God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

A gust of cold wind blew against Li's back, as he stared at his devil of a sister that stood before him with balls of black flames orbiting around her slender petite frame.

The smell of burning human skin perforated through the air, and the shrubbery around had been reduced to charcoal as well.

Li lamented inwardly as his body twitched in the agony induced upon it by Sue. He also had balls of burning gas blazing on his fists, but the heat he produced was pitiful compared to the devouring flames Sue played with.

"Hmph! With such pitiful resolve, it is no wonder you can't exert any control over your strength..." Sue looked down at Li with a dark sneer on her face. Most of Li's body was covered in burns of varying degrees, while Sue was mostly unscathed.

'How did I even end up like this?' Li wanted to cry but had no tears to shed as he recalled the events that occurred just ten minutes ago...

***

Starting at Sue attentively, a sudden feeling of fear gripped his heart like the claws of a devil as he stared into the dark eyes of his blood sister.

'What is this little devil planning this time?'

"Mana control isn't something that can be thought but rather felt. Hence, I am going to make you feel it, my dear brother!" A dark flame suddenly appeared within Sue's pupils as she summoned her staff from her inventory.

"Sue, Take it easy... This is just a light spar and-"

"Shut up, baboon..." Sue instantly shut Stan up with cold words and even colder eyes.

"Since he wants to become stronger enduring a bit of pain shouldn't be too much of a hassle, right?"

To any sane person looking at what was going on, it would be incredibly obvious that Sue's intentions were not good in any sense of the word. The look on her face told that she wanted to put Li through a world of pain before even teaching him anything.

Her sharp canine was revealed as she revealed a beautiful, get sinister smile while stretching her hands out and chanting.

Li on the other hand calmed his uneasy nerves down as he spoke up,

"Hmph! At the end of the day, you are still my little sister. I doubt you will try to"

"Fan of flames!" A burst of flames spread out from Sue like a wave. Li stared at the attack for a while before registering the threat in a panic.

"Ha!" Since Li had his gloves equipped, he didn't waste any time launching an attack of his own. A burst of wind exploded from his fists as he slammed against the wall of fire approaching him.

The flames parted in two, but before Li could even respond, a ball of flames the size of a basketball slammed into his chest at high speeds. Li's eyes widened in shock as he felt the terrifying heat of the ball of flames threatening to burn through his skin and organs.

"Shit!"

BOOM!

Just before he was consumed by the flames, he slammed his palms against the attack with a large amount of wind building up, dispersing the attack. However, he was left with a nasty burn mark that stretched from his chest to his torso, giving him an incredibly painful burning sensation.

"What was that for?!" Rage filled Li's eyes as he stared at the cold eyes of Sue who readied for another attack.

"I think we should stop them. It probably isn't a good idea to give Sue the go-ahead to attack Li. She will definitely try being excessive..." Stan winced a bit when he saw the nasty burn Sue left on Li's and turned to Jenny in protest.

"Ha... Let them be. This might be the only way Li can get what he wants, ignoring the process of course..." Jenny had a complicated expression on her face as she let out a sigh.

Meanwhile, Sue had an ecstatic look on her face as she readied another ball of flames above her staff.

"To wield flames properly, you must understand their nature. Flames can have only one purpose. To produce energy by consuming matter. By understanding this basic principle, you realize that your flames consume mana to burn." While talking, Sue kept flinging fireballs at Li who tried his best to avoid or deflect them.

Seeing Li's futile struggle, the smile on Sue's face turned deeper and even more sinister as she continued,

"If you can't control the process, your flames will end up consuming you. And the worst part of all this is your flames aren't even that hot. Controlling it should be child's play." The condescending tone never left Sue's words as she threw subtle jabs at Li whilst trying to incinerate him.

'Is she really my sister?' Li took a long hard look at Sue to confirm if she wasn't an imposter. Although they weren't the closest of siblings, Li knew deep down that he had never done anything that would make Sue want to kill him.

Once he confirmed it was the real Sue attacking him, the anger and fear in his heart increased exponentially. He thought about all the things he had done to her as her elder brother in the past and wondered just how long she had waited to hang her power over him like this.

'Damn this devilish girl!' Li huffed and puffed in his mind as he struggled to run and avoid the flames as not only were they too hot for his passive defense to handle, her attacks had little to no pause in between them.

"Why don't you try attacking, instead of scurrying away like a rat?" Sue said as her eyes glowed brightly. She stretched her arms out and executed a skill,

"Flame art: Pheonix feathers..."

