Then Phillip looked down at the two flames still burning, his face still unable to hide his anger and disgust, and asked: "Lord Karl... these corpses."
Karl chuckled, patted him on the shoulder, and gestured for him to calm down: "From the moment I arrived, I cut off any movement in and out of this room."
"The outside world will never hear any unusual sounds, and no one can find anything inside."
"Now, all you have to do is go out, find Dalton, and calm Tamara down."
"She is still young. Try not to leave too deep a mark from today's events on her. Leave the final handling to me."
Learning that Karl had considered all these thoughts and personally helped him deal with the aftermath, Phillip was so moved that tears welled up in the corners of his eyes.
He stepped back, straightened his chest, and bowed deeply to Karl, his voice choked but sincere: "Thank you... my lord! Thank you!"
Having said that, he hesitated no longer, wiped his face vigorously, and walked away from the place that had caused him grief and anger.
Soon after, Karl, Dalton, and Phillip, who had calmed his daughter, rode out of the village.
As for the ashes left by Anna and the adulterer? Karl's approach was simple.
They were evenly scattered in the common area of the village, deep into the foul manure pit.
For such betrayal and cruelty, he believed they didn't even have the right to step on the land.
...
The next day, at dawn, Karl rose into the sky early, just as he had the day before.
Then, enjoying the rising sun, he greedily absorbed its gifts.
When he again felt the fullness in his body's cells and his energy reserves reached saturation,
he prepared to return to the ground as usual to attend to his daily affairs.
A sudden thought raced through his mind like lightning.
"Divinity... I have it, though just a trace."
"Faith power... I have also encountered it and know its pros and cons. But... what about the so-called divine power?"
He remembered the immense power he felt when seeing the Temple of Melitele, and the pure natural power of the nymph emanating from the lake.
Such energy was clearly completely different from how he relied on his cells to absorb and convert solar energy.
The level seemed higher, closer to some kind of authority over the world.
"Divine power... how do I obtain it?"
"Or can I... create and transform something similar myself?"
Once this idea was born, it grew in his heart like a weed, and he decided to try.
Hovering in the air, Karl closed his eyes and fully immersed himself in the solar energy within his body.
He began experimenting, not just using this energy to strengthen his body or release simple energy blasts,
but instead trying to manipulate it more subtly and deeply, concentrating, compressing, and purifying it.
He directed the surging golden energy within his body, converging it towards the center like a whirlpool, applying immense pressure.
He tried to filter out the "impurities" and refine the core and more powerful components.
This experiment lasted an entire day and night on a whim.
From the dawn of morning, through the scorching sun, to sunset.
As night fell, stars appeared until the break of dawn.
During this period, a faint, continuous roar could be heard in the skies over Terra, like thunder constantly striking something.
Dalton, Phillip, and all the villagers heard this strange sound.
They looked up at the sky, but saw clear skies and not a trace of clouds.
"This is really strange; the weather is clearly very good, why is there thunder all the time?" An old farmer carrying a hoe muttered suspiciously.
"Maybe it's some kind of weather phenomenon we don't know about." Dalton reassured his men, who were a little worried, but he himself was full of doubt.
They didn't know that this constant thunder, seemingly from outside the sky,
was Karl trying to concentrate his divine power. Because his control wasn't precise enough, the energy was extremely unstable, and small energy explosions were occurring repeatedly.
...
At that moment, high in the sky, Karl's appearance could be described as a bit embarrassing.
The expensive clothes on his body had long since disappeared in several uncontrolled energy explosions.
Only a few scorched threads hung on his body, leaving him almost completely naked in the air.
His fair skin shone with a healthy luster under the starlight and the first morning light.
The previous explosion had been so powerful that it even broke through the protection of the bio-field he had maintained at one point, directly hitting his steel body.
Although it caused no serious harm, that moment still brought a slight pain.
However, compared to this slight embarrassment and pain, Karl's face was filled with an uncontrollable, full smile.
The tip of his right index finger held a wisp of energy so thin it was barely visible.
This energy took on a deep, warm orange hue, like a concentrated sunset.
But if you looked closely, you could see that in the core of this orange was a slightly noticeable, but radiating a more sacred and pure aura, an extremely pale golden color.
"It seems to have worked... though it's just a tiny bit!" Karl's heart filled with excitement.
He couldn't be sure if this was truly "divine power."
But it was indeed a qualitatively transformed, high-level energy obtained by condensing and compressing his own solar energy.
To compress this tiny wisp of divine power at his fingertip,
the vast amount of solar energy in his body had been repeatedly dispersed and squeezed several times.
The complexity and danger of this process far exceeded any of his previous research or battles.
To test the effect of this supposed divine power, he began a comparative experiment.
First, he mobilized his ordinary solar energy and condensed a fist-sized fireball in his palm.
Then, controlling the energy to maintain a relatively stable level, he casually threw the fireball into an uninhabited wilderness below.
BOOM! The fireball hit the ground, raising dust and leaving a scorched black pit on the ground, several meters in diameter and about one meter deep.
The power was good, roughly equivalent to the fireball spell cast by an experienced sorcerer.
Then, he carefully separated a precious wisp of orange-gold energy from his fingertip, less than a hair's breadth.
He integrated it into the same amount of solar energy, again condensed a fireball that looked roughly the same, and threw it into another nearby wasteland.
RUMBLE!! This time, the explosion was completely different. The loud noise was deafening, and the raging flames and shockwaves instantly engulfed a large area.
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