"Wait wait wait!"
I jumped away, still running, as Eugene placed his hands on my back.
Wasn't this too sudden?
"If I am going to merge them all that means I'll be giving up on magic, ki, and my authority?"
"Nope," Eugene shrugged. "Your authority is a part of you, it's just an addition on top of demonic energy. You would be using Demonic Energy and not Authority."
"Isn't one's authority just condensed Demonic Energy?" I asked.
"Do you think Demonic Energy can change time?"
Oh right, Balam, that monster, could do that. Most demons I had seen hadn't entered their true demon form either, except I who didn't exactly have any true demon form.
"So… what is an authority?"
"It's similar to what Outer Gods use."
I tilted my head, of course, still running.
"We can use what Outer Gods use?"
"We're closer to them than you'd like to believe. In any case, that stuff is for you to figure out. Don't worry about your authority. It's our trump card, it'll stay."
"Ok, that's good but there's still more to worry about."
"Like?"
I snapped my fingers and formed some shields around me, I could now multi-task Cataclysm and Mana ever since I reached the peak of Aether Stage.
Inside the shields came out the dozens of things that I had placed in my spatial storage.
"What about all this?" I asked. "There's a lot of gold and money and items, even that stupid mask and dozens of volumes of the damned BL that I restocked on after that burning incident."
"Why did you restock on the BL?"
"It felt like catnip for Noa so I kept it on hand."
"Huh." Eugene shrugged at my words. "Well, you removed them all so it's all good, right?"
This bitch.
He wasn't wrong though.
"Is that all your worries?"
Worries huh? He had been seeing all these as worries and not complaints. Thankfully, I was safe in that department for now.
"Let's get to work."
Eugene placed a hand on my back and I took in a deep breath.
Was I really ready to stop using magic and Ki forever? I had faced too much just because I couldn't use one of them, and now I was giving up on both the things.
But…
"Let's do it," I said.
There was no point in hesitating with this anymore. If I wanted to grow stronger…
Then sacrifices were only natural.
"Stop running for this. Do you need to sleep?"
I was fairly surprised.
"I think I've gotten used to not sleeping."
"Good, then stop running. We'll take the center."
I was confused, but I did as he said.
We decided to go closer to the center of the place and sit down. Eugene pretty much flung me there and followed right back. He could go anywhere in the blink of an eye.
"Are you teleporting or something?"
"Hm? Yes."
This bitch.
"Say Eugene…" I slowly turned and looked at him. "Can you run—"
"Move your cores. I'll cover the space with my energy."
Eugene had already placed a hand on my back and started guiding his energy into my body.
I took in a deep breath and let him start. Closing my eyes, I focused my attention toward my body.
The sound of my breaths.
The thumping of my heart.
The flow of my blood.
Deeper, more connected.
The way my cells burst and merged, died and fought and formed again. Even more.
A placer stranger and further ingrained into my body than even those.
Right, an Ethereal self. An empty form where nothing but the energies that shaped the world itself merged with me.
My insides blacked out.
"Breath. Three short breaths in…"
With his voice as a guide, I looked deeper into myself.
Small sparks of red and blue flickered in the ethereal darkness. Like flickers of light, they flitted around my body.
"Hold…"
As I held my breath, the erratic energies followed a smooth stream. Like a tornado making landfall, all the information of the streams of Mana and Ki filled my head at once.
The Ki and Mana veins had changed from my body, from the constant erosion and exposure, my entire body itself had become a container at it.
I traced the origin of the flow.
And soon, found the two cores dancing around each other with an elegant choreography. Ever so close, but never overlapping.
"Now…kh… Breath out, slow and steady…"
I focused my self on the two cores, and with my exhaling breath, shoved them together into each other.
The sparks of energy flowing around stopped for a second.
Then it went wild.
The two cores collided and sent out a burst of power incomparable to anything. Their strength pushed against my very body but I did not stop connecting the two. Because before anything could break out, it was all pulled back in by Eugene's energy.
"Don't stop!" Eugene screamed. "Keep the cycle going."
I started breathing in again. Slowly, steadily, three short breaths.
The merging energies continued to go wild, almost as if ready to break my entire body apart from within, but everything would start calming down at the hold of my breath.
Calmly.
Slowly.
The two cores continued their dance. Their elegance once destroyed by brute strength slowly returned. Finding their grace again even in that place.
And soon.
The two cores merged into each other, becoming one at the climax of their tremendous dance.
My body slowly started to calm down.
I had… reached the end of the dance.
But this wasn't what I wanted.
I took in a deep breath.
"Kid—"
And a flood of black flowed straight into the newly formed core. It didn't even leave the gray of World's Preservation that Eugene had brought in and swallowed it whole before streaming into the newly formed core.
"Fuck!" Eugene's desperate scream rang in my ear, but I ignored it all.
Malice.
Pure, deep malice. The malice I felt at the torture, the malice I felt against myself for taking someone else's place, for losing, for being weak, for not being able to protect, the greed, the hurt, the sadism.
The pride.
All of it, like murky water flowed into the core and assaulted it at once.
The demonic energy that already enhanced one's emotions were now running wild. And finally, it all merged into the core at the center.
The energy of the end had been filled with malice.
My vessel… became the advent of Cataclysm.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l