A loud explosion echoed in the basement as a fiery ball suddenly flew in from the side. But before the fireball got close, Duncan had already reacted. His instincts were faster than his body. The moment he sensed the strange energy appearing in the basement, he raised his hand to block it without thinking.
A slight burning sensation came from his fingertips, but in the next second, the spirit fire erupted with a powerful force, wrapping around the fireball. Duncan grasped the fireball that had shot in from the corner of the basement, and the intense flames were quickly tinted with a ghostly green. The explosive energy became obedient and began to burn quietly in his hand.
Holding the now ghostly green fireball, Duncan slowly turned to look in the direction of the attack. At that moment, the deep-hued hunting dog known as "A Dog" suddenly leaped back. A crack filled with countless shadows and black mist appeared where it landed, and without hesitation, it jumped inside. At the same time, dark chains pulled at Sherry, who spat out a few blood-stained bullets onto the ground before being dragged into the crack.
In the next second, both the person and the dog vanished from the basement.
Duncan turned back in surprise at the noise, only to see the girl's skirt disappearing into the crack. This strange duo had taken advantage of his moment of distraction to escape.
He still had a bunch of questions he hadn’t had the chance to ask! All because some incredibly resilient cultist had launched a surprise attack.
Duncan felt a bit annoyed. He looked back at the direction the fireball had come from and saw the cult priest wearing a sun mask leaning against the wall, struggling to keep his arm raised. He seemed shocked that the fireball he had summoned with all his strength was not only caught but had its power taken away. Even through the golden mask, Duncan could see the blank look in his eyes.
“Not finishing off your opponent isn’t a good habit…”
Duncan’s face darkened as he muttered about that girl who didn’t know how to finish a fight. He slowly walked toward the seriously injured cult priest.
He still held the quietly burning ghostly green fireball in his hand, and the power radiating 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 respond to some unseen call. The flickering flames one by one took on a ghostly green hue.
Under the eerie glow of the approaching flames, the masked sun priest finally felt a fear stronger than ever before—he sensed that his connection to the sun god was rapidly weakening. As one lamp after another was "taken," the sun god's gaze was quickly leaving his soul like spring snow melting away!
In overwhelming fear, a trembling voice finally came from beneath the mask: “You… you’re not an ordinary heretic. What exactly are you…?”
The last lamp turned into ghostly green soul flames. Duncan stopped in front of the priest and slightly bowed his head. His face appeared especially eerie in the light of the spirit fire: “I hadn’t finished asking my questions, and you interrupted me. That’s very rude. Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?”
As he spoke, he noticed the priest's condition. He realized he had misjudged Sherry—the cultist's chest was completely caved in, and broken ribs might have pierced his heart and lungs. This was undoubtedly a fatal injury, and there was no need to finish him off.
The priest was still alive because some stronger, more mysterious force was keeping him alive. That might be what the cultists called the "sun god."
Yet even so, Duncan could clearly see that life was rapidly draining from the priest’s body. Each breath he took became weaker, and death was just a matter of time.
Although he didn’t know the reason, it was clear that the blessing of the sun god was quickly leaving this priest.
“It seems the blessings from the sun god aren’t very reliable,” Duncan shook his head, feeling a bit emotional. “Your master has already abandoned you.”
He said this casually, but he didn’t expect that one sentence would provoke the already dying priest. The priest’s eyes widened in anger, and driven by immense rage, he summoned his last strength and suddenly pulled out a bloody cloth from his sleeve right in front of Duncan!
“I offer my body to the master! May the holy cloth purify this heretic!”
The priest shouted, his golden mask smeared with filthy blood and bits of internal organs. He raised the "holy cloth" high, offering the most complete and frenzied sacrifice to his master—he sacrificed everything just to ignite the holy cloth, hoping to perish together with the heretic who had taken his flames!
However, Duncan simply watched this final act of madness calmly. Although the priest’s sudden movement had surprised him, once he saw what it was, he felt completely unfazed.
That was the strange cloth the cultist had used to verify his "brotherhood" when Duncan had just entered the gathering. He hadn’t expected it to have such a grand title as "holy cloth."
As Duncan had anticipated, the holy cloth remained quiet and unresponsive. The priest’s extreme sacrifice did not summon any miracles.
A hint of confusion appeared in the priest’s eyes beneath the mask. He struggled to hold up his body, looking desperately at the inert holy object in his hand. In disbelief, he coughed up another mouthful of filthy blood: “I offer my body to the master…”
“I guess you want this.”
Duncan couldn’t watch any longer. He shook his head and pointed at the blood-stained cloth.
In the next second, a burst of ghostly green flames erupted!
The spirit fire ignited the holy cloth, ignited the filthy blood the priest had coughed up, and ignited the flesh of this madman. The priest screamed in a mix of anger and fear: “No, no, no… it shouldn’t be like this… the master wouldn’t abandon me, the master… the master will punish you, heretic… who are you?!”
In the raging flames, the priest’s voice gradually weakened and faded. The extraordinary life force that had sustained him could not withstand the flames that directly burned his soul. Or rather, it was precisely because of that extraordinary power that he turned to ashes in the backlash of the spirit fire.
The spirit fire finally began to die down. The sun priest leaning against the wall had been completely burned away, leaving only a set of scattered clothing and the golden mask resembling the sun.
Even the so-called "holy cloth" had burned to ash in the flames, serving as a "medium."
Duncan frowned.
To be honest, this wasn’t his first time seeing a corpse—he had already seen enough "sacrifices" in the underground cave and the priest who had been "sacrificed" had toughened his nerves. He was just a bit surprised.
Normally, his spirit fire only affected extraordinary items. He had tested this with various things on the Lost Homeland ship—extraordinary items burned by the flames would be "taken" as Captain Duncan's possessions. If it wasn’t extraordinary, even a piece of paper wouldn’t be affected by the spirit fire.
Just now, the spirit fire had produced an actual burning effect, which was his active command. He was worried that the cultist might actually use the holy cloth for something, so out of caution, he ordered the holy cloth to self-ignite. From the results, it had indeed followed his command faithfully.
But he hadn’t expected that the spreading flames would also turn this cult priest to ash—this was not consistent with the conclusions he had drawn from his earlier tests.
It was normal for the holy cloth to be burned, as it was an extraordinary item and would be affected by the spirit fire;
It was also normal for the priest’s clothing to remain intact, as those clothes were clearly "mundane," and the spirit fire had no effect on mundane items—unless the clothes had been enchanted or made with some extraordinary materials during their creation;
It was also normal for the golden mask to remain undamaged, as Duncan was very interested in this obviously extraordinary item. He had immediately given orders to protect it from damage once the flames began to spread.
So then… why had this cultist been burned to ashes by the spirit fire?
Duncan crouched down, puzzled, and carefully examined the gray-black ashes.
They were similar to the ashes left after the holy cloth was burned.
Duncan had never tested his spirit fire on a living person, let alone actively used it to take a life. This cult priest should be considered his first true sacrifice under conscious control.
Slowly, a bold thought suddenly popped into Duncan's mind.
Could it be… that these "mortals" who had received "blessings" by worshiping a specific deity could also be seen as "extraordinary items"?
(End of Chapter)