Divine Flame Crystal

Chapter 637 Fatal Mark

At the campfire at night, they did not cry. Instead, everyone sang hymns, bidding farewell to their dead compatriots with songs.

Brother Avero raised the empty chalice and shouted to the night sky:

“Today, we offer blood as wine and pain as sacrifice!

Holy Light bears witness, we are immortal! We are indestructible! "

The civilians fell to their knees, crying and calling themselves—

"Knight of the Bright Embers".

The news spread quickly.

People were shocked to discover that although the Church had lost its demigod army, it had given birth to an even more terrifying force - they did not rely on bloodline or glory, but on faith.

The enemy cannot kill them all, and death becomes their fuel instead.

As long as there is one person still singing the hymn, the Embers Knight's fighting spirit will not be extinguished.

When Xingluo learned the outcome of this battle from afar, he felt an indescribable sense of depression for the first time in his heart:

Beneath the ruins of the city, the broken vaults shattered the moonlight into slivers of cold silver. In the underground corridors, candle flames flickered like tiny souls, breathing in and out. A shattered icon was gathered in a corner, its nose missing, yet two dull pinpricks of light still nestled in its eye sockets.

Archbishop Valerian, leaning on his ivory scepter, paused at the deepest grotto. This was once the oldest "ceremonial chamber" of the Church of Light, now covered in dust so thick you could pinch out a piece of dough. The four remaining bishops, three ceremonial masters, two scribe nuns, and a silent runesmith gathered around him, like a dying fire.

"The old ritual—it no longer works," Valerian said hoarsely, his voice like sandpaper. "The divine light has ceased to flow, and the rings have lost their response. By some external grace, we will be defeated once more."

Chief Ceremony Master Hubert swallowed hard, "But if we don't receive the divine light of the God of Light, where will the light of the carving come from?"

Valerian tapped the ancient array plate lightly with his staff, and the dust exploded into a small circle of light, revealing the pattern underneath: a double ring with thirteen ticks. The inner ring was the old "Prayer Ring", and the outer ring was the "Protective Ring". The thirteen ticks were like thirteen teeth, embedded between the two rings.

"From ourselves." He hammered his words in, like nails hammering into the darkness. "From the bloody night, from the songs, from the pain. Transform the human body into a source of strength."

Sister Elena asked in a trembling voice, "You want to use the prayer song... as an engine?"

"Prayers are no longer just prayers. They are a rhythm, a beat, a rhythm of energy, allowing energy emission to follow a natural law." Valerian raised a finger and tapped his chest. "Set a rhythm for the heartbeat, a tempo for the breathing. Even if external energy is absent, we can close the human body—song—blood night—bones into a closed loop." He paused. "Closing the loop is the root of the art."

"Isn't magic a divine grace?" Ripples arose in everyone's heart at the same time.

The Holy Runesmith set down a tightly wrapped wooden box with a clang. He peeled back the cloth, revealing a set of clean, coldly gleaming instruments: bone "bone-carving needles," silver suture hooks, platinum nails, holy-attribute lubricant, and pain-relieving powder. Each item lay silently, yet each one gave one goosebumps, as if hearing the wailing of pain.

Valerian spread a newly drawn ritual diagram on the stone platform:

He crossed out the old "single ring prayer" and replaced it with "double ring three laws";

Three thick black lines divide the array into "Song Rhythm, Blood Rhythm, and Pain Rhythm";

Each law is further divided into four parts: beat, harmony, introduction and conclusion.

The crooked annotations beside the picture were obviously made overnight:

"After losing the divine light, prayer becomes illusory. Instead of praying to the gods individually for power, we pray collectively, instead of divine marks, we carve on bones. Driven by pain, we can call this 'suffering.' If the suffering is not enough, the holy marks will not appear; if the suffering is too much, the body will be burned to death. This is stopped by the law of 'restraint.'"

"What we need to do is not to invite a light, but to treat people as lights," Valerian said. "The outer ring of the guard is fixed to four rhythms and twelve beats, maintained by the chorus; the inner ring is undertaken by the Scribbler himself. He sings, he bleeds, he endures the pain. None of the three can be wrong, and the order cannot be changed."

