred. Then a voice spoke through the dark, rough and deep. It carried no sympathy, only judgment.

“She stood between death and your name.
You stood behind her shadow and prayed she wouldn’t fall.”

It didn’t come from the other me. It came from behind, above, around. It scraped through the space, rough and full of fire.

“She bled, and you answered with a scream no one needed. Pathetic.”

I turned. There was no shape behind the voice, only heat swelling beneath my feet. The ground pulsed, faint red lines burning across the black.

“A boy who walks behind others.
A name carried by wind.
A shape that never casts a shadow strong enough to stand on its own.
Always reaching, never claiming.”

The other me blinked once. “You tried to follow,” he said, voice quiet. “Every step. Every swing. Every word wasn't yours. Worthless shadow.”

I stared at him. My chest felt heavy, not from injury but from something inside curling tight.

“You carry my mark. Yet you speak with someone else's tongue.”

He walked closer, eyes dark as ash, circled in dull flame. His expression held nothing soft.

“You fight with hands shaped by guilt.

You carry fire, but your flame answers to hesitation.”

Heat began to rise from the ground, curling upward through the darkness. I took another step toward him. His lips moved. “You’re weak,” he said. My fists clenched. The voice pushed deeper.

“You still expect praise?

For standing second in your own story?

Feeble soul.

Disgusting shadow.”

The flames circled tighter, brushing the air around my shoulders with heat that pulled rather than seared.

“I offer no rescue.

Only fire.

Only the truth beneath the ash.

You are not less. You are not a reflection. You are mine.

So rise.”

The heat surged through the space, drawn to me, waiting.

“You never mattered. You followed shadows, but you never became one.”

The heat grew stronger.

“You think you were chosen?

You were born from someone else's mistake.

I gave you my mark.

And you buried it.

You hid behind guilt and grief.

Waited for someone to carry you.”

The other me moved forward. Eyes burned black.

“You’re nothing but a shadow.”

All around me now, tendrils of dark flame twisted up from the floorless space, rising higher, surrounding me.

“So tell me, Levin Frei.”

“Will you stay beneath others’ feet forever?”

“Or will you finally rise...?”

“Throw your shadow.”

“Become something new.”

“And burn everything that dares to cast you aside?”

My reflection burned hotter. The flames climbed, thick and crushing, choking the space around me. Every breath dragged through fire. Every word from the voice slammed into me.

“Throw the shadow.”

“I won’t.”

A gust of flame burst around my feet, licking up my legs. I felt the heat bite deep, but I stood through it.

“I will not reject it.”

The fire tore into my side. I kept standing.

“I’ve followed them. Failed. Watched others carry what I couldn’t. And this shadow...”

The flames climbed higher, curling around my ribs, my arms, my spine.

“It’s mine.”

Black fire flared behind me like wings halfway open.

“I won’t throw it away, it’s part of me.”

The heat snapped louder, rushed forward to meet me.

“I carry it.”

The fire swallowed me up to the shoulders.

“I will rise with it.”

It surged again, consuming my body fully. The voice snapped back, cruel and mocking.

“Foolish fool! You choose death over your pride?”

I stared into the fire and said it proudly.

“I am the shadow.”

“Since you’ve chosen death.

THEN GO DIE.

PRIDEFUL CORPSE!”

The flames engulfed me completely. My body vanished into the black. Still, I stood.

“It’s the only truth I’ve ever been proud of.” And that was the last thing I said before the fire took everything.

Then the laughter came. Twisted. Wild with something worse than madness.

“HA! HA! HA! HA!”

“IF YOU HAD CHOSEN TO THROW THE SHADOW....

I WOULD’VE LEFT YOU TO DIE!”

From every corner of the fire, the voice and my reflection no longer separate, spoke together.

“I AM THE SHADOW!”

The blaze pulled inward, drawn by something beyond heat. It didn’t scatter. It entered me, line by line.

My other self raised his head. Cracks spread across his skin along with his arms, chest, and face began to split. The cracks spread slowly, glowing from within, each line marked by heat that etched across his body in searing patterns. The space around him shifted. The air grew denser, warped by the gravity of what he was becoming.

Wings began to form behind him.

They took shape piece by piece, built from fire and shadow fused together. Flame rose from his shoulders and stretched outward, smoke curling behind each layer as it formed. They weren’t made of feathers, but from sweeping currents of dark fire that moved like muscle.

Ash drifted along the edges, curling and rising in long spirals. Each wing curved outward, wide enough to blanket my entire sight, then folded forward and wrapped around his entire form.

Everything fell silent.

The wings folded around him, drawn in tight, shielding whatever was about to emerge. Then, with a sudden flare, they burst open. The motion struck the air like a thunderclap. Black flame burst outward, washing the air in flickering red and shadow. And through the heat, the figure came into view no longer a boy, no longer a mirror of myself.

A creature born of fire.

It was a phoenix, but no story had ever described one like this. Its form stretched long through the air, built for flight and force, black fire rippling with crimson at the edges. Its feathers were shaped to cut, its tail jagged and layered, trailing glowing threads that flickered with every move. The wings arched high, wide and controlled, each lined with fire-veins beneath dark flame. Ember markings shifted across their surface, alive with meaning.

Its eyes were solid black, deep and lightless, dragging focus away from everything else. The beak hooked forward, glowing faintly with every breath. Smoke rose from its ribs in lines that moved with each breath. It didn’t speak. There was no need. I understood what it was because something inside me already recognized it. It had been waiting within the shadow from the start, inside the part of me that never broke.

“Fyred,” I said.

The Shadow Phoenix.

It answered me with a cry. It spread its wings wider, and the tips warped the air, drawing an arc high above. Flame chased the sound across its wings, igniting the markings in a single bright wave. When the echo faded, it remained still.

It was an invitation.

“Come.” I said.

It moved without pause, diving toward the fire where my body had fallen. The moment it struck, the flames folded inward. Wings locked into my back. The blaze enclosed me completely, sealing everything into a shell I couldn’t see through. The pressure inside scorched deeper than anything I’d ever known. My old fire couldn’t touch this, not even close.

The heat wasn’t punishment. It fed something deep, something that had always been empty. There’s no pain at all, the power didn’t fight me, it moved with purpose, wrapping around everything I was. It started from the center.

My heart rebuilt by the emberstorm, each vessel forged in heat. Veins came next, one after another, followed by the rest: lungs, muscle, bone. The limbs took shape under pressure, every nerve strung with current.

The fire baptized me, tore through everything I was. The old has passed away. I stand now—reborn as a new creation.

I rose in the same place where I had fallen. Each breath moved through my chest with ease, reaching into every part of what I had become. Every flame was a thread stitching me back together. I’d never understood what the Shadow Phoenix was before… But now the Phoenix had returned.

And this time, I understood.

I was whole again. I opened my eyes. The Tusk had begun its charge but stopped mid-stride, perhaps slowed by the heat rising from my body.

I turned back and saw everyone else. Lyra was unconscious, but her breathing hadn’t stopped, Dan was hovering between me and Lyra.

Even Dad was beside him. I heard them call my name. But I had something more important to do. So, I stepped forward, facing the last Tusk.

Each step grounded the fire inside me.

“I won’t ask for strength again.”

“If I must burn for her—then let me burn.”

“No more promises.”

“Only fire.”

“This time, I’ll be the shadow that stands in front.”