60 - We Don't Talk About Bruno (Patreon)

Dross’ spiritual form felt far brighter in Lindon’s spiritual perception than it had before. The two weeks that Sky had predicted had passed. Now, all that was left for Dross to do in order to continue his development was to devour the Sylvan Dreamseeds.

Sky, Yerin and Mercy stood around a script circle that Sky had etched, penning in a bunch of different Dreamseeds of varying degrees of advancement. Lindon stood opposite to them, Little Blue chiming sadly in his ear. He could tell that she wasn’t truly upset about what was about to happen. To her, they were more like pretty scenery than friends or kin.

She seemed to understand that Lindon was doing this for his own benefit, and thus Little Blue did not try to stand in his way, not that Lindon would ever imagine her capable of such a thing.

There was still much that he didn’t understand about the Sylvan Riverseed’s behavior, but it became increasingly clearer day by day that she truly did have a sophisticated intelligence.

They were the only ones inside the Spirit Well at the moment. Ziel was wandering the tablet library while Palutin was on another hunt to get them—primarily him—more food.

“I think I should be ready now,” Dross said from within Lindon’s spirit. In doing so, he could only speak to Lindon. No one else would be able to hear him.

“He’s ready,” Lindon said as he kneeled in front of the circle and snatched up a Dreamseed with his Remnant hand. He squeezed the seed in his grip, letting its amorphous spiritual structure slowly sink into the Remnant hand, passing through the threshold of his own spirit.

From there, Dross immediately latched onto them with tendrils of madra, pulling them closer to him and breaking them down for raw power.

“Ooh, this is good! This sure is delicious! Is this how it felt like when you ate the carp? Overwhelming power taking hold on you?”

Not quite. In fact, it felt like he had lost control over his body, only to eventually regain it bit by bit, leaving him feeling more tired than before. It was only after a period of rest that he could put his newfound strength to use.

“The Dreamseed is breaking down,” Lindon reported. “Dross?”

Dross was finishing up on the Dreamseed. It seemingly got easier to continue breaking it down after he had had the first bite. “Can I have another?”

Lindon took another one into his spirit. Then another, over and over again. “Are you hitting a wall, Dross?”

“Not quite. Feels more like I’m finishing myself up and becoming more complete. Not sure what comes after that.”

“Let me know when you feel complete,” Lindon said.

“Bleed and bury me, Sky,” Yerin said as she tapped her foot against the floor, “But you’ve got me dying to know what Dross can do.”

“You’ll see for yourself, eventually,” Sky said with a smug grin. 

“I’m done,” Dross said with a groan in his artificial voice, like he was straining after having eaten a large meal. “Whew! Now shoot me out.”

Lindon pushed him out of his spirit using his madra, like he was firing a Striker technique. Dross’ deep purple form hovered in the air, far more solid and defined than before. The bands of scripts that consisted of his interior was inching towards looking totally physical. “I feel so much stronger!” Dross announced. “And I have so many ideas now! We could have harnessed the fish to escape those Tidewalkers! Or convinced the fish to fight for us! And I can activate the dream tablets by myself, now!”

Sky raised a finger, “I’m highly interested to know if you’re able to interface with the Archlord tablets, but I believe that can wait. One of the things that is required for you to, uh, reach your completed state, is a very valuable elixir that can only be synthesized using Archlord-grade soulfire. Do you have any knowledge of where Northstrider may have stashed his?”

Dross sighed. “Ah, Glassy Sky, you always do know how to stretch the limits of my knowledge. Really, I’m very sorry, but I don’t have any memories surrounding that subject.”

Sky frowned for a moment, pinching his chin as he paced around. “Can’t you access the data banks of Ghostwater remotely, the way you access the constructs?”

“I wish I could, but I don’t have the authorization,” Dross said sadly.

Sky stopped, and stared intently at Dross. “How can you get more authorization? Do you need more power?”

