In my fire elemental form, I’ve essentially overcome every weakness of a normal human body.

  Since this body is made entirely of flame, even if my head were blown off or my heart pierced, it would just slightly deform me for a moment—nothing more. Toxins have no effect, and chemical weapons are useless.

  I can still see and hear normally, and if I want to, I can pick up objects without issue. Whether the flames damage something depends entirely on my will, so I don’t have to worry about accidentally destroying whatever I touch.

  In this state, I can even merge my consciousness with the ambient heat in the natural world.

  I once read that the former Soviet Union used nuclear bombs to extinguish massive wildfires—though I’ve mostly forgotten the exact mechanism. Even in extreme cases, if someone used a weapon of unimaginable power to snuff out every last flicker of flame that composes my body, I still wouldn’t die. I could simply take refuge in the surrounding heat, reigniting my existence from the environment itself.

  To completely prevent my revival on a physical level, you’d probably need something like creating an absolute-zero field over an enormous area—assuming I haven’t left any “Fireflies” or other flame derivatives elsewhere.

  Trying to assassinate me with a sneak attack before I enter this form is pointless too. Agent Kong already tried that. Honestly, dividing my states into “normal form” and “fire elemental form” isn’t entirely accurate. Ever since I first entered this state, I’ve become flame itself. What people call my “normal form” is really just flame taking on a mimicry of flesh. Any fatal external attack can’t truly kill me—it can only force me from the first form into the second.

  The only real point of contention is stamina.

  Not that it runs out quickly—quite the opposite. I can sustain this form for an extremely long time. The longest I’ve tested was over two months, and I still didn’t feel any limit; I simply couldn’t pinpoint exactly where the boundary lay. During that time, I didn’t even need sleep. If not for how conspicuous the blazing flames and roaring sound were, I would have considered staying in this form to monitor Alice nonstop through the night.

  Logically, since I’ve become flame itself, endurance shouldn’t be an issue at all. But in reality, this form is far less comfortable than my normal one. It’s like someone prone to motion sickness being forced into a car—even when the vehicle isn’t moving, they feel uneasy all over.

  Perhaps because my mind is still fundamentally human, the fire elemental state puts an invisible strain on my psyche. Under normal circumstances, though, it’s not something I need to worry about.

  In any case, this was everything I had—my full power—and I laid it all bare in front of Alice.

  “Elementalization…”

  Alice stared at me in disbelief, her breathing noticeably heavier.

  “A few days ago, right here, I fought a human who had turned into a monster. You might think that was another anomaly drawn by your jinx—I can’t prove it wasn’t.” I continued, “But as you can see, I didn’t die. I wasn’t even injured. I defeated him, then went home like nothing happened. You probably didn’t even notice I’d been in a fight.

  “You’ve seen this place on the news—they called it a gas explosion. That’s not true. This is exactly where we fought, and I’m the one who split this building in half.

  “I’m telling you this not to brag about my strength. I just want you to know that I have the power to help you—and that the disasters you attract won’t kill me.

  “Yes, I hid my abilities from you. I lied. And for that, I’m truly sorry. But I really do want to be with you. I want to help you prove to the world that the apocalypse is coming. I swear—this comes straight from my heart. No pretense.

  “Please accept me. Let’s fight together.”

  I finished my long speech and waited for her response.

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  As she listened, the incredulity slowly faded from her face, replaced by a thoughtful, scrutinizing gaze.

  After a long silence, she still shook her head.

  “With power like that… even among the strongest in the apocalyptic era, you’d stand out as exceptional. But the anomalous dangers I attract aren’t the kind that can be overcome just by being strong.”

  She wasn’t wrong. The otherworldly space beneath the cave wasn’t something raw force alone could conquer. But in a moment like this, showing weakness wasn’t an option. I could only press forward with unwavering conviction: “No. I can overcome them.”

  “If you wanted, you could live however you pleased in this era.” Her voice was gentler than I’d ever heard it—almost tender. She didn’t seem angry or suspicious about my deception at all. “That’s exactly why you can’t stay with me. Being near me will strip away every bit of happiness and peace you have, until you’re destroyed.

