70: Chapter 70 For the first time in sixty-two years, he cried like a child.

Chapter 70: For the First Time in Sixty-Two Years, He Cried Like a Child. The ancient tree's golden light flared violently.

Su Chen pressed his palm against the trunk, and energy seeped through his fingers deep into the branches.

The system panel flashed in the corner of his vision.

"Confirmed. E-grade Crystal ×2 consumed. Spark Crafting Points deducted: 2,000. Bestowal Points deducted: 2,000. Trial Scenario Design Points deducted: 300. Balance: 3,700."

Two pillars of golden light shot out from between the branches, precisely enveloping Lin Xiaoman and Henry.

The bodies of the two slowly floated off the ground, their eyes closing at the same time.

Liu Yuyan stood at the bottom of the stone steps, her hands clenched tightly.

She recalled her own trial—living through Elena's life, from the wooden box at five years old to the bench in her twilight years.

"Don't worry."

Su Chen's voice came from beside her,

"The War Zone was their trial ground. The ancient tree is only doing the final certification."

Liu Yuyan was stunned for a moment, and then she understood.

He wasn't waiting for them to be "qualified" before starting the trial.

He only had the ancient tree stamp its approval after confirming that their character had already been fully forged.

So this is a Flame Keeper!

---

Darkness.

A boundless darkness.

Henry stood in the void.

There was no ground, no sky; his feet trod upon some invisible yet perceptible "presence."

A ball of golden light lit up deep within the darkness.

A blonde woman in her forties, with elegant features, her brow and eyes carrying a gentleness and resilience polished by time.

She wore a dark blue dress, a white belt embroidered with the totem of spark tied around her waist, with a faint golden halo lingering on her fingertips.

Her gaze fell upon him.

It was not scrutiny, nor was it pressure.

It was gratification.

"You have come."

Her voice was soft and low, carrying a sense of exhaustion and relief that spanned hundreds of years.

"My name is Seraphina."

Henry bowed,

"Junior Henry Bernstein, here to take the ancient tree's trial."

Seraphina took a step closer.

A beam of golden light shot out from her fingertip.

"Live through my life. Then tell me—are you willing to take over this lamp?"

The golden light crashed into his chest.

---

"She" opened her eyes.

Sunlight filtered through the stained-glass windows, casting colorful patches of light on the white marble floor.

The full-length mirror reflected the face of a fifteen-year-old girl—curly blonde hair, blue eyes, and cheeks still carrying baby fat.

Seraphina von Rheinheim.

The only daughter of the oldest noble family on the banks of the Rhine.

Henry experienced everything within this body.

The warmth of the sunlight, the feel of silk against the skin, the aroma of baking bread drifting from the distant kitchen.

Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.

Then, war came.

At three in the morning, the manor gates were smashed open. Torches illuminated the entire vineyard.

Soldiers pinned her father to the ground, smashing a rifle butt into the back of his head. Her mother's screams were muffled by rough hands.

The family was thrown into a crowd of refugees, walking barefoot on the gravel road.

Three days later, the crowd dispersed in chaos, and she became separated from her parents.

The seventeen-year-old noble daughter stood alone on a road filled with corpses and weeping.

A hand reached out.

A middle-aged man covered in blood, wearing an apron so dirty its color was unrecognizable, held a rusty scalpel in his hand.

"Child, come with me."

Joseph, the field doctor.

No license, no medical degree, only a pair of incredibly steady hands.

Henry followed Joseph into hell.

A church half-destroyed by explosions had been turned into a makeshift aid station.

People lay all over the floor. The smell in the air made her vomit on the spot.

Joseph stuffed a roll of bandages into her hand.

"Do you know how to wrap it?"

"No... no."

"Learn."

She learned.

From wrapping bandages to debridement, hemostasis, and suturing.

A noble daughter's fingers were meant for playing the piano, embroidering, and turning book pages.

Now, they were soaked in blood and pus.

Two years passed.

Joseph taught her everything he knew.

Then he died.

After seventy-two consecutive hours of surgery, his heart stopped in the seventy-third hour.

He collapsed beside the operating table, still clutching a hemostat in his hand.

Henry's consciousness was torn apart at this moment.

He saw Isaac.

Under the ruins of the tin shack, lying on top of him, the rising and falling of his chest slowly faded away.

His arms were wrapped around his shoulders, never letting go until death.

The two memories overlapped.

The image of Joseph collapsing and the image of Isaac collapsing merged into the exact same frame in his mind.

The same posture.

The same warmth.

The same—words left unfinished before it was too late.

---

Seraphina took over Joseph's position at nineteen.

She systematized what Joseph had taught her—sterilization protocols, triage systems, and nursing shifts.

Within two years, the aid station's mortality rate dropped from sixty percent to two percent.

The war ended.

She thought everything could return to normal.

Then, the sky cracked.

Dark red whirlpools, spatial rifts, and exotic beasts poured down.

It was exactly the same as what he had seen in the War Zone.

The people she had saved—the veteran with a wooden prosthetic leg, the young mother with thirty-seven stitches, the boy dug out from the ruins.

Stood up one by one.

Standing before her.

"Miss Seraphina! Run!"

Blood splattered on her face, warm.

