Taeseong opened his eyes in an unfamiliar place, his expression filled with confusion as he looked around.
‘Just now, I was swallowing the crystal I extracted from Sooah…’
But when he opened his eyes, he was here.
Normally, consuming a crystal would bring forth memories of the past. Yet this time, nothing surfaced.
‘My physical abilities… haven’t improved, nor have I gained a new power. What the hell is going on?’
A sea of flames surrounded him.
On either side, enormous volcanoes spewed rivers of molten lava, and ahead of him, fire roared upward from a massive pit.
Even from the ceiling, lava continuously poured down.
This place…
It reminded him of Scorching Hell.
Scorching Hell is one of the Eight Hot Hells in Buddhist tradition, where sinners who committed killing, theft, adultery, intoxication, and false speech are sent.
Those who end up here are laid on heated iron plates and beaten with molten iron clubs, impaled on skewers and submerged in lava, or placed atop a massive grills where their entire bodies are scorched.
— Where did you disappear to…? Mom and Dad are worried sick. They can’t even eat properly anymore. They keep saying they’ll go find you… Come back, brother.
— Brother. Why did you abandon me?
— You said you’d come back. Why haven’t you?
— It’s your fault… It’s all your fault! Because you disappeared, Mom and Dad died! You killed them, brother! You ruined my life!
— Die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die.
Sooah’s voice echoed throughout the space.
Some parts sounded as if she longed for him, but most of it was filled with resentment, grief—curses, almost.
Determined to move forward, Taeseong took a step, but as he turned, flames erupted from the lava, taking on Sooah’s form.
With voices that never ceased their wailing, he realized—
This was Sooah’s mental landscape.
Each fiery spirits that resembled Sooah stared at him with eyes full of hatred.
Was this the true depth of her subconscious?
Somewhere deep down, Taeseong had feared that Sooah resented him. But now, faced with it directly, he realized—this wasn’t mere resentment. This was hatred—deep, burning, unrelenting hatred.
But so what?
She was his family.
His one and only little sister. His one and only blood relative.
No matter how she saw him, he would never give up on her.
‘I’ll take it all—your hatred, your resentment. I’ll bear it.’
How long had he been walking?
At the very least, twelve hours.
Around the ten-hour mark, he had stopped counting.
He walked, and walked, and walked—down a road with no end in sight.
Along the way, he encountered countless copies of Suah.
Some of them wept mournfully. Others hurled unspeakable curses at him.
The only relief was—Once in a hundred encounters, a copy would utter words that sounded like they missed him.
That alone was enough.
At least not all that remained was hatred.
“Scorching Hell, huh…? Compared to this, Iran’s Lut Desert is nothing.”
Even though this was Sooah’s mental world, the pain was indistinguishable from reality.
The deeper he went, the hotter it became. Every breath he took burned his lungs.
Even Taeseong—who had long since mastered the art of enduring pain—had nearly lost consciousness more than once.
How much further would he have to go before he reached Sooah?
The heat was unbearable, but the worst part was the endless waiting without certainty.
He could endure his eyes melting.
He could endure his hands liquefying.
He could endure his organs dissolving.
But even Taeseong, with his superhuman willpower, could not suppress a creeping fear—
What if he was trapped here forever?
“…….”
A day. Two days. Three days.
A week. Two weeks.
A month.
…Or maybe even a year—perhaps longer.
And yet, Taeseong kept walking.
At some point, time itself became meaningless.
The pain that had once tormented him so mercilessly dulled.
Even the hatred spewed by Sooah’s specters no longer stung as much.
The only thing that kept him sane in this wretched cycle was a singular, unwavering thought:
‘I will return with Sooah.’
This was all that remained in Taeseong’s mind.
Ordinarily, it would be impossible for a person to focus on only one thought.
Thoughts arise spontaneously, often outside one’s control.
Negative emotions take shape through “what-ifs.”
—What if this happens? What do I do then?
—What if something goes wrong?
Fears buried deep in the subconscious emerge on their own, beyond one’s control.
Taeseong was no exception.
But unlike others, he could control his range of thought.
He erased every single distraction—every stray emotion—except for his one, absolute goal.
With nothing but this one conviction, he marched on.
Finally, his steps halted.
For a simple reason.
There was nowhere left to go.
A cliff.
Beyond it, only a bubbling sea of lava.
One… two… three.
Taeseong spent exactly three seconds thinking.
And then—he jumped.
Splash!
His body melted.
Every fiber of his being burst into flames.
The regeneration granted by Orochi’s tail worked tirelessly, but it could not keep up with the rate at which he disintegrated.
And yet—he advanced.
A man whose resolve was so unyielding, it felt forged from steel.
Not even this molten hell could stop him.
Taeseong opened his mouth—
And began to drink the lava.
Gulp. Gulp.
His lips melted away, His mouth melted away, His tongue melted away, His lungs melted away, His stomach melted away.
Yet, he did not stop.
The dreadful intensity filling his regenerated eyes was no longer human.
And when he had finally devoured all the lava on the ground—
A mountain of rock emerged before him.
Though it was entirely engulfed in flames, unlike anything he had seen before, it was lined with countless steps, as if calling him forward, exuding an aura of dignified grandeur.
