“What? You want to buy you so ti? How long?”
“As long as possible.”
“Hmm.”
Iona narrowed her eyes, as if gauging the situation, staring at the approaching monsters.
One of the paladins gave a bitter smile and spoke.
“If things get too dangerous, please just take Yandel and retreat. After all, this is technically our church’s matter. And… if soone has to survive, shouldn’t it be soone more important than us?”
The other paladins nodded in agreent, calm and composed.
“…If you’re going to say it like that, alright. I’ll do my best to help, so Yandel, go ahead and give it a try!”
“Thank you, everyone. Oh, Professor Iona, do you want so blood to replenish your strength?”
“Yep! If I can recover, that’s definitely better!”
With a familiar motion, Iona sank her fangs into my neck. The paladins, who couldn’t rely on their holy power anymore, soothed their tired bodies with the potions I had given them just in case.
After the short blood-draining session, I handed out more potions from my inventory and looked toward the red curtain.
The task was simple: I had to make a hole in that thing. No need for so grand holy technique—just pure holy power would suffice.
The problem was, we didn’t have any holy power. With the ritual of descent in effect, we couldn’t recover it. But who said only clerics could possess holy power? That wasn’t necessarily true.
I closed my eyes lightly and focused inward.
Reproducing the Lintblum Breathing Technique as closely as possible to its original form, my body beca a magic engine.
What would happen when I combined my affinity for mana with the system’s enhancents?
The answer was simple. It would allow to perceive everything within my own body if I put my mind to it.
Even my bone marrow, working hard to produce blood to replace what Iona took, wasn’t exempt.
…Honestly, I thought this would only be possible in theory, but it was easier than I expected.
Of course. My heart beca the core, my blood vessels beca mana channels, and soon the mana dissolved naturally into my blood.
Since there was nowhere in my body that blood didn’t reach, that ant mana had spread throughout every corner of my body, and thanks to my affinity and system enhancents, I could perceive it all.
Now, the next step was what was important.
rely concentrating on internal changes wouldn’t an much.
Normally, humans don’t have this rapid recovery speed. So, what’s stimulating and activating my body?
I’d found a small thread. Now, I needed to dig deeper and perceive the blessing of the Sun God, which would allow to complete the first stage…
“Ah.”
Iona’s blood-draining had already finished, as it wasn’t that much blood to begin with.
The faint sense of sothing just within reach had vanished.
To retrace the path of recovery, the recovery process needed to be ongoing, but if it stopped, tracking it beca impossible.
It couldn’t be helped.
I drew the shining lion dagger and, after a mont’s hesitation, deeply slashed my wrist.
Slash.
“Ughh….”
The sensation of cold steel cutting into my flesh. The delayed pain and the surge of blood gushing out.
Did I cut too deep?
…No. In fact, this was just right.
The deeper the wound, the more the blessing would have to work.
I ignored the throbbing pain that shot from my wrist to my head and sank my consciousness into myself.
Was it because the wound was much larger than when I was just drained of so blood? Or was it because I had a feel for it after trying it once before?
The mont I closed my eyes, I could vividly sense the wound healing, the blood vessels reconnecting, and the blood replenishing itself.
This ti, I needed to go even deeper.
I gathered all my concentration. My body is my domain. There’s nothing I cannot perceive, nothing I cannot achieve.
My senses, sharpened to the point where I could perceive each individual cell, finally detected a faint disturbance.
I found it.
I pursued the energy I had grasped with the edge of my consciousness, chasing it relentlessly.
It was like chasing a butterfly in a storm or following footprints at the bottom of a river. But my body, in its current state, allowed to do it.
How many tis had I repeated the process, sinking my consciousness deeper and deeper?
I was certain that I had reached the deepest part of my physical being. There, several clusters of light shimred.
Among them, two stood out, connected to the trace I had been following.
One was sowhat dim, but its harmonious colors reminded of a rainbow.
