A square brazier built from special stone,
burning with fierce, scorching, and remarkably rhythmic flames. The firelight was a warm yellow, but a layer of white was mixed into its inner depths. That white layer seemed alive, breathing along with the rhythm of the flames as if asleep.
When Yi Chen stared at the bonfire,
his consciousness clung to it like a fly stuck in grease,
and even from twenty meters away, he could feel the most direct burning. It not only warmed his body but even roasted his consciousness.
Those who had failed to obtain the fireseed in the past had not failed because of the ritual,
but because they simply could not withstand the bonfire's direct scorching. Before they could even approach, their consciousness would be burned away, leaving them idiots, while their bodies were charred and thrown into the brazier as lumps of carbon.
That was why the sound of flesh burning could be heard along the mountain path. Too many people had died during this process. Once their numbers reached a certain point, the process of their deaths merged into the environment, causing climbers to feel awe toward the bonfire from the very beginning.
Yi Chen, however, was completely different from ordinary climbers.
Not only did his body and consciousness feel no discomfort, but they were actually enjoying this scorching from the ancient evil sun.
Because Little Grape itself possessed the evil sun attribute, Yi Chen, as its symbiote, was extremely familiar with this heat and even felt an affinity for it. He desperately wanted to claim the firewood for himself.
Gradually,
Yi Chen's flesh-and-blood body of suffering began to stir under the firewood's scorching.
The "Thorned Iron Chain" inside his body reacted. It hurt, writhed, yearned, and twisted beneath the flames of the evil sun,