Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 597: Wrong Approach

Telling me all I needed to know and do to succeed would no longer make this a trial meant to assist me in my personal growth but a mere child’s game done for fun.

No.

If I wanted to master the elements, I needed to move forward on my own…

… Which was exactly what I intended to do.

Completing this mission was easier said than done, though. I’ve been battling with this primordial fire burning in my stomach for days, with little to no progress shown for my efforts.

Nevertheless, I had to do what I could to pass.

Focusing more than ever, I did everything I could to suppress it, focusing my willpower entirely on containing the inferno within me. I forced it into submission, compressing the fire into something smaller and smaller—an ember the size of a pebble, then a grain of sand, then a mere atom, invisible to the naked human eye.

I held it there, locked in an iron grip of control. Once it became as small as it was right now, I felt no discomfort whatsoever. No immense pain coursed through my body from within, but the price I had to pay was the focus gained from forcing every fiber of my being to become a conjointed entity with the sole aim of suppressing the primordial fire as much as possible.

The focus I exerted left me unable to control my body. I found myself curled up into a little ball with my knees hugging my chest and my forehead resting on my kneecaps. I was floating freely in outer space thanks to the strange veil the Soul Records granted me for the duration of the trial, but due to my focusing all my mental capacity on my suppression efforts, I found myself drifting in slow, circular motions, slowly spinning in outer space as if caught by an unseen current.

The lack of gravity left me at the mercy of the atmosphere, causing me to rotate ever so slightly. First in one direction, then the other, carried by the vast, weightless void.

Nevertheless, I refused to divert the mental capacity needed to stabilize my body. If I had to float like a leaf in the wind, then so be it.

Time flew by.

Seconds turned into minutes, minutes into hours, and hours into days. I refused to relent. Time was of no worry to me. For every hour I spent here, only a second would pass in Thalorind. I noticed the strange veil also provided me with sustenance, I didn’t feel thirst, nor did I hunger.

However…

Over the days I spent containing the primordial fire, no changes occurred. My body didn’t adapt. The fire remained as volatile and foreign as ever, refusing to integrate with me.

I wasn’t completing the mission.

While I did indeed have a long time allotted to me, the sun would rise in Thalorind sooner or later. Vex would return, and the time to conquer the lionkin territories would arrive. Thus, I couldn’t afford to bash my head at the problem and hope it eventually solved itself as I’d been doing until now.

I was forced to admit that merely suppressing this strange force was not the answer to master it.

I’d been operating under the logic saying if I could fully dominate the fire, force it into absolute submission, then surely that would mean I had mastered it.

But that was the wrong approach. I had to treat the primordial fire as if it were more than a simple, one-dimensional creature.

One didn’t teach their dog how to behave properly by pummeling it endlessly, nor did one master the blade by mindlessly repeating the same motions, hoping to become one with the sword.

A nagging thought surfaced in my mind, one I had ignored up until now.

Mastering fire… Does it truly mean controlling it?

I had been treating this like something I needed to tame, to cage. But fire wasn’t like that, was it? It wasn’t meant to be trapped—it was meant to burn.

Perhaps that was the problem.

As I floated in the void above Drakwyn, staring down at the endless inferno of the fire quadrant, I knew there was only one way forward.

I had to utilize the unique environment surrounding me to my advantage.

To that end, I descended, moving through space toward the burning land below. The land of fire stretched wide beneath me in the form of an ocean of molten rock and searing flame, a place where no creature could hope to survive. The closer I drew, the more the heat intensified. I felt waves of scorching air crash against me, creating an invisible wall of heat. Ɽ𝐚𝐍ȎВÈṨ

When I neared the surface, I reached out toward the highest flame, letting it lick against my hand.

The fire bit into my skin, but my primordial body resisted somewhat, dampening its impact. It still burned—it was impossible for this fire not to—but the agony logic dictated I should experience never arrived.

This fire was different.

Not simply hot, not merely destructive, but something far more insidious. This was not the fire of a camp or a forge. This was primordial fire—the very flames that consumed worlds when they had outlived their usefullness, becoming a burden to all. It was not meant to flicker idly in hearths or dance playfully in the wind. It was made to consume, to cleanse that which had decayed beyond saving.

And now, it surrounded me.

I landed on the ground, feeling my feet touch the scorched earth. Flames rushed up from all directions. They wrapped around me, gnawed at my flesh, seared every inch of exposed skin. My senses screamed at me to move, to do something—anything—to escape.

Yet I remained still.

The pain was there, but it was okay. Bearable, barely. My primordial body recognized this fire as something familiar, even if I did not.

So I sat down, crossed my legs, and rested my hands on my knees. I shut my eyes, surrendering to the moment.

I would not fight this. I would not cage it. I would understand it.

I paid attention to every detail, listening to the flames eating away at the world all around me. My skin was getting seared, but I could take it for at least a little bit. If this was the price I had to pay for a breakthrough, then I was more than willing to perk up.

I listened, I watched, I felt.

Fire was destruction, absolute and undeniable.

It consumed, taking all that stood in its path. The ground all around me was slowly being erased, turned to molten ruin by its touch. The air was thick with heat, as the very atmosphere seemed to tremble under its might.

It was merciless.

It was unthinking.

It did not care who or what it burned. It did not mourn the forests reduced to ash, nor did it regret the civilizations it swallowed whole. There was no cruelty in its destruction—only inevitability.

That was the truth of fire. It was pure entropy, an endless force that erased all without discrimination. A world, a kingdom, a person—it mattered not. Given enough time, fire would reduce them all to the same fate.

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And yet…