Lu Ban had heard before that many people who were burned to death would lose consciousness first due to suffocation and eventually die.

However, the traces at the scene told Lu Ban that Amber retained the clearest consciousness when she was burned by the flames. She did not suffocate due to lack of oxygen, but felt the flames engulfing her the whole time.

The flames spread across her fair, tender skin, tearing it open and gouging out the flesh and blood inside, devouring it like a greedy monster, and in the end even leaving her bones behind.

The lovely hair turned to ashes in the fire, the dazzling clothes were burned away by the flames, the slender limbs, the exquisite face, and the eyes with the most beautiful brilliance in the world were completely destroyed in the ruthless pale flames, leaving only an ugly, charred, and foul-smelling corpse, imprisoned in this deserted attic for dozens or even hundreds of years.

During the whole process, Amber struggled, begged, and wailed until the last moment, when she suffered the most painful death.

While these things were happening, the people below were cheering, jumping for joy, celebrating, and holding the grandest celebration.

Finally, her life faded and transformed into something purer.

This thing will protect this world for decades, hundreds of years, but will eventually run out of fuel.

Amber's small, frail body would be smashed to pieces by the old witches, burned again, and turned into a small urn, displayed on the shelf in the main hall, never to see the light of day again.

This is the truth about the chief priestess.

There is no authority above everyone else, no happy and joyful life, and even no life.

The chief priestess is the sacrifice offered to the gods.

And all of this was done by Lu Ban himself for Amber.

If Lu Ban agreed to Amber's request and let her be an ordinary girl in a corner of the sea, then she would definitely not have to suffer such inhuman torture.

If Amber had a weaker sense of responsibility, was a little more timid, and a little more selfish, she could have completely escaped her fate and embarked on a completely different path, but at least there was a future.

It is because she is so perfect that she is standing here.

It is because she is so outstanding that she has to face such an ending.

Fate, like precisely meshed gears, pushed her to this position.

"You've lost weight again, Amber."

Lu Ban sighed.

The dried corpse was motionless, with only the longbow in his hand flickering with fire.

"I think you need to know this."

A faint voice came from behind Lu Ban.

He turned around and saw in his own shadow, in the flickering firelight, the black-haired, cherry-eyed witch standing barefoot in the filthy and charred world, spotless.

The contrast between the two creates a strong sense of perversion, just like this foreign land, with beautiful falling cherry blossoms and cruel and tragic sacrifices.

"Who are you?"

Lu Ban asked.

He was unexpectedly calm.

Calm as the moonlight.

"You can call me Shenying, or you can call me Kazushima Okami, or something else. These are the names they gave me anyway."

The witch answered, her voice was very flat, which reminded Lu Ban of Feng Yu sometimes.

Indifferent and calm, as if everything in the world has nothing to do with him.

"The witches tricked her into taking a drug that could temporarily take away her consciousness and strength. Then they tied her to a pillar and ignited the Pure Fire. She would struggle and try to escape, but most of the witches couldn't do it. A few were able to get down to the second floor, but that was all."

The witch spoke as if she were talking about Sikong's usual things.

"She was too young and the drug was too strong. She tried for a long time but couldn't break free. By then she could already see me."

"She shed tears, even though those tears would be swallowed by the pure fire in an instant. She begged me to save her. She said she didn't want to die, that she still had many things she wanted to do, and that there was someone she wanted to be with forever."

"I have seen many people dying. Some are angry and think they have been deceived. They accuse the world. Some are resentful and curse everyone who has helped them get here. Some are desperate and even their rationality has collapsed."

"She is no exception."

"She regretted, she was angry, she was unwilling to accept it, she lost hope in everything, she began to hate everything, accuse everything, and she condensed the deepest resentment towards this world. This obsession, the will sublimated in the pure fire, is what the Son of God needs to protect this land."

"When the strongest hope becomes the deepest despair, the power that is born is the best food to feed the gods, and the pollution generated is enough to wipe out everything."

"You know, in foreign lands, only pollution can fight pollution, and only stronger pollution can fight invading pollution."

"In this world, this pollution is called pure fire."

"To sacrifice just one person in exchange for the survival of the majority, this is my duty and my destiny, as it has been for thousands of years."

The witch's voice was colder than the night, yet softer than the moonlight.

"Until the very end, she kept repeating your name, repeating it a hundred times, a thousand times, ten thousand times, unforgettable and indelible, until death strangled her voice."

