Chapter 440 - Divinity

Chapter 440: Divinity

As Melody went out of the secret chamber, Charles took a step forward, moved towards the 3-meter tall metallic door, and raised his hand.

Then, he conjured a ball of flame and let it float next to him. After that, he touched his space ring and took out an iron key from it. 

He then inserted it into the door, turned it towards the right side, and unlocked the door. 

After that, he stepped into the secret chamber and soon raised his eyebrows. What appeared in front of his eyes was nothing but darkness. 

Thankfully, his fireball also moved on its own, entered inside the dark chamber, and illuminated it. The chamber was more than 22x28 ft larger, vaulted ceiling, and the temperature appeared colder.

Charles also saw eight coffins placed on both sides, a unique black pillar at the farthest end of the gloomy hall, and next to it was a single statue of a young woman.

The woman in the statue appeared to be around 25 years old, with long wavy hair, a slim figure, and she even wore a crown over her head. The statue appeared to be made of marble, and the sculptor sculpted this statue with perfection. Charles also knew that this sculptor was none other than Duke Michael's great-grandfather. Moreover, this statue was Goddess Zaqiel's statue.

As for why he created a statue for Goddess even though idol worshiping was forbidden in Light Religion? Charles found no memory about it. 

While looking at the chamber, he noticed that a dense amount of divine power was gathered from all directions and poured into the statue. But what startled him most was that the divine power seemed to be disappearing after entering the statue!

'Is there some kind of storage device hidden inside the statue?' Doubt appeared in his mind.

Charles conjured four more fireballs, threw them in different directions, and let them float near the surrounding walls to make the chamber brighter. 

After that, he walked on the brick floor and soon arrived in front of the marble statue.

"I admire the sculptor's courage to sculpt a statue for Goddess." Charles paused for a moment as he looked the statue up and down and soon muttered out loud.

"But why did he create a statue? Was he some kind of rebellion artist? Or, does that have something to do with this gathering divine power?" While muttering, he raised his hand and tried to touch the statue.

To his shock, an invisible forcefield appeared out of nowhere and directly blocked his hand.

'A defensive mechanism?' A surprise flashed on Charles's face. After some thought, he retracted his hand and decided to recreate the elemental heart ceremony first.

He first closed his eyes, entered his Inner World, and soon appeared in the middle of barren land. But unlike before, he appeared in his elemental form and then glanced around.

Although the lava pools, volcanic mountains, elemental plants were nowhere to be seen, he still felt a trace of fire elemental energy in the surrounding air.

'It should be more than enough to create the elemental materials.' He nodded inwardly, released his wisdom power, and absorbed all the nearby fire elemental energy towards him.

Simultaneously, he used the power of his imagination and created twelve crystal stones. On the other hand, those dense fire elemental energies gathered into those crystals and turned them into red stones!

Once the process was over, Charles grabbed those twelve stones, sent them out of his Inner World, and stored them into his space ring. After that, he once again shifted his attention towards the surrounding environment, followed the same process, and created twelve fire-elemental herbs and twelve elemental fruits. 

Although they weren't exactly the real things, they contained the same amount of fire-elemental energy as the real fire-elemental herbs and fruits. Moreover, they weren't some incarnations or something but real materials! 

Indeed, Charles added a small amount of rebirth flame and created these herbs and fruits made of pure fire-elemental energies. 

In truth, these artificially created ritual materials were more than enough to complete the ritual ceremony.

'It's time to start.' He muttered inwardly, left his Inner World while carrying those newly created materials, and soon opened his eyes in the physical world. Then, he stored those ritual materials in his space ring and conjured twelve fireballs. 

No, they weren't fireballs but lava balls! Then, he moved the lava balls towards the chamber's center and let them drop on the brick floor.

A second later, all those lava balls fell on the floor one by one and splashed. But instead of being absorbed or cooled down, those splattered lava drops moved under Charles's thoughts and started forming runic characters. As the lava drops moved outward from the center, they also created strange ritual lines. Within a minute, a brand new ritual circle appeared in the middle of the chamber and shone in bright orange light.

