Ruler of Heat: One Man, A Thousand Thirsts-Chapter 37: Beneath the Crust

The sun rose late over Akarthis. Not because the sky was cloudy, but because something deeper had shifted. Beneath the crust of the world, a hum began — not a sound anyone could hear, but something the earth itself knew.

And so did he.

Raith opened his eyes slowly, his breath heavy. For the first time in days, his dreams had been still. No flames, no whispers, no visions of seductive illusions. Just darkness — heavy, dry, and unmoving like packed soil.

He blinked.

The walls of his current room weren't made of stone or brick but compacted clay. Earth walls. The kind used in nomadic camps. A reminder he had left behind the Fire Dominion, now traveling east — toward the Element of Earth.

"Still breathing?" came a rough voice from the corner.

He turned his head to see Karuun, the rogue earthblooded mercenary who had become something between a guide and a bodyguard. She was sharpening a jagged knife, seated cross-legged, dust clinging to her brown armor.

"Barely," Raith muttered, pushing himself up with effort. His body ached not from battle, but from something inside. The fire in him had cooled — not extinguished, but dimmed, as if making space for something else.

Karuun tossed a skin of water to him. "We'll reach the Mouth by dusk."

He caught it. "The Mouth?"

"The place where the earth breathes," she said. "Old crevice. Pre-Elemic. The kind of place that judges you before you set foot in it."

Raith drank deeply. "Sounds inviting."

"It isn't." She stood, cracking her neck. "It's also the only way to get close to the Earth Source without alerting the guardians."

"Guardians?"

She didn't respond. Instead, she walked out, the leather flap of the tent falling behind her.

Raith sighed and looked at his palm. The sigil of fire — once burning and brilliant — now glowed faintly, almost embarrassed. He could feel it pulling back, giving space. The fire was preparing itself. Preparing him. For what, he didn't yet know.

The journey through the desert was different this time.

Before, the sand had responded to his heat — glassing beneath his footsteps, scalding with his breath. Now, the sand ignored him. The earth was patient. Watchful. It did not speak in flickers or bursts, but in weight, in compression, in layers.

Karuun guided their worn desert-strider mount through narrow rock formations. "You'll need to listen more. Earth doesn't scream like fire. It murmurs."

Raith nodded, still half-lost in thought. He had left behind three women — each connected to a different elemental bond: fire, wind, and illusion. And yet none of them had been able to explain what he was becoming.

Was he gathering the Elements, or were they gathering him?

By sunset, they reached the Mouth.

It wasn't just a crevice. It was a wound. A canyon split down the middle like the earth had been cleaved open by a god's axe. The air was heavier here, dry in a way that sucked moisture straight from the bones.

Karuun halted. "We camp here. You go down tomorrow. Alone."

Raith stared into the drop. "How deep?"

"No one knows. Deep enough that when you scream, the echo takes its time to come back."

Raith stepped to the edge and sat down. He didn't need to speak. He felt it. The pull. Like something in the rock recognized him.

"Don't expect the Earth Element to welcome you," Karuun said, setting down packs. "It hates fire. But if it accepts you, even slightly, it will show you truths no other element dares."

"Good," Raith muttered. "I'm done with lies."

The night passed without dreams. Only weight.

Raith stood at the edge of the Mouth before dawn. The sky behind him was smeared with purple and bruised orange. Ahead lay a vertical drop, its walls rough and wide. The air was cold, unnaturally so for the desert. And below — nothing. Just shadow and silence.

Karuun handed him a rope made of twisted earthvine, stronger than steel but flexible. "Climb down halfway. If the walls let you pass, you'll feel it."

"And if they don't?"

She didn't answer. She simply handed him a fist-sized stone with runes carved into it. "Throw this when you reach a chamber. It'll call me if things go wrong."

Raith took the rope, tied it tightly around his waist, and began his descent.

