Chapter 77

Chapter 77: Thoughts About Fire

The blast roared through the basement and a blazing fireball suddenly flew in from the side—but before it got close, Duncan had already reacted.

His senses were much faster than his body. The instant the anomalous energy appeared in the basement, he sensed something was wrong. Now he did not have time to think and raised his hand to block on instinct!

A hint of heat came from his fingertips. The next second, the erupting spirit form fire surged into the fireball with a backdraft-like blast. Duncan caught the burning mass that had shot out from the corner of the basement out of thin air. The blazing flames were almost instantly dyed a ghostly green. The explosive energy turned obedient in a moment and began to burn quietly in his hand.

Holding the fireball that had turned into a ghost-green spirit flame, Duncan slowly turned his head toward the direction of the attack.

The instant his gaze moved away, the Abyssal Hound called Dog suddenly leaped back. A rift churning with countless shadows and black mist appeared out of nowhere where it landed. It jumped in without hesitation, and the black iron chain dragged Shirley along with it. Before she flew into the rift, she spat hard to the side. Several blood-stained bullets landed on the ground.

In the next second, the girl and the hound vanished from the basement.

Hearing the noise, Duncan turned back in surprise, only to see the hem of the girl’s dress disappearing into the rift. This strange man-and-dog duo had run off while he glanced away.

[I still had a whole pile of questions left to ask!]

And all because some cultist with abnormal vitality suddenly launched a sneak attack.

Duncan felt a subtle irritation rise in him. He looked again toward where the fireball had come from and saw the cult priest wearing the Sun mask slumped crookedly against the corner of the wall, holding up his arm with his last breath. He seemed stunned that the fireball he had summoned with all his strength had not only been caught out of thin air but even had its control taken away. Even through the Golden Sun Mask, Duncan could see the dull stare in his eyes.

“Not finishing off an enemy after a fight is a really bad habit…”

Duncan’s face darkened. Muttering to himself about a certain dog-swinging girl who did not know how to finish an enemy, he slowly walked toward the badly wounded but still living cult priest.

He was still holding the quiet, ghost-green flame ball in his hand. The power leaking from it silently spread through the basement.

With each step Duncan took, the oil lamps and torches set around the basement seemed to feel some strange call. The dancing flames were dyed ghostly green one after another. In this eerie light that crept closer and closer, the Sun priest wearing the mask finally felt a fear stronger than ever before—

He felt his link to the god the Sun quickly weaken. As each lamp was “seized”, the Sun’s gaze melted away from his soul like snow in spring!

Under this enormous terror, a trembling voice finally came from behind the mask: “You… you’re not an ordinary heretic. What are you…”

When the last lamp turned into ghost-green soul fire, Duncan stopped in front of the priest. He lowered his head slightly. His face looked especially grim in the light of the spirit form fire. “I hadn’t finished my questions, and you cut me off. That’s very rude. Didn’t your mother teach you better?”

As he spoke, he also noticed the condition of the Sun priest.

He felt he had wronged Shirley—half of this cultist’s chest had already collapsed, and his broken ribs might have pierced his heart and lungs. It was obviously a fatal injury, so in theory there was no need at all to finish him off.

The priest was still alive only because some stronger, stranger power was keeping him hanging on. That was probably the “god the Sun” these cultists kept talking about.

Even so, Duncan could clearly see that life was rapidly flowing out of the priest’s body. Each breath grew weaker. It was only a matter of time before he died.

He did not know why, but it was clear that the Sun’s divine blessing was quickly leaving this priest.

“It seems the Sun’s divine blessing isn’t very reliable,” Duncan shook his head with a sigh. “Your lord has already abandoned you.”

He had only spoken casually, but he had not expected that sentence to provoke the half-dead priest. The man’s eyes bulged with rage, and driven by huge anger he burst out with his last bit of strength. Under Duncan’s surprised gaze, he suddenly pulled a blood-stained strip of cloth from his sleeve!

“I offer this body to my lord! May the Sacred shroud purify the heretic before me!”

