"Grandpa, I understand now. me is power. Whoever has greater power is the strong one."


    Grandpa looked at him.


    Sorrow filled his eyes.


    "Child, you''re wrong. me isn''t power. It''s life."


    The youth didn''t believe him.


    He turned and left the in again.


    This time, he went even farther.


    Time sped up once more.


    The youth became a young man.


    The young man became a grown man.


    His me changed again.


    From gold-white, it turned a deep blue. Then from deep blue, it became a nearly transparent white.


    He became stronger and stronger.


    And more and more alone.


    He had devoured too many mes.


    The wills inside those mes shed within him, crashed against each other, and tore at his soul.


    He grew harsher.


    His temper came quicker. And little by little, he stopped trusting anyone.


    He returned to the in.


    There were no fire spirits left on the in.


    Grandpa was gone too.


    All that remained was dead silence, molten fire, and scorched earth.


    He stood there, looking out over that barrennd.


    He said nothing for a long time.


    Then he lifted his head and looked up at the sky.


    "I''ll prove it to you," he said under his breath. "The me is power."


    He raised a hand.


    A mass of white me gathered in his palm.


    It burned so hot the space around it warped.


    It burned so hot even the light bent.


    Then he hurled that ball of me into the sky.


    The me shot upward, punched through the barrier of thews of the celestial realm, and crashed down onto thend of the Fifteenth Firmament.


    It sted out a crater 1 thousand miles across.


    After that, the young man fought his way onward without pause, chasing the power of the supreme me, and tens of thousands of years slipped by in the span of a finger snap...


    The young man from back then had long since grown old.


    Morning and night had bleached him with age, and in his eyes, there was nothing left except hunger for power.


    His me had already changed from that original white into an evil ck.


    He stepped onto the demonic path, and he gained a name that shook the world— Inferno Devil.


    Jared''s eyes snapped open.


    He was still standing at the bottom of the Pyre Chasm.


    His fingertip was still touching that cluster of white me.


    But his hand was shaking, and his forehead was slick with cold sweat.


    "That was... Inferno Devil."


    Atst, it had be clear to him.


    That youth, that fire spirit with the greatest talent, that young man who refused to be satisfied and kept chasing the furthest edge of power-he was Inferno Devil.


    That heavenfire had not fallen from the sky.


    He had thrown it there with his own hand.


    The Pyre Chasm was not a natural disaster.


    It was a mark he had left behind.


    And that white me, the me beneath Jared''s fingertip, was thest trace of purity Inferno Devil had left behind before he departed.


    Untouched by the hunger that devoured everything. Unwarped by the chase for power. It was only the first the me-lotus the gifted child had ever gathered under that old man''s guidance.


    Pure. Warm. Full of life.


    Jared closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath.


    Then he opened his mouth and swallowed the white me whole.


    The instant the me entered his body, Jared felt himself catch fire.


    It wasn''t suffering in any ordinary sense.


    It was a searing heat that no words could really hold.


    That heat spread from his throat to his chest, from his chest into his limbs, from his


    limbs into every inch of flesh, every bone, every meridian.


    The primal fire-essence inside him began to boil.


    Countless kinds of me-power had been sleeping in the deepest parts of his bloodline. At that moment, the quintessence of heavenfire wok them, like giant dragons opening their eyes out of ages of sleep.


    The quintessence of heavenfire flooded into his meridians and fused with the primal fire-essence.


    At first, they rejected each other.


    The quintessence of heavenfire was too overbearing, and the primal fire-essence was too mixed and impure.


    Inside him, the two forces of me mmed into each other, tore at each other, and tried to devour each other alive.


    Jared''s body turned into a battlefield. Two currents of me-power fought through his meridians, scorching his flesh until it sizzled.


    Golden blood seeped from his pores and shed into golden mist under the heat.


    His skin started to split open. From the cracks came a crimson glow, like molten fire running through the seams of stone.


    Pain.


    So fierce he wanted to shout, but no sound came out.


    So fierce he wanted to cry, but the tears were gone before they could fall, burned away into steam.


    So fierce he wanted to give up, but the instant that thought surfaced, another


    thought crushed it back down.


    "The me isn''t power. It''s life."


    The old man''s voice kept echoing through his mind.


    Jared ground his teeth together and, with that pain still tearing through him, started


    guiding the fire power inside his body.


    He did not try to suppress the quintessence of heavenfire. He did not resist the primal fire-essence either.


    He let them meet in his spirit well. Let them crash into each other. Let them merge.


    Just as that old man had taught the fire spirits, he did not try to control the me. He


    had to understand it, ept it, be it.


    The quintessence of heavenfire began to soften.


    The primal fire-essence began to turn pure.


    The two currents of fire wove together in his spirit well, coiling around each other as


    they fused, until atst they became an entirely new me.


    Its color kept changing. Crimson. Orange-gold. Gold-white. Deep blue. Transparent.


    Each color represented the nascence of a different kind of fire power.


    Inside Jared''s spirit well, they turned slowly, like a tiny sun.


    His cultivation started to break through.


    Top Level High Immortal Realm Level Seven.


    High Immortal Realm Level Eight.


    Mid Level High Immortal Realm Level Eight.


    High Tier High Immortal Realm Level Eight.


    It kept climbing until it reached Top Level High Immortal Realm Level Eight. Only


    then did that surge of power gradually settle down.


    He was only one step away from High Immortal Realm Level Nine.


    Jared opened his eyes and let out a long breath.


    That breath came out crimson, carrying scorching heat. It burned in the air for a few


    moments before it finally scattered.


    He lowered his head and looked at his hands.


    The cracks in his skin had already healed. In their ce was a faintyer of golden


    lines.


    Those lines looked like the paths of me, spreading across the backs of his hands


    and running all the way to his fingertips.


    He clenched his fist, and a me gathered in his palm.


    The me in his palm was no longer


    just purple chaotic force. Something new had taken shape inside it now, purple and gold woven together into power t that hadn''t existed before


    Chaos-me.


    Jared rose to his feet and looked around.


    The Pyre Chasm was still burning, but the fire had dimmed by a wide margin from


    what it had been before.


    The heaven fire beastsy across the


    rocks, watching him in silence. The savage re in their eyes had- vanishedpletely, and in its ce was the look of something finally set down.


    As if they were saying, atst, the wait was over.


    Jared looked back at them and stood there without a word for a moment.


    Then heunched himself up and flew out toward the edge of the Pyre Chasm.