“Don’t stop me from finding Mom!”
The blade sliced through the air, nearly cutting off Ilya’s hand.
Ilya withdrew her hand, staring blankly at Hai En.
“But… Brother Hai En, Aunt Martha has already passed away.”
The fool’s eyes were red, his voice irritable yet he spat out two words clearly and precisely.
“Get lost.”
‘She’s just lying to me.’
Ilya slowly shook her head, wiped away the tears in her eyes, and gritted her silver teeth.
She understood that she couldn’t bring Brother Hai En back on her own.
She had to go find Village Chief Edwin and Uncle Bulu!
The girl left, and the surrounding violets wove into a spiderweb, trying to bind her back.
But they were deflected by wind blades one after another that protected her, all cut into flower remnants, scattering in the air.
The fool watched the girl’s completely departing back, staggered, patted his head, and muttered to himself.
“Didn’t Brother Yige’er say we would take little Ilya away from Flower God Village?”
That doubt quickly disappeared from his mind, along with those two unfamiliar names.
“No, I still have to go find Mom.”
The fool turned around and stubbornly advanced deeper into the core of the Flower God.
Then he fell straight into a bottomless pool of flower sea.
During his fall, pieces of purple petals cut his cheeks in the air.
The fool finally saw clearly that on the petals were the faces of women, one after another.
He should have seen each of those women’s faces in the village, yet he couldn’t recall who they were.
‘Could my mom be among them?’
A dull landing sound rang out as the fool crashed heavily at the bottom of the pit, his bones letting out a crisp wail of being broken and shattered.
His face twisted, he raised his head in pain, and his pupils unconsciously moved upward.
He saw a section of vine in the air, hanging a can of gasoline covered with rust spots.
Clusters of bright, enchanting violets at this moment condensed into a blurry human figure.
It sat cross-legged on the vine with one leg, casting a contemptuous glance at the pathetic fool below.
The fool suddenly took a deep breath, struggling to stand up, but couldn’t no matter what.
Finally, his foot slipped and the back of his head hit a sharp stone.
The vine above moved without wind, making a rustling sound.
It was like a god sitting high above, sneering.
His brain ached as if being gnawed, his vision filled with a sea of blood.
The fool kept roaring in a low voice, slapping his head hard.
Everything before him, strangely familiar, finally made him remember.
A year ago, to save his mother who was cursed by the Flower God, he resolutely went up the mountain.
In the end, he fell into this core of the Flower God.
The right half of his brain was almost completely devoured by the swarming flowers.
If Brother Yige’er hadn’t risked his life to come down and save him using a strengthening potion, he should have died long ago.
‘Then why did I bring that gasoline can up here to save Mom back then?’
At this moment, the fool was silent for a long time, then suddenly laughed softly.
In his ears rang the words Brother Yige’er had said to him before they set out.
“Let’s go, Hai En. We’re going up the mountain to save your mother.”
The man suddenly burst open the door of the dim bedroom, and in the light from outside, threw a sheathed machete into the youth’s arms.
“But, Brother Yige’er, what if we fail…”
Yige’er, already several steps away, turned back, his tone certain, brimming with youthful vigor.
“Then we’ll save everyone… from their ignorance.”
So the youth laboriously took off his bloodstained pants and clothes bit by bit, revealing his body that was already drenched in gasoline.
He caressed the black things all over his body; these were his proudest alchemical inventions.
By attaching violent fire elements to the gasoline, they achieved balance and stability.
This allowed the alchemical ship he and Brother Yige’er had built with their own hands to sail to farther places, towards a broader future.
A crisp sound came from the sparse clusters of flowers.
A silver flip-top lighter, under the terrified gaze of the violets’ blurry human face, was thrown into the air.
Countless vines scrambled to surge and tangle, catching that lighter steadily.
Just as the phantom secretly breathed a sigh of relief, a sharp machete tore through layers of vine barriers and pierced the rust-covered gasoline can hanging in the air.
A burst of giggling, foolish laughter rang out.
“Haha, you stupid god!”
