Chapter 1369: Making Thalia Rowdy again: Part-3

"Huh? Burn out—what do you mean—"

Before she could finish, the flames behind the first flickered as if stirred by invisible wind. Their colours swirled, merging and splitting, the air trembling with light. One by one, each flame swelled and twisted until they grew wings of fire.

Her breath caught.

The flames were turning into phoenixes?

Dozens of them... Hundreds!!

Each one was different in form—some glimmered like glass birds filled with starlight; some bore feathers etched with lightning; some moved like rivers of molten gold, others like storm clouds of silver flame. They circled her in vast spirals, filling the darkness with a symphony of screeches and rustling wings.

Their eyes gleamed with pride and... purpose!

She never imagined there could be so many phoenixes, each so unique, each alive with its own kind of eternity.

"What’s going on here?" she whispered in utter shock, voice trembling.

Then came the reply—slow, echoing, and full of authority.

"We are you."

The words made the world vibrate. Thalia flinched, spinning toward the first flame.

It was no longer small.

Before her eyes, it expanded... its light swelling until she was forced to shield her gaze. Fire curled upward like a rising sun, taking the shape of wings that spread across the heavens. When the glare softened, she looked up and saw it—

A gigantic phoenix.

No, not just a phoenix.... A Queen!!

The

Golden Phoenix

towered above her, every feather molten with gold and red, each plume long enough to brush the horizon. Its body shimmered with divine luminance, like the dawn given flesh. Ribbons of energy spiralled around it, forming halos that bent the void itself. Beneath its breast glowed a core of white fire, so bright that time seemed to halt around it.

When it breathed, embers rained like stars.

Thalia felt her knees weaken under the sheer majesty of it... She kneeled, her instincts screamed reverence; her soul trembled before the presence of something older than creation itself.

She stared at the Golden Phoenix as if that was all mattered to her... her own eyes reflected the Golden Phoenix... itched into her eyes, she didn’t even blink.

The Phoenix’s eyes, vast and radiant spheres of molten amber, focused on her... Thalia gulped seeing that... Her body shivered at its gaze, yet she could avert her eyes from that... What was she feeling?

A fear?

An excitement?

A... Purpose?

When it spoke, its voice was soft but majestic, which made every other phoenix bow their head....

"We arrived at your call,"

it said, each word reverberating like thunder wrapped in silk.

"The lostness in your heart is what made us connect to you, little bird. Everyone here is my child, the descendant of my bloodline that has passed down through eons... Including you my last one.

And it is a mother’s duty to respond when her child cries out into the dark."

It spread its wings, and the void ignited in gold. Fire spilled from its feathers like rivers of light, flowing through the space around Thalia.

’Oh my goodness...’ Thalia mumbled, utterly lost by this majestic thing, her heart beating faster than ever as her eyes glowed with shock and thrill, seeing this phoenix something stirred inside her chest that not even Aether managed to stir!

"Remember this, my child... Remember me,"

the Mother of Phoenixes continued, raising her crown‑like crest of shimmering feathers that dripped golden embers.

"The Flames of our Bloodline never fall. We will rise again and again until we fulfil our destiny.

Our kind does not die—We transform.... We burn, and through burning, We Ascend!!"

Thalia trembled, heart pounding.

destiny?

The word echoed in her head.

What density? Before she could ask—

Every phoenix in the void turned toward her.

Their many voices merged into one vast cry that shook the world:

"May Ether bless you!!"

"KKKKYYYYYYYYY!!!!"

The shriek roared across the void as the phoenixes burst into motion, wings flaring, bodies dissolving into torrents of fire.

Thalia clenched her fist as the flames around her swirled like a colourful firestorm that had no end.

One after another, they dove toward her like comets, their light fusing into her soul.

The Queen Phoenix lingered, watching her with a gaze that felt almost proud.

"This time,"

she said, her voice fading like a sunset,

"We will find our destiny."

And then the great bird folded its wings and dove, vanishing into Thalia in a storm of gold and red flame, shimmering around it.

Meanwhile, in the world outside—

The bull lowered its horn, massive hoof poised above Thalia’s motionless head, about to end her once and for all!

Aether stood still, every muscle locked, almost ready to stop it...

Then—

Thuck!

The bull’s leg froze mid‑strike.

"MMOOOOOFFF!!!"

A strangled, panicked sound tore from its throat as it was suddenly hurled backwards, flung by an unseen force. The earth cracked under the impact as it crashed into the distance.

Aether’s eyes widened, disbelief and awe mixing on his face.

"What the fuck did I do now?"

From the shattered ground, flames began to rise... red first, then golden shimmering particles, swirling together in a luminous storm.

And through it, Thalia rose.

Her breath came slow and deep as the fire gathered around her and lips, wrapping her broken body in waves of living light.

Her wounds sealed beneath the molten glow, scars fading into pure, unblemished skin.... Her crimson hair lifted in the heat, each strand becoming a thread of fire, flickering and shining with the colours of dawn and dusk.

