God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.-Chapter 789 : To a Damned Soul, The Secrets of Eternity (3).

Cain let out a grim chuckle as he rose to his feet.

Bloody tears streaked down his face.

Thanks to {Blood Restitution}, his eye had began reconstructing itself from the strings of tissue and blood.

It was a gruesome sight to behold.

Luckily, there was only him and the skeleton of a dead god in this accursed place. No one would see it.

Cain took in a deep breath,

"You said I have to bear the flame for you, right? For how long?"

Seated on the wooden chair, Siva turned slightly, his bones creaking,

"How long, you say?" Siva said before falling silent.

Cain felt his stomach squeeze up.

Gritting his teeth whilst enduring the pain, he reached into his inventory and pulled out a few HP regene potions, downing them fast.

After a few minutes of silence occasionally interrupted with the sound of empty vials hitting the ground, Siva finally responded,

"Until I feel it is enough."

Cain immediately lost his composure,

"Isn't that rather unfair?! What if you decide to keep me here forever?!"

The skeleton shrugged,

"I gave you other options, didn't I? Quite frankly, I do not believe this will last very long. The Sunflame eventually will consume all that you are and subject you to eternal torment. Your mind and soul will not last an eternity."

Tapping his bony fingers in the arm rest, Siva leaned back,

"The last time someone tried taking this trial, what was it called again? The bastard offspring of some idiot washed up Celestial I suppose. Either way, he endured for about a thousand years before he finally couldn't take it any more. If you can do better than that, maybe I might consider you."

Cain gritted his teeth.

'This is insane. This trial is unreasonable.'

If all this skeleton had told him so far was the truth, then chances were this place would be his grave, or eternal nightmare.

There was no way to win, if he considered the options laid out.

He hadn't come I to contact with this Sunfire yet, but according to the story, the Sunfire was powerful enough to turn a god, a Celestial Deity, into nothing but bones.

That was more than enough warning he needed.

However, the only other option was killing himself, or spending an eternity inside this Eternity.

He didn't want to do any of those.

He let out a sigh.

'Quite frankly, I am not out of options.'

His eyes narrowed, 'This sack of bones has no idea what I am. This so called Sunfire must be some sort of elemental variation, like the Flame of Darkness. In that case, {Vampiric Star} should be able to absorb it.'

'In case that doesn't work, I will just feed it directly into {Mana Vault}.'

All this was hinged in that fact that this so called Sunfire was something else.

"I'll take you up on your challenge." Cain finally said after contemplating for a fair bit.

"Is that so... Well, I suppose that is the most amount of warning I can give. In that case, human..."

The bone arms of the skeleton reached up, tugging on the dark cloth that covered the top of the long pole.

"Your trial begins now."

***

The lantern was uncovered.

The source of the Sunflame was revealed in its horrific splendor.

Cain had expected a lot of things.

What truly was, didn't even come close to his expectations.

Truly, ignorance was a blessing.

The eye that was on its way to being healed began leaking blood profusely.

The light from the Sunfire Lantern was soft, like the flames that burned within the skull of Siva.

Despite his bleeding eye, Cain found himself unable to look away.

And that was because he could now hear them.

Like crackling embers.

Hundreds, thousands, no millions upon billions of voices within the Sunfire.

No, even more than that.

A near uncountable number of souls that had been consumed to create the Sunfire.

A flame that could not be quenched.

A flame that burned the flesh of a god to ash.

The flames in the hollow eyes of Siva danced and swayed as he stared into the lantern.

In a low voice, he chanted,

"The Sunfire is not simple fire."

"It is damnation, a cursed ember born from the screams within the cauldron of annihilated worlds and the eternal agony of a cursed celestial. It is the last remnant of I, Siva, the Corpse of the God That Never Dies."

'Oh no...'

Cain felt his soul burn.

All over his body, flared of a golden flame seeped out.

His skin bubbled and popped with fetid blood.

He was being cooked alive.

A gut wrenching wail came from the depths of his throat as even more flames consumed him.