Dross chuckled a little. “More power definitely wouldn’t hurt, no.” Then he turned his glowing body towards Lindon. “See, this is that sort of industriousness I want to see in you, Lindon.” Then he turned back to Sky. “Unfortunately, I’m at my limit in my current state of existence. Regarding the matter of gaining more authority, I would need someone to help me connect to and gain control over a construct node in Ghostwater. Those usually exist around foundational treasures. Alternatively, since I gained my initial authority from an Eye of the Deep, having more wouldn’t hurt, but since those are such rare treasures—”

Sky opened his void key, walked in, and then came out with a sack bulging with spheres. He opened the sack, and out from it, blue light radiated out. Then he shut the sack and put it down on the ground. “Including Dross’ vessel, we have five Eyes of the Deep. From each one of them, we could redeem one single drop of Ghostwater, that incredible elixir that I told you about. It’s a priceless treasure, and it is what Akura Harmony is after, and is willing to kill over.”

Yerin looked at Sky in shock, “And you want to feed them to Dross?”

Sky returned that look with a triumphant grin, “It’ll be worth it if we could get enough of Northstrider’s soulfire to cook ourselves a whole barrel of the stuff.”

Lindon frowned. “This elixir is handed out as a single drop for every Eye of the Deep, correct?” And Sky nodded, “Then how?”

“Ghostwater’s just made out of all the three Well waters mixed together, and then fused together and improved using Northstrider’s soulfire,” Sky said. “Theoretically, our only real bottleneck is how much soulfire is available for us. And I know for a fact that Northstrider has left some of his soulfire lying around in the fourth well, enough to make a whole cup-full of Ghostwater at least. If we could somehow siphon more sources of soulfire, we could have as much Ghostwater as we want.”

And in return, crossing a Monarch that very much was still alive. “Apologies,” Lindon said gently, “But would Northstrider want this?”

“Northstrider?” Mercy asked, “He’s been dead for years.”

Before Lindon could tackle that subject, Sky jumped on with a raised finger. “You… don’t want to know what I’ve got planned for that, if I’m being honest. But don’t worry, I’ve kept this in mind. We should be fine.” Then Sky turned to Mercy with a grin, “Surprise, he’s still alive. Rumors of his demise were exaggerated.”

Mercy looked at Sky in open confusion. “...How do you know this?”

Sky pointed at Lindon, “I assumed you guys had already gone over this, but a heavenly messenger gave Lindon a world tour to see a couple of Monarchs. Northstrider was very much among them.”

“I don’t know about that,” Mercy said, “I think even my aunt thought he was dead, and she’s a Sage. I’m sorry Lindon,” Mercy said as she gave him a remorseful look, “But you said you were only a Copper back then, right? Perhaps you didn’t know what you saw? Maybe she only showed you a recording of the past?”

It shouldn’t have been such a surprise to learn that an aunt of Mercy’s was a Sage when he knew that her mother was an entire Monarch, but it was still quite humbling to hear.

“The situation up at Rosegold was a… messy one,” Sky said with a wince. “A fight between three Monarchs that ended up attracting the attention of a Dreadgod would have made things anybody’s game. And it was the Weeping Dragon that gave Northstrider the business. It’s reasonable to assume he’s dead from that.” Sky looked at Mercy and shrugged, “Unfortunately, we don’t have a way to verify it, but in any case, operating under the assumption that he’s still alive is the safest course of action.”

“Makes sense,” Mercy said with a nod. “You can never be too safe when it comes to dealing with Monarchs.”

And as far as Lindon understood it, that was about the only thing that prevented any of them from telling Mercy the truth, that Sky had seen the future to such an extent that he had predicted the awakening of a Dreadgod when no one else had.

As always, Sky moved on with the speed of a diving falcon, which was slightly disappointing to Lindon who wanted to know more about what occurred at Rosegold, a place that he understood was an entirely different continent where Eithan originally hailed from. “So, we’ve got to make this decision communally: settle for one drop of Ghostwater each—most of the stuff we could make with the fourth well’s soulfire stores would have to be used to complete Dross—or sacrifice a guarantee of one drop for a chance at an entire bottle each, or however much we can handle. Even if we can’t absorb it all, we would have unimaginably vast stores of it compared to everyone else in the world.” Sky grinned fiercely. “Let me put this into perspective for the two of you who know what I’m talking about,” he eyed Mercy and Yerin, “A single drop of Ghostwater could be counted as the kind of gift one of the Monarch factions would give in the Uncrowned King Tournament.”

“No,” Mercy said with a gasp. 

Yerin looked at Sky with wide eyes. “You’re pulling my chain.”

Lindon frowned. “What?”

Sky hastily explained, “The most prestigious tournament of the sacred arts in the entire world, presided over by the world’s Monarchs.”