For a moment, the world seemed to hold its breath. Thalia stood tall, surrounded by a shimmering aura of power—an ancient, regal presence burning in her eyes.

The mark of the phoenix blazed on her chest, golden and fierce, like the heart of a star.

Her eyes opened, the crimson slit eyes, glowed furiously, a fire that refused to be extinguished. She looked at her hands, flexing her fingers as golden flames danced between them.

Slowly, Thalia lifted her chin, her gaze sweeping over the bull that stood up and growled at her....

A faint, knowing grin touched her lips, the grin of someone who has returned from oblivion and chosen to fight once more.

She turned, the golden fire swirling at her feet, and set her eyes on the monster.

"..."

Aether, perched on a thick tree branch above the wild mist, nearly jumped down to help his beloved. The urge clawed at him, but then he saw her, Thalia.

Flames flared from her body, deep crimson, edged with burning golden particles—rose up around her body.

What the fuck happened?

He blinked, heart pounding. What in the world just happened to her?

She just had an identity crisis!

Yes, not like Noirix or Thalia ones!

No, this was the kind of shattering that happens when someone loses their reason for waking up. Like the gods reached down, ripped her purpose out, and left her hollow and smoking.

Like, for example... post-nut clarity. The ugly, honest kind. Where, for one bare moment, you ask yourself if this whole worthless existence is even worth a damn.

... Jokes aside, it’s almost like that.

Every being gets born, learns to crawl, and learns to soar. Some rise, loving the wind and the sky. Others are pushed out, forced to fly, and come to hate the very air that should have set them free.

And there are some—maybe too many—who settle for what the world gives them. They nestle into comfort and drift through days like leaves on a forgotten river. But among them, the rare ones, the tired ones, after too much pain, reach that point where everything is just... empty.

Life stops being interesting.

No point in running forward; there are always others waiting to take your place.

"She’s better than me, why even try?"

"He’s faster, stronger, so what’s the point?"

"Grades don’t decide one’s destiny."

"Screw your horse race—I’ll sleep while you burn yourselves out."

"Let the world sprint and scream—I’ll be the last one walking, even if it’s slow."

"So many desperate faces, all competing for... nothing. Why not just laugh, drink, and let the fools run in circles?"

So on, and so on.

It was like... a wall.

An invisible wall, taller than dreams, harder than fate. It appears that the moment someone loses the thing that drives them forward.

Suddenly, there’s nothing. Just a white blankness, a silence you can’t argue with.

Thalia... or maybe Noirix, from the second her bloodline awakened, the wild, laughing, innocent and reckless girl, her world shattered and remade itself.

Her parents—gone. She barely escaped with her big sister, running for years on nothing but pain and promise. Every heartbeat, every step, was for revenge.

To destroy the ones who destroyed her family.

She gave herself a single, burning goal: protect her sister, even if it meant burning out her own life, dying and coming back through hell and curse just to keep that promise.

Every dawn, she walked with that purpose.

Then, suddenly, a boy arrived—a stranger, a friend, maybe something more—and took the responsibility on his own shoulders.

What does a person feel when someone else snatches away the reason you keep breathing?

Annoyance?

Relief?

Envy?

Of course, Thalia was happy that her sister was saved.

But the truth twisted inside her, leaving nothing but a hollow. Her life had been a single blade’s edge, aimed at keeping her sister alive—that was her reason to live, to die, to come back again. But the moment that reason was ripped away, she was left with a vacancy.

A gaping, empty hole in her chest.

What does she do now?

What is there after the story ends?

She’d never thought about it.

Maybe she was too scared.

Aether’s hands tightened on the branch. He could jump down. He could tell her something clever, something sly and gentle to light her fire again.

He was really good at words—he could build someone up from ashes with a handful of sentences.

But after seeing the way she had fought, given everything, tried so hard to find something that mattered and still lost... he knew there were no words.

He exhaled, letting the wind ruffle his hair.

"Sometimes," he said softly to the empty sky, "when you lose your reason to fight... You have to burn yourself clean. And when you’re done, if you’re lucky, something new will grow from the ashes."

This left him thinking of only one thing... fuelling the fire.

Aether could feel it... He knew, if he wanted to bring back the blaze in her eyes, he had to spark something real. Thalia’s hunger had always been for combat—for the thrill, the wild rush, the chaos.

But right now, the thing blocking her path was not the world, not fate... it was him.

He was the man who always stepped in, the one who would appear at her side, no matter how desperate the fight.

It wasn’t exactly wrong—wanting to protect her.

But, considering who Thalia truly was, it was wrong enough. She was not a creature to be shielded, not a soul to be caged by kindness.

Well, anyway, that’s why he brought her here... To this wild land. To make her realise: sometimes, you could rely on only yourself.

Not even your sister.

Not your mother.

Not even him!

He wasn’t even sure about his plan, not completely. He’d only thought to push her limits—to force her to see what she had become, and to remember what she used to be. To make her face the line between who she was and who she might become.

So, that was the reason... he brought her here. But right now...