CHAPTER 30: THE FLAMES OF MOURN

Beatrice blinked, her brow furrowing in mild disbelief. A sigh left her lips, soft and disappointed.

"Sigh, can’t you help me out, and explain to me where it is!?" She murmured, rubbing her temple. "My answer remains the same sorry!" Dante was strict about this, causing Beatrice to sigh again, and asked something else, as she say’s. "Fine... then let me ask something else."

Her violet eyes rose, as she asked aloud. "What exactly is the Flame of Mourn?" Dante leaned back in his chair from the void, watching Beatrice from his computer screen, as she walks around in the malformed world, his expression unreadable. Then he smiled faintly, not mocking, just distant, as though the question pulled at something deep within his mind. After all, the lore of this world is truly amazing, as he decided that she deserves to know atleast this much, so he answered.

"It’s not anything grand." He said finally, his tone deliberate. "Rather... it’s a common phenomenon that happens across this world. A quirk of the planets design that happen after the Fall. No one knows why it happens truly, but there is a lot of theory around it. Some call it a weird chain reaction, other call it another type of residue at work, often known as divine residue, others say it’s a curse left behind by the dying god, but really no one knows."

Beatrice tilted her head. "A curse?" Dante chuckled. "Maybe. Maybe not. The mysticism of Soul Games makes it hard to tell where logic ends and belief begins. But the Flame of Mourn is... peculiar. In different regions of the world, certain places...forests, ruins, cities, old battlefields, have these strange trees or piles of congealed flesh. And from them..."

"Burns this Crimson color flames, bright as rubies. The locals call them Mournfires. They burn endlessly, the thing they consume never turns to ash, never fades away. Flesh, bark, or stone, it doesn’t matter. The flame burns, and the construct beneath it endures."

Beatrice’s gaze softened with intrigue. "A flame that never dies?"

"In a way." Dante replied. "But its purpose isn’t destruction. The Mournfire is a blessing to those who understand it... and a curse to those who don’t." He leaned forward now, his voice lowering into a somber, patient rhythm she had come to recognize whenever he began explaining the world’s deeper rules. "You see, if you stand within its proximity...let’s say, a few dozen meters, your strength increases. Your body, your soul, your essence all start aligning with the rhythm of the world. But if you absorb the flames...

"Absorb?" Beatrice repeated cautiously. "Yes." Dante said, almost as if reminiscing. "It’s a choice only those strong enough to survive can make. These flames are infected, not by corruption in the ordinary sense, but by something called Mundus Residue, the very same thing you been absorbing to strengthen yourself and level up. A leftover energy from the entities that once ruled this plane after they die. The Residue conditions your body, changing the way your soul interacts with death itself."

"When you die, Beatrice, as a Mundus, your body doesn’t simply vanish. The flames you’ve absorbed or they as a species can absorb, ignite within you creating what’s called a Mourn Field. A kind of spiritual echo that clings to the place of your death. That field acts as a tether... a respawn point, if you will. So when you fall, you rise again, at your last Mourn Field."

Beatrice’s expression turned grim. "So I guess my enemies will come back after I kill them."

"Yes." Dante said. "But the cycle isn’t instantaneous. The time it takes to respawn depends on your Flame Quality. At the lowest level, it can take up to a couple months to a year to reform. Higher quality flames shorten that, some manage to return in a few hours, or even minutes."

Beatrice frowned, folding her arms. "But that means the stronger the person, the faster they come back, right?"

Dante shook his head slowly. "No. It’s the opposite. The stronger you are, the longer it takes. Power has a certain weight class, and the stronger the soul and the body, the longer the universe takes to rebuild it."

He paused, letting the logic sink in before continuing. "That’s why even high-ranking Mundus prefer to absorb Mourn Flames regularly. Each flame you consume not only strengthens your body but shortens your resurrection interval. It’s a dangerous balance, take too much, and your soul fractures. Take too little, and you risk being gone for centuries if you fall."

Her brows furrowed. "Then... that means the Mundus, the ones we fight, they’re basically immortal?"

"In a sense, yes," Dante admitted. "They can’t truly die because the Mourn system itself respawns them. Their essence is bound to looping cycle of life and death, making the share extinction of Mundus share impossible.

A faint bitterness colored his tone. "That’s the tragedy of it, immortality through suffering. You can kill a Mundus a thousand times, but they’ll rise again... screaming, clawing their way back from their own ashes. The only thing that changes is how long they stay dead."

Beatrice looked down, her armored fingers. "That sounds like a cruel fate."

"Cruelty is the foundation of this world Beako." Dante replied softly. "Nothing here is born without it, you will find that those who did survive the fall live shitty if not horrible lives."

The silence between them lingered for a moment, heavy, but not empty.

Finally, Beatrice spoke again, quieter this time. "Then... what about me? What happens if I die?"

Dante smiled faintly. "You’re not bound by the same laws as they are. You’re my Player Avatar, and Player in general, and players are... anomalies of the world in any game that just the logic of what video game mc is. Any Mundus killed by you stays dead. Permanently. The fire does not save them."

Her eyes widened slightly. "So....

"Yes." He interrupted gently. "That’s why I said there’s no need. You don’t need the Flame of Mourn to survive like they do, but by burning your body in it that basically sets a respawn point you can abuse. You were designed to end cycles, not perpetuate them."

"Wait, so I just need to jump in the fire and that save my existence." She said shocked. "Then do I need to worry about flame quality!?"

Dante then replied with. "No, the flame for you is more like save point in time, you won’t die it works different for you but for them they are stuck with the world logic behind it’s mechanics, a neat power right!?"