A magic circle appeared behind her like the plume of a peacock and spread to produce a tornado of flaming feathers behind her. Each flaming feather had the power of a fireball concentrated within it. This made its penetration and burn effect increase drastically. Should a single one make contact with Li, it would burn a hole straight through him.

With a wave of her staff, these feathers rushed at Li with terrifying speed. Li's eyes widened to their limits as his brain spun rapidly...

Since the feathers were so small and numerous, he wouldn't be able to avoid or deflect them the way he did with the fireballs. He would either have to face them head-on or surrender...

Li took in a breath of hot air as he took a stance. Regardless of his current situation, Li was still a fighter at heart. When faced with a challenge such as this, regardless if it was his blood sister attacking him, or a random stranger, he would put out his best and more.

'Playtime's over, I guess...' Li's face fell into a serious expression as his eyes grew cold and stoic.

'My greatest problem is my inability to control my flames so that all they burn is my mana and not my body.'

Li turned his concentration up to the maximum as he let his consciousness fall deep into his mind.

'Is it a mental, magical, or physical restriction? I can control the wind element fairly well, but that still isn't good enough. I need it to be better!' Li's mind was filled with conviction as he allowed his consciousness to sink into his mind whilst gazing at the swarm of flaming feathers fast approaching.

'Or maybe mana control is just something I can't achieve?' It suddenly hit him like a train...

What if he was looking for the wrong thing all this while? What if he was looking for something that just wasn't there?

Li's eyes were filled with a blaze that couldn't be drowned out by anything else as his mind was gradually filled with understanding.

"Let me burn, let me flow..." Li heard the faint whisper come from the depths of his soul. He didn't know what it was, but he could feel the connection and knew what the voice implied.

Hence, he did just that...

BOOM!

Li smashed his fists together and let his flames out all at once. A few magic circles appeared on the ground beneath him, around his fist and behind his elbows as he got into a half-horse stance.

He let out a breath of hot air and focused his gaze on Sue who watched him with an amused expression. A dense green aura also floated on the surface of his skin, producing a violent gale that didn't pass the boundary the magic circle on the ground created.

"Burn, Spirit of the northern desert..." An ancient voice rumbled in the depths of his soul...

"Sun God's Wrath: First form, Pulse Plasma..."

The wind was produced from mana magically, and the flames were set to consume the mana. In a sense, Li had created a substitute for himself. Rather than letting the flames consume his body, he was now wrapped completely in a garb of violent wind that would instead be consumed by the flames.

This way, he didn't receive any harm, and the power of his skill would be explored to the fullest...

This led to the creation of one of the most indigenous skills on the surface of Urbus. Not only was this skill very powerful, but it also made up completely for all of Li's shortcomings.

He had turned into a burning star...

The flames as hot as the surface of a star burned around him violently, but it didn't harm him. a single bit. And the best part was he could let loose as much as he wanted. He didn't have to hold back for fear of harming his body.

The heat of a star was produced from gas particles that underwent nuclear fission, producing a large amount of heat and radiation. Li's skill did the same thing, causing the molecules in the wind he produced to heat up to the stage of being excited at the atomic level and fusing.

A clever combination of scientific phenomenon and magic...

Li took a step forward and the ground beneath him shattered under his weight. Stan and Jenny had looks of shock and panic on their faces as they alternated between being impressed and worried.

"Li, that's enough-" Before Jenny could even complete her statement, Li had already blazed forward. Like a shooting star flying above the sky, Li moved at such high speeds, the space around him distorted. Meanwhile, Sue had a calm expression as the orange flames around her underwent a subtle change...

Oblivious to this, Li let out a much that had enough power to wipe an entire block of buildings off the map. The combined shockwaves that followed his fists shattered the ground before him and bent the space ahead as well.

BOOM!

A terrifying explosion threatened to spread out but was stopped almost immediately by Sue who was now surrounded by a flame so dark, it consumed the light around her...

A small wisp was created around her index finger, which she gently flicked at Li, destroying the magic circle beneath his feet. Li was completely shocked as he stared at Sue who had the appearance of an evil, yet enchanting goddess...

"That's okay, I guess... Seems you've finally understood." Suddenly, the black flames rolling around Sue were extinguished and she placed her staff back into her inventory, completely ignoring Li who stared at her flabbergasted.

"Wha-what was that?!" Li asked in a shaky voice. He was unable to grasp the power of the black flame that had burned through his magic so easily.

"That's a secret..." Sue had a slight smile on her face as she plopped down to the ground and rested her back against the trunk of a tree.

"Well, that was anticlimactic..." Stan said as he let out a sigh of relief.

Jenny on the other hand had a contemplative look as she stared at Sue with a worried gaze.

'This girl...'