Death Heir's Devouring System
Chapter 43: Heat Behind, Madness Ahead

Chapter 43: Heat Behind, Madness Ahead

Riding upon Cinder’s back, clad in Maiden Skin that didn’t manage to cover his smeared-in-blood figure, Azrael soared above the ashen desert. Isolde, the blind girl, paid no mind to his light attire, as she nonchalantly took puffs from the miraculous cigar, eyes locked on the lava ocean far in the east.

Eventually, she judged that her health had improved enough and gave it back to its owner.

Curious to see the effect for himself, Azrael tried to take a puff. Instead of the foul sensation he expected, his lungs drew in cleansed air with healing properties.

The little injuries his body had accumulated, too insignificant for him to notice, healed with unnatural speed after a few puffs.

Then, without hesitation, he dismissed the item. Even if it was faint, it still used part of his energy. And he couldn’t afford to waste it.

The sun hid under the horizon. Naturally, Azrael, not mad enough to travel during the darkness, made Cinder land upon the closest tower.

After instructing the beast to warn them if anything happened to approach them, he and Isolde went to sleep.

His stomach growled, waking him up. A few days had passed since he had something to eat, but he wasn’t going to complain.

Rising, he saw that Isolde was already up. She had sat atop the fence of the tower, feet dangling back and forth, still observing the lava ocean.

Azrael was about to approach her until her words echoed in his mind.

[It’s coming closer.]

He furrowed, rushing to the edge to take a look for himself. Despite the vast distance he had covered, the ocean wasn’t far behind... It loomed closer than before.

"Oh, couldn’t I have been wrong about this?" He muttered, leaping onto Cinder’s back once again before going into the skies.

"Go as fast as you can."

Obeying the command, the beast screeched, eyes growing redder as it picked up speed.

With the threat of falling off, Azrael intensified his grip, unwilling to let go of the beast. Since Isolde had guessed that they would go faster, she wrapped her hands around his body, holding on for dear life.

Being at the front of the whipwash, he was forced to shut his eyes. The wind slammed against him like he was riding atop a jet. Even more impressive, Cinder kept accelerating, seemingly unfazed by the extra weight on its back.

’No, this isn’t power that comes from nowhere,’ Azrael gritted his teeth. The faster the beast became, the more energy it took from him.

While he had evolved both his Purity and Corruption to the next Rank—possibly making it so that he was the person with the most energy among every Marked—everything had its limits.

The veins in his body bulged, trying to keep him in place, as Cinder’s speed doubled—taking him by surprise, since the energy it consumed remained the same.

[I will take care of our weight problem. You just focus on keeping Cinder airborne.]

Isolde’s words echoed in his head.

’Good. She isn’t a liability. I was really considering throwing her off for a second there.’

Since the beast wasn’t slowed down by their weight anymore, it was able to reach its top speed. This was all they could do. All that was left was to hope that the approaching lava wouldn’t catch up to them.

Seconds stretched into minutes that bled into grueling hours.

By now Azrael’s whole body was soaked in his own sweat, his fingers were numb, barely able to keep himself and Isolde clinging to the beast. What pained him the most, however, was his soul. His very existence was being slowly torn apart; soon, he would either die or go completely mad.

[Rest. If you go overboard and harm your soul, we would be doomed.]

With a curse, Azrael commanded the bird to land on the nearest tower.

It obeyed naturally. The second they landed, Azrael dismissed the beast, preserving as much power as he could, and collapsed, his vision going black, leaving Isolde to keep guard.

After several hours, the scent of iron jolted him awake. His body moved by instinct as he tensed, his scythe already in hand, prepared for the worst.

Yet rather than a betrayal like he had feared or a monster about to devour him, he saw Isolde sitting calmly on the remains of still twitching Ashfeather.

[Blood. Water.]

Immediately getting what she was trying to say, he used the Blessed Teapot to turn the monster’s blood into water. Both of them had their fill before soaring once more.

Azrael dared to glance back—only to regret it. The lava was one tower away from them. Even from that distance, he was already starting to feel the increase in temperature. It was clear that if they found themselves with the lava below them, whether on the beast’s back or on a tower, they would be cooked within minutes.

Azreal hurried Cinder as much as he could.

Other Ashfeathers began to appear, flying next to them. The abominations didn’t bother them. Azrael didn’t know if they were too scared of the lava to bother attacking or because they weren’t able to sense them.

Not willing to risk it, he bit his lip hard, drawing blood, trying to suppress the desire to scream his lungs out. His blood hardened thanks to [Blood Manipulation], only for him to bite harder, injuring himself even more.

The sands below them shuddered. Blightcoils moved, desperate to avoid the melting liquid.

As the molten tide surged forward, every living creature struggled desperately to escape. Those who would normally fight fiercely, didn’t bother to spare a glance, unwilling to be consumed by the flood. The towers managed to hold firm against the relentless onslaught of lava. Their once-black surfaces slowly shifted to a deep crimson, caused by the intense heat.

Azrael’s vision began to blur, all hope seemed lost until the desert began to tilt upwards. The ashen sand ended, and a new biome emerged.

Cinder, barely able to keep its body materialized due to the strain on its master’s soul, lowered its altitude, landing on the soft ground before disappearing.

Collapsing on his back, Azrael took ragged, hoarse breaths.

The lava reached the edge of what he had supposed was a desert—only to realize it wasn’t one at all. Azrael realized he had been in the middle of a basin all along. That explained why there had been so little life anywhere around.

"We... did it?"

They had done the impossible—crossed the entire ashen basin before the lava could fill it once more.

Weakly, he moved his gaze to Isolde. The girl was sitting on the ground, clearly as exhausted as he was.

’If it weren’t for her, I would have died. Without her, no one could have lightened the burden I placed on Cinder, slowing him down. And not to mention—no one would have brought me a blood source to turn into water.’

The words of Principal Arthur Gray about how one shouldn’t face a Rift alone seemed more and more true by the day.

He used [Inspect] on her.

Name: [Isolde Flameborn]

Race: [Human]

Ascension Level: [Marked]

Purity Rank: [Cleansed]

’Wait, when did she rank up?’ He wondered—until he remembered how he found her sitting on a pile of corpses.

’She must have been fighting nonstop after entering the Rift,’ he realized.

Some time passed, both Chosen taking their sweet time to rest before Isolde’s words echoed in his head.

[I sense humans nearby. Do we go to them?]

With a weak sigh, the Heir of Death stood up, observing the ocean. The lava had fully submerged the ashen desert beneath its molten tide.

After cracking his neck, he took Isolde’s palm and traced his answer.

"Let’s go."