Chapter 10

In front of the Steel Empress.

I shook off my fear and lifted my head.

Although I hesitated many times on the way here, thinking about taking a different approach,

I have now steeled my resolve.

The Steel Empress began to charge at me.

It seemed she was determined to steal even the warmth of humanity.

I opened the bag in my hand.

And pulled out a vial.

The vial contained a sloshing red liquid.

A potion that captured the miracles created by alchemists.

Its effect? Partial immunity to flames.

I’d have preferred full immunity, of course.

But sadly, such a thing does not exist on the Flame Butterfly’s side.

‘An ultimate potion, an elixir, perhaps.’

But alas, it wasn’t available.

I uncapped the potion without hesitation and gulped it down.

The thick, vile liquid slid down my throat.

Bitter.

But I forced myself to swallow it all.

Clink!

I tossed the potion bottle to the floor and raised my bag.

Inside the bag, what filled it was a red crystal that radiated heat.

Whoosh!

Heat poured out from the crystal.

These crystals were all the essence of fire.

The corpses of spirits began to ignite the last embers.

“Damn it, hold on. Please.”

I squeezed my eyes shut.

As I envisioned what was about to happen, cold sweat formed on my face.

But my body was already moving.

I yanked the heat-protecting magic cloth wrapped around the essence of fire.

Shiiiii!

In that moment, the essence of fire inside the bag unleashed a fierce heat powerful enough to burn it away.

The heat, which had been barely contained by the magic cloth until now, erupted forth.

“Gah!”

And I was the one who had to endure that heat.

My skin and muscles melted under the onslaught of heat.

My eyes rolled back, and I gasped, struggling to breathe.

It’s hot.

Hot, like my body is on fire.

And indeed, it was.

This, at least, was the lucky part.

If I hadn’t drunk the flame immunity potion, my skin and muscles would have surely burned away, and my bones would have melted.

Thanks to the potion, I was at least left with this much.

[ !!! ]

The Steel Empress charged at me, her eyes wild.

It was an intensity of heat I had never felt before.

It made perfect sense for her to go wild, given how she craved warmth.

The Steel Empress sprinted right up to me and reached out her hand.

Seeing this, I desperately clung to my sanity.

Before she could touch me, I hurled my body forward towards her.

Whoosh!

My body collided with the Steel Empress, bringing a scorching heat with it.

Almost immediately, the chill she possessed wrapped around me.

Cold.

This side was so cold it felt like my bones were frozen.

But at that moment, I was grateful for the chill.

Because it countered the heat pouring out from the essence of fire.

Little by little, I could breathe again.

My mind, hazy from the heat, began to clear.

Thud—

At that moment, the body of the Steel Empress started to melt away slowly.

She hadn’t consumed a flame immunity potion.

Thus, she absorbed all the heat from the essence of fire into her very being.

The heat of the essence was enough to melt even steel.

But the Steel Empress didn’t seem to care, pulling me even closer.

As if she longed for this warmth.

[ Aaaahhh! ]

She cried out, hugging me tightly.

She was definitely crying out.

But strangely, there was no sense of sadness in it.

She seemed to be celebrating the warmth she had regained instead.

Steel tears streamed down her cheeks.

Seeing this, I steeled my resolve even further.

Yeah, hold me tight.

I won’t let the pain you should’ve endured instead of Lucas go to waste.

You hold me like this.

Now it’s a race against time and mental strength.

Will my mental strength break first, or will the Steel Empress melt away first?

It had become a battle of one or the other.

Of course, even if my mental strength failed,

the Steel Empress wouldn’t vanish without me.

She would simply continue to hold me until she melted away into eternal sleep.

But that cannot happen.

If that occurs, there would be no reason for all this effort.

Crunch!

I clenched my teeth hard.

The heat and cold pierced through my skin, causing pain.

I had never felt this kind of pain in my life.

Yet, the persistence of pain sharpened my focus.

I clung tightly to the fraying rope of my mental strength, determined not to let go.

Persevere, and just endure.

Eventually, the end will arrive.

Awaiting that moment, I could only endure.

* * *

Time flowed ceaselessly.

I couldn’t measure how much time had passed.

But for sure, even an eternity wouldn’t compare to this.

My vision was blurry.

My body felt nearly weightless.

It was a miracle I could barely manage to exhale.

The warmth of the essence of fire I had embraced had now dwindled to nothing, losing all illumination.

My breathing became faint.

Late beads of sweat started to bead on my brow.

My mouth felt parched.

I slowly lifted my head.

Through my blurry vision, I scanned my surroundings.

