(VOL.1) Ashes and Embers

Kane charged towards Lux like a cannonball fired from its cannon.

His pair of ferocious giant claws, covered in bone armor, were tightly clasped together, transforming into an incredibly heavy bone hammer, and with a whistling sound that tore through the air, it slammed hard onto the ground beneath Lux's feet.

Lux reacted extremely quickly, her body rolling sideways, narrowly avoiding this earth-shattering blow.

However, just as she landed, the ground beneath her feet suddenly exploded.

Countless sharp white bone spikes burst out from the earth like venomous snakes, instantly piercing through the soles of her feet.

Intense pain shot through her.

Immediately after, the two fleshy whips on Kane's back lashed out like living creatures.

The tips of the whips, armed with sharp bone blades, cut through the night sky, emitting a sharp whistling sound like the scythe of Death.

Alarm bells screamed in Lux's mind; she immediately condensed black shadow, forming a thick shadow wall in front of her, barely blocking the strike of one of the whips.

But the other whip cunningly burrowed into the ground, silently shooting up from the shadow beneath Lux's feet, aiming straight for her face.

Lux's pupils constricted abruptly, and her left hand instantly condensed a small, circular shield of shadow magic.

"Bang." A dull thud. The sneak-attacking bladed whip was steadily blocked by the round shield.

However, the moment the bone blade on the whip was blocked, it suddenly reversed and sprang out like the tail hook of a scorpion.

The barb connected to the back of the whip blade viciously hooked onto her shoulder, where her right arm had long been severed.

The sharp barb pierced deep into her bone, bringing a wave of heart-drilling pain.

Lux didn't hesitate, immediately condensing a sharp blade with shadow magic and fiercely slashing at the body of the whip entangling her, attempting to sever it.

However, the shadow blade cut halfway through and then seemed to get stuck in tough leather, unable to advance any further.

The core of that whip was actually made of tightly connected, incredibly hard white bones.

At the same time, a huge pulling force came from the whip, trying to drag her towards Kane.

At the critical moment, a trace of decisiveness flashed in Lux's eyes.

She actually drove the shadow blade to slash at her own shoulder.

She forcefully cut off a large piece of flesh and skin, along with part of the bone.

She let that piece of flesh and blood be carried back by the whip.

"Truly… a brave little girl." Kane watched Lux's self-mutilating act, a trace of surprise flashing in his eyes, his offensive slowing slightly as he panted.

That series of outbursts had also consumed a considerable amount of his energy.

Lux took the opportunity to quickly retreat, creating distance, and only stopped when she confirmed she was outside the whip's attack range.

With a thought, the [Flower of Healing] Mitty had left on her chest emitted a soft glow, its magic activated.

Those terrifying wounds that had been gushing blood—the soles of her feet pierced by bone spikes, her shoulder torn by barbs—healed rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye, soon returning to their original state, as if they had never been injured.

However, Lux's face was pale, and she was gasping heavily for breath.

The recovery of these wounds all over her body and the use of the shadow cloak just now had consumed too much of her magical power; the intense battle and blood loss had already left her exhausted.

"What?! Healing magic?! How can you possibly use two different types of magic simultaneously?!" Kane's face showed incredulous shock and confusion upon seeing this scene. Then, his gaze fell on the unremarkable little cloth flower on Lux's chest. "A magic item?! When did you…"

"Want to know? You can pay for a consultation. One question, one shining gold coin," Lux said, forcing herself to stay alert, panting. "Or, if you let me leave now, I can give you a monthly free consultation service."

"Is that so? Then forget it." Kane didn't seem that insistent on an answer; he also needed time to recover his strength. "These questions… don't seem that important to me."

He moved his bone-armored body, the joints once again emitting a "creak-creak" sound.

[This guy… his whole body is tightly protected by that strange bone armor, and he seems to know a lot about shadow magic, maybe even specifically researched ways to counter it… In a direct confrontation, I can't beat him at all. However, maintaining this transformed state must consume a huge amount of his magical power, it definitely can't last long. If… if I can find a way to stall him for a while, drag it out until he's exhausted, maybe there's still a sliver of hope…] Lux's brain was working at lightning speed, analyzing the current situation, searching for a possible way out. [But… if it were just me and him in a one-on-one fight, there might still be room to maneuver. But what I'm most worried about now… is still…]

As if to confirm Lux's ominous premonition, a voice filled with greed and impatience suddenly came from the distant night sky: "Hey! Kane! What's wrong with you?! It's been so long, and you still haven't dealt with this little chick worth 1690 shining gold coins?!"

Accompanied by the voice, a figure, treading on two hovering red crystals, slowly descended from the sky like a god—it was none other than that Grace Bather of the Wealth Cult, Brad! "To hurry here, I spent an extra 20 blue silver coins on magic crystals!"

Lux's heart instantly sank to the bottom.

The thing she had worried about most had finally happened.

That greedy and powerful Grace Bather, Brad, had arrived.

