Chapter 510 - 476: The Cleaner

Chapter 510: Chapter 476: The Cleaner

’Just as I thought...’

Deep in the heart of the blazing shantytown, the leaping flames and thick smoke provided Roland with the perfect cover.

He calmly observed the furious and bewildered reactions of the gray-uniformed Guards outside, confirming a crucial theory he had been entertaining.

’Morne being able to touch me is likely due to some kind of incomprehensible Constitution he possesses. And as for that seeping sensation from before...’

Roland’s mind raced as he wove through collapsed beams and burning debris.

’Perhaps my prolonged contact with him—using him as a "bridge" or an "anchor"—has temporarily solidified or deepened my own connection to this Space-Time fault in the year 490 of the Crystal Calendar? Am I no longer just an observer, but beginning to... intervene?’

He had no time to delve deeper. For now, it was just a theory.

His top priority was finding the man.

Thanks to the protection of the [Heart of the Furnace], the surrounding heat—intense enough to turn an ordinary person to charcoal—felt like nothing more than a hot breeze to him.

What was truly unsettling was the strange, pervasive odor—a mixture of cloying sweetness and a scorched stench.

It seemed to bypass physical defenses and assault his Spirit directly, causing a faint dizziness and a wave of nausea.

Roland held his breath, relying on his extraordinary Perception to search for signs of life amidst the Chaos.

The interior of the shantytown was even more disorganized than it looked from the outside. The crackling of the blaze, the roar of collapsing structures, and the faint shouts in the distance formed a cacophonous backdrop.

Roland’s gaze swept across the area like a searchlight. He pushed his [Life Perception] to its limit, struggling to capture the faintest pulse of life amidst an oppressive atmosphere of scorching "death."

Soon, he locked onto one of the sources.

In a corner that had almost completely collapsed from the fire, a few charred planks and a warped metal workbench precariously formed a cramped, triangular pocket of space.

He rushed over and tore away the scorching obstacles with his bare hands.

A blast of heat and soot rushed to meet him, but underneath, a figure lay curled up.

It was a tall, thin middle-aged man who matched Morne’s description.

The edges of his old, brown leather vest were scorched. He appeared to be lying on a pile of wet rags, soaked in water or some other liquid, which was likely one of the reasons he had held on for so long.

His condition, however, was extremely dire.

His breathing was shallow and rapid, black soot was caked around his mouth and nose, and large burns and blisters covered his exposed skin. With his eyes shut tight, he seemed to be teetering on the edge of unconsciousness.

Roland knelt and carefully examined him.

The man’s Fire of Life was like a candle in the wind. More troubling, Roland detected a trace of extremely faint residual Energy on him, one utterly different from the surrounding Flame.

It was cold and esoteric, with an unnatural, corrosive feel, faintly similar to the underground Fire Source he had perceived.

Just then, as if sensing something, the man’s eyelids fluttered weakly before opening a crack.

His gaze was unfocused, but the moment he saw Roland’s unfamiliar face, it coalesced into a final sliver of clarity and inexpressible terror.

His lips trembled, his voice so hoarse it was nearly inaudible, but Roland’s extraordinary hearing managed to catch the broken syllables.

"The... passage... below... must not... be opened... It is... waking..."

Before he could finish, the man’s head fell limply to one side, his breathing growing even fainter. With his last ounce of strength, however, his finger pointed laboriously toward the ground beneath him.

It was a spot that looked no different from the rest of the damp ground.

Roland followed his gesture and saw it—an extremely fine seam in the earth, nearly fused with the scorched soil around it.

Along the edges of the seam, the soil showed signs of an abnormal crystallization.

An almost imperceptible, heart-stopping ripple of Energy was seeping out from deep within the fissure, sharing the same origin as the bizarre, sweet, and scorched odor in the air.

’So there really is something down here.’

As Roland stared at the ominous fissure, his keen Perception suddenly blared a piercing warning.

Without a moment’s hesitation, his body shifted a short distance to the side as if by reflex.

In the same instant his figure blurred...

A flash of light, of a color that defied description, crashed down from above with a piercing, air-tearing shriek.

It was not a purely physical strike, nor was it a simple blast of Energy. It was more like the very concept of "severing," highly compressed and made manifest.

The moment it landed, the raging flames within a ten-meter radius of the impact point were snuffed out as if by a colossal, invisible hand.

They weren’t blown out or consumed. Rather, the very state of "Burning" itself was forcibly terminated, the Flame dissolving into countless drifting, rapidly dimming motes of light.

Then, a shockwave—so condensed it was almost tangible—erupted outward in a perfect ring.

BOOM!

Amidst the deafening roar, the area where Roland had been hiding, along with the surrounding, half-collapsed ruins, was scoured clean as if by a giant, invisible plow.

Everything...

The burning beams, the charred rubble, the twisted metal.

The instant it all met the shockwave, it wasn’t shattered. Instead, it was forcibly disintegrated by a more tyrannical Power, flattened and pulverized into fine dust, then swept skyward by the violent blast to form a brief, churning pillar.

An absolutely flat area, more than fifteen meters in diameter with a smooth, concave edge, instantly replaced the chaotic inferno.

The ground looked as though it had been polished by the most precise Magic, leaving not a single speck of debris behind.