The Steel Empress was nowhere to be seen.

She had wandered aimlessly in search of warmth until the very end.

A being that had become a mystery without ever becoming a god was no longer in this world.

A sense of unexplainable sorrow enveloped me as I passed.

A burnt crystal fell from the bag and rolled across the floor.

Clank—

As it collided with the floor, the steel once forged by her began to crack.

The fissures spread quickly throughout the forest.

Clang!

Eventually, every shard of steel shattered, and the forest returned to its original form.

The pieces of broken steel drifted skyward.

Each fragment carried the Steel Empress’s lingering desire to become a god.

The steel vanished into the heavens.

Thud—

I collapsed to my knees.

I had no strength left to move.

The skin wrapped in heat was now peeled away, leaving no trace.

Instead, what was revealed was filled with something else.

Steel.

Steel it was.

The remnants of the Steel Empress melted into me and clung to my skin.

It felt almost like I was plated.

This was what I had been waiting for.

I made an effort to straighten myself and sit up.

I began to melt the still-residual heat left in my body into the steel.

Then, the steel gradually melted into my skin and started to seep in.

This wasn’t ordinary steel.

This was the essence that had formed the Steel Empress.

The protagonist, Lucas, after melting the Steel Empress,

would gain some mystery as the steel flowed into his body.

‘The body of steel.’

True to its name, a body as strong as steel.

This body of steel ignites the flame of will and synergizes with Lucas, greatly enhancing him.

However, my situation is fundamentally different from Lucas’s.

While Lucas could melt all the steel within him with the flame of will,

I could only make use of the residual heat from the essence of fire.

I couldn’t completely melt the steel.

‘So, I’ll do what I can.’

I began to cover every inch of my skin with the molten steel.

Though I may not possess the same body of steel as Lucas,

it was meant to be for something else.

‘From this day forward, I shall have a skin of steel.’

I stubbornly layered molten steel onto my skin.

The pain had faded to a dull throb.

There was no room for hesitation now.

The steel constantly enveloping my skin.

At the very moment my body became bathed in the flawless light of steel,

the last remnants of heat faded away.

Without the heat, I could breathe freely again.

As I regained my senses, I slowly lifted my hands.

Before my eyes was a hand coated in steel.

The hand moved without issue.

Finally, I had acquired skin of steel.

“Phew, huh.”

I exhaled the breath I had been holding back repeatedly.

I looked down at my weakened body.

The special equipment, the bandages of the curtain, didn’t simply disappear like the essence of fire.

Even the flame of will couldn’t melt those bandages,

and I was still Hanon Irey on the exterior.

Yet, the bandages of the curtain had applied one change.

They began to alter the color of the steel skin to match my original skin tone.

Before I knew it, I had perfectly returned to the appearance of Hanon.

What lay beneath might be different, but

on the outside, I bore no distinction from Hanon.

“Huh, huh.”

My mind was nearing its limit.

Regardless of the steel overlay, my body was still riddled with wounds.

Under normal circumstances, the spirit lord of the next generation would come to express gratitude and heal my injuries, but

there was nothing before me.

Where had they all gone?

The spirits were nowhere to be found.

“Huh, heh, well, I’m not Lucas after all.”

A chuckle escaped my lips.

That was merely chance that belonged to Lucas.

For someone like me, with no connection to spirits, it didn’t matter.

It’s fine.

I had no intentions of becoming a Spirit Mage anyway.

I crawled over to where I had set down the potion near the tree earlier.

It was the high healing potion I prepared at great expense.

I poured the crimson potion into my mouth.

Once the potion settled into my stomach, it spread evenly throughout my body.

Then I collapsed onto the ground as if to pass out.

I felt the sensation of my injuries healing.

I had used the flame immunity potion, and the Steel Empress’s chill had somewhat offset the heat.

Thanks to that, the burned areas were merely my skin and outer muscles.

This much should be recoverable with a high potion.

However, mental strength was a different matter.

No matter what, after everything I experienced,

my mental exhaustion kept me from holding on any longer.

Now, I had obtained a crucial card that would take responsibility for me moving forward.

‘Now what remains is.

Only to train for the mock battles.

Fortunately, training was a field I felt somewhat confident in.

I had come this far.

If I don’t win, all this effort will go to waste.

‘……I will definitely win the mock battle.’

With my final breath escaping, I slowly closed my eyes.

The breeze blowing from the Spirit Great Forest brushed against my face.

It felt like I would be able to sleep peacefully.

Hopefully, my efforts wouldn’t be in vain.

I released my consciousness and poured my wishes into that thought.