A bitter taste of blood.
It was like well-roasted coffee—deep and filling my mouth with its bitterness.
That bitterness was decadently intoxicating.
— Haa…
Our lips parted for a mont.
Her breath ran roughly over .
The Blood Witch’s eyes, with saliva stretching between her lips, glowed redder than any blood. Eyes that looked as if they could devour at any mont.
And yet, I no longer felt fear in the face of that predator’s gaze.
She must have felt it too.
That I no longer cared about her.
Her crescent-shaped eyes confird that truth.
“You’ve grown.”
A gaze as if admiring sothing precious.
As I pondered the nature of the affection filling her eyes, her lips t mine once more.
She was more skilled than anyone.
She pressed her lips against mine as if squeezing every ounce out of .
Even the way her tongue moved—lting , as if dissolving candy.
Blink, Blink.
After exchanging a few glances, she smiled, her eyes curving like a crescent moon.
The stronger the excitent, the faster the oxygen depleted.
I placed my hands on her shoulders and pushed her away.
“Haa…”
Our breaths tangled and mixed.
I asked her.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to do.”
“Hmm, as far as I know, this isn’t your first kiss.”
“I don’t see how that matters.”
“We’ve shared our lips. You and I.”
The Blood Witch spoke, a faint smile playing on her lips.
That smile was both teasing and lethally seductive.
No matter how much I grew, I would never stand above this enchantress.
That thought crossed my mind.
The Blood Witch continued speaking.
Her crimson lips parted slowly.
“You were curious, weren’t you?”
“…?”
“What happens when two opposing forces mix?”
There was a sharp edge to her words.
What I needed was realization.
To blend the life force I had gained from the Bloodstone Cult’s teachings with my Earth elent.
I didn’t know how long she had been watching .
But the obsession she showed was anything but small.
This enchantress knew .
The half-tilted smile she showed was proof of why I could never escape her.
Her lips parted again.
“I’ll show you.”
From within, her long tongue slithered like a snake.
◆
Training should always be done in a completely stable state.
It’s rare—no, it’s unheard of—to train while one’s body is overheated or excited.
Stimulation that affects anything other than the mind is just a useless distraction.
That’s what I had believed.
And yet, the Blood Witch was leading forward with precision.
I simply followed her lead.
And I realized—
Even excitent was sothing utterly natural.
In fact, excitent follows an even more sacred principle than growth itself.
If growth is tied to the desire for survival, then excitent is linked to the desire for reproduction.
Reproduction—the act of leaving behind a future generation—is an innately sacred and aningful thing.
So, is it truly right to exclude excitent from training?
Perhaps the inability to embrace such fundantal emotions is what’s truly wrong.
‘This desire is also part of .’
I accepted it.
The mont I made that decision, many things changed.
I embraced the heat of the Blood Witch.
I felt the texture and taste of her tongue.
The faint energy she exuded was life force—gained from absorbing vitality.
I overlapped it with my own magic.
— Slurp, Slurp.
The Blood Witch beca even more aggressive in leading .
I followed her wrapping motion, twining together.
To mix sothing together.
Was this how it felt to blend life force and magic?
I realized—desire was necessary for fusion.
A passion for rging, born from desire, intertwined us, and eventually, we beca one.
The process—just as the Blood Witch did with —had to be endlessly close, hot, and sticky.
Only then could we truly mix.
Her forehead, her tongue, her hair, her chest, her stomach, her legs.
All of it pressed against .
It wasn’t a straight path but one of curves.
Not cold, but warm and burning.
Not a gentle exchange, but a pursuit of individual desire.
Yes.
A little stronger.
A little more instinctual.
Emptying my thoughts, I follow the path led by my instincts.
Yes, this is it.
“Puh—”
The Blood Witch parted her lips and looked up at .
She must have sensed it too—the realization I had just reached.
Her crimson eyes were filled with lingering regret.
She was soone who moved purely by instinct.
She acted on desire and judged by emotion.
That’s why I was surprised—to see her suppressing her urges and simply gazing up at .
Even as hot breath and sticky saliva dripped down, she held herself back.
And I understood why.
More than regret, it was expectation.
