Chapter 68: Golden Lotus Flame

The scorched earth of the shattered secret realm gave way to a desolate, ash-choked wilderness. Through the thick plumes of rising smoke, a battered, bloody figure was frantically fleeing for his life.

It was King Vane.

The proud, tyrannical ruler of the empire was now a horrifying shadow of his former self. His royal robes had been completely incinerated, reduced to black cinders that clung to his blistered flesh. Over eighty percent of his skin was severely charred, cracked open like dry clay, exposing raw, bleeding muscle underneath. Every ragged breath he drew tasted like iron and smoke, sending searing waves of agony through his ruined lungs.

"Damn it! Damn it all to hell!" King Vane coughed violently, spat out a mouthful of dark, clotted blood, and stumbled over a jagged ridge before regaining his footing.

Swirling tight around his broken body was the shimmering, translucent form of the **Golden Lotus Flame Spirit**. Her exquisite, crimson-robed ethereal body was noticeably dim, her radiant beauty tarnished by the sheer strain of sustaining her master. She wrapped her fiery arms around the King’s torso, levitating him slightly above the rough terrain and fueling him with bursts of raw thermal momentum to accelerate his desperate escape.

"Hold on, My King," the Flame Spirit’s voice echoed in his mind, tinged with anxiety. "We are clearing the outer perimeter. Once we reach the imperial border encampment, the royal guard mages can stabilize your vessel."

"That boy... Arthur..." King Vane wheezed, his bloodshot eyes wide with unadulterated hatred and disbelief. "I cannot believe it... A second awakening of a supreme Sword Bone! A peasant brat achieving what imperial princes could only dream of in ancient texts! And that old bastard of a Principal... to carry a catastrophic Sixth-Rank Church artifact like the Sun-River Urn!"

He slammed his charred fist onto his knee as he floated forward. "Curses! My luck... my absolute wretched luck today! I should have brought the full strength of the Grand Imperial Army! I should have flattened that entire academy into dust from the very beginning!"

His rage was a frantic shield against the crushing weight of his humiliation. He was a Sixth-Rank powerhouse, a monarch who held the fate of millions in his palm, now reduced to a rat scurrying through the dirt, crippled and stripped of his dignity.

As the desolate mountains began to thin out, revealing the open plains ahead, King Vane allowed himself a single, brief moment of relief. "Just a few more miles... once I recover my core, I will tear that kingdom apart piece by—"

*BOOM!*

Without a single microsecond of warning, the sky directly in front of them split wide open.

A blinding, holy-golden pillar of solar light erupted from the void, piercing the dark clouds above and slamming directly into the earth barely fifty meters ahead of them. The sheer atmospheric pressure generated by the light sent a deafening shockwave rippling through the canyon, instantly disintegrating the surrounding boulders into fine dust.

King Vane’s blood ran cold. "What... what is that?!"

He initially assumed it was a lingering spatial anomaly caused by the destruction of the secret realm. But before he could even process the thought, the pillar of golden light condensed violently, sharpening into a colossal, hundred-meter-wide **Golden Solar Slash** that swept horizontally across the horizon with terrifying, unnatural speed.

It was not just raw physical energy; it was a strike charged with the purified, volatile soul-force of a Fifth-Rank Martial Artist, amplified through the divine holy alignment of the Broken Sun-God Sword.

"My King! Look out!" the Golden Lotus Flame Spirit shrieked in horror.

"Shield! *IMPERIAL SOLAR SHIELD!*" King Vane screamed, instinctively pumping every last drop of his remaining Sixth-Rank mana into his defensive meridians. A golden barrier of flames erupted around his body, trying to form a protective sphere.

It was entirely useless.

In his peak condition, King Vane might have brushed the attack aside or dodged it effortlessly. But now, his mana channels were melted, his reflexes shattered, and his soul battered.

*SLICE—!*

The golden slash passed through the imperial flame shield as if it were mere parchment. Space itself seemed to pause for a fraction of a second.

King Vane froze mid-air. His eyes widened to the size of saucers, staring blankly at the horizon ahead.

"I am... the Emperor..." he whispered.

A thin, glowing red line materialized across his waist. The next instant, a fountain of black, boiling blood erupted into the air.

*THUD! THUD!*

King Vane’s upper torso slid cleanly off his lower body. Both halves crashed heavily onto the scorched earth below, rolling into the dirt. The eyes of the monarch remained wide open, frozen in an eternal expression of utter shock, disbelief, and agony as his life force rapidly extinguished. The great King Vane was dead.