Hubert hesitated: "If the engraving still fails, the person will be gone."

"Failure is recorded on the tablet," Valerian said, his calmness almost cruelly. "Just as every fallen knight is recorded. We are not selecting lives, we are forging an army, and men are our material."

Everyone was silent. Finally, a drop of water from the cave ceiling fell with a thud, as if sealing the verdict.

The first group weren't knights, but pioneers, who later derisively called themselves ascetics. They took the initiative, risking their lives in trial and error, with a simple reasoning: "If we take the wrong path, we'll die." Valerian didn't refuse—he didn't even try to persuade them. Persuasion was a luxury of the past, something they no longer had the luxury of.

The test board was placed in the center of the stone chamber. It was a fragment of the altar carried from the collapsed main hall. The broken surface of the fragment was still pure white, like a piece of bone split by a sledgehammer.

Elena walked over carrying an incense burner, and white mist swirled around every face; the runesmith put on leather gloves, pressed the bone carving needle into the charcoal fire and burned it until it turned dark red, then dipped it in holy oil, and the flames hissed away - the heat mixed with the coolness of the holy oil, like putting thunder into clear water.

Andre the Ascetic lay on the broken platform, shirtless, staring intently at the crack in the ceiling, his shoulder blades rising and falling like two hands holding down wings.

"Record." Valerian snapped his fingers.

Two nuns stood on either side and began to beat the rhythm in a very steady voice: "One, two, three, four."

The rhythm of the song began. The chorus used a simple melody—no large leaps, no ornaments, just a four-beat arrangement of long exhalations and short spittings. The alternation of hot and cold, the even opening and closing, made the engraver's nerves follow the rhythm of his breathing.

The blood rhythm is on. The runesmith draws the first line, starting from the upper edge of the sternum, bending down to the pericardium, and passing around the hexagram.

Andre bit the cloth strip, and the veins on his forehead popped out like snakes.

The pain was opening. Elena dripped warm holy oil onto the newly opened lines. The oil beads flowed along the bloodstains, emitting a strange light as they moved, as if lighting a lamp in the flesh. Andre shuddered, and the folded cloth strips were bitten with clear teeth marks.

Valerian didn't rush, just three words: "Hold - hold - beat."

As the third stitch fell, André's back arched sharply, as if a bow were stretched to its limit. The chorus lowered the notes a half-degree, as if giving his breath a temporary rest. Hubert grasped a platinum nail and gently tapped the end of the third stitch—the nail seemed to pierce not flesh but light. André whimpered, but his eyes suddenly lit up, as bright as a freshly cleaned blade.

"I saw it..." he said vaguely, "I saw... Ge... not God, but Ge..."

Valerian's eyes moved: This man... saw the law in pain.

"Fourth line, reduce the inclination by three degrees." He ordered calmly, "Make sure his 'grid' fits on our map."

The runesmith's hands were steady as stone, not even the tip of a needle trembling. When the fourth line went down, the candles in the stone chamber all raised their heads, like a group of chorus members listening to the conductor.

The hexagram is closed.

Andrei took a deep breath, as if he had been pulled out of deep water. The bloodstains on his chest merged into a burning point in the light. The burning point was small, but very stable, like a star pressed into the bone.

He did not shout "I succeeded", he just spat out the torn cloth, panting, laughing, tears mixed with sweat sliding down - a man who crawled out of the mud touched the sacred fire for the first time.

"Record," Valerian said. "The degree of suffering is 83%, and the binding law has not been triggered. Note: The subject sees the 'grid' at the end of the third line, which can be extended to the self-discipline branch." It was recorded briefly, and this record was only understandable to those who understood the technology involved.

Hubert let out a long breath, the backs of his hands wet with sweat. Elena secretly wiped her eyes, and Valerian saw her. He didn't blame her, but simply said, "Keep your tears in mind—even if it hurts, it's enough."

After three experiments, they discovered two fatal loopholes:

There is a beat difference in the second chorus of the rhythm ring, and the heartbeat of the person who carves the notch competes with the external beat, which is most likely to cause the receptor to go out of control.

When the pain rhythm is excessive, the "ignition point" will spread at the blood-oil junction, forming an uncontrollable burning body.