Looking at the river and mountains not far away, the group finally saw hope.
"Here will do!"
Several low-level Spirit Masters who had once been carpenters and stonemasons stepped forward from the crowd.
They summoned their tool-type Martial Souls: crude phantom chisels, hammers, and saws.
Though these Martial Souls possessed little Soul Power, they could barely sustain the most basic physical labor.
Under Infernape's curious gaze, the people began to work. They used cooled black rocks to build low walls, cut down tough shrubs to construct roofs, cleared puddles, and marked out simple living areas and defensive perimeters.
Their efficiency was low and their tools were crude, but humanity's tenacious instinct to build ignited the first faint spark of civilization at the edge of this Divine Realm.
At first, Infernape merely lay atop a higher rock, keeping watch and occasionally driving away creatures drawn in by the scent of living beings.
But as the rudimentary outpost gradually took shape, and as a glimmer called "hope" rekindled in those tiny beings' eyes, it suddenly felt a faint warmth in its chest.
Instinctively, it touched the object hidden in the fur over its chest. It was a small Law Fragment it had stumbled upon before, a crimson crystal containing the essence of fire and "vitality."
At that moment, the fragment emitted a warm, steady pulse, completely unlike the violent turbulence it produced when absorbing energy in the past.
Then something even more shocking happened.
The warm pulse grew stronger and stronger, and the fragment actually floated out of its fur on its own!
Crimson light swirled around it, drawing in the faint yet pure thoughts emanating from the survivors nearby—gratitude, dependence, and a vague faith that regarded it as their "protector"!
As the crimson radiance gathered, a small phantom of a crimson