Reincarnated as the Last Dragon Egg
Chapter 32

Chapter 32: Chapter 32

Storms gathered not in the sky—but in the soul.

After Edrin’s collapse, a silence fell over the City of Stars. Not peaceful silence. A tense, heavy pause before the scream of war. The flame pools burned low. The wind-paths grew cold. The training fields were empty, and the Children walked like ghosts, watching their own shadows.

Because one of them had fallen.

And it meant any of them could.

---

Isen stood over the cliffside, her cloak whipping in the wind. Below her, the City stretched like a dream slowly turning into a battlefield. The stars above flickered, uneasy. The Cycle of Stars pulsed faintly in her chest, but something deeper rumbled beneath it.

A warning.

"The Librarian’s moving," Neriya said beside her. Her voice was flat, cold. "He’s done playing games."

Kaela appeared from behind, armor half-fastened, blades at her hips.

"We’ve spotted them. Five miles south. A Rift opened — and Tharn came through."

Isen’s breath hitched.

Tharn, Vessel of Stone.

The Hollow One.

A walking graveyard wearing bones like armor.

"How many with him?" she asked.

Kaela shook her head. "Too many to count. Rejected souls twisted into beasts. Shadows that don’t wait for nightfall."

Darian approached from the rear steps, grim but composed. "They’re not here to test us anymore. They’re here to erase us."

---

Preparations began before the sun rose.

The Children were called to the Starhall — now transformed into a command chamber. Glowing maps hovered midair, threads of flame and shadow marking enemy routes. Isen stood before them, not just as a bearer now—but as a leader.

"You are not soldiers," she said, voice echoing. "You were never meant to fight wars."

"But we no longer have the choice."

The room held its breath.

"I won’t lie to you," she continued. "We face enemies older than us. Stronger. Trained to kill."

"But what we carry wasn’t given. It chose us."

"And now it’s time we choose each other."

---

They came with the dusk.

Tharn’s army rose from the valley like a plague—creatures born of stone and sorrow, twisted into jagged horrors. Their bodies were cracked earth, hollow cores, voices like dry thunder.

Tharn walked at the front. Ten feet tall. Skin carved from mountain. His eyes were bottomless.

"City of Stars," he bellowed, "you hold power that does not belong to you!"

He raised a massive stone blade and drove it into the ground. The earth cracked.

"I come to return it to the silence."

---

Then, the siege began.

---

From the cliffs, Kaela led the fireborn.

Arrows of molten light shot through the air, scattering the first wave of beasts. Lightning-dancers rode the wind, hurling bolts into the dark. The air filled with roars, sparks, and screams.

But Tharn’s forces were endless.

The beasts reformed.

The shadows multiplied.

And then Tharn moved.

One stomp shattered the western barricade.

Two Children fell—swallowed by the earth.

Darian dropped into the fray, flame bursting from his fists. He met Tharn blow for blow, his fire pushing against ancient stone.

"You’re not welcome here!" he shouted.

Tharn laughed, a sound like grinding tombs.

"You are already buried."

---

Elsewhere, Isen led the second line.

Her starfire glowed silver, slicing through shadows like a blade of light. She fought not just with strength, but with purpose. Every step was a dance between flame and possibility.

Behind her, Nima fought too—though she was young, untrained. The stars within her flared bright, singing every time she moved.

They fought as one.

And for a while, it seemed enough.

---

Until the second Rift opened.

From the northern ridge, a tear in reality split wide—and two new Vessels stepped through.

Mina of Echoes.

And Kaen the Stormless.

Their presence turned the tide.

Mina sang a single note—and five Children collapsed, screaming, clutching their heads.

Kaen bled from her hands—and lightning fell from the sky.

Chaos erupted.

---

Isen turned, eyes blazing. "They’re here."

She moved faster than thought, silver wings of fire flaring behind her. Darian joined her mid-charge, fire coiling around him.

They met Mina and Kaen in the heart of the battlefield.

And all hell broke loose.

---

Kaela fell back, blade broken, blood dripping from her brow. "We’re being overrun!"

"Hold the line!" Neriya shouted, her shadow forming into beasts of her own. "Do not let them reach the Heart!"

Because at the center of the City stood the Flame Pool. The birthplace of the Cycle’s rebirth. If it fell—the Cycle would collapse with it.

---

Tharn reached the inner ring.

Darian broke from the fight, lunging to stop him. Their clash shook the sky.

"Why do you fight?" Tharn growled. "You are flame! You should burn it all down!"

Darian roared, his fire turning white-hot. "Because she taught me how to rise!"

---

Isen faced Mina and Kaen alone.

Mina’s voice echoed again.

But Isen pushed back with light—pure, burning light that drowned sound.

Kaen screamed, blood lightning lashing the air.

Isen caught it in her hand.

Then shattered it with her will.

The Cycle flared.

And the stars above turned gold.

---

With a scream, Isen unleashed the full weight of the Eighth.

Not just flame.

Not just fate.

But freedom.

The battlefield lit up like a sunrise in a dying world.

The Rejected staggered.

The shadows fled.

And Tharn—once unstoppable—fell to one knee.

"No," he rasped. "You were never meant to be."

Isen stepped forward.

"I wasn’t."

"But now I am."

