Chapter 73: Chapter 77: Reflections on Fire
A roaring explosion burst in the basement, a blazing fireball suddenly flew in from the side—but before the fireball got close, Duncan had already reacted.
His perception was much faster than his body, he had sensed the abnormal energy the moment it appeared in the basement, and without thinking further, he instinctively raised his hand to block!
A slight burning sensation came from his fingertips, but the next second, the erupting Spiritual Fire, with a backlash combustion momentum, swept into the fireball, allowing Duncan to seize the fireball that shot from the corner of the basement from thin air. This blazing fire was almost immediately imbued with a layer of ghostly green, and the exploding energy instantly became tame, beginning to burn quietly in his hand.
Duncan just held the now ghostly green fireball and slowly turned his head towards the direction of the attack.
At that instant, as he turned his gaze, the Abyssal Hound known as “A-Dog” immediately leaped backward. A rift filled with countless shadows and dark mist appeared in the spot where it landed, and it jumped in without hesitation, pulling Sherry along with the dark iron chain. The latter, before diving into the rift, spat forcefully to the side, spitting several bloodied bullets onto the ground.
The next second, the duo disappeared from the basement.
Duncan turned around in surprise only to see the last scene of the girl’s skirt disappearing into the rift—the strange human-hound duo had fled in the blink of an eye.
He still had a truckload of questions unasked!
And all because a particularly vigorous Heretic had launched a sudden attack.
Duncan’s mood started to sour subtly; he looked again towards the direction from which the fireball had come, and saw that the Cult Priest wearing the sun mask was leaning crookedly against the corner of the wall, barely maintaining the posture of an uplifted arm. He seemed astonished that the fireball he summoned with all his might was not only seized out of thin air but had even been usurped, his eyes looked stupefied even behind the golden mask.
“Not finishing off your foe is not a good habit…”
Duncan’s face darkened, muttering about a girl who doesn’t know to finish off her foes after a fight, he slowly approached the severely injured and not yet dead Cult Priest.
He was still holding the quietly burning ghostly green fireball, and the power emanating from it was quietly spreading throughout the basement.
With each step Duncan took, the oil lamps and torches set up around the basement seemed to be mystically summoned, as one after another they took on a layer of ghostly green. Under the pressing sinister firelight that kept approaching, the masked Sun Priest finally felt a fear stronger than at any other time—
He felt his connection with the Sun God rapidly weakening, as with the “usurping” of one lamp after another, the Sun God’s gaze left his soul like the melting snow in spring!
Amid the immense fear, a tremulous voice finally came from beneath the mask, “You… you’re not just any heretic; what exactly are you…”
The last of the lamp lights turned into a ghostly green spiritual flame, and Duncan stopped in front of the priest, slightly bowing his head, his face especially sinister under the illumination of the Spiritual Fire, “I hadn’t finished asking my question before you interrupted me; that was very rude. Didn’t your mother teach you manners?”
While speaking, he took note of the state of the Sun Priest.
He felt he might have misjudged Sherry—the Heretic’s chest was half crushed inwards, with the broken ribs probably having pierced his heart and lungs, undeniably a fatal injury, theoretically leaving no necessity for a coup de grâce.
The priest was still alive because some profoundly mysterious and powerful force was hanging onto his life, perhaps the so-called “Sun God” of these heretics.
Still, Duncan could clearly see the life departing from the priest’s body rapidly; each breath was growing weaker, death was inevitable sooner or later.
Though the reason was unknown, obviously the Sun God’s blessing was quickly leaving the priest.
“It seems the blessings bestowed by the Sun God aren’t that reliable,” Duncan shook his head, his words filled with contemplation, “Your master has already left you.”
He was just expressing his feelings aloud but didn’t expect that these words would provoke the already dying priest, who suddenly burst out with the last of his energy in a surge of immense rage, and unexpectedly pulled out a blood-stained cloth from his sleeve!
“I offer my body to my lord! May the Holy Shroud cleanse the heretic before me!”
