Brix didn't say anything when Lio won the tea trial.
He didn't throw anything. Didn't shout.
He just stood near a scorched shelf, one hand clenched around a failed tealeaf blend that still smelled like smoke and cinnamon.
Mav tried to joke about it.
"Look, next time, maybe don't threaten the kettle, yeah?"
Brix ignored him.
Kairon hadn't noticed.
Or if he had, he didn't react.
That silence stung more than any explosion.
So Brix walked—deeper into the archive, where the air grew stiller, thicker, full of unopened relics and locked scrolls long since abandoned by their creators.
The glyphs here didn't glow. They watched.
The System pinged faintly.
[Emotional Instability Detected.][Wrath Tree – Tier 2 Echo Available.][Warning: Memory Fragment May Alter Mental Resilience.]
Brix didn't care.
He stepped forward.
The world dropped.
He stood in a graveyard of stone blades.
Not real graves. Just slabs. Each marked by a name and a story, etched in angry, jagged runes.
And in the middle of it, a boy knelt.
Older than Brix, but only barely.
His hands were broken.
His face streaked with ash and dried blood.
He was crying, but not like a child.
Crying like someone who had finally run out of enemies.
"I tried," the boy whispered. "I tried to burn only what hurt me."
"But flames don't listen. They only spread."
He reached into the dirt.
Dug up a sword—melted halfway through—and placed it beside the nearest stone.
"Every person I ever loved stood too close."
"That's all it takes."
Brix watched, fists trembling.
He wanted to say something.
To stop it.
To fight it.
But this wasn't a battle.
It was a funeral.
And when the boy looked at him—no hatred, just ruin—Brix heard it:
"You don't master Wrath by wielding it."
"You master it by choosing what you won't burn. Every day. Until your hands stop shaking."
The vision shattered.
Brix collapsed against a pillar, coughing heat from his lungs.
The air around him had changed.
He hadn't screamed.
But he felt like he had.
[Wrath Tree Echo Acquired: Grave of the Forgiven][Passive Skill Unlocked: Ember Guard – Self-Explosion Nullification][Emotional Dampening Shift: Trauma-Lock Protocol (Engaged)][Flame Aura Range Reduced. Targeting Precision Increased.]
He sat there, breathing slowly, arms limp at his sides.
When he returned—an hour later, maybe more—the other two looked at him.
He didn't speak.
Until Kairon, eyes still closed, muttered:
"You smell like burned stone."
Brix answered, softly:
"Better stone than people."
Mav tilted his head.
"You okay?"
Brix didn't respond.
But he looked at them—Lio, Mav—and then toward the Master, half-wrapped in scrolls and already drifting again.
Then, at last, he said:
"Anyone can rage. It takes something else to choose not to."
"I think he makes it easier to choose."