thief of fate-Chapter 99: White Star

Gulirath kicked the corpse of a small Arkanis beside him. His bulging eyes gleamed with something primal. He grabbed the body, lifted it like a doll, then opened his mouth.

Raine didn’t move.

He clearly saw how Gulirath’s teeth sank into the creature’s flesh, how he sucked its bones and screams.

The skin tore. The veins convulsed. Then... Gulirath began to grow.

Horrifyingly.

Snapping sounds, muscular tension, bones stretching, his shoulders rising above the trees, his skin tightening like paper, cracking.

A faint light formed around him—not a glow, but as if the darkness was retreating from him.

Raine said calmly:

"...He started eating his own kind."

Then louder, as he stabbed his sword into the ground:

"Ikran Val Karsa... Dragon Fire."

His words came out as a command, not a plea.

The air trembled.

Nothing happened immediately.

Then... the fire began.

From within his body, a pure orange glow emerged—no smoke.

His chest lit up first. Then his shoulders. Then his spine. The fire didn’t burn him, it emanated from him. It didn’t consume him—it fulfilled him.

Gulirath roared, charging forward.

But he stopped.

The air’s heat changed.

Not fire’s heat—but the heat of a sun.

Raine began breathing slowly. His hand extended. His eyes devoid of expression.

Dragon Fire... began to expand.

But it didn’t stop.

The glow shifted.

From orange... to gold.

Then pale white.

Then... brilliant white.

The heat surged. Everyone in the arena felt it—even those who hadn’t seen its source.

Raine, in the middle of the smoke, raised his palm upward.

He said to himself:

The body can’t withstand this for more than a few minutes... Dragon Fire is the acceleration of internal energy through direct stimulation of every cell in my body, but it’s now beyond the limit of bio-metabolic processing.

—What’s happening isn’t chemical heat... but energetic fusion. A molecular restructuring around me. This isn’t fire.

—This... is a star.

His body now glowed completely. No clear features. His arms like beams. His hair like compressed flame.

He spoke calmly, with a distorted voice from the light:

"The final form... White Star."

Gulirath roared again. And leapt.

Raine didn’t move.

Gulirath’s fist pierced the light.

Then... half his body vanished.

Vaporized.

No sound. No blood. Just... disappearance.

As if reality couldn’t bear his form.

Gulirath collapsed, screaming.

He regenerated, yes—but slowly.

Raine looked at him. There was no mercy. No caution.

"You’ve become like rats."

Then he turned.

Hundreds of Arkanis backed away.

But the smarter ones began attacking.

Arrows rained from the sky. Relentlessly.

Sigard.

Standing on a small hill, half his body cracked and burnt. But his arm still worked. He didn’t stop firing.

Not at Raine—at those approaching Raine.

Battle reignited.

In the sky, on the ground, beneath the hill.

But amidst it all... 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Raine was the sun.

Everyone who saw him paused for seconds.

Even humans. Even soldiers. Even kings.

They didn’t recognize him.

But those who had seen him before... understood.

Kyle, among the rubble, whispered:

"...Raine?"

Zenith, from afar, raised an eyebrow.

Even Selina, collapsed beside a crumbled wall, stared and said:

"What madness is this?"

Gulirath regenerated.

Bigger. Stronger.

His body surrounded by a dark aura. He charged again.

But the ground beneath him melted before he reached.

Raine began to move.

Not quickly—but with intent.

Each step left a crater.

Every motion ignited the void.

He said calmly:

"The transformation is temporary. It must end now."

Gulirath tried to leap, but his body melted again.

Repeatedly.

He reshaped himself—muscles, fangs, screams.

But he couldn’t touch the light.

Raine didn’t strike him.

He just approached.

And in a low voice:

"Your part is over."

Then... he pointed at him.

A moment.

A blinding flash.

Gulirath... was gone.

No bones. No blood.

But a second later... from nothing, he reformed again.

He vomited from the intensity of the transformation—but laughed.

He said:

"You’ll die from within before you defeat me. I... don’t die."

Raine smiled. For the first time.

Then said:

"But you can feel fear."

This time, he charged.

The first strike... tore the air.

The second... cleaved the shadow.

Gulirath blocked it... but his arm melted.

The third... burned half his body.

People watched.

Didn’t scream.

Just stared.

Sigard kept firing arrows.

Despite the blood in his mouth.

Raine still blazed.

Gulirath still regenerated.

But something began to change.

The sky... flipped.

The heat melted colors.

A distant explosion.

The Abyss? No one knew.

Raine paused for a moment.

Then with a hoarse voice:

"Time’s up."

His body’s glow began to dim.

Slowly.

He stepped back, step by step.

Then dropped to one knee.

Half his body returned to normal.

He said, breathing heavily:

"That was... magnificent."

Gulirath, what remained of him, crawled toward him.

But before he reached...

A sword struck the ground beside him.

Then Zenith’s voice:

"Stop."

Raine smiled, unconscious.

The world resumed motion.

And the fire... turned to ash.

The starlight still flickered faintly from his body, his breath was heavy, and his features were laced with exhaustion. But he had lost nothing. He raised his trembling arm high, and though his voice was choked with fatigue, it rang with confidence:

"White Star Form... of course... A star like me deserves to shine like one."

He laughed—not with madness this time, but exhilaration.

"Look at me... brighter than the sun... Which of you can bear this light?"

Then, he grasped the hilt of his sword, which barely remained intact after the heat that had scorched through the metal.

He looked at the gathering swarm of Arkanis, hesitating in the distance, and said:

"One final strike... to remind you I’m still here."

He focused all the energy he had left.

A white dot formed at the tip of his blade.

Not fire, but pure energetic manifestation.

