The Beginning After The End Chapter 256

Chapter 256

Chapter 256: The Core

“This is crazy. It’s not going to work.”

“It might if you stop your relentless badgering,” I quipped, flexing the fingers of my newly regenerated arm.

Regis zipped up to my face. “Oh, I’m sorry. Is my genuine concern that you might blow yourself up bothering you?”

I swatted him away. “Yes.”

My floating companion’s smoky black head sizzled in anger. “Why are you even attempting this anyway? You just demolished the hidden boss of this level with a punch! I think you’re strong enough.”

“I can’t just rely on sustaining my body temporarily by eating aetheric essence off of monsters.”

“So your plan is just to form your own power source? Geez, I wonder why the wise and powerful dragons of the Indrath Clan haven’t thought of sothing like that...oh wait, they have!”

“Yes, I rember the story of the elders of the Indrath Clan attempting to form a core out of pure aether within the body of an infant clan mber that was born without a core. You literally just told .”

“And what did we learn from that story?” Regis asked as if he were speaking to an infant himself.

I sighed. “That the baby was t with a bloody death.”

“So why are you still trying to do this?” Regis seethed.

“Because I have no other choice if I want to get stronger. I don’t want to rely on temporary power boosts that I can’t even control from consuming another lifeform’s aetheric essence. You saw how fast it depletes from my body even when I’m not fighting.”

“‘That’s no reason to kill yourself over this!”

“Regis.” I stared coldly into the eyes of the black will-o-wisp. “I’m sure you know this from being fed my mories, but I’ve barely been able to fight against retainers while scythes are in a whole other league. I’m not just looking at surviving this hellish dungeon or ruin—whatever this place is. I’m looking at obtaining strength that can put above them and up on the sa level as asuras. Otherwise, getting out of here just ans giving the enemy another chance at beating back down.”

Regis remained silent as he studied , his expression laced in a mixture of frustration and concern.

Finally, he let out a sigh. “Fine. Aside from the fact that you can physically eat aether, why do you think that your attempt won’t be any different from what the asuras attempted?”

“You’re forgetting that I was responsible for prematurely forming my own mana core when I was three. I’ll figure sothing out.”

***

The first step of my plan was to spend so ti closely studying the chira.

I studied how the aetheric essence had beco bound to the chira corpse. Despite the fact that the chira couldn’t control or manipulate aether, unlike my own body, there was no leakage of the essence.

Utilizing my unique perception of the aether around , I conducted experints on the corpse.

Because it had been killed, the aether didn’t actively try to regenerate the broken parts of the chira corpse. Instead, it seed like it was in an almost suspended state.

Injuries that I had inflicted on the corpse postmortem weren’t being regenerated, and while there was so loss of aetheric essence from the wound, there was no leakage beyond that.

“Regis, try going inside the chira and absorbing the aether directly,” I said, not taking my eyes off the corpse.

“Well, I wasn’t able to when it was alive, but I never tried it on a dead chira,” Regis replied, floating toward the giant body.

Rather than sink inside the surface of the chira corpse, however, he bounced off.

Regis let out a pained grunt from the impact before turning to . “Happy?”

“Not particularly,” I replied, not even bothering to look at him as I continued studying the flow of aether around the chira corpse.

Not able to find anything particularly insightful, I moved on to the next step—hoping I’d learn more.

Closing my eyes, I sensed the aether flowing in my body just like I had when I was first trying to form my mana core.

The entirety of my ntal faculties was focused on observing how aether moved within —how they interacted with my muscles, bones, organs, and how it dissipated from the surface of my skin constantly.

Next, I focused on the shattered pieces of my mana core. I couldn’t gather or produce mana and Sylvia’s dragon will was no longer there. That ant that I had no way of using Static Void or Realmheart Physique, but the fragnted shell of my mana core was still here inside .

Worse yet, the aether was slowly dissolving the broken pieces of my mana core—seeing them as imperfections in my body that needed to be discarded since it served no purpose.

Thinking that all of the painstaking years of work refining and strengthening my mana core would soon disappear, sent a sharp pain through my chest, and it took all I could to pry myself out of that pithole.

That’s when it struck . The aether saw the broken shards of my mana core as an injury... however, because it didn’t serve a function anymore, it was trying to remove it from my body.

But what if it thought that it did?

My eyes shot open, surprising Regis who had been observing .

Scrambling up to my feet, I looked at the various sections of its body where multiple corpses had conjoined together to form the fused chira, studying the creature once more from a different angle.

The act of fusing the chira bodies together was neither regenerating or healing—but the fact that the aether determined that this course of action was the best choice told sothing.

With my plan slowly solidifying, I went back to ditating with a slight grin on my face. Unsurprisingly, just like how the chiras couldn’t actively control the aether that powered their bodies, I was unable to actively manipulate it as well.

I tested a few theories. I would purposely injure myself to study how the aether would behave and interact within my body depending on the injury while paying close attention to my thoughts. My actions would be considered insane to any passing set of eyes but I didn’t care.

I had learned sothing pivotal through my battles against the chiras, naly, when I launched the final attack against the fused chira despite the stub of my arm bleeding profusely.

It took a few dozen tis of injuring myself to actually confirm my hypothesis, but what I realized was that intent influenced the movent of the aetheric essence within .

