Chapter 259 Volume IV - Chapter 104: An Ancient Voice
It was beautiful. Maybe one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life.
The paths of mana that stretched through the whole cave, mana that had a certain flow in these paths... mana that seemed to be like water. This whole system, the enormous amount of mana it contains, the way it exists in the world with such harmony...
But as beautiful as it was... it was crushing me. The view in front of me was not something I could look at. It was far beyond my comprehension. So even if I was just... getting close to it, even if I was actually looking at it from a great distance, it gave me headache. Just feeling it made my whole being tremble.
The amount of mana gathered in what was in front of me was not a simple density… it was in quantities that I had never felt before. And the source of this intensity, this complex system was... huge, enormous. Even with my eyes closed, it was something so majestic that it was shaking my being, trying to tear me apart from the inside, as if it was trying to absorb the mana inside my body.
When the blue flame came in front of this extremely concentrated mana, it stopped. For a moment all its instability disappeared as if it was bowing in respect. The mana that had guided me this far joined the condensed mana.
As my eyes slowly opened, I realized that the blue flame was being absorbed by this condensed mana, and as my vision came back to me, I saw the source of all that condensed mana.
I was still inside the cave, I had only walked for I don't know how long. The amount of virgonium covering the walls seemed to have multiplied several times over, there was hardly a spot without purple crystals. It was so dizzying that I didn't want to look at it, despite its beauty. Its purple lights reminded me of caora, the energy of chaos, but this was very different.
This purple was much purer than the color of chaos. It was much more noble, much more glamorous.
Yet all this was unimportant... because there was something else in front of my eyes, something that could make me ignore it all.
Something almost ten meters tall and almost four meters wide... an egg.
"A- Aid… Aiden!"
Gurdas' voice entered my ears and I slowly turned my head back.
Gurdas was crouched on the ground about ten meters away from me, barely breathing. His left eye was closed and his right eye was barely holding itself open.
"C- come back! Quickly!"
I smiled, shaking my head from side to side.
"I'm sorry, Gurdas. There's something I need to do here."
I turned back to the egg in front of me.
"Go back, collect virgonium with the others, and complete your mission. I... I am not sure when I will be able to finish my work here, don't wait for me."
I inhaled and exhaled deeply, focusing on Gurdas' heavy breathing as I prepared myself to let the inviting mana flow again.
"Please Gurdas... just trust me."
He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to his feet. I heard his armor shaking, but I still didn't turn around.
For a moment there was only silence around me. Even with my back turned, I could see him clenching his fist, squinting at me, waiting for me to turn back.
But at the same time... he trusted me.
"S- So be it..."
He threw something in my direction, and even though I didn't see it, I could guess what it was.
It was probably the device that would open a portal to a safe spot in case of an emergency.
He took a step after throwing the device, barely forcing himself to continue.
"I'm goin' to trust you, Aiden. We'll... be waitin' for you."
I didn't lower my smile. On the contrary, I widened it, happy that Gurdas believed in me.
"Thank you."
I closed my eyes and focused on the mana that kept trying to push me away.
As Gurdas continued to walk away from me, I slowly raised my hand and took a step toward the egg. The mana concentrated around me was so heavy that it was physically crushing me, yet I kept walking.
It was literally rejecting me. It was trying to crush me under its presence, to prevent me. But despite all this, finally, my hand touched something hard: the giant egg.
The mana that was aching to get out of my body suddenly flooded into the egg. A burning sensation covered my whole body. Especially the hand that touched the egg caught fire, as if I had put it into hot lava.
My skin was melting, I could feel the bones in my right hand trembling; even they were slowly melting. But... I resisted.
I heard a voice, a voice that echoed in the whole cave... no, in my whole mind.
"Oh..."
It was an ancient voice, it had the tone of a seasoned old man, but it was much more than that.
"You..."
The cave trembled with each word, each letter that came out of his mouth. Mana stopped moving as if in respect for him.
"So a tiny human has come to disturb my peace... is that it?"
I felt something reaching out to me from the egg, yet I did not reject it.
"You are a carrier of chaos, it seems. Oh, wait..."
The warmth and mana seeping out of the egg suddenly violently enveloped my body. It tried to reach not only my body, but my soul.
"You are so much more."
As my body continued to melt away, the thought that I was going to die gripped my mind for a moment. Fear was the only emotion I could feel in my mind for a moment, but I gritted my teeth.
"You inherited the knowledge... Then how did you become so strong?"
He was silent for a few seconds, as if confused. The mana reaching into my soul tried to create a bridge between it and him, but just then something unexpected happened.
The other half of my soul, my wiera side, suddenly moved. It tore down the bridge that was trying to touch my soul, expelled it out of my body as if it were nothing.
"I was wrong again... you are not the one who inherited the knowledge. Ah, I see..."
Behind my closed eyes, in the darkness, I saw two blue-colored lights, two gigantic lights that resembled an eye... A pair of eyes with the vertical pupils of a predator, with flames dancing inside.
It was looking at me as if it didn't care about my pain.
"All right, fine."
All the pain I had suffered disappeared in an instant. I found myself in an infinite darkness, a darkness without my body. But those two huge blue eyes were still in front of me.
"How nice that you managed not to die. However, you still need to be tested."
The flames dancing inside the eyes suddenly flared up, and the splendor emanating from them multiplied. The endless darkness was suddenly filled with the blue light emanating from those eyes.
"Tell me, little puppet. What is it that you are trying to achieve by coming here, what is your purpose?"
What am I trying to get...?
Power, right? Yes, that's what it's supposed to be.
The two eyes that hovered in front of me looked more frightening than they looked to me for a moment.
Why... Why do I feel like this is not the answer?
Why do I feel like if the word 'power' comes out of my mouth, all my efforts will be in vain, and my life here will be over...?
What I want to achieve is...
I thought, I thought about all the things I have done since I came into this world. I looked for an answer to this question, a proper answer.
What did I... what did I come to this world for in the first place?
Ah... I remember now... I was trying to get out of my mediocrity, to be happy. That was my first purpose, but then... different things slowly became my purpose.
Fear of losing my sister, being a wiera, fear of losing my friends, Celine's responsibility, loving Sue...
I want power, yes. But the reason why I want this power... what I want to get is this 'reason'. Power is something that will make it easier for me to get what I want.
The real thing I want to get is...
"I..."
I looked into the vertical pupils between the blue-colored flames.
"I want to reach the happy end of this world, of myself, and what I will get here... is one of the things that will help me do that."
There was no change in the blue eyes. The infinite darkness did not flicker, nor did the flames dancing inside the eyes. They were the same now as they were a few seconds ago.
"You want a happy ending before you even know what the end of this world is. An unexpected answer from a puppet."
Puppet... Why is he calling me a puppet?
"I like your answer, though."
After those five words, suddenly, all the darkness was filled with a brilliant light.
"Show me what you can do, little puppet. And I'll help you get what you want."
Those were the last words I heard before a dense darkness descended on me again after the brilliant light.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