Without hesitation, Taeseong climbed the stairs.
Red flames wrapped around his body.
He paid them no mind and continued ascending.
After climbing approximately ten thousand steps, the surroundings were enveloped in white flames.
The heat was incomparably greater than before, yet Taeseong’s pace did not slow in the slightest.
Engulfed in white fire, he dashed toward the peak, resembling a fire deity incarnate.
The sheer intensity of the heat warped the space around him with each step he took.
By the time he had climbed roughly one hundred thousand steps, the summit finally came into view.
“…….”
A voice, ambiguous in gender, resonated in Taeseong’s mind.
[Unbelievable. How could a mere human withstand my flames and reach this place?]
The moment he heard that voice, Taeseong instinctively understood.
The owner of this voice was the very source of this world—The ‘Pure Flame’ dwelling within Lee Sooah’s body.
“At last… I’ve arrived.”
At the mountain’s peak, a colossal blue flame blazed.
Its size reached the heavens, and its heat surpassed any other flame in this world.
And deep within it—
Lee Sooah lay unconscious.
The ‘Pure Flame’ had embraced her within its very core.
[Do you seek this child? I commend you for making it this far, mere mortal, but abandon your foolish dreams and vanish. This child now belongs to me.]
“Yours?”
[Indeed. As the chosen successor of the most noble flame, I, Ignost, have claimed this human. She is the perfect vessel for me.]
Among the four kings who rule the spirit world—The Spirit King who governs ‘fire,’ the Most Noble Flame, Agni—And his successor, the next Spirit King, the Purest Flame, Ignost.
That was the true identity of the flame residing within Lee Sooah’s body.
“…Shut the hell up.”
[What? Hahaha! Hahahahaha! It seems you fail to grasp the situation. This is neither a request nor a warning. It is an order. What could a pitiful creature, doomed to barely a hundred years of life, possibly do?]
To Ignost, who was virtually free from the constraints of lifespan, humans were nothing more than tools for wielding his flames.
Due to the limitations of spirit entities, manifesting their true power or physical form in the mortal realm required immense restrictions.
From his perspective, Taeseong was less than an insect—No, less than dust.
Had this been the spirit realm rather than a constructed mental world, he could have erased Taeseong with a mere glance.
Ordinarily, such an insignificant being wouldn’t even get his attention.
However, the fact that Taeseong had endured within this mental world, a fusion of Sooah’s unconscious and Ignost’s own manifestation, stirred the faintest curiosity in him.
And that was all.
Taeseong stepped toward the Pure Flame.
His bloodied lips curled into a snarl as he glared at the towering inferno with savage hostility.
“…Ha. Now even some deranged flame bastard is after my sister?”
His voice was filled with sheer, unwavering defiance.
“Fine. Bring it on, you piece of shit. Do whatever the hell you want. No matter what kind of madness you pull, I’ll tear it all apart and devour every last bit of it.”
Taeseong’s eyes gleamed with a spectral, multicolored light—Like a wolf ready to strike down its prey.
[Tch. This is why lesser creatures are so pathetic… Barking away without even recognizing the gap in power, no different from moths drawn to a flame.]
Irritation flickered through Ignost.
With a mere gesture, he commanded a pillar of blue fire to erupt beneath Taeseong’s feet.
This flame was unlike anything Taeseong had encountered before.
It did not simply burn—
It possessed the power of annihilation,
To incinerate the soul itself.
It was, in the truest sense, the Pure Flame.
Fwoooosh!
Deep blue fire engulfed Taeseong entirely.
Unlike before, Orochi’s regeneration failed to activate.
The flames consuming him only grew fiercer with each passing second.
His burned body trembled, and his empty eyes remained fixed on Sooah.
Even with his eyeballs melted away, he stared at her with absolute certainty.
The flames consuming him would only cease once they had devoured his soul entirely.
Ignost, observing the azure fire clinging to Taeseong’s form, muttered in disappointment.
[Had you given up sooner, you might have at least saved your life. Stubborn to the end, only to meet your eternal demise.]
But then—
From behind Taeseong, something began to rise.
A dense, black smoke coiled and twisted into existence.
[…What is that…?]
At first, Ignost mistook it for his own flames.
But in the next instant, he realized—
It was something entirely different.
The black smoke rapidly spread, filling the entire sky.
It stretched outward, as if intending to swallow this entire world whole.
And then—
It began to take shape.
A sight as awe-inspiring as the birth of a universe.
[…Th-that… What… what is that…?]
Ignost, watching in stunned disbelief, experienced something for the first time since his creation—
A profound, crushing sense of helplessness.
And reverence.
Even the ‘Most Noble Flame’—Before ‘that’—Was nothing but an insignificant dust.
No, not even that.
It was utterly meaningless.
The moment he realized that absolute truth, Ignost fell to his knees.
His head bowed, his entire body trembled uncontrollably.
And then, over and over, he muttered the same words.
[Ah… O Great One…]
It was a star.
It was a galaxy.
It was the universe itself.
An unfathomable, incomprehensible wolf—Its massive mouth opening wide to devour this entire world.
