On the morning of the third day, Lin Ze received a notice from the sect and came to the sect's headquarters to perform a power enhancement ceremony.
The person responsible for presiding over the ceremony was a senior divine disciple named Gao Jianhai.
After arriving at the sect headquarters, Gao Jianhai took Lin Ze to the prayer room.
It is said to be a prayer room, but it is actually a spacious and bright hall. In the center is a tall statue, which is the god Huo Ying revered by the Huo Ying sect. The image is exactly the same as the photo pattern all over Chihuo City.
The two stopped in front of the statue, and then listened to Gao Jianhai's solemn explanation: "The ceremony is very simple. Just pray as usual and ask the gods to grant the power of fire."
Lin Ze glanced at the statue, recalling the information about prayer in his mind. After a few seconds of pause, he knelt on the ground, closed his eyes and made a praying gesture.
As soon as the thought of praying for increased flame power came up, he felt a connection appear deep in his mind.
Following the connection, Lin Ze vaguely felt a burning heat and blazing will.
"We have made contact. Is it possible that there really is a god?" He was surprised in his heart.
Although the name of this copy of the game is "Ability God", Lin Ze has always been dubious about whether gods really exist. He has some doubts that the Fire Infant Sect is just using the name of gods to maintain its rule. It was not until this moment that the doubts in his heart were shaken.
"However, this will seems a little weird."
In Lin Ze's feeling, this will is filled with a lot of flames, hot and blazing, which is very consistent with the identity of a god who controls the power of fire, but in addition, it also contains traces of tyranny.
and distortion, but the latter was hidden so deeply that he could only feel it faintly, but could not get in touch with it deeply.
When Lin Ze's thoughts came into contact with the surrounding flame breath, his mind was shocked. He suddenly woke up from his prayers. When he opened his eyes and took a look, he found that the statue in front of him had lit up with a faint red light at some point, followed closely.
Dots of light particles overflowed from the surface of the statue, floated to Lin Ze, and gradually condensed into a light-colored light cluster the size of a pigeon egg, as clear as a ruby.
"This is the power of fire." Gao Jianhai next to him suddenly said, "Just catch it and absorb it."
Lin Ze stretched out his hand according to words and let the light ball slowly land in the open palm. As soon as it touched the skin of the palm, the light ball instantly disappeared into the body like ice water melting.
In an instant, he felt that his connection with the fire element energy in the air was much closer.
When I called up the panel, I saw that the fire power had increased to 2 scales.
"It only increased by 1 scale." Lin Ze felt a little speechless, but after thinking about it, the flame power became twice the original scale. If you think about it this way, the increase does not seem to be small.
"Okay, the ceremony is over here." Gao Jianhai interrupted his contemplation, "I hope you will continue to work hard to increase your strength and strive to increase your membership level again as soon as possible."
"I understand, thank you." Lin Ze stood up from the ground, paused, and asked, "Deacon Gao, I would like to ask, what is the scale of the flame power possessed by the three-star disciple?"
Gao Jianhai glanced at him and said casually: "3 marks."
"Each time a formal divine disciple advances to a member level, the flame power he can possess increases by 1 scale. Only when he reaches a senior divine disciple, the flame power scale he possesses will increase significantly."
Lin Ze suddenly nodded and glanced at the flame embroidery on the chest of Gao Jianhai's uniform. The five flame embroideries represented the latter's identity as a five-star divine disciple.
"I wonder how many levels the five-star divine disciple's fire power has?"
Doubts were doubts. Judging from Gao Jianhai's appearance, he probably wouldn't tell him, so Lin Ze wisely didn't ask any more questions.
After the ceremony, he immediately went to the terminal to exchange skills, and then went to the public hall to practice. He found that the fire element energy he could control had indeed increased a lot, almost doubling.
"Sure enough, the power of fire is actually equivalent to the authority to control the energy of the fire element."
Lin Ze opened his palms and condensed a fist-sized flame in his palms.
As the fire power increases, it becomes easier for him to do this kind of thing, but the 2-scale fire power is still a long way from being able to control the flame freely, and he doesn't know how many scales it takes to reach the point where he can control the flame freely.
Shaking his head to disperse the flames, Lin Ze continued to practice
Late at night, in the living room of the residence.
Lin Ze sat on the sofa, watching the clock on the wall as it reached twelve o'clock, feeling that the whole world suddenly became quiet. Just then, as usual, he left his residence and went to the street outside.
In the past few nights, he had explored almost the entire city center, but still found nothing.
"According to what the heretic girl said, the late-night swallowing phenomenon happens every night. In other words, the unknown danger that causes ordinary people to disappear will appear every night. If you continue to look for it, you will encounter it sooner or later, but I don't know how long it will take.
time."
Lin Ze thought for a while and decided that tonight he would no longer hide his body as carefully as before, but would directly search aggressively to improve search efficiency.