The priest shouted, his golden mask smeared with filthy blood clots and visceral fragments as he held up the “Holy Shroud” high and offered to his master the most thorough, most insane sacrifice—
He sacrificed everything he had, just to ignite the Holy Shroud, determined to perish along with the heretic who had stolen the flames!
However, Duncan merely watched this ultimate frenzied sacrifice calmly—although he had indeed jumped when the priest had suddenly pulled something out of his sleeve earlier, he relaxed completely once he saw what it was.
It was the strange strip of cloth that the other party had used to verify their “fellowship” when they had just entered the gathering—Duncan hadn’t expected this cloth to have such an incredible name as “Holy Shroud.”
As Duncan had predicted, the Holy Shroud lay quietly without any reaction; the cult priest’s most extreme sacrifice did not awaken any miracles.
Beneath his mask, his eyes revealed a hint of confusion. The cult priest struggled to support himself, staring in desperation at the Sacred Relic in his hand which showed no sign of movement, stubbornly coughing up another mouthful of filthy blood, “I offer this body to the lord…”
“I guess, what you want is this.”
Duncan couldn’t watch any longer, shook his head, and pointed to the blood-stained cloth.
In the next second, a cluster of ghostly green fire erupted!
The spiritual fire ignited the Holy Shroud, ignited the filthy blood coughed out by the cult priest, and ignited the flesh of this madman. The priest screamed in horror and anger amidst the flames, “No no no… it shouldn’t be this way… The lord will not abandon, the lord… the lord will punish you, you heretic… who exactly are you?!”
In the blazing flames, the cult priest’s voice finally began to weaken and fade, and even his transcendent life force, supported by supernatural powers, could not withstand the flames that scorched the soul—or rather, it was precisely because of his transcendent powers that he was turned to ashes in this backlash from the spiritual fire.
The spiritual fire finally began to extinguish. The Sun Priest leaning against the corner had been completely burned, leaving only a set of scattered clothes and that golden mask modeled after the sun.
Even the so-called “Holy Shroud” had been burned to ashes in the flames, having acted as the “medium.”
Duncan frowned.
Honestly, this wasn’t the first time he had seen a corpse—the “sacrifices” and the priest that had been “sacrificed” in the underground cave had already steeled his nerves. He was only somewhat surprised at this moment.
Normally, his spiritual fire was only meant to affect transcendent items. He had tested this on various objects on the Homeloss—transcendent items devoured by the flames would become possessions of Captain Duncan, but if they weren’t transcendent, even a piece of paper would remain unaffected by the spiritual fire.
The spiritual fire had produced actual burning effects just now, activated intentionally by him. He was concerned that the heretic might actually use the Holy Shroud to create some mischief, so he commanded the Holy Shroud to self-destruct cautiously, and as it turned out, the Holy Shroud had faithfully executed the command.
But he didn’t expect the spreading flames to turn the cult priest to ashes as well—this didn’t align with the findings he had made after the initial tests.
It was normal for the Holy Shroud to be destroyed since it was a transcendent item and could be affected by spiritual fire;
The survival of the cult priest’s clothes was also normal, as those garments were clearly “mundane” items, and spiritual fire would seem like a mere phantom from a parallel dimension to mundane items, having no effect—unless those clothes themselves were enchanted or interwoven with transcendent materials;
The golden mask surviving unscathed was also normal, as Duncan was very interested in this obviously transcendent item and had immediately issued orders to protect the mask from damage in the fire.
So… why did the heretic turn to ashes under the spiritual fire?
Duncan crouched down with confusion, carefully examining the black-gray ashes.
They were similar to the ashes left after the Holy Shroud was destroyed.
Duncan had never tested his spiritual fire on living people, let alone used the flames to actively take a life, and this cult priest must count as the first true sacrifice under his flames.
At least, the first under his conscious control.
Slowly, a bold thought emerged in Duncan’s mind.
Could it be… that this type of “mundane” person, who had received “blessings” for worshipping a specific deity, could also be considered “transcendent items”?