Every movement echoed — not through sound, but in pressure. As if the stone recorded each step. The deeper he went, the more aware he became of the silence. It wasn't absence of sound — it was refusal.

The earth wasn't empty. It was holding back.

About fifty meters down, the light from above barely reached him. The walls pulsed with tiny veins of ore, dimly glowing. Not bright like the fire element, but dull like old coals, still warm.

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Here it was — a shelf. Natural rock forming a ledge. He climbed onto it and stood, catching his breath.

Then, he heard it.

A hum.

Not from outside — from inside his chest. A low vibration that resonated with his bones. The sigil on his palm pulsed, reacting, not with fire, but with... something older.

Raith placed his hand on the wall. It was warm.

Then the wall moved.

Not crumbled — moved. A ripple, like something alive had shivered under stone skin. And then it opened. A doorway. Uneven, natural, and yawning.

He stepped through.

The chamber inside was massive. And it was breathing.

Each exhale came as a rush of windless pressure, pressing against his lungs. The walls were layered — fossil, sediment, ancient bones. He walked slowly, the echo of his steps muted as if swallowed.

Then came a voice.

Not spoken. Felt.

"You are flame. You burn what you touch. Why do you seek the unmoving?"

Raith closed his eyes. "Because the world doesn't need only fire."

"No. But you crave more. You are not balance. You are hunger."

Raith clenched his fists. "I want to know what I am. Not what you think I am."

Silence.

Then — the ground cracked. A circular slab in the center of the chamber shifted, rising slightly. Upon it: a crystal. Brown and green, dull but pulsing. The Earth Element's Core Fragment.

He stepped forward.

And the wall behind him shut.

He was trapped.

But he didn't flinch. He stepped onto the slab.

And the moment he touched the fragment — visions came.

He was deep under the surface. Miles down. In a molten cave where massive worms coiled around stone roots. In their eyes: knowledge.

He saw the history of the earth — how it was made not by force, but by pressure. Not in haste, but over time.

He saw a girl born of stone and mud, rising from the cracks. Her eyes were blank, her skin cracked. She would be his test. His trial. His tether to Earth.

Her name whispered into his mind:

"Selune."

Raith dropped to his knees. The crystal dimmed. The chamber was quiet again.

But something had changed.

His fire did not rage. It rested. For the first time, the flame within did not fight — it listened.

The Earth had not accepted him. Not fully.

But it had acknowledged him.

The chamber rumbled as Raith stood, the core fragment now sealed in a pocket over his heart — fused into his skin like a slow heartbeat. The wall behind him opened again, revealing a new passage, slanted and narrow, descending even deeper.

This wasn't over.

The Earth wasn't done testing him.

He moved forward, muscles aching, the weight of pressure increasing with every step. It wasn't gravity — it was expectation.

The air was heavier here. Thicker. Almost liquid. He had to push against it, like wading through a swamp. His flame flickered in protest, struggling to breathe. The heat within him, always wild and hungry, now felt... muffled.

Control yourself, he told it silently. This is not your realm.

After several minutes of descent, he entered a stone chamber where the floor was covered in black sand — the kind formed by millennia of volcanic ash and pressure.

In the center stood a girl. Barefoot, pale skin dusted with earth, her eyes opaque like polished stone. She held no weapon. Her presence was the weapon.

"You've taken the fragment," she said, voice calm and deep. "But Earth does not yield to theft. It responds to roots."

Raith didn't speak. He simply nodded.

"This is your Trial of Weight," she continued. "Not of strength. Not of flame. Of stillness."

With that, the room began to shift. The walls pushed inward. The ceiling dropped slowly. The sand beneath his feet began to rise, forming arms — grabbing him.

He summoned his flame, instinctively.

But the fire sputtered.

"Don't fight," the girl whispered. "Feel."

Raith let out a breath. He closed his eyes. Instead of resisting, he leaned inward.

He remembered the pain of falling as a child — scraped knees, broken bones. The weight of failure when he'd first burned his father's home. The silence after his mother died — heavier than any grief.

