“Who are you! Do you know about my past? Please, tell me!”
Faced with Midir’s barrage of questions, a brilliant smile blossomed on the girl’s face.
Her lips parted slightly, as if she were whispering something.
But unlike her singing earlier, the words leaving her mouth seemed to be gently carried away by the lake water.
Midir could only hear the rustling sound of the water lapping against the shore, unable to distinguish the girl’s words at all.
Just as Midir was about to rush toward the center of the lake in desperation, a piercing shriek erupted from behind the girl, causing him to instinctively cover his ears.
Suddenly, the distant surface of the lake seemed ignited by divine wrath as a massive, mushroom-shaped cloud of fire soared into the sky. The overwhelming flames, accompanied by rolling billows of smoke and dust, rushed rapidly toward the two of them.
The girl turned her head with a hint of melancholy to look at the encroaching flames behind her, then turned back to look at Midir, a trace of determination appearing on her exquisite face.
Facing the oncoming aura of destruction, the girl opened her arms and moved toward it, eventually vanishing into a swirl of blue and white light particles amidst the fire.
“To think I would have another chance to see you... That’s wonderful... Star...”
The girl’s final words before disappearing echoed in Midir’s ears. Amidst a pain that felt like his heart was being torn apart, a volcano-like rage erupted within him once more.
In the next instant, a terrifying aura of fire, identical to the one on the opposite shore, burst from his body, sweeping toward the distance like a beast off its leash.
At the moment of contact, the heatwave surging from the other side of the lake was dispelled without a trace in a single blink.
Midir’s gaze flickered between the gradually fading illusion and his own raised hands. Finally, he slowly lowered them, his chest heaving with rapid breaths.
Suddenly, Midir snapped awake, departing from his consciousness space.
The bonfire in front of him was still crackling. Judging by the sky, less than half of the long night had passed since he entered his consciousness.
However, in his perception, he had spent several days within that mental space.
Just as Midir was about to relax and continue his rest, he keenly sensed something abnormal.
The surroundings were far too quiet. Aside from the sound of the burning bonfire, there wasn't even the slightest sound of wind. The faint chirping of insects and the snoring of the sleeping villagers that should have been audible nearby were all gone.
“Where are the people assigned to patrol? Shaq! Village Chief! Where are you?” Midir leaped up, shouting their names at the top of his lungs.
His shouts drifted into the night sky but received no response. Just as he was about to go door to door to wake the villagers, the door to a house across from the bonfire slowly creaked open.
Saki’s aged figure gradually emerged from behind the door, the flickering firelight reflecting on his face and making him look exceptionally eerie.
At this moment, Saki’s face was deathly pale, and his body swayed like a candle flickering in the wind.
Midir rushed forward to support him, only to see the old man suddenly cough up a mouthful of blood. His aged body collapsed before the door and tumbled down the steps.
A milky-white dagger was plunged into the center of Saki’s back, blood gurgling from the wound. The blood-stained white blade shimmered with an unsettling glow under the firelight.
“Did you do this? Shaq! No, you’re not Shaq! You are... a Flame Demon!” Midir suddenly looked up, roaring at the figure ahead.
Before his voice could even fade, a towering fire erupted from the wooden house behind Saki. Like a line of falling dominoes, the other houses in the village simultaneously burst into terrifying flames.
At that moment, Shaq’s silhouette parted the flames, slowly walking out from the sea of fire.
“I did a pretty good job, didn't I, Mr. Midir? You didn't even recognize me!” A completely discordant voice came from that young body, high-pitched and piercing, like a sharp knife scraping against a stone slab.
“I can tell you’re different from those insignificant bugs. You possess the power to threaten me, yet you were foolish enough to enter meditation in a situation like this? I originally planned to give you a quick death after killing them all, but I didn't expect you to wake up.”
“Shaq” walked toward Midir with a distorted gait, speaking in that shrill voice.
By now, bursts of red light were beginning to emanate from beneath his skin, and crimson flames were even spewing from his facial orifices. Finally, his entire body burst apart like a punctured balloon.
A Flame Demon over five meters tall, covered in red fire, appeared before Midir.
Its skull-like head was topped with two long, curved horns. Flames surged around its body amidst billowing smoke, like a nightmare crawled out from hell, incinerating everything in its path.
But what surprised even Midir himself was that, despite having every reason to be enraged to the limit, he was exceptionally calm at this moment. He simply looked up coldly at the towering Flame Demon before him.
“Why aren't you speaking? Are you paralyzed with fear after seeing my true form? That’s no fun. Feel fear! Fear is my best sustenance!”
Seeing Midir remain silent, the Flame Demon waved its hands, which were the size of barrel lids. The surrounding flames seemed to be summoned by it, transforming into a massive fire serpent in mid-air.
Under its command, the fire serpent bit down fiercely toward Midir, the blazing light instantly swallowing everything in front of it.
“Ahahaha! The despair of this world is truly sweet! ...Delicious... simply delicious!”
The Flame Demon looked at the sea of fire before it and laughed with a satisfied, shrill voice that echoed over the burning village.
“I finally know what that disgusting screeching I heard earlier was. I also finally know the source of my anger. It was you...”
While the Flame Demon was lost in its own intoxication, Midir’s ice-cold voice drifted out from the sea of fire.
Watching the flames that should have incinerated him being parted like a vortex, the Flame Demon looked at the unharmed man with a face full of astonishment.
“How can this be? You’re actually fine?!”
The Flame Demon’s voice was filled with deep shock, seemingly unable to comprehend what was happening before its eyes.
“Of course. How could flames like these possibly harm me? Didn't you think the humans you killed were just bugs? Then you should properly feel the rage of a bug!”
Midir flipped his palm, and Starflame manifested from the void before him. A trail of fire also rose upon the azure longsword.
In that instant, the originally violent fires around him vanished into the air as if a match had been pinched out.
“How laughable! You think you can oppose me just because you’ve mastered some flames? I am a Flame Demon, the master of fire, a natural-born sovereign!”
The Flame Demon’s voice was filled with contempt and arrogance, as if mocking Midir’s overestimation of his own strength.
Following that, its clenched fists smashed down toward Midir’s head.
But Midir showed no intention of dodging. The crimson flames on his Starflame turned into a brilliant white at that moment.
The already terrifying temperature rose once more, completely distorting the surrounding air. Even the nearby rocks and ground began to melt rapidly.
“A mere Captain-class Flame Demon dares to call itself a fire sovereign? Taste the sensation of being consumed by the Destruction Flame!”
The longsword swung forward, and the Flame Demon’s body, composed of fire, was easily cleaved in two like butter, crashing onto the floor that had already turned into lava.
“This! This is the Destruction Flame! Impossible! How could a human possess such power!”
The Flame Demon’s bifurcated body continued to writhe, desperately trying to use fire to restore itself. However, the white Destruction Flame clung tightly to the wounds, refusing to be extinguished no matter how it struggled.
Looking at the still-struggling Flame Demon, Midir expressionlessly raised Starflame once more and delivered another horizontal slash.
By the time he turned around, the flames on the blade had vanished. The Flame Demon’s massive body had been reduced to fundamental particles, leaving only a large amount of molten stone emitting faint red light at the center of the former village.
On this day, the small village of “Taro” on the eastern border of the continent completely disappeared from the map.
Later passersby only found a massive crater in the center of the village, where everything around it had been scorched by high temperatures into shimmering, glass-like crystals.
At the edge of the crater, someone had used those glowing crystals to craft a tombstone, standing at what should have been the entrance to the village. There was no inscription on it, only the shape of a star carved into the surface.
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