This was nowhere near the point of manipulation like I had done with mana, but if I thought that regenerating a certain part of my body took precedence over another part, the aether took heed of that advice.

I wasn’t able to forcefully manipulate aether like I had been able to with mana. But the very fact that aether could be influenced to do sothing as crazy as fusing multiple bodies together ant that the chira’s intent had tricked it.

What if I can sohow trick the aetheric essence to fuse together my shattered remains of mana core instead of getting rid of it and have it build a new core over my broken one?

But the aetheric essence were too dispersed within my body. At this rate it would just slowly eat away at the broken remains of my mana core rather than try fusing them together.

But still, it could work...no, it had to work.

Almost as soon as my thoughts solidified into an actual idea, I already knew what I had to do...

I just didn’t like the answer.

The only reason this plan had even a chance of working was because I could do sothing that not even dragons of the Indrath Clan could do.

Letting out a deep breath, I reached in my vest and pulled out the small iridescent stone.

I’ll definitely live and bring you back out here, Sylv. Just hold on.

Resolving myself, I got to work imdiately, consuming the aetheric essence from the fused chira corpse at a rapid pace.

Even after my body had beco overloaded with aetheric essence and a purple aura began exuding from my skin, I absorbed more of the aetheric essence, making sure I was consuming at a pace much faster than the aether would deplete from my body.

“I don’t think stress eating is the way to handle this, Milady,” Regis snickered.

Ignoring Regis, I continued despite a jarring pain growing within my body. It felt like every muscle, bone, organ in my body were being pumped with fluid to the point of bursting.

But this wasn’t enough. I needed as much aetheric essence as possible if this was going to work.

“S-Seriously, Arthur. You’re...sort of bleeding from your body.”

Just a bit more.

Unable to withstand the growing pain any longer, I pried myself away from the chira corpse and sat down.

Regis was right; it looked like I was sweating blood, beads of red trailing down my body. My vision spun and pulsated while I could feel my heart beating madly against my chest.

Controlling my breathing in order to keep myself from passing out, I grabbed a bone arrow on the ground in front of and held it directly below my ribcage. “Regis. Position yourself right where my mana core used to be on my mark and leave as soon as I tell you, okay?”

Regis stared down at the sharp arrow in my hands. “What are you planning on doing with that?”

“Okay?” I repeated through gritted teeth, barely able to breathe.

Regis let out a groan. “Okay.”

With that, I plunged the arrow deep into my sternum in the small space just between my liver and stomach where the mana core was held. And just for good asure, I twisted the arrow.

“What the f—”

“Now!” I snapped, keeping my eyes closed in concentration.

Pulling the arrow out of my body, I clasped my hands over my wound as Regis flew inside .

Imdiately, like millions of tiny insects crawling inside every inch of my body, I felt all of the aether held inside coalescing to where Regis and my fatal wound were.

Just as the aether was about to reach the area where Regis stayed, attracted two-fold by the black will-o-wisp and my fatal injury, I barked at him to leave.

A black shadow zipped out of almost instantaneously and the aether that had gathered within the vicinity all condensed together to heal my injury.

Every ounce of my brain focused on maintaining this ditative state, forming a core around the coalescing aether where my old mana core used to be.

So of the aether had leaked to close the hole below my chest, but with the worst of the injury right where my old mana core used to be, I was able to attract most of it.

So under the premises that: unlike even dragons, I was able to absorb aether directly into my body; I had Regis, who interacted in a way where he naturally attracted the aether within ; the remains of my mana core still existed inside ; and I could influence the aether a bit to a certain extent, I proceeded to the most important step.

***

The concept of ti eluded as the battle between my wits and the aether gathered around the fragnted parts of my mana core ensued.

I needed to not only trick the aether raging in the center of my body to restore the mana core rather than to break it down, but I also needed it to rebuild my broken mana core around the compressed orb of aether that had been tricked into gathering at this focal point.

If forming my mana core for the first ti when I was a toddler had been difficult, this was next to impossible. Every slight twitch of internal movent or leak of intent could cause the condensed orb of aetheric essence to break down my mana core until it was completely wiped away from my body. I didn’t have a second chance.

It felt like every experience, every tribulation that I had gone through was for this mont. I was being tested to my utmost limit, concentrating through the sheer agony of the injury I had self-inflicted and the raging ball of godly power that I was trying to trick to bend to my will.

Finally, as the last bits of my old mana core had beco restored, encasing the condensed gathering of aether within, my world erupted into a sea of purple.

By the ti I ca to, my head felt like it had been split in two, and my breathing was ragged. Prying my eyelids open, I was greeted with the sight of a smirking Regis in front of the familiar backdrop of the battle-scarred walls of the chira hallway.

“Welco back, Sleeping Beauty,” Regis chuckled.

I pushed myself off my back, sitting up. “What happened?”

“Well, after you committed seppuku and sat completely still for about a full day, your body suddenly combusted into purple flas and then you passed out for another two days,” the black ball of fla explained before shooting another grin. “But you did it, you sick sadistic bastard!”

That’s right, my core!

Taking a mont, I concentrated internally, getting a feel for the state of my body.

Regis was right, I had done it...I had successfully forged a new core. The color struck as odd—it was closer to a red color, like magenta—but it still held the ethereal purple sheen of aether.

I had done what even the asuras of the Indrath Clan couldn’t do.

I had forged an aether core.