The deeper I went down the tunnel, the hotter it became. Eventually, I felt as though I were being burned alive. Still, I narrowed my eyes, squinting through the waves of heat.

This is the heat of the Primordial Ember, huh, I thought.

It was as expected of something called “primordial.” The air itself seemed to tighten around my lungs, the suffocating heat almost unbearable. It was extremely hot—there was no denying that.

Grace glanced at me through the haze, eyes half-narrowed. “You. What are you, exactly?”

“What do you mean, what am I?” I asked.

Her brows furrowed, clearly unable to make sense of what she was seeing. “No, it’s just... I may not feel pain in this spirit form, but this heat alone should be enough to incinerate any normal person in seconds. How are you just... standing there like it’s nothing?”

Bewildered, Grace just blinked at me, as if trying to decide whether I was human at all.

I shrugged lightly and nonchalantly answered, “Well, I’m used to it.”

Perhaps because this was merely an ember, not the true fire, the surrounding heat felt much gentler than what I was accustomed to. I had spent countless days burning myself alive, training to provoke the flame of the Primordial Flame itself. If anything, this felt a little cool. Of course, that was only my perspective. As Grace said, an ordinary person would have been reduced to ash the moment they stepped in here.

“You’re used to this? This?” Grace looked around in disbelief at the tunnel, its walls melting and warping from the heat. “Well. Maybe that ‘power to extinguish fire’ you carry also makes you resistant to fire.”

Whatever the so-called “power to extinguish fire” within me was, it had nothing to do with this. I could endure the heat for a simpler reason. It was because I had already burned like this countless times before.

After we descended the fiery tunnel for several minutes, a massive cavern appeared before us, blazing red like the inside of a molten furnace.

“We’re here,” said Grace.

At the center of the chamber, a gigantic flame burned violently.

“You sure that’s an ember?” I asked.

Calling it an ember felt wrong. It was the size of a house, roaring like a living beast.

Grace clicked her tongue. “Hmm. Guess the new generation doesn’t learn much mythology these days.”

She gave me a “back in my day” kind of look and explained, “The Primordial Flame is the power that once burned down the Tree of Creation, the very thing that made this continent and the gods themselves. Even as a mere ember, that size is perfectly natural.”

“Yeah, I know that, but still...”

Grace spread her arms wide, exaggerating to show the supposed scale. “If it were the true Primordial Flame, it’d be far, faaar bigger than this!”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at her theatrics, finding it funny. The real Primordial Flame had barely been the size of a clenched fist. It had been small, but infinitely more potent. The raw power sealed within it couldn’t even be compared to the wild blaze before me.

This thing felt untamed, like molten metal, not a refined blade. If the true Primordial Flame were a finely forged sword, this ember were molten steel—hot, shapeless, and destructive.

I stepped toward it.

“Wait, be careful!” Grace said.

“It’s fine.”

The instant I drew near it, the flame surged wildly, like a beast finding its prey. The inferno lunged at me, waves of fire crashing from every direction.

Grace’s desperate voice rang out. “No! Stop!”

The flames swallowed me whole. She tried to rush forward, her spirit flaring with white light, but even in her incorporeal state, the heat struck her, sending her flying backward. “Ugh!”

Sizzle! Ssshhhhh!

The fire wrapped around me, devouring flesh, burning it to smoke. Yet, I smiled.

I stomped hard, flames swirling violently around me. “You’re getting cocky, you brat.”

Drawing in a slow, deep breath, I stirred the sleeping flame within my heart. Agony tore through me. It was as though molten metal coursed through my veins instead of blood, searing me from the inside out. It was unbearable, so much so that I could barely think.

“Phew!”

Yes, it was this feeling, this pain. It hurt like hell, but it also made things clear. Compared to the true Primordial Flame, the heat of the ember before me was laughably weak.

The flames consuming me suddenly shuddered in surprise, trying to scatter and flee. A vicious grin tugged at my lips as I reached out. “Where do you think you’re going?” 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Ash-gray smoke poured from my body, coiling around the panicked ember. I closed my eyes and focused. It felt as though I were floating, drifting out of myself. My consciousness slowly sank deeper and deeper into a world of imagery that unfolded within my mind. Before me, I saw the Primordial Flame and the Ember, entangled in a chaotic struggle.

