Fire seeps in quietly, and remains as heat.
South of the Ignis Empire’s citadel, deep within a rocky gorge where scorching heat boiled up.
There, in a place even Volcanium’s flames could not reach, stood a black research facility built atop the cooled traces of ancient fire.
It was a place whose existence even the citizens of Ignis did not know, and where even Vulcanus rarely set foot.
Today, Vulcanus had made a special visit to that secret research facility.
In the center of the laboratory lay a massive metallic crystal, as though pulled from a furnace.
It did not belong to Ignis, and for that reason it stood out all the more.
“This is… Metallum’s core?”
A researcher asked cautiously.
“That’s right. It is a metal core we happened to acquire during the battle with Metallum.”
Senior Researcher Lexa nodded and continued.
“But it is far too quiet. It seems as if it is unaffected by fire energy… no, rather, as if it accepts fire energy without any resistance.”
Indeed, fire cores and metal cores differed from the very nature of their attributes.
A fire core’s high-heat vibrations pricked at the fingertips, and burning power boiled up from within.
By contrast, a metal core was cold and solid.
Yet the metal core currently being tested in this research facility was somehow different.
The closer one approached, the more clearly its alien resonance could be felt, as though it were waiting for something.
At that moment, Vulcanus quietly opened the door and entered.
The research facility stiffened under the sudden wave of heat, and the researchers hurriedly dropped to their knees.
Vulcanus said little and stood before the core.
“May I touch the core?”
“Yes, it is all right, Your Majesty.”
He slowly placed his hand on the core.
But even the heat radiating from his hand cooled the instant it touched the core.
With his hand still resting on the core’s surface, he asked the researchers,
“Is the fire energy unable to swallow this core?”
Lexa answered.
“Yes, that is correct. But conversely, it is not being absorbed either. They do not repel each other.”
The researchers bowed their heads, but inwardly they trembled with fear.
The core was quiet now, but no one knew what might happen when fire energy was grafted onto it.
Vulcanus stepped back and spoke one last time.
“Keep the core burning. Those Metallum bastards must also taste our scorching heat.”
After Vulcanus left, a quiet yet unmistakable sound of a metallic heartbeat spread through the research facility.
Inside Volcanium’s citadel, seated upon his throne, Vulcanus was sunk in a long silence.
By Vulcanus’s command, the citadel was once again undergoing expansion.
Even so, the flames that day were strangely low and quiet.
Again and again, he looked at the red map.
The directions of each empire, the flow of energies, the movement of troops.
Yet none of it gave him a clear answer.
“Silva… still has not moved?”
Vulcanus’s voice changed the temperature around him.
Ragdor bowed his head.
“That is correct, Your Majesty. Silva has made no particular response aside from coordinating with Aqua.
As for our previous contact, there has been no substantive reply.”
“No reply? To us, that is the same as refusal.”
Vulcanus slowly rose from his throne.
Flames scattered from all over his body.
“We are in a relationship of mutual generation with Silva.”
He spoke while looking at the vast continental map carved into the wall.
“Wood feeds fire. According to this relationship, it is only natural that they should support us. Yet now they do nothing. Does that mean they are looking down on me?”
Vulcanus’s eyes flashed sharply.
As he took one step forward, the patterns on the floor blazed red for an instant.
“I waited. I believed the trees would reach toward us and create a greater spark for our flames.”
He lifted his head and looked at the sky beyond the burning window.
“But the Silva of now has rejected our request. If the trees will not move, then fire must blaze on its own and make a path.”
Barkas and Ragdor glanced at each other for a moment.
At last, Ragdor asked cautiously,
“Your Majesty, even so, what can we do to Silva?”
Vulcanus laughed quietly.
“Conversely, Silva can do nothing to us either. If there is one thing they can do, it is only to help us. It means that even if they dislike us, they have no way to harm us on their own.”
He looked at Ragdor.
“Ragdor, prepare the army. Gather the soldiers and head to Silva.”
Ragdor was startled.
“Your Majesty, as you already know, we cannot attack Silva. What are you intending to do?”
“I am not telling you to attack.”
Vulcanus stared at him calmly.
“I told you, did I not? Silva can only help us. If they will not offer help willingly, then we will personally take the benefits from them.”
The signs of war in Volcanium were not, as always, filled with roars and flames.
The flames of that day were unexpectedly low.
The soldiers of Ignis moved quietly.
A small number of flame spearmen and fire infantry gathered near Silva’s border region, but no one shouted or swung a weapon.
Barkas gave orders to the soldiers.
“The mission is clear. Just as fire cores and energy cores are produced in our lands, their own cores are produced in Silva’s lands as well. Secure the exposed Silva core production sites within the border region swiftly. If possible, it would be best to finish quietly. Avoid any clashes with Silva citizens or military forces at all costs.”
Their objective was not battle, but the plundering of resources.