"I fulfilled her wish and told you this."

She had no joy or sadness, as if nothing in the world could cause any disturbance in her emotions.

"Does she hate me?"

Lu Ban asked.

"Because I sent her here, she called my name until... she died?"

"No."

The witch shook her head.

"The first thing she said before she called your name was, I'm sorry."

Lu Ban remained silent.

He knows it very well.

After learning about Hongye’s situation in the evening, Lu Ban knew it.

Just like red leaves, Amber's future is also her past.

When he first came to Hedao, Amber had already been burned to death and became the Son of God, becoming the vessel for the arrival of the priestess named Kamizakura in front of him.

The original high priestess was not completely dead.

Her soul resides in the Wajima Taisha Shrine together with the sacred cherry blossoms. By offering a powerful spiritual maiden, the sacred cherry blossoms can descend there and use these sacrificed maidens to nourish and control the pure fire to protect Wajima.

This is the truth about Kazushima.

Lu Ban didn't know who came up with such a cruel method. Not only would every chief priestess suffer inhuman torture, but even the original priestess would never have peace in the world and would have to witness these deaths again and again for thousands of years.

This is the price the people of Kaohsiung pay for fighting pollution.

This is what Lu Ban wants to know, how to fight pollution.

"Is this the reason you communicate with me?"

Lu Ban was very clear that every word he said to this priestess now contained pollution.

During this long period of time, she has come into contact with too much filth and has become a collection of pollution herself. Perhaps she is no longer herself, but He, and has become some great being, jumping out of the chessboard of the alien world and coming to a higher dimension.

Perhaps she was originally Him, but appeared in human form, performing a tragic song in this world to please herself.

"Because that's what she wanted."

The witch took a look at the emaciated corpse.

"I have witnessed the death of countless witches. Most of them, as I said just now, were full of resentment and left a curse on the world."

"These curses, along with their tortured souls, are brewing in my body. Every moment, I can hear their howling, wailing, and sobbing, filling my consciousness with the most vicious language."

"But this child, despite the torture she suffered, despite being betrayed by the world, despite having fallen into despair, in the very end, she still wanted to retain hope, even if it was only for the sake of one person."

"She told you to live."

Hearing the words of the witch, Lu Ban was stunned.

Then he smiled.

It was an uncontrollable laughter that was like howling. He arched his back and bent over. The air was expelled from his lungs. The feeling of suffocation, accompanied by the contraction of his facial muscles, gave people a psychedelic illusion.

The laughter grew louder and louder, echoing in the silent night, as if laughing at the world, and also as if laughing at itself.

"You should leave now."

The witch seemed to have decided to end the conversation, she said, looking at Lu Ban again.

"I have forgotten my original thoughts, and I am left with nothing but my body, could it be your legacy?"

As the shrine maiden chanted, Lu Ban felt the space around him distorted, the sky and the earth were spinning, and the shrine maiden, Amber, the God Child Pavilion, the God Sakura, and the Island Taisha Shrine, everything was moving away from him.

In that dazzling illusion, Lu Ban spoke to the void where there was nothing, and to those great beings high above, his voice trembling with laughter.

“She did leave hope.”

A hundred years later, the island still exists. No matter what, that is the result of the hope left by Amber.

Supported not by hatred and malice but by hope, her soul sat alone in the high Son of God Pavilion for a hundred years, guarding this world that betrayed her.

Some memories, even if they only last a moment, can sustain people for a long, long time.

Perhaps, Lu Ban didn't know how the arrow of the Son of God found the cursed island of Uta Island, which was shrouded in nameless fog and even the shrine administrator couldn't find it.

Why did this strange island, which had not been noticed by the Son of God in the previous hundred years, attract the attention of the Son of God after Lu Ban arrived?

Is there a possibility.

In this distant, ethereal, foggy world, is Amber always watching him?

She persisted throughout the long, cold and lonely time, until, in Lu Ban's past and Amber's future, the two finally met for the "first time".

Afterwards, the Arrow of Pure Fire arrived as expected.

Just like a promise, it never changes for thousands of years.

It is also like a vow, eternal and fervent.

In the bizarre, distorted and chaotic scenes of traveling through the foreign land, Lu Ban seemed to see a small figure who gave him an innocent smile. In the flickering firelight, she waved her hands, laughing and shouting.

"I see you."

In response, Lu Ban could only respond with a smile that was a hundred years late, and he opened his mouth to respond.

"You saw it."