Isn't This Also a Kind of Flame-Chaser?

Watching the "roof" he had "stomped" apart continue to collapse until it stopped at the boundary between Belobog's upper and lower levels.

That was normal. Even Stormbringer, who could kick through a starship's deck, could not easily damage City Builder's Belobog. Otherwise, it would have been destroyed long ago.

"I still need to practice."

He slowly flew out of the deep pit, stirring the hot air and sending it spreading outward.

Seele, who had rushed over from the garden, felt the warmth and could not help opening her mouth wide, her eyes widening as well.

"Are you okay... I mean, what the hell is this thing?!"

She had already tried her best to overestimate Fang Jie. He had been crackling with lightning all the way here, and had somehow brought her along to plant trees. But now he was showing his "fiery" side too. Seele was genuinely afraid someone would capture Fang Jie and use him as firewood.

She wanted to capture him too, even if she could not beat him.

Fang Jie understood the terrifying meaning in her eyes.

He did not mind.

Using Path-striding lunatics to generate electricity, boil water, and provide energy was a galactic tradition. Even the Emperor Bow Emissary did it—and had been doing it all along.

The corner of his mouth curled up.

"Seele, what do you think people lack the most right now?"

"Uh, grass?"

Seele was still thinking about that. Without other seeds to serve as genetic blueprints, they could only keep splitting and growing that "birch tree" over and over. Grass was simply out of the question.

Fang Jie shook his head. "Not a warm climate, not abundant food, and not gods. What they lack is the heart to believe."

"..."

There he went saying strange things again.

But it was not strange. Belief was difficult. Cocolia was like that, Natasha... was like that too. How could she believe Fang Jie had truly come to help her—and had the ability to do so?

"Seele, we're going to do something big! Something big! We're going to do something huge!"

He clenched one fist, and an impassioned BGM began playing around them—

"Bong-buzz~, dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun, bong bong bong, waaaah~"

It was not vocal imitation. It actually sounded quite good.

How could a mental projection be such an inconvenient thing? After absorbing the information from the automatons corrupted by Jizo Mitama, Fang Jie's knowledge of mechanics had advanced by leaps and bounds.

Why were you suddenly so fired up?

Seele could not understand, so she said bluntly, "Just tell me what we're doing. I'll follow you!"

She was a simple person. Fang Jie did not need to pull any fancy tricks on her.

But Fang Jie ignored that and continued his speech. "I know a noble person. His ideal is for ordinary people to live with dignity, without having to sell their conscience and dignity and exhaust themselves merely to survive. Ordinary people should be able to pursue their dreams, so that everyone can truly be equal. People should be able to die in happiness, instead of dying filled with pain, unwillingness, resentment, and regret."

Seele listened. Rather than mock Fang Jie for talking nonsense, she grabbed him and questioned him objectively. "Isn't that just dreaming? I've never even dreamed of something like that."

"Yeah, words spoken in a dream, so it's dream talk. Ridiculous enough to make people laugh. But that does not change the fact that he is a noble person."

Fang Jie watched Seele naturally run over and grab his hand. Like a righteous person. There were many people like that in Belobog—different in their own ways, yet equally beautiful.

I'm someone who'll take the path of Pure Beauty if I can't become a Nameless. Damn it, the middle path is Nihility.

"Who knows."

Seele curled her lip, completely unmoved. She had made up her mind to hold on to him, though she looked at the garden with some reluctance.

"What now? I really don't have any strength left. How about we go back and sleep?"

Looking like that, you clearly did not want to go back.

"Can't keep up anymore, Seele?"

Fang Jie loudly mocked Seele's weakness. She actually wanted to go back just like that. "Don't worry. I'm not a dream you had. You won't suddenly wake up."

"Nonsense! Wherever you want to go, I can keep up!"

Seele could not stand being provoked.

"Very good. I told you, we'll keep doing big things—things that turn everything upside down."

Fang Jie looked beyond Rivet Town, his gaze extending deep into the Fragmentum. It even connected to the upper district, to beyond Belobog, spreading across the frozen planet.

He felt tired, yet strangely energized. As long as... he loosened the restraints on his thoughts.

His heart was tired, but he did not dare relax. At least, he could not relax carelessly—thoughts of destruction came flooding in.

Having stepped onto a Path, how should he practice it?

Fang Jie meant the Path of Destruction.

Learn from that prison boss?

No, no, I've mooched off Nanook. I should be stronger than him.

Learn from the Anti-Matter Legion?

Forget it. They were a bunch destined to get wiped out, mere experience points for the Stellaron Spirit's growth.

Or even learn from Nanook?

Same answer. The star would strike, and he would break it!

So there was no need to learn some kind of Destruction. He would not let a Path bind him. What he became was unimportant; what he accomplished was what mattered.

But he did not need to resist blindly either. Learn from Seele—

"Let's go, let's go. Passive defense isn't my style. There won't be monsters here for a while, and there's still a whole world outside."

Fang Jie was brimming with excitement.

Seele understood. She walked the Path of The Hunt.

She had only just experienced the power of creation when Fang Jie dragged her out into the outside world. He was not even worried that wanderers would come and gnaw this tree-filled garden bare.

"Sounds like your blood's really boiling. Just don't end up crying halfway through and begging me to drag your half-dead body back."

What, were you trying to poison me?

Your little hands are so soft. Why is your mouth so tough?

"I see you completely don't understand the numbers."

The Flame Reaver, in another sense.

The world had completely ended. Welcome to Belobog.

This was a dangerous world ravaged by the mysterious disaster known as the "Fragmentum." The old civilization had fallen, and order had been buried. Fortunately, there was still a city barely capable of dealing with the Fragmentum disaster.

