“This flame is a type of soulfire.” Kulve’s muffled voice was mysteriously audible amidst the piercing screams. “The coal is a small treasure that restrains the soulfire. With it, the fire won’t destroy your soul nor will it melt your flesh into a puddle—instantly, anyway. In fact, the tempering might make your soul abnormally strong. You need to gain control over this ownerless flame and use it to erase the brand on your soul. Control it with your mental energy like it’s an artifact.”

Though Jayce could hear Kulve, he was only able to reply with pained wails. As one might expect, soulfire was an entirely new flavor of agony compared to the Bloodrager ritual. It held the burning pain of fire without the suffocation. Instead of smoke, there was a strange suppressive force that endlessly devoured Jayce’s mind. Jayce imagined that was the feeling of his soul being burnt alive. Any thought he had or memory that he tried to escape to was invaded by the fire. He couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been burning and he couldn’t imagine a future where he wasn’t burning. His past, present and future had become hell.

All he could do in resistance was to try and grasp his thoughts through the blazing flames. Moments of lucidity came and passed in an instant. Controlling the flame like this was impossible. He could only wait in agony for his body to give out from shock.

Seconds passed and he became slightly accustomed to hell. He couldn’t glimpse any hope of controlling the flame, but he was able to stay lucid for slightly longer. After two minutes, Jayce suddenly pushed himself to his knees. With one arm bent to support his upper body, he moved Tiny Hammer out of his storage and into his free hand. After that, his mind collapsed once more. He spasmed on the ground for several more minutes, only able to barely keep his grip on the weapon. Finally, 5 minutes in, he grasped another long period of lucidity and was able to sit up. Pressing the gun into his torso, Jayce resolutely fired a single round.

Meanwhile, his gallery grimaced.

“He failed to commit suicide.” Quint muttered. “It’s no surprise, I guess. I’m amazed he could even make the attempt.”

“No, I think it was on purpose.” Lors posited. “He aimed several centimeters below where his heart should be. It wasn’t even close. Maybe he’s trying to wake himself up with the shock?”

Mize didn’t say anything, but her eyes never left his writhing figure.

Tiny Hammer’s close-range power was incredible. It punched straight through his barrier and dealt severe damage to his midsection. Even the masked slave hadn’t shot Jayce at point-blank range, though he did fire twice as many bullets. Ultimately, the damage wasn’t as severe as that time, but it was still terrible. Blood flowed like a small river, pooling around Jayce as he once again lost his wits.

Jayce’s eyes turned red and his muscles twitched with power. He had activated Bloodrage, but he didn’t care about the physical boost at all. What Jayce needed was the pain tolerance and the increased aggression. Soon, Jayce no longer registered the illusory pain of his skin being roasted. And in his mind, Jayce’s spirit had become fiercer. He fought for every inch as he took back his lucidity from the flames.

7 minutes into hell, Jayce finally grasped control over the soulfire. 8 minutes in, he successfully gathered the flames around the slave brand on his soul. 11 minutes in, the soul brand was finally burnt away. Jayce had survived this agony for over 10 minutes, but he managed to complete his goal.

The purple fire that had been burning so vigorously seemed to lose its bite. Slowly and soundlessly, it retracted into Jayce’s body.

From that moment forth, Jayce was no longer a slave. He had become a true denizen of the Upper Bound.

You have completed a special action and unlocked the special class: Soul Forger.

You have gained an ability: Soul Forger – Soul-Guided Forging.

Soul-Guided Forging

Cost: Mental Energy & Mana

You can use a soul as a temporary blueprint to forge artifacts. How much the soul guides the forging process is decided by your skill as an artifact refiner. Products created purely from a soul’s guidance will be low-quality, but they can provide a valuable experience. Using souls far beyond your life order will sharply increase the cost.

You have gained an ability: Soul Forger – Sense Aspects (Area).

Sense Aspects (Area)

Cost: Mental Energy

Extend your senses to feel the aspects within mana or physical materials. Using this ability requires a calm mind and time to focus. This ability has a base range of 10 meters and will increase with your class level. Higher class levels will make it easier to sense aspects within stronger materials and denser mana.

Jayce had neither the time nor the mental capacity to process the information that had sunk into his head. He raised his head and allowed his blurry, tear-filled eyes to sweep the area. Then, he lowered his head and began to crawl. While he skulked along the ground, the skin around his grisly wound stretched and closed itself off, greatly reducing the bleeding. The fact that Jayce was able to use Flesh Control while dragging himself forward was a minor miracle in his state. In truth, Jayce wasn’t even aware that his body was closing its wounds. Some part of him had realized that he would bleed out if he didn’t use that ability, so he operated it subconsciously.