"Lord Brad," Kane immediately reported respectfully upon seeing Brad descend. "I'm afraid… I still have to request your assistance. This little girl seems to have a magic item with a powerful healing effect on her. Your subordinate… is afraid it will be difficult to take her down alone." He was quite frank about the situation.

"What?! She actually has a recovery-type magic item?!" Grace Bather Brad was stunned at first upon hearing this, then his eyes erupted with an even more fervent glow. He quickly calculated in his mind: "A recovery-type magic item of this level, if put up for auction… tsk tsk tsk… even after those damned black-hearted merchants deduct their exorbitant handling fees, and the exchange takes its cut… it could still sell for at least 700 shining gold coins! Calculated this way, with our seventy-thirty split, I can still steadily get… 490 shining gold coins!"

"Heavens! Then you are now worth… 1690 shining gold coins, Miss!" Brad finished his calculation, his eyes, when looking at Lux, filled with naked excitement and greed, as if looking at a walking pile of gold coins. He slowly extended his arm, opened his palm, and countless magic crystals of various colors and shapes instantly appeared in his palm.

"Come on! My dear Miss 1690 Gold Coins! Obediently… completely… turn into those shiny gold coins in my account! Before I spend more than 10 shining gold coins in costs to capture you!" Brad finished with a savage grin, and the various colored crystals hovering in his palm, as if imbued with life, instantly grew pairs of transparent energy wings. They erupted with intense light, then transformed into streams of dazzling energy cannonballs, shooting towards Lux like a torrential downpour.

Faced with such a dense attack, Lux had no time to dodge.

She could only instantly mobilize all the shadow magic within her body, wrapping herself tightly in a thick layer of darkness.

Those multicolored crystal cannonballs bombarded Lux's surroundings like a violent storm.

For a moment, explosions sounded one after another, deafeningly.

This dense barrage of explosions was like a grand and destructive fireworks show.

The shockwaves from the explosions blasted the surrounding trees into burning debris in large swathes, and countless deep and shallow craters instantly appeared on the charred black earth.

[I… can't hold on much longer…] Lux felt that even under the full defense of her shadow magic, her body was still being shaken by the violent shockwaves, causing her qi and blood to churn, and waves of intense pain kept coming.

And the originally thick shadow wall on the surface of her body was also becoming thinner and more fragile under the continuous explosions, as if it would completely collapse at any moment.

"Very good! A total of 30 assorted blasting crystals fired! The cost… probably about twelve purple coins! Kane! Make your move!" Brad seemed very satisfied with the effect of his barrage, and the moment the explosions subsided slightly, he immediately called for Kane to go in for the finishing blow.

Lux had just barely survived that devastating bombardment and felt as if all the bones in her body were about to fall apart from the excruciating pain.

She hadn't even had time to catch her breath when she saw "Dire Beast" Kane's massive figure already raising his ferocious giant claws again, charging towards her and slamming them down.

"Ugh!" Lux hurriedly condensed a shadow shield again to block.

However, just as the shadow shield collided with the giant claws, the corner of her eye caught a dangerous glint flashing again from the distant Grace Bather Brad.

Then, several beams of scorching energy, like sharp swords, tore through the air.

Lux desperately dodged, but one of the beams still grazed her waist.

With a "hiss," a horrifying fist-sized hole was immediately burned into her side.

A nauseating smell of burnt flesh instantly filled the air.

And those lasers that missed, like cutting through tofu, easily pierced through a row of thick trees behind her.

The hit trees immediately burst into flames, the firelight soaring.

At the same time, Kane's giant claws, slamming down, did not stop.

After being blocked by the shadow shield, he fiercely plunged his claws into the ground beneath Lux's feet.

In an instant, countless ghastly white bone spikes, like a frantically growing thicket of thorns, shot up from underground.

Lux hurriedly leaped backward, narrowly avoiding them.

However, before her figure was stable, Brad's attacks from afar arrived one after another.

Dense laser beams and powerful crystal bombs, as if they had eyes, once again centered on Lux and carried out a covering bombardment.

Under such dense and terrifying long-range fire suppression, Lux was almost powerless to resist.

She was blasted away like a fallen leaf in a gale, crashing heavily into a huge ancient tree that would take several people to encircle, then slid powerlessly to the ground.

"Pfft—" Lux violently coughed up a large mouthful of blood, stars exploding before her eyes, and a violent ringing filled her head.

Her eyes and ears seemed to have completely gone on strike, falling into a temporary state of blindness and deafness, her entire body trembling uncontrollably.

The healing from the [Flower of Healing] hadn't even had time to fully mend her wounds when an extreme sense of danger, originating from the depths of her soul, made her, on the verge of unconsciousness, muster her last remaining shred of strength to forcefully deploy a shadow shield in front of her. The moment the shadow shield formed, a giant crystal bomb, as large as a millstone, with six pairs of transparent energy wings, and exuding an aura of destruction, descended from the sky like a meteor, slamming hard onto the shadow shield.

