"Yes." Reiner''s answer slipped out on a sigh, carrying the wistful echo of a glorious past.


    He drew a breath, eyes reflecting flickers of invisible me. "Lucas was born unbridled," Lennox said. "Straight as a sword, crooked as a storm. Rules bored him. He chased the power inside fire—the madness that destroys everything, then nts the first seed of something new."


    "To reach that truth, he set his own flesh alight again and again, dancing along the razor edge between life and annihtion until he forged the awe-inspiring Demonre Art. When he strode out as the Fire Demon Lord, worlds trembled. Demons knelt, immortals whispered his name with fear."


    "Flegel, though, was warmth itself," Reiner continued, his tone gentling. "He heard in every ember the promise of light,fort, and renewal. To him, fire was the cradle of civilization, thentern that keeps despair at bay."


    "His zewraith Technique could purge corruption and nourish barrennds. In time, he was hailed across the star-fields as the Fire Spirit Lord, steward of a whole constetion, worshipped as the very source of hope''s first spark."


    A tight, bitter smile pinched Reiner''s mouth. "And I possessed neither Lucas'' savage insight nor Flegel''s boundless grace. I stood beside twin suns and understood only enough to feel my own smallness. Their brilliance forced me into the cracks, where I groped for a path that was half sword, half me. Each step felt slower than the one before."


    He exhaled, shoulders sinking beneath the weight of private regret.


    "Worse," Reiner went on, "once our masterid the foundation for us, he sensed a higher calling beyond the universe''s rim, whispered farewell, and vanished among the cosmic walls. Lucas and Flegel-bright meteors kept soaring without him. I remained behind. I chose to guard the zefire Secret Realm-this shard of primordial fire Lucas reshaped before he left. He called it a refuge for me. He also warned that, in the wrong hands, its core could birth catastrophe."


    Reiner paused, rubbing ash-scarred fingers together, as though feeling the centuries slip through their grooves.


    "So I stayed," he murmured. "I studied the notes Lucas left, the few counseling Flegel sent across the stars, and the endless tide of me-essence that breathes inside this realm. Thousands of years bled away while I forced sword and fire to marry, until atst the Sky Scorching Sword Art was born. That, and theughable title the world has now given me. The me-Sword Venerable."


    He turned toward Jared, candor shining in his eyes, yet a faint shadow of loneliness drifted behind the light.


    "Butpared with my two seniors who now roam the cosmos wieldingws themselves," Reiner said, a dry chuckle catching in his throat, "my name is a firefly beside the full moon, a grain of dust against a mountain. Even speaking it aloud feels—unspeakably small."


    Theugh broke, leaving only a hush thick with unspoken shame.


    Jared listened without interruption, every strand of Reiner''s history weaving itself into a clear understanding.


    So this is the tangle of fates that forged the zefire Secret Realm.


    A mysterious master who walked beyond worlds. Two seniors who chose opposite mes and reached the same dizzying summit. And one junior who refused to abandon his post, forever chasing the glow of giants.


    For Reiner, the secret realm was treasure, duty, pride, and wound an ember that warmed and burned in equal measure.


    vel


    "Since this ce was entrusted to you by the Fire Demon Lord," Jared asked, his tone steady yet edged with curiosity, "why set rules so merciless that no stranger is allowed to set foot inside? We arrived only to escape a greater cmity beyond these walls, yet you nearly metus with drawn steef: Why such hostility toward travelers in need?"


    Reiner''s earlier nostalgia fled his face like smoke on the wind. The flicker in his eyes sharpened into hard, disciplined focus, the posture of a sentinel remembering his oath.


    "There are two reasons." He lifted one hand toward the abyssal heart of the realm, where an ocean of color-drowned fire writhed so violently that even light itself warped and vanished. "First, Lucas entrusted this sanctum to me. I gave my word that no outsider would sully its quiet or plunder its gifts. That promise is the axis of my path."


    A breath-then his voice dropped, as though weighed by memories too heavy to name. "Second-far more vital-the very core you see houses a shard of the Chaotic Origin me, the ember that burned before worlds were named. Around it lie Lucas'' legacy and the seals he forged That fire is the ancestor of every ze creation, and destruction twined. Itsw-fragments eclipse what this ne can bear. Unless one is born of the purest fire, steeled in spirit like star-forged iron, and-most of all-chosen by the me itself, the core is death. Even at my peak, I would enter only to be consumed, my cultivation shattered, or my very soul erased."


    He let the warning hang, then turned back to Jared. The molten glow carved solemn lines across his face, making every word that followed a verdict pronounced by


    me.


    "Jared, I know, nothing of your origins or the powers at your side. You dispelled the outer


    me-spirits-perhaps you carr


    rare artifact, perhaps your very blood is umon. But the Chaotic Origin me bows to no brute force and no ordinary treasure For a thousand years, I have stood watch, and even at this distance, its pressure makes my soul tremble nightly. I draw strength only from the


    gentlest wisps that leak through countless veils-never a step closer Your methods are wondrous, but do not let curiosity drive you toward that core. It lies beyond the Human Immortal Realm, beyond most of the


    Heavenly Immortal Realm itself. Approach unbidden, and it will kill you!"