The broken gasoline can instantly tipped over, and a large amount of black gasoline gushed out, splashing down.
It completely covered the flower sea vines and also doused the weak flame of the lighter.
With this as the center, the spreading flames instantly ignited the entire endless, seemingly never-ending core of the Flower God.
Ilya finally found Shiya and Village Chief Edwin at the mountaintop.
The girl threw herself into Shiya’s arms, sobbing, and begged them at lightning speed to save Brother Hai En.
The young girl’s gentle brows gradually dimmed.
She crouched down and softly stroked Ilya’s head.
Edwin beside her raised his hand, then let it drop dejectedly bit by bit, letting out a silent sigh.
Everything was already too late.
That fool, looked down upon by everyone, had personally ignited the ignorance that had shrouded Flower God Village for a thousand years.
But a single person’s sacrifice was ultimately limited.
As the violent purple flower sea surged, the fire was about to be slowly drowned out.
A mighty wind carrying smoke and dust rushed from afar to the mountaintop as reinforcements.
The princess riding a divine white horse, leading nearly two hundred soldiers—
A mix of students and villagers—
Finally caught sight of the girl she had been worried about.
But now was not the time for reminiscing.
Along the way, they had treated many villagers, and many had voluntarily joined their ranks.
When the princess arrived, she had already seen the faint fire rising from the flower sea core, which was one of the reasons the Flower God villagers joined the alliance in large numbers.
The god was wounded and desecrated, but the rumored world-ending divine punishment did not come.
Elena waved her hand.
“Mages.”
The several mages behind her immediately stepped forward, raised their staffs in unison, and chanted spells.
A huge fireball formed in the air and smashed into the core of the Flower God.
But the effect was mediocre.
A mage broke out in a cold sweat on his forehead, his voice bitter:
“Your Highness, our magical power has been too depleted along the way; we can’t organize a decent magic attack.”
Elena’s expression turned serious.
She summoned a golden holy sword and gripped it, preparing to expend all her stamina to slash out a magnificent sword aura at any cost.
In her eyes, ordinary soldiers could no longer be of any use.
But soon, a group of women pushed small carts full of Molotov cocktails from the foot of the mountain to the summit, like an endless ocean current.
“President Elena, the Molotov cocktails you asked us to make on the spot have all been brought.”
A woman who had just lost her husband raised her arm and shouted loudly at the group of big men.
“The sisters in the rear are already working nonstop on the next batch. You all better avenge my man!”
A young woman with bandages still wrapped around her right eye was silent, her sweat already soaking through her wound.
But her hands never stopped moving, constantly distributing Molotov cocktails to the soldiers.
Faintly, from the seam of the baby carrier on the young woman’s back, a small, broken infant’s arm was exposed.
The hand gripping the golden holy sword trembled slightly.
Elena, who should have maintained her princessly dignity, now had a moved expression.
These women who led the rear were actually a logistics unit she had formed on a whim.
But on this front line of war against a god, they played a decisive key role.
The soldiers’ pairs of dark eyes turned to Elena in unison.
The princess seated high on her horse straightened her expression and spoke in a deep voice:
“Charge with me!”
Not as an exalted royal commanding, but as a battle-hardened comrade sharing in vengeance, challenging a god in mortal form.
The wild wind swept up violets, condensing into a face that blotted out the sky, ferociously overlooking the creatures below, opening a huge mouth like a beast and starting to tear.
Countless thick vines burst from the ground, wantonly looting and sweeping away every life that dared to resist.
But even more, hundreds and thousands of Molotov cocktails rained like fire, thrown with all their might by ordinary soldiers.
The terrifying quantity instantly transformed into an incalculable quality.
At this moment, the situation completely reversed.
The mountain shook violently, splitting into several bottomless chasms.
As if the arrogant Flower God, howling, was being slashed wound after wound by these angry villagers who had lost their families in one slaughter after another.
The blazing flames completely burned up that core of the Flower God, and also burned a large hole in the dark clouds above, revealing mottled light.
Shining onto that one machete, which had been burned black in silence.