Infinite Game - Start With SSS Rank Class-Chapter 92: Flame of Destruction

John’s expression shifted. A smile like his usual one surfaced on his face, yet it was icy, heavy, and oppressive.

Around him, four green cubes appeared, floating at the four corners. Lines connected those cubes, forming a larger cube that enveloped John’s entire body.

"No using superpowers..." John sneered and said, "You create some special spatial zone, then slap on a stupid rule like this. You guys really know how to make people laugh."

The gigantic spider didn’t move, only stared at John. Yet its six eyes were filled with hatred and madness, like it wanted to chew him to pieces.

"Oy! Don’t look at me like that..." John shrugged, smiling. "Don’t glare at me with eyes that scary. I’m just doing my job, that’s all."

KRIT!!!

A swarm of spiders leapt at John, but at that moment, he wasn’t afraid at all. He merely flicked his hand lightly.

KENG!

A piercing metallic clang rang out. A transparent green box instantly appeared, trapping the entire swarm midair.

Then he clenched his fist.

The box immediately began shrinking at a terrifying speed, and then...

BAM!

It shrank until it couldn’t be seen anymore. The spiders inside turned into green pixels that floated upward, then automatically reassembled into a ridiculous pixelated shape, like something straight out of a video game.

Pzz! Pzz!

The gigantic spider huffed as if it were furious, but John didn’t care. He only shrugged and smiled. "Don’t get mad. It’s just a few spiders. You can make more. Ah! I forgot. You can’t reproduce, hahahaha..."

"Alright, I won’t tease you anymore. You can attack him, just don’t kill him. Bye bye~"

After he spoke, the four cubes around John slowly shrank, then vanished completely along with him.

The gigantic spider stared at the spot where John had been standing for a long time, then closed its eyes, as if none of it had ever happened.

....

Somewhere else.

Nanoe didn’t understand why she had appeared in a place this strange.

It was a normal room, about fifty square meters. In the middle sat a table covered with documents and odd, unfamiliar objects.

But the stranger thing was this: there was a man sitting there.

His body was semi-transparent, occasionally blurring for a moment before stabilizing again.

He sat there in a wrinkled white shirt stained in many places, hair a mess, half of it already turned white. Yet his face remained steady, as if he still believed in something. His hands tapped on a keyboard, eyes fixed on the monitor.

Nanoe frowned, scanning the room, gripping her gun tightly, watching the man with caution.

He was typing when he suddenly stopped. With one finger, he lightly tapped a crystal-like sphere on the table. Immediately, a beam of light shot from the crystal and streaked toward Nanoe, making her flinch.

Nanoe took a step back, but her gun was already aimed at the man, ready to fire at any moment.

The man looked at her as if he had truly noticed her. He let out a sigh and said, "Looks like... you really are the one Fate chose."

Nanoe frowned, staring at him in confusion, unsure whether he was talking to himself or to her.

The man kept typing as he spoke. "Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you. It’s just... I didn’t think we’d meet like this."

Nanoe drew in a slow breath and said with a frown, "You... you’re talking to me?"

The man glanced at her, then looked back at the computer screen, continuing to type. "Yes. I’m using the last bit of frequency I stored to communicate with you. Of course, everything is being run through an A.I so I can speak with you."

"Alright, explaining it properly would take a long time, but I hope you can be the next one to ignite the flame of God. That flame no longer carries the mission of illuminating human knowledge, but the mission of destruction."

"Little girl, Fate has chosen you."

Nanoe frowned. "Fate? You’re a professor, a scientist. Why do you believe in something as vague as Fate?"

He shook his head. "The end of science is theology. Don’t you find it strange that everything in this world isn’t random chaos?"

"For example... why are mathematical formulas, physical laws, chemical laws so unbelievably precise? Could it be that someone built this world with those formulas?"

"Ah. Telling you all this is probably pointless, but I only hope you can use this flame to wipe out those disgusting things from that place."

"That place?" Nanoe asked, confused. "You picked the wrong person. I don’t want to carry any mission. What I want is to stay by the side of the person I love. Forever. That’s enough."

The man shook his head. "He has his own mission. If you can’t keep up with his steps, you’ll be left behind, you’ll become his burden."

Nanoe heard that, and her heart instantly spasmed in pain, like a needle had stabbed into it.

In her heart, Rover’s place was higher than anyone else, placed first, higher even than her own life.

She didn’t want to become a stumbling stone in his way. She wanted to stay beside him, help him, protect him.

She had already lost her little sister because she hadn’t been strong enough to protect that poor girl.