  “I understand how you feel… I’m so sorry. But this is to keep you from getting caught in the fallout.”

  For some reason, those words felt like they had brushed against my heart somewhere before.

  “I will prove the apocalypse to this world—or find the God Seal and put an end to it once and for all.” As she spoke, she took a step back toward the edge of the rooftop. “Go back to the life you’re supposed to have, Z. The darkness ahead belongs to me alone.”

  God Seal? What was that?

  Before I could even process the question, she took another step back—her body leaving the edge entirely—and began to fall.

  “Wait—”

  She was leaving. The instant I realized it, I lunged forward to grab her.

  But I was too late. The moment my fingers brushed her, her body shattered and dissolved like moonlight on water—vanishing without a trace.

  Alice had used spatial transfer to escape!

  I stood frozen at the broken edge, clutching empty air, struggling to accept what had just happened.

  It took more than ten seconds before I finally pulled my hand back, released my fire elemental form, and let out a long, heavy sigh.

  So it had come to this after all…

  Persuasion failed. Showing my social and informational value failed. Even revealing the truth of my superhuman nature failed. Alice’s determination to fight alone—and her deep-seated fear that her jinx would ruin everyone around her—proved far more stubborn than I’d anticipated.

  Maybe declaring “I’m strong enough” had been the wrong move. It might have only reinforced her belief that she shouldn’t stay with me.

  If I’d instead played the opposite card—“I’m weak; without you, I can’t survive”—she might have stayed, just like she did for that ten-year-old girl she mentioned. Despite the cruelty of the apocalyptic world, Alice still seemed to carry a fundamentally kind heart. Appealing to her sympathy might have been the right approach.

  But how was a healthy young man living in a peaceful society supposed to convince her that he couldn’t live without her? Should I claim it was love at first sight, that being apart for more than a day would drive me to slit my wrists? That would be too heavy, too twisted… though if I really had to, I could force myself to say it.

  No use. Rehashing past mistakes now wouldn’t change anything. I had to face reality.

  I’d prepared for this possibility: the heat signature and the GPS bracelet. Since she was willing to go to such extremes, I’d have to go further. First capture her, then figure out how to keep her hidden somewhere out of sight.

  Doing something so morally bankrupt wasn’t my preference—but if forced to choose between my desires and morality, I’d pick my desires without hesitation.

  I was the kind of villain who put his own wants above ethics.

  With that self-reflective mindset, I closed my eyes and reached out to sense the heat signature’s location.

  But… something was wrong.

  I couldn’t feel it at all.

  It was as if the heat signature had been carried to some place far beyond my perception—or had simply vanished.

  A deeply unpleasant feeling rose in my chest.

  Wait… wait…

  Wait, wait, wait—this couldn’t be happening!

  How could I possibly lose track of my own heat signature?

  I’d tested my abilities extensively in the past, including the maximum range of my psychic connection to “Fireflies.” One experiment involved taking a “Firefly” to an international airport and putting it on a flight bound for Argentina—the farthest country from here, literally on the opposite side of the planet. If you drilled straight down from Xianshui City and came out the other side of the Earth, you’d emerge in Argentina. And yet I could still sense a “Firefly” placed there.

  Conclusion: on this planet, distance alone could never sever my psychic link to a “Firefly.”

  The connection to my heat signature worked on exactly the same principle. If one could reach that far, so could the other. The fact that I couldn’t feel it now meant only two possibilities:

  First: Alice was no longer on Earth—either on another planet (though I hadn’t tested interplanetary range), or in some “space that doesn’t exist in reality,” like the basement beneath the cave.

  Second: Alice had discovered the heat signature and erased it through some supernatural means.

  The first seemed unlikely—her goal required her to be on Earth, in the real world. …So the second? It was possible. I’d already suspected she might be able to detect both “Fireflies” and heat signatures.

  Even if it was the second, it didn’t matter. I’d anticipated this worst-case scenario and equipped her with the GPS bracelet as backup.

  I pulled out the phone paired to the bracelet and checked her current location via GPS.

  But once again, events slipped beyond my control.

  The phone showed no position for Alice.

  The GPS signal had vanished.