Divine Fire Reflected in Their Eyes

The terrifying Thornfire burned through the middle-aged man's Steel Skin almost instantly and plunged straight into his chest.

"Aaah!"

His piercing scream tore through the dark night, horrifying and wretched.

Sparks flew, and an acrid stench of burning flesh spread through the air.

The middle-aged man, who had charged forward like an unstoppable beast of steel moments ago, clutched his chest with both hands and crumpled to the ground.

"Aaah! What the hell is this? It burns! It burns!"

He thrashed desperately, trying again and again to dig his fingers into the wound and pull out whatever strange, searing thing was inside.

It was no use.

Thick black smoke poured from the charred wound.

Lava-like marks shaped like tree roots rapidly spread from it.

Beside him, Sefni and Emma's eyes narrowed to slits.

Sefni had never seen Su Yi use his powers.

Emma had, but she had been too tense last time to grasp how terrifying his ability was. All she knew was that those strangely shaped flames were handy for burning corpses.

Now both women saw it clearly.

Emma covered her mouth. "What's happening? Why does the fire look like a parasite?"

Sefni's expression turned grave. "That's the Black Cinders Goddess's Thornfire!"

She turned to Su Yi, eyes wide, and cried, "You received the Goddess of Black Cinders's blessing!?"

To NPCs, obtaining extraordinary power from a Void Abyss Projection of an S-rank relic or higher counted as a divine blessing.

Emma stared dumbfounded at Su Yi's face, lit by the flames. "You! You hid something this big!?"

She had investigated him thoroughly. He was just some bottom-rung lowlife.

How had he suddenly become a God-Blessed favored by a true god!?

Both Ecstasy Witches trembled inwardly.

According to their records, anyone with a blessing like this was at least a mid- to high-ranking L60!

Yet the overall head of the Black Sun Group on Rhode Star—Ilis's father—was only L35!

Seeing the two witches so stunned felt wonderful to Su Yi.

Naturally, he intended to seize this rare chance to show off and bring the witches completely under his sway.

The corner of his mouth lifted as he strolled over to the middle-aged man.

"That's why I said I could give you absolute protection."

"In the future, under my wing, you'll gain true dignity and happiness."

As he spoke, Su Yi raised a hand. Thornfire threaded with flowing lava rose from his palm, illuminating his handsome face and the eyes of Sefni and Emma.

"Beneath this divine fire, you will embrace light and peace."

!!!!

At the sight, Sefni and Emma's hearts raced, and goose bumps rose across their skin.

A resonance surged from deep within their souls through their bodies, making them feel that the future could still be so bright and beautiful.

In their eyes, illuminated by the fire,

it was no longer a flame.

It was the sun!

A light that illuminated their souls and the dark road ahead!

While the two women gazed at him in rapture, Su Yi extinguished the Thornfire.

Of his total flow of 260, only 170 remained.

He still needed that energy to burn the corpse later.

When the firelight vanished, Sefni and Emma felt no return of darkness or despair.

The flame that stood for hope and light, together with Su Yi's image, had been etched into their eyes.

Until now, Sefni had secretly scoffed at Su Yi's promise of protection.

She had come to work here only because he paid so well.

After all, Su Yi was only level 8, not even a full company employee.

Even if smuggling made him some money, it could only ease the pressure of their lives.

He could do nothing to give them the dignity and freedom they longed for.

But now things were different.

Su Yi wielded Thornfire. He was a God-Blessed who had received the Goddess of Black Cinders's favor!

Given what he had shown today, becoming a company executive was inevitable.

Level-8 smuggler Su Yi and level-8 God-Blessed Su Yi, wielder of Thornfire, might say the same words.

But to Sefni, those words carried entirely different weight.

When the former promised protection, it was an empty dream.

When the latter promised it, that was the confidence of someone powerful!

While the two witches' thoughts ran wild, Su Yi did not stand around posing.

The middle-aged man was dead.

His entire chest had been burned black and carbonized.

Su Yi smashed through the man's chest with a kick, then crouched and felt around.

Before long, he found a lump in the dirt beneath the body.

It felt cool to the touch, like mercury.

It contained many tiny granules, somewhat like lymph nodes in a human neck.

As soon as it sensed a human palm, the thing lunged onto Su Yi's hand without hesitation.

Then, with a cool, peculiar sensation, Su Yi clearly felt it pass through his skin and enter his body.

It moved through his skin and muscle and attached itself to his bones.

He could tell that the symbiote had used up a great deal of energy and seemed deeply afraid of him.

Once inside Su Yi, it did not even dare consume fat for energy. It settled on his left arm and stayed perfectly still.

Su Yi knew why.

According to later research by the Light Empire's Sanctum, the Goddess of Black Cinders's authority was especially effective against this thing.

Her flames could control both its location and how much fat it consumed.

Thornfire could even divide it into many pieces.

The separated pieces still worked, though each affected a smaller area of the body.

That area could range from half a body down to a single arm.

Too bad little Molly is still too young. She hasn't had her fateful encounter yet.

Molly, Kilman's dear little sister, would one day become the chief sage of the Light Empire's Sanctum, the holy maiden of the Stigmata Order, and a Saint blessed by the deity Stigmata Totem.

She was the one who would discover the Silicon-Based Symbiote's secrets and use it to develop a wealth of advanced technology.

Her most famous achievement was producing a force of superhuman steel warriors for the Light Empire, each generally around two meters tall.

All of them were bald and golden-skinned, like the Eighteen Bronze Men of Shaolin.

Players jokingly called them the Shaolin Space Marines.

Looks like I need to speed up Molly's training.

But the key encounter that sets her on that path won't happen for another two years!

As Su Yi pondered this, Sefni's voice rang out.

"What's wrong?"

"What's wrong? Are you all right, Mr. Gheros?"

Su Yi came back to himself and found both women watching him with worry in their eyes.

He waved a hand. "I'm fine."

Emma grabbed his hand. "Your hand looks like this, and you say you're fine?"

Su Yi glanced at his hand, darkened by the symbiote. As he mentally ordered it to restore his hand to normal, he said casually,

"I've been rewarding myself a lot these past few days. It'll clear up soon."

The moment he finished speaking, his hand rapidly returned to normal before Sefni and Emma's eyes.

Emma covered her mouth, eyes wide. "Self-Reward can do that too!?"

Su Yi chuckled. "You're still young. There's plenty for you to learn."

"Self-Reward is a whole field of study."