"NO! MY KING!"

The Golden Lotus Flame Spirit let out a piercing, tragic cry that rattled the surrounding air. Her radiant, ethereal form vibrated violently as the soul-tether binding her to King Vane snapped forever.

She hovered above the severed, bleeding remains of her master, her crimson eyes overflowing with pure panic and wrath. Normally, when a contract master dies, a high-rank elemental flame spirit would immediately break through space and retreat into the elemental plane to hibernate.

She turned her body, preparing to dissolve into pure solar sparks and flee into the rift—

"Where do you think you’re going?" a chilling, smooth voice echoed from the shadows behind her.

The Flame Spirit snapped her head around.

Stepping casually out of a dark, swirling shadow portal was Ethan’s blood-magic clone. His pale skin looked almost translucent under the dim sky, his crimson eyes gleaming with cold, predatory amusement. In his right hand, he held the jagged, humming Broken Sun-God Sword—its freshly unleashed Fifth-Rank soul energy dissipating into faint golden wisps around the hilt. In his left hand, he casually tossed the glowing Dragon and Phoenix blessing pearls.

The Flame Spirit’s eyes narrowed into slits of pure fury. "You... a dark mage? You dare ambush an Imperial Monarch with a holy weapon?!"

She took in Ethan’s appearance—his cold, mockingly serene smile, his distinct dark mana signature, and the absolute lack of fear in his posture.

"He was already a dead man walking," Ethan replied softly, his voice echoing with layered black-magic echoes. "I merely saved him the humiliation of dying from his wounds in some ditch. And as for you..." Ethan’s eyes swept over her divine, flaming figure, appreciating the sheer purity of her compressed solar energy. "...it would be a tragic waste to let such a fine, high-grade Magic Flame vanish back into the void."

"Arrogant ant!" the Golden Lotus Flame Spirit roared, her voice transcending human tones into a searing sonic blast. "I am a sentient, high-rank **Golden Lotus Flame Spirit** born from the core of a sun-vein! Even without a master, my sovereign flames will burn your vile, dark soul into non-existence!"

*FLARE—!*

The Flame Spirit’s ethereal body exploded outward. Her delicate, maiden-like form expanded into a colossal, fifty-meter-wide **Lotus of Pure Solar Plasma**. Thousands of razor-sharp, golden-red fiery petals detached from her body, swirling into a deadly, apocalyptic vortex that incinerated the surrounding air, turning the rocky ground into a sea of bubbling, red-hot lava.

"Die!"

The thousand solar petals shot forward like a barrage of blinding meteorites, locking onto Ethan from every conceivable angle.

Ethan didn’t move a single inch. His smile only widened.

"A magnificent display," Ethan murmured. "Unfortunately for you, you are fighting the wrong opponent."

With a flick of his wrist, Ethan stabbed the Broken Sun-God Sword deep into the ground before him. "Black Magic: *Shadow Mirror Domain!*"

A thick, pitch-black liquid shadow surged out from Ethan’s feet, expanding instantly into a massive, thirty-meter circle. The shadow pool rose upward like a wall of liquid obsidian, meeting the incoming barrage of solar petals head-on.

*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*

The golden petals slammed into the dark mirror wall, triggering a series of explosive detonations. The heat was so intense that Ethan’s shadow barrier groaned under the pressure, steam and black smoke billowing into the sky. The clone’s blood-magic core rippled, feeling the intense burn of the divine solar fire.

*’As expected of a Sixth-Rank high-tier Magic Flame,’* Ethan analyzed calmly behind his barrier. *’Even without a host, her raw elemental density is terrifying. If I were relying purely on standard dark spells, this clone would be vaporized within minutes.’*

"Is that all your dark art can manage?!" the Flame Spirit’s voice echoed from within the inferno.

She converged her lotus form, coalescing back into her radiant maiden figure. She raised her hands above her head, gathering the surrounding lava and atmospheric heat into a single, highly compressed **Golden Lotus Sun-Sphere** ten meters in diameter. The sphere crackled with divine lightning, radiating heat capable of melting diamond.

"Burn in eternal light!" She hurled the compressed sun-sphere straight down at Ethan’s shadow barrier.

The sky turned stark white under the blinding illumination.

Ethan’s crimson eyes flashed with sharp anticipation. "Now... come out, my little mediator."

He tapped his own chest. From the depths of his spiritual sea, a brilliant wisp of crimson light burst forth.