I t her gaze and spoke.
“I have to go.”
“You’ve found the clue now, haven’t you?”
“Maybe.”
Without hesitation, I turned away.
The exit of the cave lay ahead.
“There’s a place with no distractions, good for ditation. Just walk straight ahead.”
I gave her a slight nod.
Whether she was an enemy or a predator who had once tried to devour , she had helped greatly. A single nod was the least I could offer in return.
Outside the cave, dawn had barely broken.
The sun had yet to rise.
The air of early morning, the mont when all life begins to stir awake, greeted as I erged from seclusion.
I took a step forward.
There was no need to cling to my realization.
Even simply moving my feet, looking around, and feeling nature—this too was a form of training.
As the Blood Witch had said, I soon found a suitable place for ditation.
The Bloodstone Cult’s headquarters was a place filled with artificial structures.
Yet, this spot alone felt as if nature had been left untouched—serene and undisturbed.
A forest, thick with towering trees.
The chirping of birds just waking from sleep filled the air.
As I walked, I found a small hill—low and unassuming, yet high enough to be called its peak.
It wasn’t much—just a few layers above the surrounding trees—but it would suffice.
“Huu…”
I exhaled deeply.
Deep breathing stabilized both mind and body.
It allowed to focus more on myself.
With my eyes closed, I summoned the elent within .
The Earth elent.
Now that I was truly feeling it, Earth was warr than anything else.
Just like the goddess Gaia, the symbol of this elent, it embraced all things with its warmth.
It didn’t quite match my personality…
But I understood its essence.
Everything cos from the earth and eventually returns to it.
And so, a natural thought arose.
I, too, was born from the earth and would one day return to it.
Then, doesn’t that an the earth itself could also beco ?
In the end, I am the earth, and the earth is .
This was the sa principle that allowed to contain the goddess’s power within my body.
She, too, is the earth.
And the earth is .
So it was not an impossible concept.
Slowly, I awakened the earth slumbering within .
The earth is the origin.
The foundation of all things.
A warm glow filled from within.
I pulled it out, shaping it into form.
The mont the earthy aura gathered around , it took shape.
A semi-transparent, soil-colored sphere.
I held it in my left hand.
“…Hoo.”
Now, the other hand.
The realization I gained within the Bloodstone Cult—my blood, my flesh, my very life force.
I called it forth.
A deep, almost blackened crimson energy surged around .
I held that in my right hand.
One was the Earth—this world itself.
The other was —my very existence, my life.
I rged them.
The two opposing elents t and seed to blend—
— Pazzzzzzt!
But instead, they violently repelled each other.
A failure.
I must have been holding them too tightly.
They resisted each other and exploded apart.
The intensity was no different from a destructive spell.
‘How do I fuse sothing that refuses to mix?’
The thought crackled through my mind like electricity.
Once again, I shaped the elent and life force into spheres.
But this ti, I looked deeper inside.
Thin, vibrating strands of mana ford a tangled web, pulsing in waves. Like coiled threads twisted together, these trembling strands ford the sphere. ṙα₦Ő𝐁Е§
I tried again.
— Uwoooooong!
This ti, it was different.
The two opposing elents touched and trembled, as if trying to reject one another.
But slowly, they began to synchronize their movents.
I pushed them together just a little further.
And finally—
— …
A long silence fell.
The bright light vanished.
The vibrating hum disappeared.
I slowly looked down at my palm.
“…”
Not radiant—
But a sphere of absolute black.
“…Ah.”
A form I had never seen before, pulsing slightly in my hand.
Like a living thing exhaling in slow, steady breaths.
I understood.
I had reached a new realm.
And—
Because I had stepped into this realm, the Cult Leader must have advanced to the next as well.
◆
At the peak of a mountain,
A man sat cross-legged, draped in white robes.
His hair was as white as his robes.
But upon closer look, strands of ashen gray could be seen woven within.
— Gooooooh…
For an instant.
His white hair—
Beca even whiter.
The man opened his eyes.
They were red.
And as his gaze lifted, the sky turned crimson.
All the world lay beneath that red glow.
Whether it was the man’s doing or simply the setting sun—
No one could tell.
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