```
What a tragic scene it was.
There was a person being burned alive to death, without a shred of pity, without any redemption, purely the state of human death in absolute despair.
Every scene was like a knife, striking at Mrs. Meritt's heart.
She felt a wrenching pain, as if the Director was stabbing her chest mercilessly with a dull knife, over and over again.
She clutched her chest, but the plot continued.
Mrs. Meritt saw the ghostly Shrine Maiden appear once again.
In her narration, the truth of this Shrine, this world, unfolded before Mrs. Meritt.
Only the purest of people and the noblest of hopes, transformed into the power of despair, could nourish the Pure Fire.
Only pollution could combat pollution, a stronger pollution could overpower a weaker one.
For thousands of years, it had been so for all the Shrine Maidens.
If it were not so, the world would be destroyed.
At that moment, Mrs. Meritt's brain had shut down.