"Let's see if we can bring you back, Little Ember."
But just then I felt the world spinning.
"Cough..."
My vision blurred.
For the first ti since the fight had begun, I felt it-truly felt it.
The weight of my injuries. The unbearable strain on my body. The sheer toll of everything I had done.
And then-
My legs buckled.
THUD.
I stumbled, my knee hitting the cracked ground beneath , my breath catching in my throat. Ah.
I exhaled, tasting blood.
I guess I pushed myself a little too far.
Now that the fight was over, now that the battle had ended, my body was finally demanding what I had ignored-
The shattered bones.
The one eye I could no longer see from.
The gashes, the blood loss, the fire burning through every nerve.
Everything hit at once.
Tch. Annoying.
But-
I forced myself to move.
Because after doing all of this, I couldn't exactly sit here and die, could I?
I gritted my teeth, dragging myself toward her.
Toward Aeliana.
Her body was still convulsing, still wracked with pain, her fingers clawing against the stone, her breath shallow-but she was still alive.
Barely.
Not for long.
I lifted the Eternal Skyroot Herb, my hand trembling slightly, and then-
I placed it against her body.
The mont the herb touched her skin-
The black mass scread.
SCHLRKKKKKK!
It squird, writhing violently, as if it were being burned, as if sothing was forcing it out. And then-
Aeliana's body began to fight back.
Her breathing, once shallow, once fading, suddenly turned ragged. Her fingers twitched. The cursed veins that had long since tornted her began to **pulse-**but this ti, not in agony.
In resistance.
She was winning.
The black parasite inside her began to expel itself, being forcibly ripped from her body.
Her body was rejecting it.
And the thing?
The thing that had leeched off her for years, that had stolen from her, that had made her suffer-
Was now screaming.
I smirked weakly.
"That's right."
I pressed the herb closer, watching as the black mass convulsed, recoiled-
Aeliana's body shuddered.
The Eternal Skyroot Herb pulsed against her skin, its energy seeping into her veins, threading through her existence like golden light in a dying ember.
She absorbed it.
Not hungrily. Not desperately.
Naturally.
As if it had always been ant for her.
As if it were restoring sothing that had been taken away long ago.
And the black mass-
SCHLRKKK!
It twisted, shrieked, convulsed.
Its writhing only grew more violent, as if it knew-as if it understood.
It was losing.
Its connection to Aeliana, its claim over her body, its insidious grip-all of it was being
erased.
I watched the scene unfold, my lips twitching into a faint smirk.
"Not bad."
I exhaled, relieved.
This was it. This was how it was supposed to go.
Aeliana was taking in the herb's power. The parasite was being purged.
Everything was working exactly as planned.
And yet-
My knees buckled again.
I barely caught myself this ti, my arm trembling as I braced against the cracked ground.
The pain in my body surged all at once, unrelenting, suffocating.
Tch.
I had pushed myself too far.
But it was fine.
This should be enough, right?
I had dealt with the monster.
I had saved Aeliana... sohow.
It should be okay now.
It had to be okay now.
I let out a slow breath, my vision tilting, darkening.
For the first ti since this whole ss started-
I finally let go.
And then-
I collapsed.
Everything faded.
The world went dark.
********
had a dream.
A dream where I was wandering alone.
No-not wandering.
Drifting.
Floating through the endless expanse of the sea, my body weightless, the vast darkness
cradling in its quiet embrace. The waves were calm, lulling into sothing deep,
sothing tranquil.
It felt... familiar.
Too familiar.
I had been here before.
That sa overwhelming sense of peace. That sa eerie stillness.
That sa dark ocean stretching beneath , infinite and unmoving.
A part of knew what was coming next.
Knew what I would see.
And yet-
Sothing was different.
I lifted my gaze toward the sky, expecting the sa empty abyss.
But instead-
I saw them.
Not just one.
Not just the black star.
But three others.
They hovered around it, smaller, orbiting in silent synchrony, their faint glow flickering
against the backdrop of nothingness.
I stared.
Watching.
Trying to understand.
'Why are there three now? Because of my cultivation?'
The black star was the sa-unchanging, unmoving.
But these three... they were new.
Or had they been there all along?
I frowned, reaching out, my fingers grasping at sothing unseen, as if trying to bridge the
space between and those distant lights.
And then-
"Lucavion."
The voice.
That voice.
The one I never recognized.
The one that had always called here.
The mont the sound reached my ears, the dream fractured.
Everything rushed away from , fading, vanishing, slipping through my fingers like grains
of sand.
The stars flickered once-
And then the dream ended.
*******
Darkness embraced Lucavion's unconscious form, his body still as the echoes of battle faded into silence. Aeliana lay beside him, her breathing shallow but steady, the remnants of the Eternal Skyroot Herb's energy still coursing through her. But the battlefield itself had not yet
settled.
The Kraken's massive corpse twitched.
Then-
A surge of energy erupted from its shattered core.
Starlight. An ethereal radiance coiled upward, shimring like celestial dust drawn from the
very fabric of existence. The battlefield, once soaked in blood and despair, beca a stage for
sothing far greater than re victory.
And then-
That starlight fell.
It descended upon Lucavion, washing over his battered form, sinking into his skin as if drawn
by fate itself.
His body, already pushed beyond its limits, had no strength to resist. The energy surged through him, weaving into his being like threads of cosmic silk, lding with his fractured
core. It seeped into his very essence, wrapping around the shattered remains of his strength
like a second awakening.
Sothing deeper was happening.
Sothing that should not be possible.
Another body reconstruction.
A second transformation, forced upon him by the remnants of the Kraken's stolen power. This
was no re recovery. This was an evolution, a reforging of his very existence.
Lucavion's unconscious form trembled.
His body ignited.
Two flas burst forth from him-one gray, one pitch black-raging like opposing storms
that should never have coexisted. They spiraled together, coiling, devouring, reshaping.
And the mont those flas touched the writhing black parasites- SHHRRRRRRRK!
The cursed masses scread.
A soundless wail reverberated through the collapsing battlefield, an echo of sothing
ancient, sothing that had long existed beyond the veil of reality. The parasites-those remnants of a foreign existence-were engulfed by the unnatural fire, consud in an
instant.
They did not burn.
They did not dissolve. They simply ceased.
Erased from existence.
The battlefield was silent.
Lucavion's body stilled, the last remnants of the flas fading into embers that whispered
away into the void. His hair, once deep with streaks of silver, darkened further, absorbing the light as if the very stars had been pulled into him. His core, now reforged, pulsed with
sothing heavier-sothing far more vast.
The process was complete.
And yet-
He remained unconscious.
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