The prospective Goldscale clan leaders and their guardians watched in stunned silence as Jayce crawled all the way to the guardian who had been bisected by Kulve. Jayce approached the pool of scarlet blood that had refused to dry up or even spread out too far. Like Jayce, this person had been a Bloodrager. Though she was killed instantly, her blood was very powerful and could remain as a vitality-rich puddle for days. Jayce bent his upper body and drank her blood, causing his injuries to heal at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Once Jayce finished drinking, he collapsed like a pile of bricks. No matter how healthy his body was, his mind was completely spent.

“Hmm. If he can fuse those classes, that would also be something I’ve never seen before.”

Kulve was, of course, the one to break the silence. No one would dare speak in its presence without being spoken to. After it had spoken, the black salamanders realized that Jayce had undergone a special class ritual. However, they couldn’t bring themselves to feel jealous of Kulve’s gift. Throughout the Upper Bound’s long history, it wasn’t unheard of for someone to obtain two or more special classes. The first hurdle was the materials. Special class rituals tended to require rare and extremely valuable materials to perform. The medicine for the Bloodrager class was a relatively cheap example while the Goldscale clan’s prized divine tree was an extreme case. On top of the material cost, the ritual itself was usually very dangerous and painful. Without the system’s baptism making things easier, those rituals were little more than novel ways to commit suicide.

They weren’t overly jealous of the gift because even if someone offered them a chance at a second special class, they likely wouldn’t take it.

They were, however, very jealous that he had succeeded. This was doubly true for the younger black salamanders.

“Well, I’ve seen what I came to see. This world fragment is going to collapse very soon, so I’ll take my leave.”

The black salamanders shuddered and glanced around at the cracks that filled the cave. After Jayce talked back to Kulve and was forced to undergo a class ritual, they had nearly forgotten their dire situation.

“Great one!” Mize spoke up while everyone else was panicking. “We pray for you to look upon us with kindness. Our methods to escape have been used up, and without your assistance we will definitely die inside this world fragment.”

Kulve slowly moved its head to look at her.

“Ah, it has truly been a long time since I’ve interacted with people so weak. I completely forgot about that.” Once again, Kulve’s attitude became a bizarre mix of meekness and arrogance. “Well, I don’t owe your Goldscale clan anything, so you’ll have to curse your bad luck.”

“As you’ve noticed, we have eaten a fruit from the golden tree.” Mize quickly replied. “Our clan values us greatly. If you save us, I’m sure the clan would reward you with…”

“If I step in front of him, your clan leader will reward me with a painful death.” Kulve spoke bitterly. “I refuse to open a gate to the Goldscale clan.”

“You’ve been slandering our father for quite a while now.” Quint finally couldn’t hold back his venomous comment.

Kulve glanced at him and Quint’s guardian quickly flashed to his side. The guardian covered Quint’s mouth and forced him to lower his head.

“Great one, you said that meeting that boy over there was fate.” Mize cut in. “The fact that we entered the dungeon at this time and met you could be considered fate as well. I won’t ask for a gift or anything comparable to what he received. I can only pray that you will give us some chance to escape from here.”

Returning its gaze to Mize, Kulve’s bubbling mouth released a forlorn sigh.

“When people like you with silver tongues become gods, it’s so frustrating to talk to them. Fine, let’s leave it up to fate then.”

Kulve raised one of its hands and snapped its fingers. “Done. With the authority I usurped, I created a gate somewhere nearby. Maybe you didn’t know this, but the handful of entrances to the Fragmented Ruins are ordered numerically. I connected this gate to the entrance one index above the Goldscale clan’s gate. Of course, trespassing on another clan’s entrance would be a death-sentence, so I set it to spit anyone who enters out at a random location within that world. Haha, like you asked, I’ll leave your survival up to fate.”

Seemingly forgetting about its audience, Kulve continued chuckling to itself.

“Hehe, it’s hard to randomize things like this without the system’s power. I could potentially create a very fun game in here. Unfortunately, this place is about to collapse, and it’s very difficult to usurp this much authority over a world fragment. 300 years ago, if I hadn’t…”

Kulve glanced at the black salamanders who were still kneeling.

“…I’ll leave first.” This time, its already quiet voice was barely a whisper.

When the black salamanders looked up, Kulve had already vanished without a single sound or flash of light. It was enough to make one question if the god had ever existed at all. Though, Jayce’s prone figure and the two black salamander corpses proved that they had indeed met a god in this dungeon.

When everyone stood up and collected themselves, their thoughts quickly turned to the gate that Kulve had left behind. The god had said it was left ‘somewhere nearby’. This cave had been hollowed out from a tunnel, and during that process it became connected to several other tunnels. There were openings all over the walls and ceiling that could potentially lead to the portal.

