"Control the intensity, choose the right approach, then unleash it with all your strength."
Lin Jin quietly transmitted a message into the mind of the captain, who was locked in a desperate struggle.
A tiny wisp of flame appeared out of thin air and slowly settled onto the captain.
Yet the captain suffered no burns. The flame merged directly into his body and entered his soul.
The captain shuddered. He realized that God was watching him and had offered him help.
But he made no unusual move. Instead, he became even more cautious than before.
Unlike his earlier attempts to probe for a counterattack, the captain now devoted himself entirely to defense.
Yet the fighting spirit burning in his eyes was fiercer than ever.
A strange change.
At some point, his opponent had suddenly become extremely cautious, abandoning all thought of attacking.
Seeing this, Mortas assumed his attacks were working and that his opponent was about to buckle.
Of course, it could also be a deliberate act, baiting him into coming close enough for a sudden thrust.
That was a common enough trick.
With a hunter's wariness, Mortas did not approach recklessly.
The Mantis lord's reasoning was simple. If he kept wearing his opponent down like this, victory would be his. There was no need to take an enormous risk on a possible opening.
With that thought, Mortas accelerated once more. He had to make sure his opponent never grew familiar with his attacks or adapted to them.
Yet the captain no longer cared about his enemy's attacks. All his thoughts had sunk into the flame rune that had suddenly appeared within him.
God's blessing? The captain hesitated. This was far too much of a coincidence.
Of all people, me.
Why me?
No, none of that matters.
The captain cleared his mind and decided not to dwell on it.
He only needed to believe in God. Faith needed no reason.
The captain focused his entire consciousness on the pattern that had appeared within his soul.
It was an orange-red flame symbol surrounded by rippling rings, with flames constantly radiating outward from its center.
It seems to be teaching me what to do?
After examining it several more times, the captain confirmed that it was an instructional diagram, one teaching a special technique.
Steadying his mind and recalling the pattern over and over, the captain tried to sense the energy within his body.
Suddenly, he felt it-the spark of flame flaring within him.
Almost at once, the captain's eyes snapped open in the physical world, blazing with roaring flames.
"Hm!"
Mortas instantly sensed danger. The almost instinctive combat awareness honed through years of hunting warned him that an energy capable of threatening him was gathering.
The Mantis lord lunged backward, but the captain finished charging before he could escape.
"Flame Burst!"
First came a sudden flash, followed by an incantation like a roar. A chain of fiery explosions erupted out of thin air within several meters of the captain.
A tremendous shock wave and searing heat surged outward. The terrifying strike blasted Mortas into a distant tree trunk, smashing a huge, deep crater into it.
The insects watching the battle froze in shock at the sight.
The beasts lurking in the shadows had fled without a trace the instant the explosion erupted.
Quyin's face filled with terror. The horrifying blast left him collapsed on the ground, his wings flapping wildly without conscious control.
He could not believe it. The chief had held the advantage just moments ago. How had the battle suddenly become so one-sided?
"How could this happen? The chief actually... What was that just now?"
But no insect answered him. The squad members quickly realized what had happened and dropped to one knee before the captain, reciting prayers.
The chronicler hovering in the air scribbled furiously, his face alight with excitement. He had witnessed another miracle.
He sketched the scene onto an insect-hide scroll, which would become a sacred relic passed down through generations.
At the campfire, where no one noticed him, Lin Jin nodded in satisfaction as he watched.
"The destructive power met expectations, and the cost wasn't as outrageous as I first thought. With a few more tweaks, this will be a worthy ultimate move."
What the captain had just used was Flame Burst, a spell Lin Jin had devised on the spot.
Through the connection between god and believer, Lin Jin had imprinted the method for using Flame Burst into the captain's soul, allowing him to master the spell directly.
He had chosen Flame Burst because the spell was extremely simple. Put plainly, it gathered energy together, compressed it as far as possible, then released it all at once.
Its effect resembled Howling Wraiths from the first game, but reprogramming it with the properties of his own flames had produced some unusual changes.
First, Flame Burst came with a burning effect. Compared with Howling Wraiths, it dealt more damage and cost more energy.
Moreover, if the caster lacked enough mana to use the spell, it would activate by consuming a proportionate amount of health instead.
When there was no MP, LP became MP. It would not stop until either the caster or the enemy had burned to nothing-a true soul-burning flame.
But its area could not be controlled. It covered a circle extending several meters around the caster, much like Spirit Thread Storm.
Studying the traces left by the explosion, Lin Jin considered how to further optimize the spell.
Meanwhile, in the forest, the Mantis lord weakly lifted his head from the scattered wood fragments.
Burns covered his body, all his weapons were shattered, and his ears rang from the violent impact. The shell over his chest had charred and fallen away, and flames still burned on his body.
There were plenty of other, smaller injuries, but he could no longer spare them any thought.
The immense pain kept Mortas from concentrating. It took him several times longer than usual to slowly regain his senses.
He did not know what had just happened, but he knew he had lost.
If he had not sensed something beforehand and immediately retreated several steps, that single blow would have killed him.
But his current condition was hardly better. He could not even stand, and he was barely alive. His enemies would never spare him.
Through his haze, Mortas saw a black silhouette appear before him.
Was it my opponent? Or one of his companions?
Anyone could imagine what would happen next.
"No, I haven't... Pfft! Cough, cough..."
Murky fluid spilled from his mouth as soon as he spoke. Mortas struggled to stand. He could not accept his life ending like this.
More importantly, once he fell, Mantis Village would be left without a leader. Splitting apart would already be the best possible outcome. But if these people discovered the village's location...
"No!"
He coughed up more of his ruined innards. At that moment, Mortas finally understood how his past prey had felt when they tried in vain to launch one last strike, even with no hope of victory.
But now, he was the one being hunted.
In Mortas's blurred vision, the figure drew closer and closer. He could even make out the cold glint of the spear in his hand.
Is it over?
Mortas lost the last of his strength, and fragments of past memories surfaced in his mind.
From his birth to his first hunt, the countless brushes with death, the hunting trial, his succession as chief, and the terrifying truth.
Finally came the red flash that had blasted him away. His opponent had at last reached him.
But the final strike to the heart that the hunter expected never came.
Instead, a pair of sturdy hands pulled him up from the ground.
He didn't kill me? In his daze, Mortas felt another flicker of confusion.
What is he doing? His opponent seemed to be carrying him toward the fire.
"Wh... why?" Mortas forced himself to hold on, piecing the words together in broken gasps.
Helping an enemy who might pose a threat was utterly incomprehensible to the Mantis tribe. Even on the verge of death, Mortas desperately wanted an answer.
"There is no why. Everything is God's will."
"God?"
This was the second time he had heard that word today. What exactly did it mean?
Before you continue