Chapter 5 The Unsealing

Pain hit Rin first.

Not like a blow. Not like fire.

Like becoming fire.

The Oracle’s hand pressed against her sternum, and the world ripped open around her. Every nerve lit at once, white-hot, as though molten metal flooded her veins. Her breath caught, then turned into a roar she didn’t recognize as her own.

The Hunters staggered back, shields rising too late.

Elias dragged her behind him, blade raised, but even he couldn’t hide the shock on his face. “Rin”

He didn’t finish. The air warped around her, shimmering like heat over a forge. The red glow in the tent pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat wild, erratic, hungry.

The Oracle gritted her teeth. “Hold still! The seal is ancient it will resist!”

Rin did try. She tried to stand, to breathe, to stay human, but the fire underneath her skin clawed upward, burning through muscles and marrow. Something inside her something deep, coiled, older than memory lunged toward freedom.

Outside the tent, the Scarlet Market erupted into chaos. Shouts. Crashes. A spell detonated with a sound like cracking stone.

The Hunters closed in again five of them, armored in silver and blue, sigils blazing along their bracers. “Contain the target!” their leader barked.

They began casting in perfect unison, their voices merging into a cold, metallic chant.

Elias cursed. “They’re preparing a suppression net!”

The Oracle hissed. “Break their formation!”

But Rin couldn’t move. Her world had narrowed to fire and light and a single echoing scream in her skull.

Let me out.

The Oracle pressed harder. “Rin! Listen to me! You must ground the fire or it will consume you with the seal.”

“I I can’t!” Rin choked.

“You can.” Elias’s voice cut through the chaos, sharp and steady. “Rin, look at me.”

She forced her eyes open.

His face fierce, worried, unyielding anchored her. His presence steadied the spiraling inferno just enough for her to gasp a real breath.

That was all the Oracle needed.

With a sharp, cutting motion, the Oracle slashed her palm and pressed it to Rin’s chest, blood-to-blood.

A flare of crimson exploded between them.

Rin felt something snap inside her like chains breaking.

The seal shattered.

And the dragon answered.

The explosion threw everyone off their feet.

Elias crashed into a pillar. The Hunters slammed into the tent walls. Even the Oracle staggered, her blindfold almost torn free.

Rin didn’t fall.

She hovered.

Her feet lifted inches above the ground, hair whipping around her like a living flame. The air trembled, bowing under the pressure of the raw, ancient aura pouring off her.

The Hunters stared in horror. “She’s… unsealed!”

One fired his spell-gun.

The bolt never reached her.

It evaporated midair, consumed by the shimmering heat around her body.

Rin’s heartbeat thundered in her ears too loud, too strong, vibrating the tent poles.

But beneath the terror, beneath the pain, beneath everything

There was clarity.

For the first time in her life, she felt the fire without fear. It didn’t claw or rage inside her now. It aligned with her breath, her pulse, her thoughts.

It was finally hers.

A Hunter lunged toward her.

Rin raised her hand.

Fire spiraled outward not an explosion, not a blast, but a controlled, spiraling coil of incandescent flame that wrapped around the man, lifted him, and slammed him into the ground.

He didn’t rise.

She stared at her own hand in disbelief. “I… did that?”

“Don’t get lost in it!” Elias shouted, already clashing with another Hunter. “Stay in control!”

The Oracle wiped blood from her chin and pointed sharply. “Rin! Three more your left!”

Rin spun. Flames followed her movement like an obedient serpent, arcing out to strike, burning sigils into the ground where Hunters had stood moments before.

But the Hunters regrouped quickly.

The leader barked, “Formation B! NOW!”

They formed a triangle around her, spell-guns raised, chanting in perfect sync. Blue sigils flared from their weapons, weaving into a net of crackling light.

Rin’s fire recoiled violently inside her something about the net made it shrink, curl inward.

The Oracle swore. “It’s a binding lattice they’ll crush your aura!”

Rin felt it closing around her, tightening like cold wire.

No.

Not again.

Not like the courtyard.

Not like helplessness.

She inhaled once, deep, steady.

And the fire surged outward in answer.

The net snapped apart with a shriek of shattering magic.

Light burst through the tent seams.

The Hunters were blasted backward, crashing through crates and tables outside.

Silence rang for a moment.

Then the Oracle spoke, voice trembling with awe.

“Dragonborn indeed…”

Elias pushed himself upright, limping but alive. “Rin… are you okay?”

Rin floated back down to the ground, her legs shaking as her feet touched the scarlet petals. “I think… I think so.”

But she wasn’t the same.

The fire inside her was different now no longer caged, no longer coiled. It flowed through her veins like molten gold, calm and potent.

She could feel everything: heat signatures around her, the trembling of the tent frame, the faint crackle of dying spells. Her senses were sharper, her mind clearer.

It was terrifying.

And exhilarating.

The Oracle approached slowly. “The unsealing has awakened more than your fire. Your senses, your strength, your aura they are no longer bound by human limits.”

Rin swallowed. “Can I control it?”

“You must,” the Oracle said. “Or it will control you.”

Before Rin could respond, the ground shook violently. Crates toppled. Shutters rattled. Screams echoed from outside the tent.

Elias tensed. “That wasn’t us.”

The Oracle’s expression darkened. “The unsealing was felt across the entire district. They are coming.”

“More Hunters?” Rin asked.

“No,” the Oracle murmured. “Worse.”

A roar split the air deep, resonant, nothing like a human voice.

Elias’s eyes widened. “No. They wouldn’t.”

“They did,” the Oracle said grimly. “They released a Nullbeast.”

Rin froze.

“Nullbeast?” she repeated.

“A creature bred for one purpose,” the Oracle said. “To devour magic.”

Rin felt the fire in her veins flicker in instinctive fear.

Elias gripped her arm. “We have to get you out of the Market. Now.”

Another roar shook the ground.

The Oracle placed her bloody hand on Rin’s forearm. “You are unsealed, child of fire. But that does not make you invincible. Not yet.”

Rin’s pulse hammered. “Then what do I do?”

The Oracle gave a thin, fierce smile.

“You survive. And you learn. Quickly.”

The tent wall tore open.

A shadow filled the gap massive, hulking, all claws and bone plating, its skull-like head glowing with cold blue sigils. The air around it collapsed inward, as if the world itself was being drained.

Rin felt her fire dim, recoil.

The Nullbeast roared again, the sound a vacuum pulling at her magic.

Elias raised his blade. “Rin run!”

But Rin didn’t move.

She stared at the creature, fear coiling in her stomach, her fire guttering like a candle in wind.

This thing could end her.

Destroy her.

Devour everything she had just become.

And yet

Something inside her whispered:

Face it.

Rin stepped forward, flames gathering around her fists.

“No,” she said.

Her voice trembled but her fire did not.

“We fight.”

The Nullbeast charged.

And the world became fire and shadow once more.