“Feed ‘em to Dross,” Yerin immediately said.

Mercy looked conflicted. “I’m… I’m not sure we should gamble this chance, if it really is that valuable. And surely it can’t be that valuable, if we are able to mass produce it.”

“We shouldn’t be,” Sky argued, “Northstrider was very deliberate with how he set the fourth well up. You return an Eye of the Deep to the thing known as the Oracle Tree, which stores information from thousands of other Eyes of the Deep returned over the decades. The tree should have had room to accept thousands more, all corresponding to a single drop of Ghostwater. Meaning there should be thousands of drops left in Ghostwater’s system, even if we don’t count what we could make from the soulfire stored inside the well.”

“If there really is that many,” Mercy said, “Then… is it really that valuable? Why would Northstrider hand them out in drops? And why would a single drop be the sort of gift he would hand out in the Uncrowned King Tournament?”

Sky shrugged, “Who knows? Maybe there’s a limit to how much one person can take? Maybe taking more than two drives you insane? Or maybe taking more than a single drop has as much effect as just taking the one? I doubt the last one, but you get the point. Maybe you just shouldn’t judge a treasure made with a Monarch’s soulfire by normal standards. It’s a mystery to me too, but it’s definitely one I want to get to the bottom of.”

Lindon cleared his throat. “Apologies, Mercy, but I would also like to feed them to Dross.”

Sky’s grin sharpened, “You all know what my stance on this would be, of course. Finally, I would like to ask Orthos. He should be involved in this, too.”

“He’s on a hunt,” Lindon said.

Little Blue chimed aggressively from Lindon’s shoulder.

Sky gave her an apologetic frown and a bow of his head. “Unfortunately, we only managed to get four of these Eyes of the Deep. That we even managed to get any was incredibly lucky. Eithan had worked on this for months. But you should get a say as well.”

She raised two thumbs up and gave a nod of finality. Lindon took that as her going with the plan as well. He sighed. “I know what Orthos would say. He would opt to take the chance on a far greater and more glorious reward. Still, I can’t help but worry, what if there isn’t enough soulfire?”

“Oh, there absolutely should be,” Dross said, “Many of this pocket world’s facilities would rely on script arrays for general upkeep. Flooding the cores of such arrays with a mother flame of soulfire would be a surefire—albeit an expensive—way to keep everything running smoothly, but if one considers the relatively minuscule scale of this pocket world, and compare it to the relatively bottomless well of resources at a Monarch’s disposal, then chances are that there should be more sources of soulfire lying around.”

“Then it’s settled,” Lindon immediately said as he felt a fire light up in his gut. “We need to feed you the rest of the Eyes and build up your authority.”

Sky gave Little Blue a grin, “This way, even you can get some.” She chimed happily in response.

Dross’ form glowed brighter. “I don’t think I can do any more consuming right now, though I love your enthusiasm!”

Sky pulled a vial out from his pocket filled with glowing green liquid and gave it to Lindon. “This should punt him up a step or two on his state of existence. Drink this and cycle it to Dross.”

“Life Well water?” Dross exclaimed, “That’s perfect! I wish I had thought of that sooner!”

Sky gave Dross a grin, “No need to beat yourself up about it. You’re new at this whole ‘thinking’ thing. That’s precisely what we’re trying to fix.”

“Thank you!” Dross said eagerly, “I’ll do my best!”

Yerin scoffed, “Don’t cheer right after someone called you stupid, Dross.”

Lindon took the vial with one hand and pushed his Remnant hand towards Orthos. “In,” Lindon said as he pulled from the water.

Dross slid into his hand and traveled up his channels. Lindon wasted no time cycling the water directly to Dross. Immediately, Lindon could tell a difference as Dross felt like he was solidifying by the second. “Ooh, this feels just great! Yes, I could easily hold in more power now.” He swam through Lindon’s channels, scooping up mouthfuls of the green energy from the water. “I suspect I might blow your socks off with how much power and authority I can hold once I finish with this water.”

Lindon gave a sigh of relief and nodded to the others, and Sky. “We should be on track to developing Dross. Sky, I need the sack for when he’s done. I’d rather we don’t wait any longer than absolutely necessary to help him reach the right level of authorization.”

“I hear you,” Yerin spoke up, “Not quite shaking with excitement to stay hunkered in a bunker while people are ripping the legs off this pocket world. I’d contend that we should get gone as soon as we can, and not a moment sooner.”

