Fires of Destiny

The song arrived in Pump It Up XX as a contest winner, taking third place in the 2018 Pump It Up content contest. It was written by Jehezukiel, the same composer behind "Twist of Fate (feat. Ruriling)," working here in a hardstyle vein at 155 BPM. According to the composer, the piece serves as a prequel to "Twist of Fate" and is the second entry in a trilogy he had been developing since 2008, running in the order Twist of Fate, Fires of Destiny, and Clematis Rapsodia. As a piece of trivia, the "From Heaven, Straight to Hell" sample that opens the track had previously appeared in THE FALLEN, a song from the REFLEC BEAT series.

The official BGA was uploaded by Jehezukiel himself and produced by yusi. Its visuals stand out for their technical quality: the lighting and reflection effects point to a high-end graphics engine, and ray tracing is presumed to have been used in the rendering.

On PHOENIX the song offers Single charts at S6, S10, S16, S18, and S20, plus Double charts at D11, D18, and D22. In XX, the S20 and D22 charts were unlock content. The D11 is notable for never placing a single red note in the center position, giving it the feel of an old-style Half-Double. The D18 is built almost entirely on a six-note pattern, in the conceptual lineage of Avalanche D19. The D22 is a composite chart that mixes basic twists with three-note and four-note shapes; the early slowing-trill speed change is worth memorizing ahead of time. Although it features a lot of running and jumping, it is not as physically demanding as other level 22 charts, making it a reasonable entry point into the level if you are confident with single-foot doubles.