The instant it touched the shadow shield, that giant crystal erupted with a light even more intense and dazzling than the sun.

In this endless night, it seemed to transform into a small, rising sun.

Then, came a terrifying, world-destroying massive explosion.

The shockwave of the explosion spread outwards with devastating force.

All trees within a twenty-meter radius of the explosion's center were instantly pulverized, vaporized, disappearing without a trace.

The shrubs within a fifty-meter radius were directly burned to black ash.

The trees within a hundred-meter radius also burst into flames one after another, the firelight dyeing half the night sky red.

This terrifyingly powerful crystal bomb had forcibly cleared out a large area of barren land in this dense primeval forest.

The smoke and dust from the explosion slowly dissipated, revealing the lone figure at the center of the blast—to be precise, it could no longer be called a human figure, but a charred black… piece of charcoal, barely maintaining a human form.

This was Lux, who had miraculously survived the massive explosion.

Almost all the skin on her body had been completely charred and carbonized, and with her magical power almost completely depleted, she couldn't even summon the Flower of Healing. Beneath the solidified black burn tissue, dark red blood was still slowly seeping out.

Her hair had long since been burned away by the high temperature, revealing a scorched scalp.

The black robe she had stripped from the Demon Hunter was also tattered beyond recognition, revealing the ghastly white bones faintly visible beneath the charred skin.

A crystal clear crystal rolled out from her tattered clothes onto the ground—it was the "Blasphemer's Fragment" that the blue-skinned man had entrusted to her, which she had carefully hidden.

"Hahahaha! Beautiful!" Grace Bather Brad looked at the "spoils of war" before him and let out a satisfied laugh. "Adding this 'Six-Winged Seraph' large crystal, the total cost was only… hmm… 8 shining gold coins, 10 dazzling purple coins, plus 20 blue silver coins! What a bargain!"

His fingers were still constantly calculating, the expression on his face like someone excitedly counting money after receiving a hefty bounty.

He looked energetic, showing no signs of fatigue from the violent magical bombardment just now.

"And… that 'Blasphemer's Fragment', it really was on her! Hahaha! Excellent! Kane! Quick! Go grab that 'Miss Worth 1690 Shining Gold Coins' for me!"

"Next… we're really going to strike it rich!"

"As you command, Mr. Brad." Kane acknowledged, then strode with his huge lizard-like hind feet towards the already dying, charcoal-like Lux, step by step.

He walked very slowly, very leisurely, as if strolling in his own backyard garden.

And Lux, at this moment, could no longer hear their conversation at all.

Her ears had long since been completely burned, losing her sense of hearing.

Her eyelids also felt as heavy as lead, only able to barely support opening a thin slit, her vision blurry.

In her brain, apart from the boundless, intense pain, she could no longer feel anything else.

[Am I… going to die…] Lux's consciousness began to dissipate.

[Mitty… I'm sorry… Not only did I fail to protect you… I myself am also going to die so soon… If Mitty saw me like this now… she would definitely be very sad… And… I didn't even get to eat… a single piece of cake for Mitty… If I die just like this… when I see Mitty… what should I tell her…?] Lux's thoughts flashed rapidly at the brink of death, as if time itself had stopped for her at this moment.

Suddenly, she felt the whole world become exceptionally bright, as if instantly placed in a kingdom of pure light.

[Is this… the world after death? Am I… finally going to see Mitty…] A sense of peace, like a release, surged in Lux's consciousness.

She seemed to have already accepted her impending fate.

[Then… let me just die like this… Although… I…]

[…Still… a little unwilling…] A faint thought, like a candle flickering in the wind, stubbornly shone in the depths of her soon-to-be-extinguished consciousness.

She didn't even know what she was unwilling about.

Was it unwillingness that she couldn't help that dead blue-skinned man deliver the item?

Or was it unwillingness… that she couldn't even fulfill Mitty's last small wish of "you have to eat lots of cake for me"?

"Eat… that fragment…" Just then, an ethereal, misty, yet somewhat familiar girl's voice suddenly sounded deep within Lux's mind.

[Who? Who is speaking?] Lux's consciousness wavered.

She subconsciously wanted to ask: [Mitty… is that you?]

However, in reality, she merely opened her mouth in vain; her already burned throat even emitted a wheezing "hoh-hoh" sound, unable to utter a single complete syllable.

"Eat… that fragment…" The voice sounded again, and this time, Lux even felt as if she vaguely "saw" a slender, fair hand pointing in a certain direction on the ground.

This time, Lux no longer hesitated.

Although she still couldn't see or hear anything clearly, she still, relying on her last shred of instinct, opened her mouth with all her might and, towards the direction indicated by the voice, bit down hard.

With a crisp "crack". She bit it.

She bit the cold, hard crystal fragment that the blue-skinned man had entrusted to her before he died.

[Devour… Activate!] In the final moment before her consciousness completely sank into darkness, Lux issued the last command in her mind.