Most concerning of all was Sky’s expression of uncertainty. “I won’t lie,” he said, “Every second we stick around is a gamble. I know that the Shas won’t destroy the pocket world before the other factions are done getting theirs. They have a non-aggression pact. The original six contenders, at least. Everyone outside of those guys seem to be here on the same basis as us. With that knowledge in mind, we should be safe. But then again, the ‘Sky Knows Everything’ cloudship took off the moment those Tidewalkers almost gods-damned ate us, so…” he let his words trail off.

Dross spun out from Lindon’s spirit, now looking quite a bit more solid than before. His skin was growing more opaque, and seemed to carry the faintest hint of some type of bumpy texture. “For what it’s worth,” Dross said, “I still think you are knowledgeable beyond compare!”

Sky smiled helplessly. “You really don’t have to say all these kind things about me, you know. Even in the worst case scenario where things don’t pan out for you, I would still take care of you. We like you very much.”

“That makes me feel very… something,” Dross said, “I don’t know exactly what, though.”

“Grateful?” Mercy suggested, smiling brightly at him.

“Yeah, probably!” Dross said. “Grateful!”

“Okay,” Sky said, “Now be more grateful inside Lindon’s spirit. We need you working now.”

“Ah! Of course!” Dross dove straight into Lindon’s spirit, but bounced off as Lindon hadn’t prepared his madra in time. “Ow. One more time!” Lindon did still his madra this time as Dross slid in seamlessly.

“As far as the plan goes,” Yerin then said, “I contend nothing’s changed. How far is everyone from Truegold?”

Lindon pondered the question for a moment. “It is truly difficult for me to say. I don’t think my spirit has slowed down in growth at all, and I know that should happen around the point where one is eighty percent of the way to the next advancement.”

Sky raised his hand, “I’m only raising one core, so I’m glad to say that I’ve experienced these diminishing returns by now. Between this and some other preparations I’ve made, I might be able to push for advancement right now, but I’m holding off for the time being, until my core is more advanced.”

“It should be any day now,” Mercy smiled, though Lindon couldn’t help but detect the faintest hints of hesitation on her as she leaned on her dragon staff. “Being away from the family made me almost forget how fast advancement could be if you have a Monarch’s resources at your disposal.”

“In that case,” Sky said as he looked at Lindon with a glint of mockery in his eyes, “I guess it’s Lindon that decides our pace before we move on. Phew. And here I thought all our lives hinged on my actions. This is a load off my shoulders.” Sky laughed at his own joke as he patted Lindon on his shoulder repeatedly. “You should be used to time pressure by now, eh? Just do as you always have. Advance.” Yerin rolled her eyes, and Mercy chuckled politely.

Sky really had the worst sense of humor.

000

The eight spokes of the Eightfold Wheel of Reincarnation spun up and down the entirety of my core.

Up. Down.

Faster. 

Up. Down.

Faster, faster.

As always, cycling the Eightfold Wheel was an exhausting, brutal ordeal. As always, it took every inch of my focus, my stamina, my sheer bloody grit to cycle the Wheel without giving up and throwing in the towel.

As a Jade, I had compared cycling the Eightfold Wheel to running a marathon, but running it exhausted from the first step. An ugly, unimaginable slog of a cycling technique that brought a corresponding level of benefits.

But now, as a Highgold at the threshold of advancement, I saw it as something else entirely. I had come to see it as an… edge, an edge of oblivion beyond which lay the consequences that would come if I ever truly lost control of my Collapsing Star madra. A line of suffering and spiritual collapse that brought me the greatest benefits the closer, closer, ever closer I came to sprinting over the edge. 

The faster the Eightfold Wheel spun in my mind’s eye, the closer I came to that edge. The faster my madra cycled through my body, the greater my madra control became.

As a Jade, at best, I could have used the Eightfold Wheel to cycle my madra in complete loops once, perhaps twice in a second. This was already much faster than any other cycling technique I had heard of, but now–

Now, I was a particle accelerator made of flesh and blood.

My madra was cycling in twenty or twenty one complete loops per second.

