The world smelled like scorched starlight.
Achilles stood at the heart of it, suspended in the upper skies above the Adrastia Continent, and behind him, the Imperial Sun of Adrastia roared with silent fury.
Its rotation, slow and impossibly dense, pressed down upon the world like judgment itself. It wasn't a symbol. It wasn't a metaphor. It was a star. A true one. One that obeyed no natural law save his will!
He watched with quiet intensity as the feathers of the Ancient Millennium Acheron Phoenixes sizzled and curled. Their skin blistered. Great beings who once soared with the pride of flames now melted like wax figures placed beside a forge.
He clenched his fists in glorious realization.
Just how terrifying was his lineage, he thought, that the very first stage of its refinement granted him a literal sun and a crown forged of flaming authority?
It was a question that would not leave him.