The other was a brilliant white light so blinding it illuminated its surroundings, as if it thought itself the sun.
The forr must be the blessing of all the gods, and the latter was likely the blessing of the Sun God, granted by the Righteous Radiance.
A pure crystallization of holy power, more potent than any cleric’s, bestowed directly by a god.
And the amount? Imnse, considering the Righteous Radiance had invested everything in , preparing to make her apostle.
If I released all of this at once, I could definitely punch a hole in the ritual of descent.
Now, the question was how to extract it…
A conventional thod wouldn’t work. While the blessing was deeply connected to my body, it was still borrowed power, not mine.
Just because my connection with the Righteous Radiance was cut didn’t an I could control it at will.
So, I’d need to use sothing unconventional.
If I can’t just pull out the blessing of the Sun God alone… then I’ll have to grab everything around it and tear it out together.
“Hoo…”
I took a deep breath and began drawing up my mana.
The hardest part was pinpointing its location, but after all, this was my body. Extending mana here wasn’t particularly difficult.
With the mana I gathered, I enveloped the cluster of holy power, as if coating it.
Once I had completely surrounded the blessing of the Sun God, there was only one thing left to do.
I pulled with all my might, forcefully tearing it away.
“Gah!”
A sharp pain surged from deep within. Is this what it feels like to have your organs removed without anesthesia?
The blessing that had saved countless tis now seed intent on killing .
It was as if it were telling I wasn’t worthy. That this wasn’t my power.
But what does that matter? I gritted my teeth and pulled the mana again.
Squeeze.
Holy power and mana don’t clash, but they don’t blend harmoniously either.
Thanks to that, the white “sun” was slowly being pried from its rooted position, as if being pushed out by the mana.
The problem was that the mana I had used to coat it was starting to break apart from the violent reaction of the blessing.
But the solution was simple.
Swallowing down the blood welling up from my throat, I poured in more mana, replacing what was scattered.
The density of the blessing of the Sun God was incredible—it was A rank after all—so the rate of consumption was insane.
Without my affinity for mana, no matter how much mana I had, forcibly extracting it like this would’ve been impossible.
The mana coating would have unraveled long before I could finish.
If soone were watching now, it would probably look like I was carelessly expelling enormous amounts of mana.
Crack.
Maybe the blessing didn’t like the fact that I had let my mind wander for a mont.
The holy power that had been rising smoothly now caused my nose to bleed as it acted up.
But I was almost there. I didn’t need to dig any deeper into my core—the massive presence of holy power was now clearly discernible.
I slowly opened my eyes and raised my staff—no, the shining lion dagger—toward the curtain that still blocked external intrusion.
If I was going to unleash holy power, using this would be far more efficient than the staff.
At this point, not only mana but holy power also began to leak from . The strain on my body doubled, and I started trembling all over.
But that didn’t matter. There was only one thing left to do now.
I guided the massive, roiling cluster of holy power toward the dagger.
And then, I swung it toward the curtain.
“Ugh, aaaaagh!!!”
Fwoosh!
A brilliant light surged explosively. The massive chunk of holy power, sharp like the fang of a giant beast, slamd into the red curtain.
The two forces wrestled for a mont, but soon enough, the fang pierced through the curtain, driving halfway in.
And then, it exploded.
Boom!
The explosion was so bright it could’ve blinded , and the sound was so deafening it made my ears ring.
But unlike before, I wasn’t caught in the explosion. The holy power I’d unleashed only shot forward.
As I opened my eyes, which I had instinctively shut, my blurred vision slowly cleared.
The curtain was disintegrating, collapsing back into the mud from which it had risen. The shattered fragnts of holy power fell like snow from above.
And beyond the crumbled wall of the church, there stood Helena—no, it was clearly Righteous Radiance, with glowing lion ears and tail.
Her eyes were wide in shock, and she hiccupped repeatedly, clearly startled.
I smiled weakly at her.
“You were so late, I ca to greet you.”
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