Chapter 170 - Flames...

The second divine technique he had obtained was a method to form a sword soul.

But the problem was that it required a beast soul to work properly. Null wasn’t an actual beast, so he couldn’t use it. But in the end, he simply designated the soul of Noxis as the system itself.

This increased Noxis’s strength exponentially, since the system itself was likely a high-level entity in the heavenly will’s eyes.

"Heavenly will, huh..."

He sighed heavily. He still had the confrontation with the heavenly will ahead. Nothing was going happy-go-lucky for him.

Floating through the sanctuary, he arrived directly in front of the Nine Nether Frostflame.

[Devour the flame?]

"Yes. Are you really asking me that after all this?"

Slowly, Cale extended his hand toward the mesmerizing seed of the Nine Nether Frostflame, drawn by its chilling, unnatural beauty.

The very second his bare fingertips grazed the core—

An explosive wave of terrifying cold violently invaded his entire body.

"Ahh!"

Before he could even attempt to pull back, thick, dark ice encased his entire hand, rapidly creeping up his arm until it froze solid against his chest. He was paralyzed by the overwhelming power of the frostflame, gasping for air as the demonic chill threatened to consume his very soul.

"This is... indeed different than the ones I devoured before..."

Refusing to be consumed by the demonic chill, Cale forcefully ignited his own inner core, drawing the tyrannical energy of the seed directly into his body.

The dark, encroaching ice began to violently crack and melt as he forcefully subdued the Nine Nether Frostflame, bending its freezing will to his own.

As the profound power surged through his veins, Cale’s gaze locked forward, his eyes now burning with an intense, radiant golden fire.

Brilliant wisps of ethereal flame flared fiercely outward from the corners of his glowing eyes, illuminating a remarkably calm and focused expression. His upper garments burned away completely, leaving him bare-chested.

Cale raised his bare arms as the flames erupted violently.

Ethereal, icy white-blue flames roared to life, violently wreathing his clenched fists and forearms in a mesmerizing display of cold and destructive energy.

His silvery hair fell slightly over his intense, narrowed eyes as he stared intently through the dancing bright inferno crackling in his grasp. Completely unfazed by the bone-chilling temperature against his bare skin, he clenched his fingers inward.

"It’s... right here! Either life or death... hahah... fun, this is so much fun! Either live long enough to be called a loser, or live as the strongest for one day!"

Despite the display of freezing crystallizing across his skin, Cale’s internal state was pure chaos. The tyrannical energy of the Nine Nether Frostflame still violently resisted his command with terrifying ferocity.

He gritted his teeth in the dark void, desperately forcing his own spiritual energy to circulate and refine the scary, bone-deep chill that constantly threatened to shatter his meridians from the inside out.

’This is crazy... are flames normally supposed to be this fierce?’

A voice chimed in his mind.

[Host is refining a Heavenly Flame. Heavenly flames are harder to refine than normal ones. And host already has more than one flame, hence proving exponentially more difficult.]

"Fuck you! Shouldn’t you have told this to me before... argh!"

The agonizing refinement process pushed his mortal body to its absolute limits, forcing the excess, uncontrollable cold upward through his lungs.

With every ragged, heavy exhale, Cale breathed out a thick, swirling plume of ice-cold, pale blue mist from his parted lips — a physical manifestation of the terrifying power he was desperately fighting to tame.

"Haah... huff... don’t I have a yin body? Is this all the benefit there is to it?"

A full agonizing hour of refinement dragged on.

Yet the volatile energy of the Nine Nether Frostflame stubbornly resisted total submission. The terrifying chill within his meridians intensified violently, aggressively rebelling against his desperate attempts to fully bind the flame seed to his core.

Pushed beyond his absolute limits, Cale threw his head back with a tight grimace, his eyes squeezed firmly shut against the overwhelming internal torment.

"Haah!"

With a forceful, ragged gasp, he no longer expelled mere mist. Instead, he breathed out a roaring, concentrated torrent of freezing white flames directly from his mouth — a torrent of flames so immense it illuminated the entire void around him.

Desperate to suppress the violent rebellion of the Frostflame, Cale dug deep into his core to unleash his ultimate trump card.

"Alright... let’s start!"

He summoned his primary Chaos Flames, willing them to surge outward and forcefully envelop his freezing form. It was easy at this point to cover his entire body within seconds.

A brilliant yet dark, purple and black inferno erupted across his bare back, the vibrant chaotic energy pulsing with life as it clashed violently against the encroaching abyssal cold.

Seated firmly atop a stone of glowing black ice like crystal, he let the dark flames entirely wreathe his torso, forging a stabilizing equilibrium between the two opposing forces.

The intense clash of the two strong energies illuminated the shadowy void and highlighted the faint, mystical markings etched upon his pale half-body.

The Heavenbound Marks too were helping stabilize and refine the competing energies, their mana patterns glowing with ethereal light.

Grounded by the overwhelming warmth of his chaos flames, his breathing slowly steadied as he forced the freezing seed into submission.

"Come on... end already!"

’Alright, come at me all at once! I’ll absorb all of it in one go! Let me die if I can’t!’

Triggered by the intense clash of his inner energies, the surrounding field of Abyssal Soulflowers suddenly erupted with a blinding surge of demonic qi and pure soul essence.

The flowers dispersed and rose from the dark seabed, flowing directly into Cale’s body like brilliant, winding streaks of violent purple light.

With every heavy surge of spectral energy his core devoured, the delicate, luminescent blossoms withered and vanished completely into the freezing void—consumed entirely by his refinement process.

The grueling refinement dragged on in heavy silence for another hour, with only his heaving sounds as he violently tempered his mortal vessel with the combined forces of chaos, extreme frost, and pure soul energy.

As the very last violet petal dissolved into his newly stabilized core, the chaotic tempest finally settled into a terrifying equilibrium.

Exhaling a final, steady breath of pale mist, Cale slowly opened his eyes to the newly emptied abyss.

’Completed...’

"Hahaha! Oh, heavens above!... you’ve failed to kill me again today! Haah, weak... you’re too weak! You can’t kill this ambition of mine this time."

His laughter echoed through the sanctuary, like the sound of someone who had stared into the abyss and refused to blink.

He slowly got to his feet, bare-chested and glistening with the residual energy of the flames.

His body was marked with faint burn patterns and crystalline traces of ice, but his eyes burned with an intensity that transcended mere triumph.

The Nine Nether Frostflame was his now.

And with the Abyssal Soulflowers absorbed, his demonic cultivation had undergone a seismic shift. His soul essence pulsed with newfound depth, his very being resonating with power that made the void itself seem to contract around him.