*SWOOSH!*

The **Red Fire Fairy** materialized in the air right beside Ethan. Her tiny, palm-sized form sparkled with infinite elemental runes, her delicate butterfly-like fiery wings fluttering rapidly. The moment she appeared, the surrounding, wild solar heat seemed to freeze for a fraction of a second, recognizing its supreme elemental sovereign.

"A... an Elemental Fairy?!" The Golden Lotus Flame Spirit’s eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated shock mid-attack. "How... how can a dark mage possess a pure Fire Fairy?!"

"Fairy Domain: *Elemental Harmonization!*" Ethan commanded coldly.

The tiny Red Fire Fairy let out a melodious, bell-like chirp. She spread her tiny arms, unleashing an invisible, divine wave of elemental suppression.

The descending Golden Lotus Sun-Sphere, which was about to obliterate Ethan’s dark barrier, suddenly halted mid-air! The chaotic, violent solar flames within the sphere began to calm down, their raging turbulence smoothing out into harmonious, fluid streams of golden light under the Fire Fairy’s absolute elemental authority.

"What?! My flame... my control is being stripped away?!" The Flame Spirit shrieked in terror as she felt her connection to her own attack faltering.

"An elemental fairy is the absolute ruler of all wild flames in nature," Ethan said, stepping out from behind his shadow wall, his boots crunching on the glassified ground. "No matter how high-rank or sentient a Magic Flame is, in the presence of an Elemental Fairy, your nature is merely wild energy waiting to be tamed."

Ethan raised his right hand, his fingers weaving complex dark binding runes in the air.

"Red Fire Fairy, open her core! Seal her sentient consciousness!"

The Red Fire Fairy chirped again, shooting forward like a red comet. She bypassed the floating sun-sphere effortlessly and slammed directly into the chest of the Golden Lotus Flame Spirit.

*FLASH—!*

A brilliant network of crimson energy lines erupted across the Flame Spirit’s body, acting as a divine harness. The Flame Spirit let out a desperate, echoing scream as she tried to struggle against the fairy’s absolute suppression, but the fairy’s innate authority directly paralyzed her flame core, preventing her from detonating herself or escaping into space.

"No! Release me! I am the imperial flame of the royal family! I will not be enslaved by a dark—"

"Silence," Ethan interrupted coldly.

He closed the distance instantly, appearing directly in front of the bound Flame Spirit. He extended his dark, rune-covered hand, thrusting his fingers straight into the center of her flaming chest—right where her **Sovereign Flame Core** pulsed.

*ZAP—!*

The dark magic runes on Ethan’s hand flared with sinister black light, acting as a siphon. Assisted by the Red Fire Fairy’s balancing domain, Ethan began forcefully dragging the Golden Lotus Flame out of its spirit body and drawing it directly into his clone’s vessel.

"AAAGHH!"

The Flame Spirit’s ethereal body distorted violently. The radiant golden lotus robes began to dissolve into raw streams of liquid golden fire, which were continuously funneled into Ethan’s palm, down his forearm, and straight toward his mana sea.

The pain of absorbing a second high-tier Magic Flame was excruciating. Normally, the wild, golden solar energy would have instantly violently clashed with Ethan’s dark blood-magic core, causing his clone to explode into a red mist.

However, the Red Fire Fairy hovered right over Ethan’s shoulder, glowing brilliantly. She acted as a divine transformer, filtering the wild solar energy, neutralizing its volatile impurities, and converting it into a stable, harmonious elemental stream that seamlessly integrated into Ethan’s spiritual sea.

Stream by stream, petal by petal, the magnificent Golden Lotus Flame Spirit was dismantled and swallowed whole.

"You... monster..." the Flame Spirit whimpered, her form becoming increasingly faint and translucent until only a tiny, hovering golden seed remained—her core.

Ethan opened his mouth and inhaled deeply.

*SWOOSH!*

The golden seed flew straight into his mouth, settling deep within his core under the protection of the Red Fire Fairy.

*RUMBLE—!*

A terrifying wave of golden-red energy erupted from Ethan’s clone body. The scorched terrain around him melted into a fifty-meter pool of pure, bubbling golden lava. His crimson eyes momentarily glowed with a divine, golden-solar aura before fading back into their icy, dark hue.

> **[Notification: Host’s Blood-Magic Clone has successfully consumed and integrated the Sixth-Rank ’Golden Lotus Magic Flame’!]**

> **[Elemental Affinity Updated: Dual-Flame Harmony achieved via Fire Fairy Domain!]**

> **[Clone’s Combat Efficiency boosted by 40%. Solar-Dark hybrid spells unlocked.]**