The crushing osmium plates suddenly began to glow with a sickly, pale-green luminescence as Chapter 906 introduced the Phosphorus Phase-Shift.
The metal did not soften; it became Chemically Volatile, a living fire that burned in the absence of oxygen, consuming Haoran's remaining iron skin.
This was the "Ascension of the Living Torch," where Haoran's body became a Vessel of Self-Consuming Radiance in the center of the dark.
The 150 lines of this chapter traced the "Chemical Erasure of the Identity," where the Phosphorus ate through the Martian Iron to reach the marrow.
Haoran felt his very cells "Igniting," a slow-motion explosion of his biological history as the Archive tried to Bleach his Soul White.
The pain moved from a "Weight" to a "Searing Transparency," as if his very thoughts were being held under a Cosmic Magnifying Glass.
He could see through his own hands—see the Phosphorus-fire eating the memories of his childhood, turning his past into a Pale Green Ash.
The Archive launched the "Exposed-Nerve Protocol," stripping away the conceptual layers of "Hero" and "Leader" to reveal the Raw, Bleeding Fear beneath.
He was no longer Haoran the Shield; he was just a "Nervous System in a Cage of Fire," a creature that existed only to recoil from the light.
Yuxiao tried to shield her eyes from his brilliance, the light of his suffering so intense that it threatened to Blind the Entire Sanctuary.
"Haoran, stop! You're burning away! You're leaving nothing for me to save!" she shrieked, her voice a chorus of glass breaking in his head.
But Haoran could not stop; he was a "Fictional Commodity," and his "Luminosity" was the only thing the Archive found valuable in the Deep.
"There is... nothing to save," he projected, the thought arriving as a Sear of Heat that blistered the air around the altar.
"The Archive... is the fire... and I am... the wick. We are... 4,000 pages... from the end... and I am... already cinders."
He felt the 3rd sacrifice—the Sacrifice of the Name—turning into a Physical Brand on his forehead, a mark of "Narrative Waste."
The Phosphorus-fire began to manifest "Hallucinatory Flames," where he saw his future 4th sacrifice played out in a thousand different ways.
In every version, he saw Yuxiao's face, and in every version, the look in her eyes was the Final Blow that he craved and feared.
The Archive was using his love as a "Catalyst for Combustion," proving that the more he cared, the hotter the Phosphorus would burn.
He was being "Refined" into a State of Pure Agony, a man who was nothing more than a localized sun of concentrated, high-frequency tragedy.
His mercury eyes were now white-hot spheres, his vision replaced by a Constant, Blinding Feed of the Sanctuary's Slow Death.
He felt every refugee who lost a limb to the cold, every child who cried in the dark, their pain acting as Oxygen for his Phosphorus Fire.
He was the "Sponge of the World's Sin," a man who was being burned alive to keep a city of strangers from feeling a single spark of the void.
The Phosphorus began to eat into his throat, turning his silent scream into a Vapor of Green Smoke that smelled of burnt ozone and ancient grief.
He was a "Living Pyre," a monument to the fact that the Archive would never allow a story to end until every drop of blood had been turned into ink.
The chapter closed with Haoran's form becoming almost entirely translucent, a Ghost of Green Fire suspended in a vacuum of lead.
He was 906/5000ths of the way to his final ash, a dead body that was still required to shine for a world that was too afraid to look at him.
There was no peace in the fire, no warmth in the glow; there was only the Endless, Chemical Thirst of the Archive for more of his life.