One, two, five, ten.

More and more people collapsed.

She knelt in a pool of blood, pressing both hands against a boy's chest.

His ribs were completely shattered, his heart exposed to the air, still beating.

Joseph had taught her every technique.

None of them could repair this.

"Don't die..."

The boy looked at her and smiled.

"Miss Seraphina... your hands... are so warm..."

His pupils dilated.

---

Henry's consciousness broke.

It wasn't Seraphina's breakdown—it was his own.

That twelve-year-old child.

The child in the War Zone's tin shack who had asked him, "Am I next?"

He couldn't save him.

He couldn't save anyone.

He knelt in the pool of blood.

His knees sank into the warm liquid, in the exact same posture as three days ago in the tin shack.

And then—

Deep within his chest, something exploded.

Golden light erupted from within his body.

It was not an offensive light.

It was warm, enveloping, and restorative.

Waves of light rippled outward with her as the center.

Everyone who still had a breath left—

Their broken bones reconnected, their torn muscles healed, and the spilled blood flowed back into their bodies.

That boy's heart beat once more.

His ribs grew back one by one, and his skin closed up.

He opened his eyes.

"Miss Seraphina... are you an angel?"

Henry knelt there, tears streaming down his face.

For the first time in sixty-two years, he cried like a child.

---

The images accelerated.

Joining the Kindling.

On her first campaign with the team, she stood thirty meters behind the front line.

A sword cultivator's abdominal cavity was pierced by an exotic beast's tail stinger, his intestines exposed, and blood pouring out from the gaps in his armor.

Everyone thought he was a goner.

Seraphina rushed forward, pressing both hands onto the wound.

Golden light surged, the intestines retracted into the abdominal cavity, and the wound healed at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The sword cultivator opened his eyes, looked down at his intact abdomen, and then looked at her.

"You..."

"Don't move."

She pressed him back down,

"The sutures aren't stable yet. If you move, the treatment will be for nothing."

After that day, all Kindling members would confirm one thing before going on a mission—whether Seraphina was in the rear.

If she was there, no one feared death.

Year after year.

Healing, protecting, fighting.

Henry lived through every single day in this memory.

Every person she dragged back from the brink of death, every exhaustion that left her collapsed on the ground after her golden light was depleted, every late night spent sitting alone in her tent, watching her hands age day by day.

She never regretted it.

---

The final large-scale invasion.

The rift was larger than any before.

All members of Kindling mobilized, stretching the battle line across thirty kilometers.

Seraphina stood in the rear, golden light continuously surging from her body.

Healing one, two, ten, fifty.

With every person healed, her face aged a bit more.

Her long golden hair turned white.

Wrinkles appeared on her skin.

The luster in her blue eyes dimmed bit by bit.

She was trading her life force for the healing light.

"Seraphina! Stop! You'll die!"

"Don't mind me!"

Her voice was so hoarse it was almost inaudible, but every word was pronounced clearly.

"As long as I am alive—no one shall die in suffering!"

The final wave of exotic beasts was repelled.

She fell to her knees, golden light surging from her body one last time—a full-area release.

All the wounded within a one-kilometer radius were simultaneously enveloped in golden light.

Everyone survived.

She smiled.

In the golden light, her forty-three-year-old face looked like that of the seventeen-year-old girl chasing butterflies in the manor's garden.

"Joseph... I did it..."

She collapsed.

Henry felt that moment—the final peace before her heartbeat stopped.

---

Darkness enveloped them once more.

Seraphina's phantom figure coalesced once again.

White hair, wrinkles, but the light in her eyes was brighter than ever.

She looked at Henry and nodded.

Her lips moved, making no sound.

But Henry understood.

"Go. Go and do what I couldn't finish."

The phantom vanished.

Turning into a sky full of golden light specks, it surged into Henry's chest.

Henry knelt in the darkness.

"Senior—"

His voice cracked, then pieced itself back together.

"Medicine has its limits, but life has no dead ends."

"I will inherit your will. I will become the inextinguishable lamp of the Kindling."

Deep within the darkness, a final image emerged.

Seraphina sat in a sun-drenched garden.

Her father was laughing, her mother playing the piano.

She looked back at Henry.

She smiled.

The image shattered into specks of light and dissipated.

---

Torch Base.

Henry's body slowly descended from midair, his feet touching the stone steps.

He opened his eyes.

Deep within his blue-gray pupils, a golden holy glow flashed and vanished.

Su Chen looked at him.

"Welcome back, Holy Healing Apostle."

Henry raised his hand.

A warm golden light floated above his palm, soft and steady.

He smiled.

And beside him—

Lin Xiaoman's golden pillar of light was still shining.

But the color was wrong.

The edges of the golden light were tinged with an extremely faint silver-blue, like electrical currents dancing on the surface of liquid metal.

Under the illumination of her pillar of light, the branches of the ancient tree trembled slightly, the golden glow within the bark's grooves flickering erratically.

Su Chen's gaze shifted.

Liu Yuyan noticed it too. She looked at Su Chen, hesitating to speak.

Su Chen did not speak.

The eyes behind his mask stared at the silver-blue light, his finger tapping once on his knee.

Tap.

Her trial was not over yet.