Upon seeing this, Charles showed a pleased smile on his face and stepped into the ritual circle. Then, he placed the ritual materials in twelve corners, conjured twelve small rebirth flames, and let them hover over the ritual materials. Following that, he took out a sharp knife, made a small cut on his finger, and put a few drops of his blood on the ritual circle.

It was to form a connection with the ritual circle. In the past, Charles used a fire-elemental creature's blood to finish this process. But now, he decided to use his blood.

The whole ritual circle started to shine in bright red color and released fierce fire elemental fluctuation a second later. Even the Light Knights, the church priests, and all other knights in the castle sensed a sharp rise in the surrounding temperature.

On the other hand, Charles closed his eyes and started chanting the summoning incantation. Like the last time, the first verse contained the emotion of anger and induced emotional change in everyone's heart. The second verse caused sadness, the third verse induced joy, and so on.

By the time he ended the incantation, dense spatial elements gathered at the center and created a crack in the space.

At that moment, the whole ritual circle, the floating fireballs, and even the rebirth flames flickered intensely and soon dimmed.

It was as if they swallowed their intense nature and decided to show some respect for the ruler of the fire.

A second later, another form of fire-elemental energy came out of the spatial crack and soon landed in the middle of the ritual circle. 

Simultaneously, the fire-elemental energy also poured into the chamber from the spatial crack and soon formed into an appearance of a humanoid figure.

As the fire-elemental plane's Will manifested at the center of the ritual circle, it directly sent a wave towards Charles's direction and scanned him.

No, he felt more like an embrace.

Then, a strange silence appeared in the chamber, followed by a voice.

'I'm glad you are alive.' A mysterious voice echoed in his head. It was monotonous and foreign, but Charles somehow understood the meaning clearly.

"You are glad?" Charles felt puzzled by the Fire-Elemental Plane's response and tilted his head in confusion. Unfortunately, no response came from the other side.

Shaking his head, he hurriedly took out the Goddess's Shield from his space ring and tossed it towards the humanoid figure.

In the meantime, the humanoid figure caught the shield and directly absorbed it into its body.

'Insufficient!' The same foreign voice echoed in his head. 

'Insufficient? Why? This artifact's worth should be more than enough for elemental heart creation, right?' Confusion appeared on his face. 

Before Charles could respond, the humanoid figure suddenly created a whip, slashed it towards the Goddess's statue, and soon broke it! 

Then, the fire whip moved on its own, tore through the statue's body, and directly took out a white petal from it. Meanwhile, the white petal shone brightly, released some dense light elemental fluctuations, and tried to escape. But the fire whip remained firm. 

On the other hand, Charles felt a scorching sensation due to the light elemental fluctuation.

But he didn't mind the sensation at all. In truth, he locked his eyes on the white petal.

"Divinity?" He couldn't help but show a dumbfounded look on his face.

Meanwhile, the shameless World's Will pulled the whip along with the divinity and absorbed it into its body. After that, the humanoid figure waved its hand and sent a reddish ray of energy towards him. 

That ray was so fast that it entered Charles's forehead before he could even blink, passed through the Dark Space, and entered his Inner World.

Then, it landed in the middle of flat land and transformed into a large imprint filled with mystic signs. It appeared more like a ritual circle and released dense fire elemental energy into his Inner World.

Within two seconds, Charles's felt a refreshing feeling from the depth of his soul. 

On the other hand, the World's Will didn't stop there and conjured a ball of fire. But unlike normal fire, it appeared more like a mixture of brown and red.

'Chaos Fire!' Charles's eyes squinted all of a sudden.

He then controlled his wisdom power, pulled the ball towards his body, and took it into his Inner World.

Meanwhile, the humanoid figure also turned into pure fire elemental energies and disappeared into the spatial crack.

In no time, the spatial crack also disappeared from there, leaving Charles alone in the hall.