Scorched To Ash Beneath The Blazing Sun Novels & Stories

And the dream began to collapse. Stone fractured. Fire curled upward. The bones of the sanctum groaned. Victor vanished in a torrent of ash. Emilia turned to Asher, her body trembling. He caught her. And the stronghold burned. The fire cracked like bone splitting, each roar from the collapsing beams echoing like war drums across the mountainside. Embers soared into the air like burning moths. Emilia stood still amid the smoke, her eyes not glowing—but hollow, rimmed in the ash of what she’d become. Ashes clung to her cheeks, mingling with blood, with sweat, with the ghost of everything she’d nearly lost.

I stayed behind with the children, trying to cling to whatever peace I could still grasp. But when I finally did close my eyes, I was no longer in the safety of our camp. I stood in a field of ash. The sky was black — not night-black, but stained, unnatural, like ink spilt across a canvas. No stars, no moon. The ground beneath me was scorched, cracked open like it had been burnt from the inside. Something groaned in the distance. I didn’t know if it was the earth… or something else. I took a step, and the ash kicked up like snow.

My face snaps to the side as pain flares hot and sharp across my cheek. Skin stings, heat radiating from the blow. “Come on now, wake up. The clock is ticking, Ashy.” Braden’s voice drips with amusement, a cruel snicker following his words. My eyes flutter open, the raw sting of my battered face sharpening my awareness. My once-tanned skin is now pink, peeling, blisters covering every inch of me. The scent of burnt flesh lingers, metallic and acrid. I snarl, tasting the dryness in my mouth, the bitterness of dehydration, but my gaze flicks past Braden’s shoulder.

Taehyung’s POV The sun climbed higher, slow and relentless, its warmth pressing against my skin as if even the heavens demanded that we look at what we had done. Morning did not soften the clearing. It stripped it bare. Ash lay scattered like black snow across the trampled earth, clinging to boots, fur, hems of cloaks. The pyre paths still smoked faintly, thin gray tendrils curling upward, carrying the bitter stench of burned betrayal. Blood had soaked deep into the soil—too deep to be washed away by a single dawn. It would stain this ground for seasons to come, a reminder etched into the bones of the territory.

- **Time Breaker:** His mere presence can slow down or speed up the clock, blurring the past and present until all sense of time collapses. Azarukh exhaled one mighty breath. A wave of molten rage erupted from his mouth, rising like a volcanic storm toward the stars. Mohammed and Susan felt fire **calling their names**, while darkness itself seemed to haunt their hearts. Their bodies could bear nothing more; overwhelmed by terror, they collapsed to the stony ground, **unconscious**, where the Sun of Ages still stood—his eyes locked upon the Lord of Flame, unafraid before the living hell.

The sun rose like a dying ember — pale, uncertain, its light fractured by the smoke of a world still clawing its way back from ruin. The air trembled with the aftershocks of creation; the heavens still bore the scars of their struggle. Where dawn should have been gold and gentle, it came instead in broken colors — a bleeding horizon of ash and silver, of beauty born from devastation.

The afternoon sun whips across my face in a searing gust. My skin flinches on instinct, but I hold steady, eyes narrowing against the glare. Then I see her. A figure—no, a ruin of a girl—dragging herself across the scorched dirt. Her skin is peeling, smoking. Raw flesh exposed where the fire has licked too deep. A vampire—burning, falling apart—crawling through the sun with no sense of pain or preservation.

Not natural. Not contained. Devastating. A dragon. Massive. Winged. Burning like the sun itself decided to take form and descend. My men don’t even have time to scream. The fire hits them. Consumes them. Erases them. Gone. I move. Fast. Barely avoiding the second wave. Heat slams into me anyway. Burning. Tearing. I land hard. Roll. Come up on one knee. Breathing heavier than I should be.

Or too far gone to fear properly. Spiro opened his mouth and breathed fire. Orange flame tore across the field of ash, broader and hotter than anything a normal creature should survive. The blast struck four wraith-touched at once, lifting them from the ground, slamming them into a rock wall, swallowing them in fire. Their bodies burned, shrivelled, split open, black veins bursting under heat. For a moment, I hoped. Then they stood up inside the fire. Burned, broken, but moving. They crawled forward through the flame like hatred had hands and hunger had bones.

*Łɛŧ ŧħɛ ʂƙγ øƥɛŋ ɑŋɗ ŧħɛ ʂʋŋ ƀʋꝛŋ ƀꝛɨɠħŧ ɑɠɑɨŋʂŧ ŧħɛ ɗɛɑɗ. The earth shook in response, heeding my declaration. In a second, the sky split open. The air dispersed and the sun shone down. The weak sun brightened, charging with such rays. It burned the eyes, causing those behind me to shield their faces. The Hollows were close but their speed decreased. The sun caught up with them, its brilliance burning them. Their skin melted under the beams. The light hit the earth and melted them until there was nothing. Ashes floated in the air, the sun going back to its normal radiation. The forest was clear again.