Chapter 314: The Devil’s Brother
Claudia limped toward the group, her serpentine eyes still burning with venomous frustration despite the agony written across her charred features. She stopped before Claude, her jaw clenched tight against the pain radiating from her ruined arm. The blackened flesh crackled with every movement—crinkle—and the smell of her own burned skin made her stomach turn.
Claude stepped forward, his masked face tilted downward at her. "Now, tell me what the fuck happened down there."
Claudia’s voice was strained, forced through gritted teeth. "The formation was shattered. Everyone combined mana to break it. I moved to seal the flame with the Soul-Sealing Jar, but the flame was sentient. It detected the jar and reacted. It went berserk." She paused, swallowing hard. "Then some bastard walked directly into the flame and it went completely insane."
Claude’s head tilted slightly behind his mask. "Walked into the flame?"
"A cultivator. Mana Heart Rank 8. He just walked straight into the flame’s core like he was taking a morning stroll." Claudia hissed, her good hand clenching into a fist. "The flame abandoned its form and engulfed him completely. Formed a massive cocoon of fire. Then the sub-realm collapsed."
Claude was silent for a moment. Then he spoke, his voice low and measured. "Show me the image of the bastard that disrupted the flame."
The Clown stepped forward, his grin stretching impossibly wide. "Allow me." His hand reached out, his fingers pressing against Claudia’s forehead before she could react. His eyes glowed with sickly green light—HUMMM—and Claudia’s memories were extracted like threads being pulled from a tapestry. The Clown’s soul power projected the image into the air above them, a shimmering, three-dimensional projection visible to everyone in the group.
The image showed Kael Cassian Vorn, walking through the chaos of the collapsing cavern, his body wreathed in darkness, phasing through Fire Spirits with Shadow Step. His expression was calm. Then he stepped into the fire and disappeared.
Claude’s eyes widened behind his mask. Draxos’s massive frame stiffened. Sebastian’s jaw dropped.
"That’s one of those kids we saw on Planet Hevaria," Claude said immediately, his voice sharp with recognition. The memory of Xylos City surfaced in his mind. Last time he saw him on planet Hevaria, that boy on death’s door.
Draxos leaned forward, his demonic eyes studying the projection with predatory intensity. "I remember that kid. He did look somewhat familiar." His deep voice rumbled like distant thunder. There was something about that face, that aura, that tugged at ancient memories he couldn’t quite place.
Sebastian stepped forward, his composure cracking as recognition slammed into him like a physical blow. "That’s Kael Cassian Vorn." His voice was low, dangerous. "My bastard brother." He stared at the projection, his fists clenching at his sides. "This fucker." He exhaled sharply through his nose. "And I’m sure as hell he doesn’t do anything without a plan. Him jumping into that flame means he surely has a way to survive."
Claudia’s eyes narrowed. "Even if he survives, the sub-realm is collapsing. Everything below is being crushed and buried. The pocket dimension is tearing itself apart."
Draxos grunted, crossing his massive arms. "You dumb fool. If he tames the flame, he can surely survive the realm’s collapse. A Heavenly Flame’s power could sustain someone through far worse than a collapsing pocket dimension."
The group fell silent, the implications settling over them like a heavy fog. Everyone frowned except the Clown, who tilted his head, his grin somehow widening further.
"Then that just makes our job easier," the Clown said, his voice light, almost cheerful. "We just have to find him and tame the Heavenly Flame. Easy piz—"
Claude cut him off. "After the realm collapses, there will be spatial tears around the collapsed perimeter. If he wants to get out at that point, he will have to go through a spatial tear, and he might appear anywhere in the Void Realm." He paused, his masked face turning toward the sealed hole. "That’s assuming he can even survive going through a spatial tear and coming out alive. A spatial tear might tear him to pieces even before he makes it through. The spatial pressure alone would shred a Mana Heart cultivator’s body atom by atom."
Sebastian added, his voice bitter, "Kael is a body cultivator too. So there’s a chance he can survive it." He knew his brother well enough to understand that Kael never gambled without holding cards. If he walked into that flame, he had a method. And if the realm collapsed, his body might withstand what would kill any ordinary cultivator.
The Clown laughed. "Even if he somehow eludes us, when the realm gates to the outside world opens, he will eventually have to come and pass through to leave the Void Realm." He spread his arms wide. "We simply wait at the exit. Like catching a rat in a trap."
Claude nodded slowly, his mind already calculating contingencies.
Meanwhile, in the collapsing sub-realm, the world outside the cocoon was ending.