That was weight. Not measured in kilos. Measured in memory.

The sand halted.

The walls stopped.

And the girl stepped forward, nodding.

"You understand," she said. "Earth holds pain not to break, but to contain. That's its strength. That must be yours."

She raised a hand and the walls retreated. A new door formed.

"Go," she said. "But know this: each element you bond with reshapes you. By the end, you may not recognize the man you were."

Raith stepped through without answering.

The tunnel opened into a smaller room with a raised pedestal. On it, an obsidian ring hovered, etched with runes of earth and flame twined together.

Raith reached out. The ring floated to his hand and clamped down on his index finger.

The stone didn't feel cold. It felt settled.

And when he clenched his fist, a wall of black stone erupted before him — solid, dense, and utterly silent.

A new power.

Not destruction.

Defense.

Outside, Karuun watched as the Mouth trembled and then opened wide. Raith emerged, body coated in dust, eyes darker, slower.

"You did it," she said.

He nodded. "But it cost me something."

"What?"

"My fire still burns," he said, "but now... it waits."

She said nothing — only stared at the way the ground didn't crack beneath his steps anymore. It shifted.

Raith sat by the rocky ridge as night fell over the valley. For the first time in days, there was no storm. No earth splitting beneath his feet. No trial awaiting behind stone doors.

Just silence.

Karuun watched from a distance. She could see the change in him—not just in his body, but in how he sat. Earlier, Raith was always poised, tense, ready to spring like fire. But now, there was something settled in his posture. The stillness of someone who had looked inward... and survived what he saw.

She walked over and sat beside him.

"Do you feel stronger?" she asked quietly.

Raith didn't answer at first.

He finally said, "No."

She blinked.

"I don't feel stronger," he repeated. "I feel... heavier. Like something I was carrying alone is now part of the ground beneath me. Like I don't have to fight everything anymore."

"That's not weakness," she said. "That's foundation."

He glanced at her. "Was this the plan all along? Bring me here so the Earth could break me apart and rebuild me?"

Karuun gave a half-smile. "You think too highly of me. I didn't know what it would do. But Earth doesn't waste its energy. It only responds when it knows something inside you is ready."

Raith turned his hand over, looking at the obsidian ring.

"I didn't know how much I hated being weak," he said. "Until I realized... I feared stillness even more. I thought if I wasn't always burning, I'd be nothing."

"And now?" she asked.

"Now I know... stillness holds power too."

Later that night...

Raith dreamt.

But this was no ordinary dream — it was a vision.

He stood in a cracked courtyard under a blood-red moon. Across him stood a boy, pale and smiling, with eyes that shimmered like glass.

"You think you're becoming something new," the boy said. "But you're only remembering who you were before they broke you."

Raith clenched his fists. "Who are you?"

"I'm your mirror," the boy said. "The version of you that never begged. Never forgave. Never loved."

A wave of cold passed through him.

"Be careful," the boy whispered. "Every piece you gain... is a path back to me."

Raith woke with a jolt, sweat pouring down his face.

Karuun stirred. "Another vision?"

He nodded. "A warning."

She said nothing. She didn't need to. Raith's path was never going to be simple.

Elsewhere... in the Jade Citadel

Inside a vaulted chamber, five robed figures stood around a glowing sphere. The image inside showed Raith walking away from the mountain.

"He's claimed the Earth Fragment," one said.

"And survived."

A taller figure, face hidden beneath golden silk, spoke coldly, "Then it begins. The other fragments will stir. Watch the boy."

"But do we intervene?"

"No," the figure said. "Let him gather power. Let him believe he's in control."

"Why?"

"Because when he's at his strongest... we'll break him with what he fears most."

"What is that?"

The figure stepped forward and placed a single image into the air.

A girl. Her face hidden by a white veil. And around her neck, the pendant Raith had buried with his mother.

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