This death experience was completely different from the one I had undergone when advancing along the Dedication Path last time.
Although the Shadow Fiend had killed him personally, his consciousness had not separated from his corpse. His viewpoint had neither risen upward nor fallen into darkness below.
His consciousness remained inside his shell.
Though his body was dead, Iver could still feel the countless agonies of being boiled.
It was as though he had not been killed by the Shadow Fiend and then thrown into the Magic Cauldron, but had instead been boiled alive.
Nearly three meters high and more than six meters in diameter, the enormous cauldron looked like a low crucible—or a gigantic bowl.
Its outer shell was dark gold, covered in the grimacing, anguished faces of various races. They looked like molds of masks made by pouring gold over people's faces, yet also like the faces of vengeful spirits pressing outward from the cauldron as they struggled to escape.
All those heads had pupils made of dark-red garnets, like dried and congealed beads of blood.
From below, Barton clearly saw... after Mr. Aleister entered the Magic Cauldron, those dark-red gems suddenly began to shine brilliantly.
Iver's corpse curled into a ball, sleeping like a baby.
An intangible heat flowed into Iver's body through every pore.
First came the skin. It was as if his whole body had been soaked in intensely concentrated hot ginger juice or chili juice. The temperature gradually rose until he was scalding hot, passing from a brief period of comfort into increasingly intense, uncontrollable agony.
His flesh seemed to melt, yet also to be roasted until it hardened. His bones were the hottest of all; he could even clearly feel the outlines they drew within his body.
When the heat reached his chest,