Alaric’s vision went dark, and his body turned cold. His heart barely pumped blood, sustained only by the effort of his imnse willpower. However, even his willpower started slipping under the imnse weight of the corrupted power surging through his body.
Will I fail… so close to achieving my goal? Suddenly, a defiance ignited within him. No…Never. I have to try harder.
The ball of defiance pooled in his chest, creating warmth. It prevented the vile, dark energy from completely overwhelming his senses. As if his will was an unguarded candle fla, flickering under the assault of a storm, but refusing to be extinguished.
Forcefully prying his eyes into slits, he gleaned the homunculus wearing an expression of triumph, mouthing his words uselessly. Alaric couldn’t register any sound.
Suddenly, a piercing pain shot through his heart as he coughed blood. He sensed a foreign energy slowly spilling from his heart with each irregular thump.
He perceived the foreign energy like a long-lost friend that suddenly outstretched its hand to help him. Alaric pushed himself with all his might, but struggled to reach that energy.
His extremities turned icy cold as he diverted more willpower and finally succeeded in brushing the friendly energy with the fingertip of his will.
Help …
At once, his mind cleared and his concentration ramped up. Threatened by the invasion of a toxic energy, his royal witch bloodline had answered his call and finally awakened.
And it proved surprisingly effective at challenging the corrupt energy even in his currently weakened state. The ice in his extremities slowly began to thaw, but it wasn’t enough to completely suppress the imnse power of the corrupt energy that was slowly overtaking it.
Alaric activated his heart chakra, boosting the power of his bloodline energy.
A ball of warmth erupted inside his chest, slowly flowing through the energy pathways of his body and defending against the vile energy. Strength returned to his form, giving him a new wind.
However, Oga Pri ramped up his energy output, injecting more corrupted energy into Alaric’s body. And it was slowly gaining an edge over his bloodline power as well.
I don’t have much ti, but it would have to be enough. He activated his [True Vision] ability, analyzing the minute runic etchings on Oga Pri’s body for one last ti.
Then he activated his [Lucid Inner World] ability to slip into his dream world on command. His inner world was in a state of turmoil - high waves crashed against a steep cliff upon which he found himself.
Thunder crackled overhead with unrestrained fury as the winds battered his form.
Ignoring the calamity surrounding him, Alaric seated himself into the lotus position and activated his third-eye chakra to awaken his mind’s eye - the seat of insights.
At once, the mont stilled as a stream of insights flooded his mind. Visions of various runic forms - swirls of complex, multi-colored energy threads - whooshed past him.
He couldn’t think, couldn’t grasp any of these complex, multi-colored threads of energy - there was simply no ti to reflect upon them.
Inside this realm, he trusted in the ability of his subconscious mind, which constantly soaked up information that was ignored by his conscious mind.
It knew what to do and so Alaric instinctively executed what he had intended to achieve while awake without any conscious effort.
The living energy pathway inside his subtle body split apart into nurous sections - each morphing into one of the variations of the runic patterns he had glimpsed earlier - before reconnecting to form a complex runic energy pathway.
For a mont, he sensed an imnse amount of energy churning through his energy pathways before his body exploded into a shower of torn flesh and blood.
The first iteration had failed. No matter. His body reconstituted into his original form, and the energy pathways transford into another intricate arrangent of runic patterns. Another failure.
The cycle repeated - tens of attempts escalating to hundreds, and then thousands. All of this transpired without any conscious control or acknowledgent.
After countless failures, a sophisticated arrangent of runic patterns demonstrated potential - his body didn’t burst instantly. However, the power coursing through his body couldn’t be stabilized, and the process culminated in another failure after a few seconds.
The cycle continued, but each successive iteration grew more refined. The runic energy pathway in his subtle body beca increasingly stable with each successive iteration and lasted longer before triggering self-destruction.
And then sothing clicked. The runic energy pathways rearranged themselves in a manner that simply fit into place.
They were refined to the extre and unwaveringly stable - customized for Alaric to harness an unknown energy that would resonate with him.
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At once, the mont resud and Alaric regained his awareness. He instantly analyzed the new runic energy pathways of his subtle body, committing it to his mory.
A deep sense of accomplishnt surged through his heart. The runic inscriptions etched on the Anomaly’s form had been far too complex to analyse fully, and he didn’t have the luxury to replicate them in his previous life.
Oga’s Pri’s Runic etchings were far less convoluted. He had no idea how they functioned, what they did, or even how to replicate them. But at least he could attempt to recreate them in his own way.
Normally, such a feat would undoubtedly prove to be life-threatening. ddling with power sources beyond one’s comprehension was not only a fool’s errand but a certain death sentence.
However, Alaric possessed his inner world where he could experint with life-threatening procedures while remaining unscathed. He could fail endlessly inside this simulated environnt without losing his life even once.
The purified energy accumulated in his third-eye chakra awakened his mind’s eye, which further boosted the accuracy and success rate of any simulation by pumping him with a wealth of insight.
Sothing that could’ve taken a lifeti of effort to grasp, he could pluck in re monts. Although there were major drawbacks to that approach, he didn’t have any more ti to dwell upon it any longer.
Regaining his senses in the real world, he found his bloodline power barely repelling the onslaught of the vile, corrupt energy.
Oga Pri’s face twisted into a scowl. Surely, the homunculus was wondering how Alaric was still alive.
