367 Let's do it
Kairen didn't ask any further questions. He wanted also to question the man about the voices that he kept hearing, especially about the reason why exactly this dude kept calling his own name inside Kairen's head, but after some thought, he decided to ask about it at another time when they were free and he could talk as much as he wanted, not when they were planning on saving a planet. He didn't want Reynold to dismiss the subject due to lack of time.
"What should I exactly do?"
Reynold got up to his feet and walked to an empty area. Kairen silently followed behind.
"Close your eyes and concentrate on your surrounding energies. You should eventually feel the huge swirling pool of irregularity high above. If you don't, try activating your power and wait for the two to react to each other."
"I understand."
Kairen took a few steps forward and closed his eyes. In the endless, deep darkness that appeared in front of his eyes, a faint light seemed to be shimmering. It was of different colors and frequency, sometimes bright and sometimes, hard to notice.
The more Kairen looked at it, the clearer it got. The various colors were mixed together in a random way, with purple being the main theme. The plate of light and color was beautiful and dazzling, not slightly similar to how sinister and scary it felt in reality. It looked like a pastel painting plastered over the endless darkness, attractive and eye-catching. It wouldn't be exaggerating to call it a piece of art.
"Now, think of connecting to the gate."
Reynold's soft voice entered his ears.
'Connecting to the gate...'
Kairen repeated the spoken words in his head. As soon as that thought crossed his mind, a small spark lit up right before his eyes, the eyes which were still closed, inside the darkness with a colorful mixture of lights in its 'sky'. The golden spark was tiny, fragile, and faint, like the light of a candle about to be put out. It could hardly be seen under the various lights that the 'gate' was emanating.
Then, another faint spark appeared beside the other, this one silver in color. It floated around the first one as if trying to connect to it. In the next seconds, more and more of the tiny sparks, of the small cracks, appeared around Kairen, lighting up the surrounding darkness and creating a thread that led up, high towards the shining mixture of colors above his head. The faint lights that were hard to recognize under the influence of the 'gate' were now another source of light in that darkness.
The thread was thin and weak, yet it extended out towards the 'gate' above, reaching it in a few seconds. The bright colors soon began to move, shake, and switch places with each other. Just like oil color on top of a bowl of water, the colors moved around, mixed together, and made various, meaningless shapes.
And soon, just when the tip of the golden-silver thread of sparks reached the surface of the pool of lights, a small portion of the colors dipped down as if a drop of paint was dripping to the ground due to gravity. The drop of mixed colors that was still connected to its source moved down towards the thread while getting smaller and smaller the more it distanced itself from the surface of the 'gate'.
ZZZZ
A small fluctuation was made when the two finally touched each other. The surface of the 'gate' shook and the thread of cracks lit up all of a sudden like a blub of light that was switched on. Starting from its end, the brightness spread all over down to the tip of the thread, which was connected to Kairen at its beginning.
"Ugh-"
Kairen felt energy, much like an electric current, run down his body. He shivered slightly at the feeling of numbness and cold spreading inside him but didn't let go of the thread. He could feel a power running through the thread of cracks. Kairen was sure that it was the gate's energy, the Irregularity, and other elements that were mixed with it.
"Try to pull it down. Will it to join your soul."
Reynold's voice echoed in his ears once again. Kairen wasn't sure how he was supposed to will the 'gate' to join his soul. He just focused on the first sentence, on trying to pull down the painting in the 'sky'.
With his eyes still closed, Kairen made a little bit of his power slowly move up the thread. As soon as his power entered the thread, a small portion of the energy inside the 'gate' also entered it from the opposite side.
'So that's how it works!'
The gate would move down as much as he moved towards it.
'Wouldn't the two energies clash in the middle of the thread then?'
Kairen wondered, but still kept injecting his power into the thread. Reynold hasn't said anything or warned him yet so he supposed there were no dangers. As much as he didn't understand the old, red-haired man, he knew for sure that that man cared about Kairen's health and more importantly, his life. If anything threatened Kairen's life, Reynold would protect him, or teach Kairen to protect himself. That's what he'd learned during the time he'd spent in The Void.
It didn't even take 5 seconds for the two similar powers from two different entities to reach each other at the central point of the thread. The clash was soundless and motionless, with the two sides trying to stop the other for a brief second and not even half a second later, the two mixing with each other in a strange way. No, they didn't mix with each other. It took a brief second for Kairen to realize what exactly happened.
'One made way for the other?'
He could sense that both energies were moving forward after the brief pause, one going up and the other moving down.
In an instant, the power surging within the 'gate' shut down like a high-speed arrow. It reached the tip of the thread before Kairen could even understand what was going on and without any delay, it jumped over the other source of the power, that would be Kairen.
"Argh!"
Kairen couldn't help but groan at the stinging sharp pain that he felt on the left side of his chest. It felt as if countless needles were tearing his skin apart and moving through his heart. His body swayed and staggered a bit, yet he didn't open his eyes neither he severed his connection with the gate.
"Kairen!"
It was because, after a brief second of enduring the pain, the sensation seemed to change. Instead of the sharp needles that were invading his heart, it felt more like a surge of cold water seeping in through his skin, like weak electric currents jumping over his body, and like a layer of faint blue mist enveloping his body.
"Let go of it if it's too much of a burden on you!" Kairen only noticed a warm hand supporting his back when he heard the voice of the owner of the hand, however, he didn't pay Reynold any mind.
The flow of cold, misty, energy swayed inside his chest, expanded, and filled every corner of his previously damaged soul. Kairen didn't need an explanation to understand what was going on.
It was the 'devouring' that Reynold has been talking about.
'Well, it's more like merging together than 'devouring'.', Kairen chuckled.
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