The First Embrace of Ice and Fire

Inside the secret chamber, all was silent.

Su Chen sat cross-legged on the bed, his entire being like a lifeless stone statue, devoid of any breath.

His entire focus had long since submerged into the void at the deepest reaches of his consciousness.

After five full days of uninterrupted "passive reception," the Stone Platform was now completely different from before.

Hovering above the Stone Platform was a cluster of light the size of a fist.

That halo was composed of countless pale, shimmering particles, swirling like billions of Fire Fly, radiating a bone-chilling cold that emanated from the depths of the soul.

This was the source data of the Bone Chilling Flame, which he had spent countless mental efforts to peel away and capture, thread by thread, from that distant "Lighthouse."

The quantity was finally sufficient.

Su Chen's consciousness hovered before the Stone Platform, suppressing the final trace of restlessness in his heart.

He knew very well just how insane and heaven-defying the task he was about to undertake truly was.

It was not purification, nor was it replication.

It was... creation!

He intended to use the remains of a Tier 1 beast fire as a "vessel," forcibly injecting this "soul" belonging to a heaven-and-earth wonder into it!

"Model, construct!"

Following his silent command, the halo composed of countless shimmering particles suddenly contracted.

The Stone Platform flared with brilliant light, beginning to analyze, calculate, and reorganize this source data at a speed beyond imagination.

Countless profound runes flowed wildly across the surface of the Stone Platform, forming a massive, constantly rotating vortex of light.

Those pale specks of light were all sucked into it, and then, at the center of the vortex, an extremely blurry outline began to slowly condense.

It was the phantom of a flame.

A phantom of a flame only the size of a fingernail, appearing in a bizarre, pale white throughout.

It had no temperature and no physical form, as if it might dissipate into the void at any moment.

Yet, the moment it took shape, the entire space of consciousness shuddered.

A sense of aloofness and dominance, as if a monarch had descended upon the world, erupted from that tiny phantom!

Even though it was merely a primary model composed of pure data, it still carried that status which stood above all other fires!

Su Chen's soul trembled slightly at this.

But he did not stop.

There was no turning back now.

He carefully retrieved a pre-prepared material from his storage space.

It was a vial of Rock Fire Seed that had been purified to the extreme.

Its energy was gentle and pure; it was the highest quality beast fire in Su Chen's possession and the only "sacrifice" he had prepared for this insane experiment.

The orange-red flame appeared quietly upon the Stone Platform, emitting a warm, gentle light.

It was like an ignorant commoner, looking blankly up at the pale phantom above that radiated the aura of an emperor.

"Inject!"

Su Chen issued the command once more, his voice carrying a tremor he himself had not noticed.

What he had to do was forcibly shove the soul of this emperor into the body of this commoner!

The pale flame model hovering above moved.

Like an iceberg descending from the heavens, it bore down upon the orange-red Rock Fire Seed below with irresistible pressure!

There was no earth-shattering roar.

There was no clash of energy.

The moment the two made contact, the pale model seeped into the orange-red flame silently, like mercury spilling onto the ground.

Time seemed to have been set to slow motion at this moment.

Su Chen held his breath, focusing all his attention on the fused flame.

Had it succeeded?

The flame remained the size of a fist, hovering quietly.

But its color began to undergo a bizarre transformation.

The originally pure orange-red was rapidly fading at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Replacing it was a ghastly white.

A sickly, pale white, mottled with spots of orange-red!

An entirely different aura began to permeate from within the flame.

It was no longer gentle, no longer pure.

It was a mixture of scorching heat and extreme cold, violent, twisted... chaotic!

"Wrong!"

Su Chen's heart skipped a beat.

On the Stone Platform, that mutated flame began to tremble violently!

It was no longer stable, no longer quiet.

It was like a living creature injected with two deadly poisons, enduring unimaginable pain and torture!

The form of the flame began to twist frantically.

At one moment, it expanded into a massive, ghastly white orb of light, radiating a chilling aura capable of freezing the soul.

At the next, it contracted sharply, exploding into countless scorching orange-red sparks, releasing a violent aura of destruction.

Ice and fire!

Two diametrically opposed primal forces were waging the most primitive and bloody war within that tiny flame's body!

They repelled each other, devoured each other, and neither would yield!

The entire consciousness space began to shake violently due to this war occurring at a microscopic level!

The Stone Platform hummed, and the surrounding void twisted!

"Steady!"

Su Chen attempted to intervene by force, using his mental power to suppress that violent energy.

But the moment his mental power drew near, it was instantly torn to shreds by that chaotic force!