She didn’t want to lose Rover.

Nanoe glanced at the man and asked with a frown, "Who are you?"

He didn’t look at Nanoe. His hands kept moving across the keyboard as he stared at the screen and spoke. "My name is Ethan. I’m a professor researching aberrant phenomena under the Disaster Prevention Bureau established by the World Government. My role is to find a way for humanity to stand against creatures from another dimension."

Nanoe listened, forcing herself to memorize every piece of information Ethan had just said.

"Then..." she asked carefully, "why are you so sure I’m the person Fate brought to you?"

Ethan suddenly stopped what he was doing. His back hunched, both hands resting on his thighs. Weariness showed on his face, yet there was also a flicker of hope.

"Before this, I didn’t believe in this so-called Fate either... until you appeared."

Ethan said.

"Do you know I built this room with 360 layers of random passwords? Those layers change randomly once every hour. Even I can’t enter or leave this place."

"Everyone who passes through the gate into this asylum is assigned a random passcode. That passcode can open all 360 layers of security for this room."

"To put it simply... it’s like giving a monkey a Rubik’s cube with 360 tiles and letting it twist at random until every tile lines up perfectly."

"That’s impossible. It should never happen. And yet... that impossible thing happened to you."

Nanoe drew in a deep breath. If it really was just one random code assigned beforehand that could break 360 layers of security here, then how low would that probability be?

Suddenly, Nanoe remembered the instructions in the [Survival Guide] to never trust anything living here.

She frowned. "Ethan, do you live here?"

Ethan shook his head. "No. I have my own family, not far from here. It’s just... by the time you’re seeing me, my family is probably already dead. No, not just my family. Everyone is dead."

"Dead?" Nanoe asked, trying to analyze whether Ethan was telling the truth or lying.

At that moment, Ethan suddenly said, "You probably don’t believe me, but what I said is the truth."

He pulled a card from a slot in the computer, then placed it into the drawer and smiled. "Remember this. If you don’t, everything becomes meaningless."

"And also... don’t believe the ones here. They’re all patients. No, more accurately, they’re my and the government’s test subjects. They want to drag as many people into this dimension as possible."

"Alright. My frequency is about to dissipate. If you want to know more later, you can go to the Oliver Observatory. But I think... Fate will guide you and that person."

After he finished speaking, his body blurred, like an old TV image drowning in static.

A moment later, he smiled. That smile looked like release, and then he vanished completely.

The room returned to silence and darkness. She gripped her gun tightly, scanning the surroundings with wary, cautious eyes.

She stayed still for a long while. When nothing else happened, she slowly walked to the table.

Nanoe reached out and pulled open the drawer. Inside, there really was nothing except a red card. On it was the symbol of an eye, and beneath it were lines like a sea of fire.

[Flame of Destruction]

[Rank: S - 03]

[Level: 01]

[Description: Destroy everything, burn everything.]

[Upgrade Requirement: Absorb other flames.]

"Flame of Destruction..." Nanoe stared at the status window and murmured. Suddenly, she had a feeling this thing truly belonged to her.

It was a feeling only she could sense, impossible to put into words.

[Ding! Do you want to use Flame of Destruction?]

"Accept!"

In that instant, the card turned into countless data squares and poured into Nanoe’s heart, making her feel her body heating up.

[Ding! Detected you possess the skill ’Fire’. Do you want to fuse it with ’Flame of Destruction’?]

Nanoe didn’t think twice and agreed immediately.

At that moment, she felt the skill ’Fire’ vanish, but in exchange, the power of Flame of Destruction surged by a lot. Still... no matter how much it increased, it remained Level 01, unable to reach Level 2.

"Mmm..." Nanoe let out a soft moan, feeling her body grow hotter and hotter. "This feeling... no way..."

Nanoe knew this sensation well. It was what she felt when she was beside Rover. But... she couldn’t understand why it was happening now.

If anything, it was even more intense than when she was with Rover, like an invisible flame was amplifying her lust tenfold.

Crack!

At that moment, the door suddenly opened. Rover stood in the doorway, panting hard. The moment he saw Nanoe, he froze, clearly about to say something, but she had already lunged at him, kissed him on the lips, and then...

"Finally got out of that spider nest." Nick rushed into the room too. "You... huh?!"

He was about to say something, but when he saw what was happening, his words died in his throat.

Rover waved a hand, shoved Nick out of the room, then shut the door.

Outside, Nick stood there with his mouth hanging open for a long while. In the end, he could only wait in silence, muttering a curse under his breath, "For fuck’s sake! Even here, he can still do that?"