No, calling it a fight wasn’t quite right. The Primordial Flame wasn’t battling; rather, it was hunting. It seized the Ember, which desperately tried to flee, and overwhelmed it in a one-sided assault. Perhaps the difference in their power was simply too vast. The Ember couldn’t last long, and it was quickly devoured, disappearing into the flames.

That ended faster than I thought. It was a little anticlimactic, but inevitable. With such a huge gap in strength, there was never any doubt who would win.

Once I confirmed that the Primordial Ember had been fully absorbed, I prepared to leave the mindscape, opening my eyes. However, the Primordial Flame suddenly flared up, thrashing wildly like a chained beast breaking free. Pain exploded through my body as the raging flames lashed at me. I turned toward the source. The fire burned violently, as though it sought to consume the entire world.

What? What is happening? Did it grow stronger after absorbing the Primordial Ember?

The once-quiet Primordial Flame roared to life, surging toward me with overwhelming force. Flames that had consumed the Ember now came to devour me whole. The ground of my mindscape split apart, and from the rift, something massive erupted, stomping down the raging flames as though extinguishing them beneath its heel.

“Urgh!”

Panting heavily, I looked up at the enormous figure now dominating the fire. Shrouded in ash-gray smoke, its full form was impossible to make out, but its sheer scale was beyond comprehension. I wondered if that was the power Grace mentioned, the “power to extinguish fire.”

The being that had effortlessly suppressed the flames slowly sank back into the cracked earth, as if its job were done. Relief escaped me as I looked upon the now-subdued Primordial Flame. “Hah!”

From this experience, I learned something new. Absorbing Embers recklessly could be dangerous. The heat itself wasn’t the problem; it was what the absorbed energy did to the flame inside me. The Primordial Flame, which until now had been kept docile by the power that suppressed it, went berserk the moment it devoured the Primordial Ember, like a hunting dog finally slipping its leash.

Luckily, that suppressive force, the “power to extinguish fire,” was still strong enough to keep it under control for now. But there was no guarantee it always would be.

While this move had been risky, it was not without its reward. I extended my hand toward the dancing flames. They obeyed gently, almost tame, as they crawled up my arm like loyal pets. The volume of fire I could command now had clearly increased compared to what I could before the absorption.

I thought, At this rate...

Flames wrapped around me, igniting. I activated Ignition, then Blazing Fire. The fire spiraled higher, swirling violently around me. Normally, I could only push it this far, short of invoking the Incarnation of Fire, which would be when the Primordial Flame itself took over.

But this time, I decided to take it a step further. I exhaled slowly, focusing my will. The fire enveloping me spread outward, engulfing the entire ground beneath my feet. With a flick of my fingers, enormous flames bloomed in midair. They flickered and faded in rhythm with my gestures, like extensions of my own thoughts.

My control over the Primordial Flame increased within this field of fire. Until now, I always had to channel fire through my body, kindling it on my skin before transferring it to my sword or surroundings. But within this fiery domain, that restriction no longer applied. I could ignite the Primordial Flame anywhere, anytime, without needing a vessel.

So, this is what it feels like to unfold a domain, I thought.

At that moment, I recalled I had heard of something similar before. Certain Blessings altered the surrounding environment, creating an area favorable to the user, like what Laneige’s Blessing had done back then. She couldn’t fully master her Blessing yet, but even so, her power stirred up snowstorms around her. In her past life, whenever she used it, she transformed the entire battlefield into a frozen wasteland, her personal domain.

It meant that after Ignition and Blazing Fire, I had now reached a new realm, one where the very land itself burned beneath my feet. Of course, the real question was how much of it I could reproduce outside my mindscape. Still, with enough training, it should be possible to increase its effectiveness.

I had named my first skill Ignition, the second Blazing Fire. For this new power, just like how it had happened when a Blessing was awakened, the name surfaced in my mind as naturally as breathing, like something I had always known, yet forgotten—Cataclysmic Flame.

With this technique, I had achieved a new peak in my mastery of the Primordial Flame. Cataclysmic Flame was a power one step higher than Ignition and Blazing Fire.

I grinned, watching the blazing domain spread around me. I had never thought I’d stumble upon a treasure like this. I hadn’t planned for any of this, yet I had discovered something far more valuable than the top prize, the Blessing of God, that everyone else was after. Though, I probably wasn’t going to get any bonus points for it.

Wait. My bonus points!