Just like when he was tracking the heretic girl, he used spiritual energy to condense a mask on his face. After covering his face, he walked to the middle of the street and started searching everywhere.
After no longer having to carefully hide his figure, Lin Ze's efficiency improved a lot. He quickly searched the area around the building, then condensed his flame wings and flew high into the sky to look around.
After flying four to five hundred meters along the main road, he finally saw Youdao's figure disappearing a thousand meters away.
Seeing this, Lin Ze couldn't help but feel happy. He flapped his flame wings and flew out like lightning. In less than ten seconds, he reached the sky above a park. After a brief feeling, he quickly noticed an aura hiding in the fountain.
In the flower garden behind.
He dispersed his flame wings and fell directly from the sky, hitting the hard ground like a boulder, making a loud and muffled sound, which shocked the people hiding in the flower garden.
"Ah!! Don't eat me! Please don't eat me! I'm so tall! It doesn't taste good at all!"
Lin Ze looked at the man in front of him who was lying on the grass like an ostrich, his body shivering. He was wearing a pair of home pajamas, which were stained with a lot of dirt and dust. He even had one slipper missing. He looked very experienced.
He ran away in a panic.
After the man screamed in fear, he lay on the ground with his head in his hands. However, after a while, he found that there was no movement behind him. He cautiously raised his head and looked back. When he saw Lin Ze, he was stunned for a moment.
"You, are you human?"
"Same as you." Lin Ze said.
Hearing this, the man couldn't help but swallow his saliva, and looked at Lin Ze up and down for a while. After confirming that he was a human being like himself, he breathed a sigh of relief.
"Hug, sorry!" The man came back to his senses, smiled awkwardly at Lin Ze, and quickly got up from the ground. Then he remembered the scene just now and opened his mouth again, "Wait, wait! Then what did you just do?
How from heaven?”
This guy's reaction is so slow! Lin Ze thought to himself.
Without waiting for him to explain, the man suddenly realized: "I understand, you are the disciple of the Fire Infant Sect! Right!"
Lin Ze did not answer. It was not a good thing to admit that he was a disciple of God at this time.
However, the man obviously recognized that he was a divine disciple of the Fire Infant Sect and suddenly became excited.
"Excellent, Lord God Disciple, I thought I was the only one who encountered this kind of thing. Everyone in the city seemed to have suddenly disappeared, and not even a single person could be seen."
Lin Ze waved his hand to interrupt him: "What's your name?"
"Me? My name is Li Hua."
Lin Ze nodded and continued to ask: "You just shouted not to eat you. What happened?"
As soon as he said this, Li Hua seemed to remember something terrible. His face turned pale, he hesitated for a while, and then said in a trembling voice: "Then, that's because I encountered a monster!"
"monster?"
"Yes, it's a huge head burning with flames!" Li Hua swallowed his saliva, looking frightened. "As soon as the monster saw me, it shouted that it wanted to eat me, and then it rushed towards me.
It scared me half to death!"
"Then how did you escape?"
"I was in the underground parking lot at the time. There was a fire hydrant next to me. I had an idea and sprayed the monster's face with the dry powder fire extinguisher inside. Then I escaped from the parking lot when it was not prepared and ran a long way before hiding in this park.
Here, I’ll meet you next.”
Li Hua still had a frightened expression on his face.
Lin Ze's heart moved. After searching for so long, he finally found something.
Judging from Li Hua's words, the monster he encountered was probably the real culprit that caused the late-night devouring phenomenon. It ate up ordinary people who did not disappear after twelve o'clock and could still move freely until six o'clock in the morning.
, ordinary people who are eaten are equivalent to disappearing from this world without anyone noticing.
Now, Lin Ze finally knew the true nature of the late-night swallowing phenomenon, but new doubts arose. Where did those monsters come from? Why did Chihuo City become like this after twelve o'clock?
"If you want to find the answers to these questions, you must first find the monster Li Hua mentioned."
Lin Ze quickly had something to worry about. He raised his head and was about to speak when his expression suddenly changed and he suddenly turned his head to look not far to the right.
At the same time, a sharp voice that was neither male nor female suddenly sounded.
"Quack, look what I found, two humans with high soul strength!"
As the sound rang out, several trees on the edge of the small forest not far away suddenly collapsed, and the branches and leaves burst into flames with a hissing sound.
The fire instantly tore through the darkness, revealing a figure rushing out of the woods.
It was a huge head with a diameter of more than two meters, and its whole body was burning with flames.
The head seemed to be a baby's head magnified countless times. The skin was pale white and smooth without a trace of hair. The eye sockets were also dark and deep, without eyeballs. The grinning mouth was filled with dense serrations as sharp as a cone.
As soon as the flame head appeared, its dark eyes stared straight at Lin Ze and the two of them, as if he was sizing them up, and the corners of his mouth finally opened in a ferocious arc.
"If you eat it with the head on, it will definitely be delicious!"