The priest shouted. Filthy clots of blood and bits of organ splattered across the Golden Sun Mask. He raised the “Sacred shroud” high in his hand and offered the most complete and crazed sacrifice to his lord—

He sacrificed all of himself, only to ignite the Sacred shroud and die together with this heretic who had stolen control of the flames!

Yet Duncan only watched this final crazed sacrificial rite with a calm gaze—although he had indeed been startled when the priest suddenly pulled something from his sleeve, once he saw what it was, he relaxed completely.

It was the same strange strip of cloth the man had used earlier, when Duncan first entered the gathering, to verify his “identity as a fellow believer”—he just had not expected that this strip also carried a grand name like “Sacred shroud”.

Just as Duncan expected, the Sacred shroud stayed perfectly still. The cult priest’s most extreme final sacrifice did not wake any sacred miracle at all.

A hint of confusion showed in the eyes under the mask. The cult priest forced his body upright and stared in despair at the silent sacred relic in his hand. He spat another mouthful of filthy blood in stubborn disbelief. “I offer this body to my lord…”

“I guess what you really want is this.”

Duncan could not bear to watch anymore. He shook his head and pointed at the blood-soaked strip of cloth.

The next second, a tuft of ghost-green flame burst into being!

The spirit form fire ignited the Sacred shroud, ignited the filthy blood the cult priest had coughed up, and ignited the flesh of this madman. In the spirit flame, the priest let out a roar full of shock and rage. “No, no, no… it shouldn’t be like this… the lord will not abandon me, the lord… the lord will punish you, heretic… who are you?!”

In the roaring flames, the cult priest’s voice finally grew weak and faded. The life force propped up by supernatural power still could not withstand this fire that burned the soul directly—or rather, it was exactly because of that supernatural power that he turned to ash under the backlash of the spirit flame.

The spirit form fire finally faded away. The Sun priest leaning in the corner had been completely burned to nothing. Only a scattered pile of clothes and the Golden Sun Mask, shaped in imitation of the Sun, were left on the spot.

Even the so-called “Sacred shroud” had burned to ash in the fire after serving as the “medium”.

Duncan frowned.

To be honest, this was not the first time he had seen a corpse—the “sacrificial victims” in the underground caves before, and that priest who had been “sacrificed”, had already toughened his nerves. At this moment he was only a bit surprised.

Normally, his spirit form fire only acted on supernatural items. He had tested this in many ways while on the Vanished—any supernatural object burned by the fire would be “seized” and turned into Captain Duncan’s property. If something was not supernatural, then even a piece of paper would not be affected by the spirit form fire.

Just now, the spirit form fire had produced real burning. That was because he had triggered it on purpose—he was worried that the cultist would really do something with that Sacred shroud, so out of caution he ordered the Sacred shroud to burn itself. From the result, the Sacred shroud had indeed obeyed the order faithfully.

He had not expected, though, that the spreading flames would also burn the cult priest to ash. That did not match the conclusion he had gotten from his earlier tests.

It was normal for the Sacred shroud to burn away, because it was an supernatural item and would be affected by the spirit form fire.

It was also normal that the cult priest’s clothes were left behind untouched, because those clothes were clearly “ordinary things”. To ordinary things, the spirit form fire was like a phantom in another world and had no effect at all—unless the clothing itself was enchanted or woven with some supernatural material.

It was also normal that the Golden Sun Mask remained completely intact. Duncan was very interested in this obviously supernatural item, so as soon as the fire began to spread he had given an order to keep the mask from being damaged.

Then… why had this cultist been burned to ash by the spirit form fire?

Confused, Duncan squatted down and carefully examined the dark gray ash.

It looked about the same as the ash left after the Sacred shroud burned.

Duncan had never tested his spirit form fire on a living person before, let alone used the flames on purpose to take a life. This cult priest should count as the first real victim of his fire.

At least, the first real victim while he was consciously in control.

Slowly, a bold idea suddenly rose in Duncan’s mind.

Could it be that… mortals who had received “divine blessing” from worshipping a specific deity could also be treated as “supernatural items”?