Siva continued his eerie chant coldly, the Sunfire in his eyes dancing with his gaze,

"The ruinous star within eternity. Sunfire does not burn the flesh alone. It licks clean that which is. The essence of existence itself, it erases,"

Siva lightly tapped the pole on the ground.

Threads of golden fire seed out of the cold ground.

The dark hall was slowly being enveloped in light.

"Those caught in its grasp will be unmade, their names forgotten, their souls unraveling as they are reduced to the nothingness beyond death."

"To be burned by Sunfire is to suffer the fate of Sekth, to be stripped of meaning, left as only a hollow remnant."

He tapped the bottom of the pole against the ground again.

This time, all the wisps of golden fire swam towards Cain, enveloping him in a cocoon of light. On the surface of this cocoon, an uncountable number of illusory faces, the faces of the souls that had been burned to produce this unholy flame, screamed in eternal agony.

The flames in the skull of Siva burned with even more intensity,

"And so, that when the body had burned, and the worlds, their names forgotten— no, burned away from all of existence, Siva fashioned a lantern from the bones of the sacrificed, an artifact that holds the unending Sunfire. Those who glimpse its glow see not light, but the charred faces of the slain, mouths agape in soundless agony. It is a torment, that even Eternity fears, a cup that it desires gone."

The tongues of fire licked at the white bones, but they were not burned.

Instead, they were sucked in, flowing through the bones and burning at the joints.

The cocoon of fire around Cain intensified,

"And so, unfortunate soul, you will bear the Sunfire. To give this arrogant god a moment of respite."

"A moment of rest from his eternal punishment."

"This is your trial."

"This is your fate."

Within the cocoon of Sunfire, Cain was locked in an eternal cycle of death and rebirth.

His flesh and skin were burned until there was nothing more.

The fire did not stop there.

It burned his mind as well.

Burned his soul.

Burned all that he was.

Burned his name.

He was killed, but he was not granted that release.

The Sunfire would not let him.

Instead, the agonizing souls pulled his ashes back together and made his flesh once again.

Under the light of the Sunfire, death was not granted.

And so he was made whole again.

And again, his body was burned, his flesh melting and bubbling over, reduced to a puddle of pus, clear fluid, and blood that sizzled onto the ground.

And again, he was reborn from the ashes, the pain growing more and more with every death.

Over and over and over again.

For an eternity.

Staring at the cocoon of Sunfire, Siva let out a sigh,

"His soul will surely break, right?"

He shook his head as he looked up to the darkness above.

It swirled and churned, like the bowels of a living eldritch nightmare.

"You think so too? How long do you think it will take? Ten years max? Maybe a bit less than that, huh..."

The flames in his sockets danced,

"Maybe we might see something entertaining this time?"

He turned his eyes back to the cocoon,

"I doubt it."

***

'How long has it been?'

Cain thought he would get used to it after some time has passed.

But that never happened.

Instead, the sensations were heightened.

Within the conflagration, he could feel everything.

The scalding heat.

The burning light.

He could hear the screams and cries. They tormented him.

But from this maddening screams, he found something.

Cain remember the conversation he had—

'How long ago was it?'

The flames were a vessel for the power. Without the flame, the power could not be.

Without the power, the flame had no substance.

He let out a deep breath.

'The cycle needs to be broken. Or my body and soul will be trapped in this eternal torment.'

He forced himself to remember the options he had as his flesh was burned right off his bones.

This chapt𝓮r is updat𝒆d by ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom.

Now he had to make a choice.

'Right now, the Sunfire has invaded every part of my body. Trying to use the {Mana Vault} will be futile.'

And so, as the idea blossomed in his mind, Cain found himself activating the spell already.

As his body was torn apart by the flames, and as his senses of self was burned obsolete, he chanted the words,

'The essence of a spell, is in its user's ability to make it worthwhile.'

Cain let his mana run wild as he activated {Vampiric Star}.

Right at the center of his being.

It was madness.

It was an insane thing to do.

But it was what these voices were telling him to do.

'Swallow it all!'