Alaric cracked a grin. Perhaps I have 5 more minutes. Huh…plenty of ti. He concentrated inwardly on reshaping the living energy pathways of his body to mirror the final iteration of runic energy pathways that he had engraved in his mory.
Unlike Oga Pri, he couldn’t etch the runic inscriptions onto his flesh or bones - at least not yet.
Fortunately, his living energy tendrils complied with his command, effortlessly reconfiguring themselves inside his subtle body to align with his vision and understanding.
The heat inside his chest turned into a volcano, erupting from his body with an earth-shaking might. It effortlessly dislodged Oga Pri’s vile energy tendrils from inside his body, before launching him back.
Alaric pulled himself up, relishing his newfound strength for a few monts. He felt attuned to the whole world, as if he were one with it. His body was overloaded with power, and he felt a temptation to destroy everything around him before he curbed that unwanted urge.
This is amazing, but sothing isn’t right. Although the unprecedented levels of energy injected his mind with waves of euphoria, he couldn’t revel in his newfound might.
In his true vision, he finally identified the source of his apprehension. Just like Oga Pri, his body was draining the energy from his surroundings until it completely decayed.
He had beco a leech - a parasite whose very existence invited destruction upon the world. The cost of wielding the runic power was too high if it ant it would lay waste to everything else.
There was sothing else he noticed. Now, he also manifested a back corona encircling his form. It was akin to aura, but sohow distorted. His intuition scread that he had dabbled into a forbidden craft, and resolved never to wield this power in the real world.
Fortunately, for now, he was inside the Tutorial Rift, where he could inflict no harm upon any living being in the real world.
A system notification chid in his mind, but he ignored it. Oga Pri lunged at him, and Alaric countered its strike with his own.
Once again, their fists collided with a massive boom, releasing a wave of destruction that crumbled the surrounding like sand.
“How is that possible?” the homunculus screeched. “I’m the almighty,” he motioned towards the hundreds of dilapidated corpses before adding, “And, I’ve vanquished countless rulers and champions who beca too arrogant. How is it that you are able to rival my power?”
Alaric cracked a smile, fueling the distaste in Oga Pri’s face. For a mont, he considered attacking the hidden boss without offering a reply.
He couldn’t maintain his grip on his newfound forbidden energy for much longer. So it was imperative to end the battle quickly.
However, the question was sothing worth pondering. Unlike Alpha Pri, who had infiltrated the system and unearthed restricted information, Oga Pri was filled with ignorance about the true objective of the system and the Tutorial Rift.
Even though it was sentient, it was oblivious of the true nature of its existence. The homunculus believed there was nothing beyond the world he currently inhabited. That his world was the real world and the only one in existence.
In that case, Alaric wondered about the pile of bodies strewn across the graveyard. Perhaps they were mighty opponents who had fallen to Oga Pri - each as powerful as a foe who had earned the right to challenge a hidden boss.
However, ultimately, these warriors were also constructs of the Tutorial Rift - not beings from the real world. As far as Alaric knew, nobody had ever managed to challenge Alpha Pri, let alone defeat the android and earn the right to face the homunculus.
Alaric activated his [Superior Mana Manipulation] ability, gearing up for his next attack. But of course, not before slapping Oga Pri with a verbal blow.
“All those warriors—,” Alaric grinned, before continuing, “How can you be sure they were real when you are an imitation yourself?” he chuckled. “Let guess. You have no real knowledge of the system, its origins, or its true purpose.”
Oga Pri’s face contorted into a snarl. “I’ve had it with you, scoundrel.” The black corona enveloping his form stretched outwards, clashing with Alaric’s own and began sparking with red electricity.
Slowly, Oga Pri’s body mutated as it siphoned more energy from the environnt. His torso expanded and his limbs elongated, ending with sleek-black claws that radiated unnatural sharpness.
His back wriggled, before sprouting a mass of flesh that split into two grotesque, wing-like appendages. His pupils constricted into sickly green crescents.
Finally, two red horns branched out from his forehead, transforming the vile creature into a demonic entity. The mutated Oga Pri reeked of malice and nauseated Alaric’s senses.
The runic energy within Alaric stirred - sensing threat - urging him to unleash more of it. However, he actively restricted the flow of this forbidden energy into his body to avoid undergoing a demonic transformation himself.
He wasn’t aware of the ramifications of utilizing this forbidden power, which felt like a double-edged sword. Wielding it without deciphering its secrets seed like a foolish prospect. Regardless, he had his own thods to amplify his strength.
The two demonic horns crowning Oga Pri’s head burned crimson, attracting an ungodly amount of ambient mana that super-condensed into a black sphere. Purple lightning crackled around this sphere of darkness that threatened to turn Alaric to dust.
Alaric’s expression turned grim. Even with his [Superior Mana Manipulation] ability, he couldn’t condense mana to such a degree yet. So, retaliating with a mana blast was out of the picture.
His intuition warned him that a mana-scrambling wave wouldn’t prove much effective at neutralizing the runic energy either. I have to unleash my full power if I want to survive that attack.
“Now witness the power of a GOD,” bellowed Oga Pri with a sneer. “Sphere of Tainted Desolation.” The black sphere between its horns instantly compressed to the size of a fist and shot towards Alaric, heralding his doom.
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