Kyrian looked directly at the Fire Spirit. His gray eyes, still tinged by the Eyes of the Gray Flame, met the flaming eyes of the ancient creature with a firmness that did not waver.

"Yes. Perform the implantation."

The Spirit remained motionless for several seconds.

The flames within its translucent body flickered slowly, as if it were analyzing Kyrian one last time, searching for hesitation, fear, or impending regret on his face. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

It found none.

Then it nodded.

"Very well."

Its voice echoed throughout the entire volcanic dome, reverberating against the stone walls like a solemn thunderclap.

"The moment we begin... there will be no turning back."

Kyrian did not answer.

He simply walked to the center of the altar and sat down in a cultivation position. His legs crossed atop the warm stone, his hands rested on his knees, and his back remained straight.

The magma beneath the bridge roared violently. Waves of fire crashed against the walls of the volcano while ancient runes glowed in deep crimson around Ming Hai’s funerary altar.

The heat in the chamber continued to rise.

Even for Kyrian, even with his Eyes of the Gray Flame active, it was already beginning to feel suffocating. Every breath was like swallowing embers.

Then the Spirit moved.

Slowly, it raised its translucent hand and placed it upon Kyrian’s head.

The hand was enormous, covering the entire top of Kyrian’s skull like a helmet of fire. Yet it did not burn. The touch was surprisingly gentle, considering the creature’s size and power.

The instant contact was made...

An orange energy erupted from the Spirit’s body.

It was not a violent explosion, but a controlled, deliberate expansion. The Qi spread like a liquid mantle, completely covering Kyrian’s body from head to toe.

The energy was warm.

But it did not burn.

It was a comforting warmth. Deep. Like the embrace of a distant sun.

Kyrian’s eyes widened slightly.

It felt like plunging into warm waters after spending years frozen. All the exhaustion in his body, the aching muscles from the battle against the lizard, the burns that were still healing, the lingering internal frost within his bones, vanished instantly.

His muscles relaxed.

His breathing became calmer.

Even his mind seemed lighter, as though a heavy fog had been lifted away.

The Spirit’s Qi circulated slowly around his body, enveloping every bone, every organ, every drop of blood. Kyrian could feel the energy entering through his pores, seeping inside and preparing him for what was to come.

"Do not resist," the Spirit said calmly.

"Accept the energy. Let it flow."

Kyrian closed his eyes and remained still.

The Spirit then turned toward the coffin.

For the first time since the tomb had been opened, its expression became serious. Not the casual seriousness of someone performing a routine task, but the profound seriousness of someone about to attempt something that could succeed or fail with irreversible consequences.

Slowly, it extended its hand toward Ming Hai’s corpse.

The skeletal figure remained within the black stone coffin, motionless like an ancient statue. Hundreds of years had passed, and yet the bones still maintained the position in which he had been buried.

But his spine...

That spine seemed alive.

Dark red. Crystalline. Unlike anything Kyrian had ever seen.

Golden veins ran through every vertebra like rivers of magma flowing within a divine crystal.

The Spirit touched the spine.

Instantly...

’BOOOOOOOOM!’

An explosion of fire Qi shook the entire chamber.

The runes of the altar ignited violently, all at once, as though lit by an invisible flame.

The magma below went mad. Ten-meter-high waves crashed against the walls of the dome, launching incandescent droplets that shone like falling stars.

The spine began to slowly detach itself from the corpse.

No blood. No flesh. No resistance.

As though the bone itself refused to remain attached to a body that no longer lived. As though it had been waiting for this moment for eight hundred years.

Vertebra by vertebra, the spine rose into the air.

One by one, the vertebrae separated from Ming Hai’s skeleton and floated toward the center of the altar.

The crimson glow intensified to an absurd degree.

It was like watching a fragment of the sun being torn from the body of a god.

Then...

The instant the spine was completely removed.

’Crack.’

Ming Hai’s entire skeleton fractured.

It was not a loud sound, merely a dry snap, like a branch breaking.

Kyrian immediately opened his eyes.

Cracks spread through every bone of the corpse at an incredible speed. Arms. Ribs. Skull. Legs. Everything.

Within seconds, the skeleton that had resisted the passage of time for centuries began to fall apart.

First the fingers, turning into dust.

Then the arms.

Then the skull.

Then the entire body collapsed.

The ashes drifted slowly through the air before Kyrian, glowing for a moment before vanishing completely, as though Ming Hai’s very existence was finally being erased from the world, released after centuries of waiting.

Only the great crystalline spine remained floating above the altar.

The Heaven Bone.

The Spirit watched in silence for several seconds.

Its flaming eyes traveled from one end of the spine to the other, as though bidding farewell to an old friend.

Then it turned toward Kyrian once more.

"Now we begin."

The spine floated behind the Spirit, moving with a slowness that contrasted sharply with the violent energy emanating from it.

The heat radiating from it increased several times over. Kyrian felt his skin tingle, not the superficial burning from before, but a deeper heat that penetrated through flesh and reached his muscles.

Even protected by the Spirit’s orange mantle, Kyrian felt his skin begin to burn.

’This is only the residual heat,’ he thought.

’What will happen when it touches my body?’

Then the Spirit moved its hand again.

And in that instant, Kyrian felt something touch his back.

It was not a physical touch. It was a sensation, as though something were pressing against his vertebrae from the inside outward, as though his own spine were trying to free itself.

His entire body stiffened.

The orange Qi surrounding him began to condense behind him. Taking shape.

A long shape. Curved. Segmented.

Kyrian’s eyes slowly widened.

A spinal column made entirely of Qi was forming behind him, identical in shape to his own spine, yet shining with the Spirit’s orange light.

"Remain still," said the Spirit.

"No matter what you feel. No matter what pain comes. Do not move."