“Go,” he said to Axel. “If it gets too dangerous, retreat. Don’t throw your life away. I… I still have a contingency.”

Axel nodded without hesitation. “Okay. I left you enough Blood Refining Stones to recover Force. There’s food and water in the packs. If I’m not back in three days, don’t wait for me. Keep moving.”

Without waiting for a response, he stripped off his coat and dove into the underground river.

Silence lingered in the chamber.

Rosaline finally turned to Vince. “Were you serious, or were you bluffing?”

Vince offered a small smile and didn’t answer.

Rosaline scowled. “He won’t survive it,” she muttered. “You’re both out of your damn minds.”

Vince glanced at the river, where bubbles were still rising from Axel’s dive.

“No,” he said quietly. “I believe in Axel.”

......

The underground river was pitch black, and Axel swam forward, his body slowly boiling from the increasing heat. But he wasn’t afraid. He had two reasons for diving into this hell.

First, his Force had already reached the upper tier of Level 3. He could protect himself.

Second—and more importantly—he had stocked up on a generous supply of Life Crystals.

The reason Fire Spirits were so feared and so rarely absorbed wasn’t just their power. It was their backlash. They burned from the inside out, tearing through human flesh, bones, and even soul. But Axel… Axel had something no ordinary Awakened did.

He had Abundant, his advanced healing skill.

As long as he stayed conscious and kept casting Abundant, he might just survive it. Hell, he might even tame this monstrous treasure.

The water grew hotter, bubbles forming around his limbs as he pushed onward. Faint light flickered in the distance.

He passed a few ventilation chambers carved into the rock, pausing only long enough to catch a few gulps of air before continuing. Two hours passed.

Then he saw it.

A glowing cavern, deep and wide like an underground lake—nearly a hundred meters across. And there, near the lakebed, was a fist-sized, blazing-red Fire Spirit.

It pulsed with an unnatural heat, surrounded by boiling water that shimmered with waves of searing energy.

“Goddamn…” Axel muttered under his breath.

One single Fire Spirit was strong enough to turn an entire underground river—miles long—into a fucking steam bath. What kind of absurd power was this?

Abundant!

He cast his skill. Cool, soothing energy spread through his skin, momentarily dulling the burn.

Then he swam.

Ten meters in, the water thickened with heat.

Twenty meters—his breath turned ragged.

Thirty—his skin began to flush red.

At fifty meters, his muscles screamed, and it took every ounce of his willpower not to black out.

“This is insane,” he whispered through clenched teeth.

He was already at the brink. Organs aching, blood bubbling under the surface of his skin. Still, he pushed on.

Abundant!

He cast the skill again. His limbs trembled. He couldn’t even open his eyes now—the water was so hot it could melt flesh.

Fifteen meters…

Ten…

He was red all over now, like a shrimp fresh from the pot. His internal organs felt like they were being broiled alive.

Abundant!

Even with his consciousness fraying, he had one single thought left: Get the damn thing. Swallow it. Survive.

Somewhere behind his tightly-shut eyes, the Fire Spirit stirred.

It felt him. As if aware of a threat or a challenger, it suddenly pulsed—violently. The water around it flashed bright.

And then the entire river boiled.

Miles away, back at the underground base, the others felt it instantly.

“Shit! It’s hot!” Kaia yelled, leaping out of the water like she’d been electrocuted.

Rosaline and Vince exchanged a look. If they could feel the temperature spike here, what the hell was Axel going through down there?

.......

At the cave’s entrance, the massive Black-Scale Python suddenly opened its eyes. Its thick, armor-plated body coiled and twisted restlessly. Something inside the mountain had stirred.

.......

Beneath the mountain, Axel’s body was breaking apart.

His skin had split open in countless places, blood spilling into the water like red ink in a bowl. It looked as if he were soaking in a pool of his own blood.

Still, he pressed forward.

The pain was excruciating—his muscles screamed, his nerves fired like live wires—but Axel clung to a single direction, gritting through the agony, casting Abundant again and again.

Each time he healed, the heat tore him open again.

The cycle was relentless: rupture, repair, rupture again.

Without the dozen-plus Life Crystals he’d prepared, he’d already be dead.

He had planned to use those crystals after claiming the Fire Spirit.

“Come… to me,” he rasped, barely conscious.

His outstretched arms had no skin left. The moment they reached for the Fire Spirit, the muscle and flesh sizzled away. Only bone remained.

But Axel didn’t stop.

He followed the plan drilled into his mind—grab it, and feed it to the veins.

His Original Veins surged open. The Flood-grade power within him surged like a starving beast.

And then, Axel did the unthinkable.

He swallowed the Fire Spirit whole into his Original Veins.

For a moment, the entire underground river exploded.

Water boiled violently outward in all directions, a blast of pressure radiating from Axel's trembling body. He was at the eye of the inferno—flesh, blood, and soul torn open by a celestial force that didn’t want to be tamed.

The Fire Spirit fought back.

It roared inside him like a dying star, burning his Original Veins to ash, consuming his bones, his blood, his organs. Even Abundant, his prized awakening skill, was crushed beneath its power—reduced to cinders like everything else.

Axel floated, lifeless, his body a ruined battlefield.

In the darkness of his fading mind, flickers of memory burst through: his father’s tired smile, Cassia’s laughter… Rosaline’s infuriated scolding.

And at the center of it all—Annabelle.

“Bro, I’ll wait for you to come back.”

Her voice echoed like a whisper from heaven.

No. Not yet.

Axel’s fingers twitched. “I… still have a card left.”

Summoning the last of his will, he thrust his skeletal hands toward his pack. In one desperate move, he dumped the remaining Life Crystals—all twenty-something of them, level 2 and level 3 alike—into the open.

They surged into his body like a flood.

If his Original Veins hadn’t already been half-destroyed, the sheer pressure would have torn him apart.

He didn’t care. He funneled all that raw force into one act: trap the Fire Spirit.

The moment it tried to break free from his chest, he redirected the surging energy and shoved it deep into the space inside his abdomen—the realm of the Ancient Tree.

It was his final battlefield.

......

Inside him, in the fog-wreathed world beneath the roots of the Ancient Tree, the Fire Spirit crashed into existence.

It writhed, wild and feral, burning like a star about to go nova.

But then—the Tree moved.

Shrouded in mist, now over three meters tall, the ancient presence stirred. Its trunk groaned, and a desolate, ancient force radiated out, crushing the Fire Spirit with a sheer weight of timeless power.

The Fire Spirit froze.

It quivered like a child in front of a wrathful god.

Then, without warning, a vine extended from the Tree, wrapping around the spirit like chains. It dragged the blazing core toward the trunk, then sealed it in place like a gemstone socketed into divine armor.

The Fire Spirit shuddered, pulsed a few times… and then grew still.

Its light dimmed. As if this had always been its home.

The Tree gave another low groan, and a second vine extended—this one gathering the remnant Force from Axel’s crystal detonation.

The energy shimmered like mist, spreading into the ruined battlefield of Axel’s body.

Vein by vein, bone by bone, cell by agonizing cell—he began to regenerate.

It would be slow.