Chapter 140 | The Lamp

Chapter 140: 140 | The Lamp

Andrew pondered for a while and then touched the lamp.

He reached out and pressed his fingers against the dark surface of the nine-branched lamp.

The moment his skin made contact, the lamp vanished.

One instant it was there—solid, real, resting in its hidden space behind the throne—and the next, it was simply gone. As though it had never existed at all.

Andrew’s hand hung in empty air.

For a single, foolish second, he thought nothing had happened.

Then he felt it.

Something was moving inside him.

Not inside his stomach. Not inside his veins but Inside his skin.

Underneath his flesh. He could feel it—writhing, crawling, burrowing through the layers of muscle and tissue like a living thing making itself at home in his body. It moved up his arm, across his shoulder, down his spine, spreading through him like roots growing through soil.

Andrew’s face went pale.

’This is exactly what happened with the sword.’

The realization hit him like a slap. He had touched the black sword and nearly been consumed by an eight-thousand-year-old god. He had survived that by the slimmest of margins—by the skin of his teeth, by the grace of the system, by sheer dumb luck. And now, less than a day later, he had gone and touched the mysterious hidden lamp like a child reaching for a flame after already being burned.

He hadn’t learned. He hadn’t learned a single thing.

’You idiot,’ he screamed at himself. ’You absolute—’

He reacted instantly. His divine power erupted from his core, surging through his body like a flood—hot, blinding, desperate. He tried to force the lamp out.

Expel it from his body.

But the divine power didn’t push the lamp out.

It instead fueled the lamp as its energy renewed.

Andrew felt the shift immediately. The writhing inside his flesh intensified—not weaker, but stronger. His own divine energy, the very power he was using to fight back, was being absorbed by whatever the lamp had become inside him. It was drinking him. Again.

Just like the sword.

Then his wrist lit up.

A flame appeared on his skin.

A burning, blazing light that erupted from his right forearm and raced down to his palm, leaving behind a mark—a tattoo. The shape of a lamp.

Detailed down to the last curve and line, as though an artist had carved it directly into his flesh with a burning needle.

Except it wasn’t a tattoo.

It was burned into him. It was part of his flesh now. The lines of the lamp tattoo weren’t sitting on top of his skin—they were his skin, reformed, reshaped, branded into existence by a force that didn’t ask permission.

Andrew groaned through clenched teeth. The pain was extraordinary—not just physical, though the physical aspect was bad enough. The flesh around the tattoo burned like it had been dipped in lava. But the real pain came from deeper. From his soul. The branding was reaching into his spiritual core, searing itself not just into his body but into the very essence of his being.

Sweat erupted across his forehead. His teeth ground together so hard he tasted blood.

That wasn’t all.

His left shoulder ignited with the same searing pain. A second lamp tattoo began to form—branding itself into his skin with the same merciless precision, the same burning inevitability. The lines carved themselves into his flesh like hot iron pressed into wax, and Andrew’s vision blurred as the pain doubled.

Then his back erupted.

A third lamp. Right between his shoulder blades. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it—every line, every curve, every detail being scorched into his flesh and bored into his soul simultaneously.

Andrew fell to the ground.

His knees hit the diamond floor hard. His hands slapped against the cold surface, trying to hold himself up, but his arms trembled violently.

Sweat poured from his body—not in beads, but in streams. It dripped from his chin, his nose, his fingertips, pooling on the diamond floor beneath him. His clothes soaked through in seconds.

The pain was overwhelming. All-consuming. It wasn’t just the individual brands—each one agonizing on its own—but the cumulative effect. His right arm. His left shoulder. His back. Each new lamp added its weight to the last, pressing down on his consciousness like stones stacked on a drowning man’s chest.

His Soul Fortification—upgraded to EX rank, the highest tier the system offered—did nothing. Absolutely nothing. The branding tore through it like it wasn’t there, bypassing his spiritual defenses as though they were made of paper. His soul was being damaged—bit by bit, piece by piece—cracking under the strain of the merging process.

Three lamps down. Six to go.