He drew the sword slowly back... then took one step forward.

"Vanish."

A single strike.

A line of light cut through earth, air, flesh, and time.

Hundreds of Arkanis fell in an instant.

There was no blood.

Only ash.

Raen suddenly dropped to one knee, his legs shaking.

The light vanished.

"Hah... That was a bit much."

But he didn’t fall.

A strong arm caught him by the shoulder before he collapsed.

Edgar.

His appearance was filthy, his body bloodied, but his eyes were still stern.

He said calmly:

"Well done, Raen. That’s enough... Rest now."

Raen smiled, half-conscious.

"Good... because I can’t see anything anymore."

Edgar lifted him onto his shoulder with ease, as if Raen hadn’t just been a blazing sun.

As he walked him away from the battlefield, he said:

"I’ll take care of the rest. You’ve cleared the path."

Elsewhere, far from the chaos of blood and fire, Irkalos stood, his body as still as a statue.

He wasn’t looking at the battle.

But at the void Gulerath had left behind.

He spoke in a soft voice, filled with something like sorrow:

"...We lost him."

Axel, sitting beside him on a shattered stone, tossed a small rock into a crevice in the ground without turning his head.

"Gulerath? Don’t be dramatic. He was just a hungry beast."

Irkalos didn’t respond. His eyes remained on the horizon.

Axel sighed.

"Anyway, this isn’t a conquest battle."

Now he turned, his eyes gleaming with quiet mischief.

"It’s only to show our strength."

He continued, as if the words had been written beforehand:

"Even if we lose, we can retreat. Our strongest haven’t been unleashed. Those here are just the front."

"Then why this battle?" Irkalos asked flatly.

Axel smiled and whispered:

"To see... who deserves to die."

Then he stood, brushing dust from his clothes:

"And who deserves to have their name remembered."

The wind grew stronger.

The sky changed color.

But the battle... was far from over.

At the same time—

Evelyn was running, her breath ragged, tears streaming down her face. Her father’s hand still echoed in her mind, the grip on her shoulder, the whisper in a trembling voice:

"No matter what happens, don’t come back. This tunnel will lead you away... to life."

But life wasn’t there.

Life remained behind.

She stopped in the middle of the stone corridor. Nothing ahead but darkness, and destruction behind.

She looked up... And through a crack between rocks, she saw the red sky. She saw Raen become a miniature sun, melting the earth, crushing monsters. She saw Arkanis torn apart. She saw heroes fall, one after another. She saw everything.

"This... looks like what I saw in my visions." she whispered.

But something was wrong.

In her visions, there had been a sliver of hope. A faint light.

Now? Everything was being crushed. Nothing remained.

She suddenly collapsed, her legs no longer able to support her.

"Why? Why even the vision betrays me?"

She gasped, crying. Exhaustion, helplessness, and confusion overwhelmed her.

And suddenly...

A squelching sound. Wet, disgusting.

She looked back.

A short but grotesque Arkanis was crawling out of a side opening in the tunnel, drooling, its jaw gaping like a crocodile.

It approached, mumbling, walking on all fours.

Evelyn tried to get up... But her legs wouldn’t move.

The creature got closer... raised its hand, its jaw widening to devour her face—

Then—

Boom.

Its arm exploded, flying off to the side.

"That’s incredibly rude," said the voice.

Evelyn quickly looked...

There, in the tunnel’s shadow... stood Axel.

His calm eyes gleamed indifferently, a faint smile on his face.

He looked at her and said:

"A young lady almost made it out."

Evelyn gasped. She looked at him... her eyes still worked... but, as usual, she tried to see beyond. Into the future.

But...

Nothing.

Void. A bottomless sea, thick darkness, no light, no probabilities, not even probabilities of probabilities.

Suddenly, her nose bled. Her eyes turned red. Then they began to bleed... blood.

She screamed, covering her face.

"Ahh!! I can’t see! What...?"

Axel approached slowly, his voice calm as if nothing was happening:

"It’s rude to peek into others’ futures. Nobody likes that."

She trembled.

He knew. He knew her ability.

She raised her face, now blind. Everything was dark.

"Who... are you?"

He chuckled lightly:

"Just someone. But you were planning to run, weren’t you?"

And he extended his hand.

She didn’t take it. But he grasped the air in front of her... And when he opened his palm, everything vanished.

In a blink—

She was back in the arena.

The fire, the blood, the screams... Everything returned.

And Evelyn was in the middle of it.

Blind.

"No... don’t bring me back... no...!" she cried, but her voice was lost in the howling.

King Yaram saw his daughter, shouted, tried to reach her... But hesitated. The assault was everywhere.

Suddenly, Axel stood over her. He knelt, grasped her head.

"A simple gift," he said calmly, and pulled one of her eyes.

A scream.

A scream enough to stop the battle.

"AAAAAAAAAAH!!!"

Unbearable pain. The ground shook.

But before Axel could continue—

A strike.

A ghostly sword appeared from nowhere, slicing through the void and nearly hitting Axel’s neck.

He calmly leapt back, retreating as he looked at the new attacker.

Valerian.

The prince’s eyes burned with rage, blood streaming down his forehead.

– "Step away from her."

Axel, with his usual smile:

"If only you’d kept fighting them... maybe you could’ve saved more."

He raised his hand and waved lightly, as if nothing had happened.

Then vanished into the smoke.

Valerian dropped beside Evelyn, holding her.

"Evelyn! I’m here..."

But she... was crying, her voice faint:

"I can’t see anything... nothing... he... took everything..."

Valerian clenched his fist.

He looked toward the shadows where Axel had disappeared and whispered:

"I’ll find you... no matter the cost."