The Unyielding Surtr (Continued)

Several panicked people saw her fall and screamed.

She ignored it and had no intention of putting out the fire.

—I need to replenish my energy.

—Then, eliminate the source of this fire.

She noticed that the generation of flames on the ground did not follow any physical laws—buildings, roads, metals, and even the human body. Flames were generated directly, not through oxidation. Yet, the temperatures of those flames were only a few hundred degrees Celsius, and they could be extinguished with water or by patting. The underlying principle was therefore self-evident.

—It is a curse, or rather, there is no curse, only a spell. Using the spell as a vessel, a raging fire is generated on the earth.

—Someone, or someone other than human, has cast a spell on this city to burn it to the ground... but there are no signs of precise control. Is it due to insufficient control or a passive effect?

It doesn't matter.

A pitiful cry came from not far away. A poor man, his upper body scorched by fire, ran past her like a torch, screaming in agony—she reached out, and the Profaned Flame was immediately intercepted and released. The charred man, no longer ablaze, collapsed helplessly to the ground, groaning in agony. A ball of flame, however, remained suspended in her hand, burning fiercely without any visible fuel.

—All sentient beings possess vital energy. And all vital energy has acupoints where it gathers.

She suddenly reached out and lightly touched the center of the flame with her fingertips. With a faint cracking sound, the flame in her hand instantly dissipated into nothingness.

—Essence and Qi. Once the structure of the incantation is broken down, it becomes the essence and qi of nature.

—Without a curse, it can be absorbed.

With a slight twitch of her nostrils, she instantly captured all the dissipated energy. After filling her body with it, the blood and energy that had been forcibly stimulated and activated received a small replenishment.

Just a little bit is far from enough.

Then she slammed her toes into the ground, accompanied by a sudden burst of multi-layered shockwaves. The flames burning on the building beside her instantly extinguished, disintegrated, and dissipated into dense, unclaimed energy.

A thunderous breathing sound suddenly arose, followed by a surge of wind.

Refining flesh, strengthening tendons, forging skin, and tempering bones—all achieved instantly.

In the vortex of wind, she vomited violently, expelling her necrotic lungs entirely from her mouth.

Her internal organs were restructured, and her bone marrow was refined. Her body surface then emitted heat as if from an oven, along with a dark, murky aura visible even to ordinary people!

She refined her marrow to the point of frost, and her blood to the point of mercury. The path to Martial Saint in the Human Immortal Martial Arts was completed in mere seconds.

Then, the qi and blood transformed from dull to bright, rising into the sky like smoke from a wolf's beacon.

—Peak of Martial Saint ... This world doesn't seem to support the realm of Human Immortal.

—But I can also become an immortal.

The vortex calmed down, and the flames within a 300-meter radius were extinguished and swallowed by her. The Western Europeans who had been saved from the wind and fire stared at her blankly. Then, as she looked around, they screamed.

They ran away.

Even though Surtr just looks like an ordinary high school girl, she still frightens them. They feel fear, as if lingering any longer would bring annihilation.

Perhaps this wasn't an illusion—because just moments before, in the instant the vortex subsided, the girl's indifferent gaze scrutinized everyone present, including herself and him.

—It's not unreasonable for bipedal naked apes to replenish their energy through cannibalism. However, when we revert to an emotional mindset, their behavior and its consequences would trouble me. Therefore, this option is abandoned.

—I need more energy, and a stronger fighting force.

She continued forward, her senses, now far sharper than they had been minutes before, revealing a massive energy convergence brewing in the city's center. These flames were the result of the impending arrival of the great being. It was a rather ordinary passive effect. Around this unborn being, several other beings, seemingly belonging to different factions and roughly similar to herself at that moment, were maneuvering and wandering.

—Disaster, and the observer of disaster?

The best option would be to leave directly, regroup, and gradually rebuild. But... I don't really want to leave.

—I...want to kill that powerful being that has not yet arrived.

Strange idea.

Even though I've blocked out all emotions and desires, these thoughts still keep popping into my head.

—I want to kill that unknown guy. I don't know why, but I want to kill him completely.

Why?

—I don't understand, but... I have a strange feeling.

A strange feeling.

That's strange.

It's as if something important and precious is right beside you, and you can summon it simply by speaking. But before that, you must defeat that unknown life form to be able to utter those words.

What was that sentence? I don't know.

Even though I could deduce its contents with just a little thought, I have absolutely no desire to think in that direction right now.

Is it some kind of ridiculous persistence?

A foolish desire to declare to someone or something, to prove that one is worthy of it?

—Strange, but the idea is correct.

—Then let us demand even more, let us push harder, let us seize, let us plunder, let us acquire the immense power sufficient to contend with that unknown existence.

She continued forward, devouring more and more flames and turning them into her own. As the absorption of essence reached the limit that the human body could contain, certain special acupoints overflowed and swelled.

Then.

—Vitality Aperture, puncturing.

With both hands joined together like a sword, he pointed at the vital acupoints used in Hokuto Kenjutsu for life-or-death combat. Accompanied by unimaginable excruciating pain, the vital energy surging throughout his body suddenly ignited and erupted. At the cost of drastically shortening his lifespan, he extracted even more power.

With his vital essence exhausted, the blood energy of a peak Martial Saint also converged into one.

—Blood and Qi burning...

Like smoke, the vital energy and blood ignite, cells divide continuously, and the forced metabolism transforms generation after generation of cells into impurities, which are then evaporated in the flames. At the same time, bone age is constantly changing. From seventeen, it turns to twenty-six, twenty-six years, three hundred and sixty-four days, and twenty-three hours.

—Rakshasa... Kui Shen Gong. The Twenty-Seventh Limit, burning away...divine will.

The girl's delicate face silently transformed into a mature and indifferent one. Her figure grew thin, and a ghostly flame burned in her eyes. Her once waist-length red hair extended to her ankles, the ends evaporating as they touched the ground. Burning essence, burning blood, burning divine will—the energy vortex formed from this vortex permeated heaven and earth, swirling above Surtr's head into Three Phases- tiered, halo-like flower.

A flower, in essence, is a vortex shape formed by the convergence of internal and external energies.

The so-called "Three Flowers Gathering on the Crown" is like this; it has nothing to do with thought or technique, but is simply an outward manifestation of power obtained through the gathering of forces. It is the crown of power and the canopy of the strong.

This body will remain active for no more than an hour.