This was no longer a level he could control!

The flame's struggle grew increasingly intense.

Its color flickered madly between ghastly white and orange-red; every flicker sent a needle-like sting through Su Chen's soul.

He had miscalculated the dominance of the Exotic Flame.

He had also miscalculated the chasm between the two flames' essences.

That was not a matter of emperor and commoner.

That was a matter of gods and ants!

The power of gods, even if it were but a digitized remnant, was absolutely not something a mortal fleshly body could contain!

Finally.

After experiencing countless expansions and contractions.

The struggling flame reached a critical point.

All its twisting and struggling came to an abrupt halt at a certain moment.

It did not explode with a roar as Su Chen had anticipated.

Instead...

It suddenly shrank inward!

All the light, all the heat, all the chill, and all the violence were compressed into a point of light smaller than a needle tip in a ten-thousandth of a second.

Then.

Puff.

A soft sound.

The point of light was completely annihilated.

It turned into a wisp of invisible blue smoke and dissipated into the void.

Failure.

A complete and utter failure.

However, it was not over yet.

The moment the flame was annihilated, an invisible, destructive mental shockwave, like a bursting flood, surged back from the Stone Platform in a fierce backlash!

That was the final aftershock generated by the annihilation of the two primal energies!

Puff!

In the real world, Su Chen, sitting cross-legged on his bed, arched his body as if struck by a heavy blow.

A mouthful of blood sprayed uncontrollably from his mouth, splashing into a glaring flower of blood on the floor before him.

His face turned deathly pale in an instant.

Inside his head, it felt as if thousands of steel needles were churning frantically; the intense pain made his vision go dark, and he nearly fainted on the spot.

Within the consciousness space, the scene was one of utter devastation.

The light of the entire Stone Platform had become dimmer than ever before, as if it had exhausted all its energy.

The void of the Western Zhou continued to tremble slightly, unable to calm for a long time.

Su Chen's consciousness clutched his throbbing head, half-kneeling in the void as he gasped for air.

Disappointment, lingering fear, and a myriad of other emotions washed over him like a tidal wave.

For the first time, he had felt the true terror of Heavenly Flames so directly.

Even if it was just a digitized aura, even if it was merely one ten-thousandth of its true power.

The backlash was enough to leave him—a transmigrator whose mental strength far exceeded that of an ordinary person—severely wounded.

If he had been any more reckless just now, attempting to forcibly merge it with his own soul...

The consequences would have been unthinkable.

A long time passed.

The agonizing pain that had been tearing at his soul finally began to recede.

Su Chen endured the dual discomfort of his body and spirit, forcing himself to stand up once more.

The fanaticism and ambition that had previously filled his face were gone, replaced only by the pallor and silence of one who had narrowly escaped death.

He did not exit immediately.

Instead, he cast his gaze toward the Stone Platform, which had grown dim.

Failure was not terrifying.

What was terrifying was not knowing why one had failed.

"Review."

The thought was transmitted weakly.

The dim Stone Platform flickered with a faint light.

Rows of data streams composed of runes began to emerge slowly on the surface of the platform, recording the entire process of the failed experiment.

From model construction to energy injection, followed by repulsion, conflict, and finally, annihilation.

Every detail had been precisely recorded.

Su Chen's gaze remained locked onto the data stream, not letting a single detail slip by.

He saw that the energy structure of the Rock Fire Seed began to collapse from within the very instant it made contact with the Bone Chilling Flame model.

He saw that the fusion rate of the two energies had never exceeded one-thousandth from start to finish.

He saw...

His line of reasoning had been wrong from the very root.

What he had wanted to do was "overwrite"—to use a higher-order soul to forcibly replace a lower-order vessel.

That was a method reserved for gods.

And he was merely a mortal.

A mortal... who dared to covet the authority of the gods.

"Wrong... it was all wrong..."

Su Chen muttered to himself.

His gaze scanned through the countless lines of data until it finally fixed upon a small segment of code.

That segment of code represented the most fundamental and core trait among the countless characteristics of the Bone Chilling Flame.

"Energy Property: Extreme Cold."

He stared at that line of code, and deep within his originally dim consciousness, a faint light suddenly reignited.

The light grew brighter and brighter.

A brand-new, even more insane, yet far more feasible idea sprouted defiantly within his heart.

He could not replicate the entire sun.

That was the domain of the gods.

However...

Perhaps he could avoid trying to replicate the sun itself.

And instead, find a way to borrow a single ray... of its light from that distant sun!