Within the Fragmentum, space and time became chaotic and disordered due to unknown effects. All kinds of dangerous mutated creatures emerged as well. If ordinary people became lost within it, they would be in grave danger.

Thus, maps were important. And those capable of using their own talents to guide people safely out of the Fragmentum were called—

"Are you kidding me?"

Fang Jie had originally been happily taking Seele through a dungeon, enjoying a smooth ride and the joy of bringing a girl along.

"Black Fox Rin, you really are obedient like this."

He gritted his teeth, one hand pressed against Jizo Mitama as he sensed the corruption on the Fire-Scorched Shade before him. It was a monster covered in Imaginary flames, an old phantom wandering through the Fragmentum in attire similar to that of the Silvermane Guards. It imitated a human shape, its features replaced by burnt ashes. At a glance, it looked like a Flame Fist, wandering about and attacking every living being it discovered.

But it had been corrupted. And it was not the only one.

Rin had indeed not attacked the people of Belobog, but...

"Forget it."

Fang Jie sighed. At last, he understood how she had guided him through one Fragmentum after another before.

After all, he was doing the same thing!

There was no helping it. The Fragmentum's space was too chaotic and disordered. One second they would be on a rooftop, and the next they would be in the kitchen of some room, with a kettle still sitting on the stove—though there was no fuel to boil water with.

The monsters could not stop him from advancing, but the map itself could...

So he acted. Using Jizo Mitama, he directly locked onto the core monster of every small Fragmentum. Destroying it would undo the spatial disorder for a period of time.

He could even control them and make them lead the way.

Then he discovered the new corruption present in these Fragmentum. Who had done it was obvious.

Fang Jie did it too, following the corruption Rin had left behind and corrupting them himself.

If you thought it was foolish for him to dare compete with her using only Jizo Mitama, remember that there had once been a Herrscher of Corruption who tried to corrupt the Honkai Will.

Then he easily corrupted the corruption itself. Fang Jie did not think it was because he had been born with divine strength. If he wanted to restrain Rin, he still had to overtake her on a curve.

"What will my life eventually expand into?"

But he had brought the girl himself. Even with tears in his eyes, he had to see it through.

I still have my Path. Activate it—activate everything!

"Seele, I need your help with my cultivation—"

"Heh, taking on a disciple."

Seele could not understand what he was muttering about, but that did not stop her from putting what she learned into practice.

With the windows covered by rags to keep the hot wind from blowing in, the house built of mud and stone did not look as though it had been corrupted at first glance. Outside, puddles left by melted snow ran with muddy water. The distant sky was still burning, though it had grown farther away.

"Awesome!"

Seele walked out of the ruined house and sharply tossed her head, sending water droplets scattering from her purple-black gradient hair.

She roughly patted her butt. She was not wearing much: hot pants, a crop top, and a stylish cape. If the cloth that could not even cover her navel counted as a crop top, then it did—but the cape was genuinely cool.

Cool Seele was cool!

But that also left her drenched. The little clothing she had was soaked through, impossible to dry by patting, and the clingy fabric felt rather uncomfortable.

That did not affect Seele's good mood. She had actually passed through so many Fragmentum zones, as if aided by the gods, and seen the outside world—outside Belobog—and even experienced this novel sauna...

So many first-time experiences had filled her weary heart with vitality. Seele felt refreshed.

"So this is the outside world you kept talking about. It really isn't much. There's not even a person in sight. I was hoping that if we ran into people from above, I could beat them up properly."

Heaven and earth were a sheet of white. Snow had swallowed all things. Frosty winds cut to the bone, snow dust rustled down, then melted away, making it even colder for a while. Fortunately, not far from Seele stood a "huge furnace."

He was huge!

Everything in sight seemed to be burning, scorching the heavens and boiling the sea. The sea was being freshly boiled, and he had told Seele it was only a lake—a burning fire lake.

"It really isn't very good. I hate scenery that is nothing but snow too. No matter the price, they have to become beautiful."

Fang Jie's voice, now far away, had an overlapping quality to it. It sounded muffled, dull, hoarse, and mechanical. High temperatures and roaring sounds constantly tore apart the medium carrying sound, making everything blurred and distorted. They were using "walkie-talkies" to speak.

That did not affect his good mood as he continued radiating heat.

"Seele, you have to admit that some flowers are beautiful, while others are not."

"All right, I admit it."

Seele stopped getting any closer. That was already a temperature she found "too hot," so she simply found a shattered, cracked black stone on the dark, ugly wasteland and sat down.

The furnace hung high above, smelting all things. It melted ice and snow into water, turned the earth into glass, then fused everything into mudslides that spread freely...

Of course, getting too close to the furnace meant being vaporized outright, joining the burning mass. Not even ashes would remain.

Without thinking about what would happen if there were floods, Seele had no such concept. She only thought of earthquakes as avalanches and mine disasters. As for the gradual alternation between heat and cold, the birth of hurricanes, torrential rain falling before vaporizing and rising again... wasn't the world above like that?

She merely wondered whether she should plant some flowers in this land if she still had the strength.

Unfortunately, she truly had no strength left. She needed to rest for a while. She really did.

"You're even more... capable in a fight than I imagined."

"Capable in a fight" could not describe this scene, but to Seele, it was the highest praise.

She watched Fang Jie continue to burn. Fragmentum monsters could not stop their combination—one had mechanics, the other had numbers—from slaughtering their way through.

After destroying the Fragmentum Rivet Town again and again, they continued expanding outward. Fang Jie kept accelerating, flying low through the air at Mach speed as he cleared the way... Cavalry tactics were what he did best. He flew up and rammed straight through the monsters.