---

One final strike of starfire exploded from her palm, straight into his core.

And Tharn shattered.

Not in death—but in release.

---

The remaining Vessels vanished into Riftfire.

And silence returned.

---

Bodies were carried.

Wounds were bound.

But the City stood.

The Cycle pulsed.

And Isen—flawed, afraid, but undaunted—stood tall.

"We didn’t win today," she whispered. "We survived."

And tomorrow, they would rise again.

Smoke curled from the shattered barricades, drifting lazily across the quiet dawn. What remained of the City of Stars no longer shimmered with untouched beauty. Its towers bore the scars of battle. Trees once grown from pure starlight were cracked and darkened. The flame pools still glowed, but they flickered — as if mourning.

The siege was over.

But victory did not feel like triumph.

It felt like breath after drowning.

And not everyone had made it to the surface.

---

Isen stood in the ruins of the eastern courtyard, her hands still scorched from the battle, her shoulders heavy with the weight of what had been lost. Around her, the Children moved like ghosts, silent as they gathered the fallen, whispering names and memories.

Fifteen dead.

Two missing.

More wounded than the City had healers for.

But they had survived.

That had to mean something.

Right?

---

Nima sat by the edge of the flame pool, her knees pulled to her chest. She hadn’t spoken since the final blast. Since she’d seen Tharn’s bones break and scatter like sand in the wind. Since Mina’s scream had turned her own blood to ice.

She’d fought.

She’d killed.

The stars inside her were singing still — but the song sounded wrong.

Like mourning.

Like guilt.

Isen approached and sat beside her in silence.

For a while, neither spoke.

Then Nima whispered, "I didn’t want to burn them. I just wanted them to stop."

Isen placed a hand gently on her shoulder.

"You didn’t start this war."

"But I’m part of it," Nima said, voice breaking.

"Yes," Isen replied. "And that means you get to choose how it ends."

---

In the makeshift infirmary, Kaela was having her ribs wrapped by a healer with shaking hands.

"I’m fine," she grunted.

"You’re bleeding internally," the girl replied.

"I’ve bled worse."

"You lost your blade."

Kaela flinched at that. Not from pain — but from memory.

It had been her father’s sword. A relic of the Flame Cycle, reforged after every war.

Now it lay in two pieces somewhere in the ash.

"I’ll make another," she said stiffly. "This time, it’ll be mine."

The healer said nothing more, but her respect was clear in her silence.

---

Meanwhile, Darian stood in the Council Hall — what was left of it — surrounded by the older bearers, the surviving flameborn, windcallers, and stardancers who had taken charge of the City’s defense.

He stared down at the blackened map table.

A Rift was still open.

Faint.

But present.

"They’re not done," he said.

"They’ll come again."

Neriya nodded. "They’re waiting for us to break."

Darian looked out through the open archway toward the sky — where the stars seemed to pulse with faint warning.

"We won’t."

---

That night, Isen gathered everyone in the central glade.

They lit no fires.

There was no music.

Only a tall pillar of silver flame, crackling softly, casting long shadows as she stepped forward.

She looked at every face — tired, stained, wounded.

Some were too young to be here. Some too old to still be fighting. All of them carried grief like a second skin.

"We lost people," she began. "Friends. Brothers. Sisters."

Her voice didn’t tremble.

"But we did not lose each other."

She raised a hand, and a burst of starlight flared above the flame.

"Tharn thought this place would break."

She looked at the burned buildings, the shattered towers.

"He was wrong."

"Because we’re still here."

A murmur of agreement rose. Quiet. But firm.

"We are not just Children of the Cycle."

She met Nima’s gaze.

"We are the Cycle."

A pulse of light rippled from the flame pillar, touching every soul.

And for a moment, even the grief softened.

---

Later that night, as the City drifted into uneasy sleep, a strange figure walked alone through the southern ridge.

He was tall, thin, wrapped in a robe of threadbare gray — his eyes dim and unreadable.

He stopped by the remains of a fallen spire and placed a hand on the stone.

It pulsed beneath his fingers.

And then — spoke.

Not in words, but in memory.

Flashes of fire. Screams. Starfire. Rebirth.

He closed his eyes.

"So the Eighth has truly awakened."

Then he looked toward the sky, where the constellations flickered.

"But there is a Ninth."

A pause.

Then, with a faint smile, he whispered:

"And it remembers."

---

Elsewhere – The Edge of the Rift

The Librarian stood in the Hollow Chamber, a space where nothing grew and time moved like syrup.

He held a book in his hand — bound in ash and teeth.

Syrel was gone.

Tharn was broken.

The Twins had fled.

Even Mina and Kaen were sealed beyond his reach, fragments of them lost to starfire.

And yet... he wasn’t angry.

He was amused.

Because something else had stirred.

Something deeper than the Vessels.

Something older than the Cycles.

He turned a page.

Symbols no longer made of ink, but of void.

The Ninth.

"It wasn’t supposed to awaken," he whispered.

"But it has."

He smiled wider.

"Now the game truly begins."

---

Back in the City, Isen stood on the balcony of her quarters, watching the stars shift.

She felt it too — deep beneath the beat of her own power.

Something stirring.

Not an enemy.

Not yet.

But not a friend either.

Something watching.

And perhaps...

Something waiting to choose.