Eithan had taught me that the Eightfold Wheel of Reincarnation was every bit the equal of the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel, but focused far more on madra control than madra capacity. Which was necessary, due to the unbridled, double-edged volatility and capacity for destruction of the madra of the Path of the Collapsing Star. Perhaps someday, when I had a core of adamantium and channels of diamond, I could switch focus to truly growing my madra reserves, but that day was far off in the future, and regardless–

I refused, no, I could not allow myself think of the faroff future. This wasn’t the time, or the place. I had to focus the entirety of my being on the here and now.

I kept cycling the spokes of the Wheel, faster and faster.

Because I would need every scrap of my madra control for what was going to happen today. 

This would be the day I advanced, or died. 

This would be the day I finally put an end to this demon in my spirit, or was ended by it.

When I rose from my cycling, I let out a shaking breath and took a sip of Dream Well water, immediately feeling my exhaustion wane, my focus crystallize into pure clarity.

It was time.

I looked over at the vial of the Lightningroot Parasite, the nutrition fluid now a bright, luminous green and blue. It was sat atop a table in front of the Spirit Well, and I hovered over it like the prized specimen that it was.

The eight-legged, worm-like parasite’s spirit was actually noticeable in my Jade sense now, and it was practically gushing with life energy as well, so much so that it had grown in size. I had helped fuel its physical growth by dripping a few drops of diluted carp blood in its nutrition fluid, along with drops of water from the Life Well and the Spirit Well.

Thus, in only the fifteen days we had been in the tablet library, the parasite had gone from five millimeters long to twenty-five.

And if it had been a deadly creature before, now it was… yeah.

A thing out of nightmares, really.

The creature was many times larger in mass now, and its spiritual gains had made it a far deadlier creature than before. If the parasite got free and burrowed into someone, any living creature of flesh and blood, really, their nervous system could end up being subsumed in minutes at most where it would usually have taken days. And that was if it infested some truly enormous sacred beast. A person might have been assimilated by this thing in… less time, it was safe to hypothesize. Seconds, probably.

The Lightningroot Parasite originated from Ashwind’s southerly jungles, where it was considered a rare, but notorious species of sacred parasite. Found only in the lawless green Rootwilds beyond the Seishen Kingdom’s farthest reaches, the parasite had something of a history of possessing large sacred beasts–sacred apes, elephants, hydras, even dragons–and turning them into living disasters; rabid, twitching berserkers that in the worst cases had to be put down by armies. The parasite had a long, bloody history of giving creatures up to thousands of meters in size a preternatural, almost telepathic level of reaction speed, rapidity of action and reaction. The effects were so pronounced that jungle explorers had described the reaction speed of the parasite’s thralls as comparable to lightning-aspected natural spirits. Hence the name. Some generals had compared the battle abilities of the parasite’s thralls to battle prescience, even battle precognition, and the effects apparently scaled with the parasite’s advancement rank.

It was actually illegal to engage in the trade of these creatures. It was one of the reasons why I had needed Eithan to make this purchase, instead of borrowing money from the College to do it myself. It was easier to commit crimes if you had a cat’s paw that was quite literally above the law.

There were risks in cultivating the parasite before assimilating it. But I knew that it needed to reach a certain size and spiritual advancement for my Blood Shadow to be able to eat it according to the beast-raising Blood Shadow method, which could conveniently be found in the dream tablets here. This specific experiment I was about to embark on was unprecedented, as far as I knew. But the general methods of experimental execution that were being contemplated hadn’t even been hard to research, not in this place. Northstrider and his scholars had apparently considered melding the function of a Presence with the power of a Blood Shadow. It was a rather obvious route of research. Mostly, the researchers had found that the Blood Shadow could at best help you think faster, but it was also incredibly more likely to turn you into a Blood Vassal by seizing direct control over your brain. Still, the researchers had collected a lot of the necessary literature in order to embark on this endeavor, and thus much of Red Faith’s research could be found here.

Or his assistants and people who had learned under him at least. Red Faith’s dream tablets did exist here, but I could learn as much from them as I could learn the nature of divinity itself by staring at it with my unvarnished mortal eyes. 

Suffice it to say, Red Faith had a rather heavy mind. 

I felt like I had almost died trying to read it. It had been worse than Arakmedes’ dream tablet by an order of magnitude at least.

But even more importantly, Red Faith’s memory patterns had felt too much like Frozen Heart.

Perhaps he did have a functional emotional spectrum, but from what I could tell, he hardly used it at all. It didn’t figure into any of his thoughts and ideas. Everything, to him, could be boiled down to the rational, to self-interest. Everything was seen through the lens of how it could benefit him.