The soldiers of Ignis scattered and began searching for core production sites along the border of the Silva Empire.
“There it is!”
A soldier whispered, pointing behind the trunk of a nearby enormous tree.
There, several round, translucent blue life cores were piled up.
Those life cores were Silva’s resources, transformed when naturally generated energy cores from the earth reacted with Silva’s forest.
No one was guarding the cores nearby.
That was precisely what Vulcanus had been aiming for.
“Core acquisition complete. No abnormalities.”
A flame spearman reported.
At that moment, there was a small rustle in the nearby undergrowth.
Several Silva citizens who had discovered the soldiers of Ignis were watching them with expressions of shock.
“Wh-what are they doing?”
But they could say nothing, and do nothing.
That was the one-sided relationship of mutual generation.
They could not attack, and resistance was meaningless.
One flame spearman shook his head and whispered quietly to Barkas.
“If I may dare to say so, is this right? This is not war. It is nothing more than plunder in silence.”
Barkas did not answer.
He merely watched, as ordered, the procession of soldiers bringing back the recovered cores.
The energy of fire did not burn Silva’s land.
But part of the roots of those trees had been cut away by fire.
The flaming citadel towering over Volcanium was no longer what it had once been.
Its massive pillars had grown thicker and higher, and the outer walls, formed from a mixture of red stone and black iron ore, did not block the heat within but instead expelled it outward.
The spires that seemed to pierce the sky branched out in all directions as though embodying the paths of flame,
and the entire citadel beat like the heart of a living, gigantic volcano.
The land surrounding the citadel had been leveled wider than before, becoming a stronger defensive structure prepared against outside invasion.
Vulcanus slowly stepped forward before the throne.
Beneath his feet, red patterns writhed as if alive, and he looked at them as he spoke quietly.
“At last, the citadel has begun to breathe again.”
Architect Pellos bowed his head beside him.
“The citadel’s third-stage expansion has been successfully completed. The internal energy circulation is stable, and the purity of fire has increased by approximately fourteen percent compared to before.”
“Fire does not stop. Expansion is breath, and breath is a burning heart.”
Vulcanus reached out and placed his hand on the citadel’s outer wall.
As a faint heat flowed from his fingertips, the outer wall trembled subtly as if in response.
Once the citadel expanded, the barracks, research facilities, and defensive walls could also be expanded to the same stage.
Pellos intended to prepare the expansion of the barracks as soon as the citadel’s expansion was complete.
He approached Vulcanus’s side and spoke quietly.
“Your Majesty, we can now produce a new type of soldier. Soldiers who surpass even flame spearmen, who will burn hotter and spread wider.”
Vulcanus fell silent for a moment.
He looked down at his own hand.
It was the hand that had first raised fire in this world.
And now, his hand was ready to hold an even greater flame.
“Understood. Our fire does not stop. Not this citadel, not our soldiers, and not I. We must become strong enough to pass through this world and reach its very end.”
He returned to the throne, sat down, and declared quietly,
“Ignis will expand further. Far beyond its current territory, farther and farther still. Before long, we will no longer fear Aqua either.”
Vulcanus and his retainers gathered in Ignis’s strategy room.
On the dark-red petrified stone table lay a single clear, shining blue core.
“So this is the core Silva uses.”
Barkas answered.
“That is correct. It was secured from Silva’s border region, and we met no resistance. Like Metallum’s core, this core also appears to have ample potential for conversion.”
Vulcanus picked up the life core with one hand.
In his palm, the blue energy trembled faintly.
It was clearly different from fire energy.
But it did not reject fire either.
“I look forward to seeing what happens when their trees meet our fire. This core, too, will soon become part of us.”
Ragdor cautiously spoke.
“Your Majesty, even if we are in a relationship of mutual generation, this is a politically sensitive matter. The likelihood of Silva making a direct response is low, but Silva is already allied with Aqua. Other nations may also be watching our movements.”
Vulcanus glared at Ragdor.
“This is not plunder, but rightful compensation.”
Vulcanus’s voice was firm.
“I gave Silva a chance. A chance to walk our path with us. But they ignored our demand. Then we have no choice but to take what we demanded by other means.”
He looked around.
Researcher Lexa was not there.
He continued speaking.
“We will create new power with this core. We are not conquerors, but pioneers.”
Silence flowed for a while.
No one opposed his words.
Pellos spoke.
“Your Majesty, the designs for the new barracks are ready. May we begin the expansion?”
Vulcanus nodded.
Flames blazed in his eyes.
“Good. Prepare it. I will say it again. We must become stronger. There is no need for us to use only our fire energy. We must expand in our own new way, beyond mutual generation and mutual overcoming.”
In the deep gorge of Volcanium, Senior Researcher Lexa was looking down at something with his head bowed.
“At last, a reaction has occurred.”
And in that moment, far to the north, the ocean currents suddenly began to stir as well.
They, too, had sensed the new change in the world.