Chapter 1: The End of a Saint
Ash fell like snow over the battlefield, settling in Kael's dark hair as he stood among the smoldering corpses of demon kind. The smell of burning flesh clung to him, to the ruined ground beneath his feet, to the air itself. This was what victory looked like—ugly, silent, final.
He could barely stand. His robes were shredded, soaked in blood—some his, most not. The once-radiant sword of the Saint, Solas, hung from his fingers like dead weight. Its golden light had dulled.
Behind him, the last remnants of the Demon King's army were crumbling into ash. Before him, his allies approached—Lucien, radiant in silver armor; Freya, eyes filled with emotion; Thorne, silent as ever. The ones who had fought beside him, suffered with him, bled with him.
The ones he called friends.
Kael gave a weary smile as Lucien stepped forward. "It's over," he said, his voice rough from battle. "The Demon King is gone. We did it."
Lucien smiled too. But it didn't reach his eyes.
The blade entered Kael's back without warning.
He gasped, pain lancing through him as Solas fell from his grip. He staggered forward, confusion flashing in his eyes.
"W–Why?" he rasped, turning to face them.
Freya's face was twisted with sorrow. "I'm sorry, Kael. You're too powerful now. Too dangerous."
Thorne didn't speak. He never did. But his sword was red with Kael's blood.
Lucien stepped close, hand still on the hilt of the blade buried in Kael's back. "The world doesn't need a god," he said softly. "It needs peace. And you… you've become a symbol too large to control."
Kael's knees buckled.
The light in him, the divine spark that had guided him since his awakening as the Saint, flickered. Dimming.
Memories blurred in his mind—his first day in this world, the prophecy, the desperate training, the lives he saved, the kingdoms he united. And now, this betrayal. The people he trusted most… had always feared him.
He fell to the ground, face in the ash.
So this is how it ends, he thought.
But the light within him did not fade.
It shifted.
It burned.
[Void]
He drifted in a sea of nothing. No pain. No time.
Then—A voice.
"You were never just the Saint."
A pulse of flame surged through the dark.
"You are Flameborn."
Kael screamed as light and fire tore through him, consuming flesh, memory, soul. But this was not destruction.
It was rewind.
A miracle born not of divinity—but vengeance.
[Ten Years Earlier]
Kael opened his eyes.
The forest around him was eerily familiar—misty, sun-dappled, alive. He knew these trees. Knew that village nearby. Knew that today… was the day the demons would attack.
He sat up slowly.
His body—young again. The Saint's Mark glowed faintly on his chest. Untouched. Unawakened. Time itself had been torn open, and he had been thrown backward.
Kael touched the soil with trembling fingers, then clenched a fistful of earth.
"…This time," he whispered, voice cold and hollow, "I won't be their weapon."
He stood, eyes burning with a different kind of light.
"…I'll be their reckoning."