Mize glanced at the sphynx and followed its gaze. Afterwards, she darted forward and yelled, “Erilin, back me up!”

When Lors and Quint saw where she was running, their eyes bulged, and their features twisted in anger. Just before they could order their slaves and guardians to pursue her, a piercing screech tore through the cave. This unholy sound first froze their blood and then caused it to flow backwards. In response, a pair of fierce auras erupted in the room. They weren’t nearly as oppressive as Kulve’s presence, but they were very intimidating to the younger black salamanders and their slaves.

Lors and Quint’s guardians shrugged off Erilin’s Blood-Freezing Screech ability and charged towards Mize. Erilin, who had predicted this, was already in position to block them. Mize grinned when she successfully reached her target. Lying by her feet was Zoe’s bisected corpse. Mize hastily stored her sister’s body and whatever spilled blood she could grasp and then glanced at Jayce. He was lying only an arm’s length away beside the corpse of Zoe’s guardian. A complicated look crossed Mize’s face as she hesitated for a moment. Ultimately, she only stopped for the briefest of instants. Grabbing Jayce’s collar, Mize dragged him with her as she dashed towards the tunnel that the sphynx had been looking at.

Though Jayce was much taller than her, Mize wasn’t slowed down at all as she carried him with one arm.

While their guardians fought, Lors and Quint urged their slaves to stop Mize. They also raised their weapons and rushed towards their escaping sister. As the cause of this chaos, Mize had already predicted where they would intercept her. Rainbow-colored feathers and a writhing green wall blocked her brothers’ paths. When she reached the tunnel, Mize waved her hand and brought the feathered dragon and centipede back into her bracelet. Like Jayce’s Star Girdle, Mize’s bracelet had its own restrictions on what could and couldn’t be brought into it. Now that Jayce wasn’t her slave, Mize could only drag him behind her like a sack of potatoes.

Maybe because his head was knocked against a rock protruding from the ground, Jayce’s eyes opened, and he blinked weakly.

“Where…are we going?” His hoarse voice was barely a whisper, but Mize’s senses were very sharp.

“Out of here.” Was her curt reply.

“Why…bring me?”

“It wasn’t very difficult, so I just did it.”

“Mize, wait!” Lors’ voice swept through the tunnel. “Remember the sphynx’s prediction! If we don’t settle things now…”

“She never said it was impossible, so we’ll settle it in the future!” Mize retorted, her voice rising to a crazed pitch. “It’s not like you can’t complete the ritual when 1/7th of your blood is golden. For now, I’ll take my advantage and run! Please look forward to our reunion, hahaha!”

Jayce glanced up at Mize and saw that her face was not nearly as insane as her voice suggested. He had seen that look before whenever she was considering several things at once.

“You’re…scaring them.” He muttered.

“Now that our guardians have joined the fight, I can’t guess what the outcome will be. This fragment is going to break soon, too. It’s impossible to settle things here. With that being the case…” Mize grinned. “If I’m scared, I may as well make sure they’re even more terrified.”

After a few twists and turns, the portal was ahead of them. Much like the original exit, this flame gate was pure white. However, it didn’t offer a sense of security like the Nexus’s exit. There was a feeling of chaos emanating from those flames that made Jayce and Mize’s hearts skip a beat. Nevertheless, Mize didn’t slow down as she charged straight through it and Jayce didn’t try to stop her.

White light enveloped them and the world in their perception drifted away. In the void, Jayce lost any feeling in his body. He recalled having a similar experience when he had first been summoned, though it also felt distinctly different. An index number flashed in his vision: LAHJW-2-26. It was unfamiliar to him. As he fell through the void, Jayce sensed Mize getting further away from him. He wanted to say something, but without eyes or a mouth, he could only use his vague sixth sense to watch her drift away. An invisible force pulled him as well, sending him to a random place on an unfamiliar planet.

‘Bring it on!’ Jayce thought, not feeling quite as confident as he pretended to be.

His greatest comfort was the fact that, from here on out, he would be making his own decisions. He had already taken the first step towards controlling his own destiny.

---

30 minutes later.

Jayce was lying in a wet and slimy place. It was hot, tight and the smell was an acquired taste. He was too exhausted to move and the combination of a lack of fresh air, the unpleasant heat and the even more unpleasant smell was dragging his consciousness away. As his eyelids slowly fell, Jayce mentally cursed the monster that swallowed him with every word in every language he knew.

‘This also…isn’t…my fetish.’ Were possibly his last thoughts.

Ultimately, Jayce was still far from grasping his own fate.