The fourth lamp branded itself onto his right leg, just above the knee. Andrew’s vision went white. His mouth opened in a silent scream, his throat too constricted to produce sound.

His soul seemed to crack, literally.

As he felt it. A fracture running through his core like a fault line through rock, threatening to split him apart from the inside.

The fifth lamp imprinted on his left knee.

Andrew felt himself dying.

Not metaphorically. Not dramatically. He was genuinely, certifiably dying. His soul was crumbling.

The fractures were spreading. His core, the foundation of his entire existence, was cracking apart under the weight of five divine brands, and his body was shutting down in response organs faltering, senses dimming, consciousness slipping through his fingers like sand.

He gritted his teeth so hard his jaw creaked.

"System," he croaked. His voice came out loud but it was husky and cracked. "Upgrade pain notification. From E-rank... to SSS rank."

The system responded instantly.

[ Insufficient investment points. You possess only five investment points remaining. ]

Andrew’s face—already pale, already drenched in sweat, already contorted in agony—somehow managed to look even worse. Five points. He had five points, and SSS rank required more than that.

He couldn’t take it anymore.

The sixth lamp began forming on his right ankle, and the moment it touched his soul, Andrew screamed. Not a controlled, dignified scream. Not the scream of a warrior enduring pain with honor. A raw, animal, throat-shredding scream that tore itself from his lungs and echoed through the empty diamond palace like a dying man’s last cry.

"Ahhhhhh!"

He screamed until his throat burned. He screamed until his voice cracked. He screamed until the sound bounced off every wall and pillar and sculpture in the kilometer-wide hall, coming back to him in a cascade of his own agony.

"System!" he shrieked, no longer caring about composure, no longer caring about anything except the pain. "Quickly! Use the five investment points! Upgrade the pain notification! Now! *Now!*"

[ Acknowledged. Five investment points consumed. ]

[ E-Rank Pain Notification advancing to S-Rank Pain Notification. ]

[ Upgrade complete. ]

The change was instantaneous.

The pain dropped. Not gradually. Not slowly. Like a switch being flipped—half the agony simply vanished. The soul-crushing, mind-breaking, existence-threatening torment that had been tearing him apart moments ago reduced by more than sixty percent in a single heartbeat.

Andrew gasped.

Air rushed into his lungs. His vision cleared. The screaming stopped, replaced by ragged, desperate breathing—each inhale a gift, each exhale a prayer. He slumped forward, his forehead pressing against the cold diamond floor, and breathed. Just breathed.

The relief was staggering. The pain was still there—still present, still burning, still branding—but it was manageable now. Tolerable. He could think again. He could function again. He could endure.

The seventh lamp appeared on his left ankle. The pain surged—but held. The S-rank pain notification absorbed the worst of it, reducing what would have been a soul-shattering agony to something merely excruciating. Andrew grunted through it, his fingers scraping against the diamond floor, but he didn’t scream.

The eighth lamp branded itself onto his chest, directly over his heart. His body convulsed. Blood spattered from his lips. But he held on.

Then—the ninth lamp.

It appeared on the back of his neck, right at the base of his skull, where the spine met the brain.

The final brand seared itself into his flesh with a ferocity that made all the previous ones feel like gentle touches. It burned through his skin, through his muscle, through his bone, and struck his soul like a hammer striking an anvil.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!"

Andrew’s eyes rolled back. His body went rigid. For one terrible, eternal second, he hung suspended between life and death as his soul seem to fracture and his consciousness flickering like a candle in a hurricane.

Then it stopped.

The branding was done.

All nine lamps were in place.

Andrew collapsed face-first onto the diamond floor and lay there, motionless. His body was a map of pain—nine burning brands distributed across his flesh, each one pulsing with a faint, steady light. Right forearm. Left shoulder. Back. Right knee. Left knee. Right ankle. Left ankle. Chest. Neck. Nine lamps. Nine brands. Nine points of fire etched permanently into his body and soul.

He breathed slowly and it was incredibly shallow.

The merging was finally complete.