Massive chunks of stone and dwarven metal rained from above—CRASH, RUMBLE—burying the ancient Forge Twins’ city under thousands of tons of debris. The lava rivers had merged into a single, churning ocean of molten rock that swallowed everything. Fire Spirits dissolved without their master’s will, their forms scattering into embers. The pocket dimension was folding inward, compressing, destroying itself.
But inside the cocoon, time lost meaning.
Kael was trapped in a void of pure, agonizing heat. This was not a peaceful absorption. It was not a meditation retreat. It was a brutal, relentless war of attrition between his will and a consciousness older than civilizations. The flame’s power was primordial, born from laws of fire that predated the current era. It had existed before the Forge Twins, before the Void Realm, before the Nine Court Heads.
The Flame’s consciousness manifested as a demonic Asura entity within Kael’s soul space. It was massive, towering, its body made of condensed fire law and ancient malice. Four arms of burning dark fire. A face twisted with rage and contempt. Eyes that burned with the intensity of dying stars.
It attacked Kael’s soul relentlessly.
FWOOOM! Fire surged through his soul space, condensed, conceptual fire that didn’t burn flesh but burned the soul itself. Kael’s soul apparition dodged—ZIP—barely avoiding the first wave. But the fire was everywhere. It filled the space like water filling a container, leaving nowhere to hide. His soul bled. Cracks formed in his Soul Manifestation form. Pain unlike anything he had ever experienced ripped through his consciousness.
Kael’s physical body was being incinerated and regenerated constantly. His Tier 5 aura fought to repair the damage—HUMMM—while the Void Body Refinement struggled to keep pace with the destruction. His skin blistered, peeled, and reformed. His bones glowed white-hot, then cooled, then heated again. The cycle was endless, each iteration pushing him closer to his absolute limit.
There was no bloodline shortcut. The Astraeon lineage prevented his soul from shattering immediately—its ancient resonance creating a stabilizing framework around his consciousness—but it didn’t fight for him. It merely kept the structure intact.
Kael fought back fiercely.
His Slaughter Intent swept forward—SLASH—a cold, desolate wave of killing will that cut through the flames like a winter gale. The intent had been refined over months of meditation at the Mural Mountain, sharpened to a razor’s edge by his comprehension of the desolate sword technique. It met the flame’s fire head-on, the collision producing a sound like screaming metal—SCREEEE.
The flame’s Asura entity recoiled, surprised by the cold malice that matched its own.
Kael pressed the advantage. He pulled out the Netherworld Soul Locking Flag, the artifact’s dark fabric unfurling in his soul space. The twenty-three souls trapped inside screamed as he channeled their combined soul power through his Soul Manifestation. The power boost was immediate and massive—SURGE—his soul apparition swelling with energy.
He used Slaughter Intent to match the flame’s malice, blow for blow. Each clash sent shockwaves through his soul space—BOOM, CRASH—tearing fragments from his spiritual foundation. But the Nirvana Devouring Script worked in the background like a parasite, slowly, methodically gnawing away at the flame’s ego. Each time their wills clashed, the Script devoured a tiny fragment of the flame’s consciousness, feeding it back to Kael.
The flame shifted tactics.
The whispers came. Soft, seductive, slithering into Kael’s mind like serpents.
Join with me. I will make you the strongest cultivator in history. You won’t need to struggle. You won’t need to fight. You won’t need to bleed. Just... submit. Submit, and I will give you everything.
The visions were intoxicating. Images of power, of standing at the pinnacle of creation, of every enemy who had ever wronged him kneeling at his feet. His enemies screaming. The Family Head, bowing.
Kael laughed.
"I don’t submit," he said, his voice carrying the cold weight of absolute certainty. "Not to anyone. And especially not to some flames."
The flame raged. FWOOOSH! The fire intensified tenfold, the cocoon expanding and contracting violently as the flame threw everything it had at him.
Months passed. Inside the Void Realm, where two weeks outside equaled two years inside, time crawled. Kael’s mana, soul, and body were pushed to the absolute brink of destruction dozens of times. His soul cracked and reformed. His body burned and regenerated. His mana depleted and slowly recovered, only to be drained again.
He survived purely through monstrous willpower, forcing the flame to submit piece by piece. Each day, the Asura entity grew weaker. Each day, the Nirvana Devouring Script devoured more of its ego. Each day, Kael’s Slaughter Intent carved deeper wounds into its consciousness.
Five months later.
Inside the cocoon, Kael had won.
The Flame’s ego was shattered. The Asura entity that had raged and screamed and tempted and burned was reduced to a flickering remnant, its four arms dissolved, its face a mask of defeated rage. It knelt before Kael’s soul apparition.
Kael stood above it, his soul form battered, cracked, bleeding spiritual energy from a hundred wounds.