He was cold, analytical, and utterly unconcerned with the human cost of his research. So, yeah, he was kind of a dickhead.

In any case, I had everything I needed from the tablet library, knowledge wise. All that was left to do was execution.

First, I would have to dominate the Blood Shadow.

Then, I would have to force the Blood Shadow to cycle according to a pattern that brought forth a specific blend of compatible madra—by expelling the kinds that we didn’t need: namely, swords, force and fire. All that would remain was blood and light. Once that was done, I would have the Blood Shadow absorb the parasite’s structure, aspects and functions, effectively turning the parasite itself into a Blood Vassal, or the Blood Shadow itself into a Lightningroot Parasite; the distinctions were unclear at this level of fuckery. 

Finally, I would have it infect me.

Bam. Instant telepathic access to my entire nervous system—except my brain—far faster and far away more efficient than the traditional way.

That is, of course, if the Blood Shadow’s malevolent will didn’t dominate mine. There was, fortunately, little danger of that when going down the beast route, and even less after what exactly I had planned for Bruno was done. 

I explained my plans to my friends.

Everyone looked at me in various degrees of horror and disgust. Even Palutin seemed dubious. Ziel put his hand on his face, shaking it several times, but he said nothing.

“Pardon, but that’s…” Lindon let his words hang in the air.

“Look, pal,” Palutin said, “I ain’t exactly the sharpest knife in the holster, but even I know this is just downright crazy.”

“No,” Yerin said.

Orthos sighed. “I knew it.”

Little Blue chimed in panic, shaking her hands and crossing her forearms in an X shape, though she may have just been against me doing anything with my Blood Shadow.

Mercy looked at me like I was her younger brother that had swallowed a bug. That was, with concern, and a sprinkling of disgust. “Maybe… try something different?”

This was the appropriate reaction, certainly.

If they knew all the thought and research I had put into this, they would understand that the most dangerous part would just be dominating the Blood Shadow’s will, which was anyways something that I had to do in order to survive. Once I felt confident enough to have it absorb the physical aspects of the Lightningroot Parasite, the hard part would already be over.

“Look, guys,” I said, “I only need you to be alert in case it tries to attack one of you. And maybe also be there in case it tries to, you know, dig another hole through my lung. But I’m as prepared as I’ll ever be, and quite done trying to read Archlord dream tablets, so unless I do this, then I’m just wasting my time here.”

“Try anything else,” Yerin growled, “This is chipped.”

I returned her glare with a level expression. “I’m not asking for support here. Just vigilance.”

“Fine,” Yerin sat roughly on the ground, legs crossed and arms folded. “Go run up to your death, see if I’d give a rat’s tail.”

I just shrugged. “Don’t need your belief, either.”

“You will die,” Ziel said, tone utterly certain. “Really, there is nothing else to say. This will kill you.”

“Sky, sincerely,” Lindon pleaded, “But this is truly, honestly insane.”

I sighed. “I’ll decide that once I finish subjugating the Blood Shadow, how about that? If I deem the will to be too strong for me to go on, then I will stop.”

“Once you finish?” Yerin muttered.

I walked around the table, sat down, and focused on my spirit, specifically where Eithan’s cage was located. Bruno had been scratching against it for the better part of two weeks now, and it was anyways just a matter of time before I had to face him man to spirit parasite.

Taking deep, calming breaths as I revved up my madra, I located the release latch of the suppression script and overloaded it with madra.

Bruno immediately lunged for my lifeline.

“FUCK. NO.” I growled, my fists clenched so hard that my fingernails dug holes in my palm. With pure force of will, I held Bruno still and shoved him out of me inch by agonizing inch. I opened my eyes for a moment to look at my stomach, where the Blood Shadow oozed out of me like a glistening organ out of some kind of drawing.

If Yerin’s Blood Shadow was like a coil of horrifying rope, mine was more like a giant, fat, earthworm with a starburst-shaped set of tentacles at its ‘mouth’, or front, or whatever the hell the thing was. It was monstrous. I’d have preferred a bladed rope.

It had grown even bigger since last I had seen it, having grown fat on stolen lifeline and blood essence. Thankfully, it hadn’t taken my shape, or the next part would have been a lot harder.

Once the Blood Shadow was fully out, I took a sip of some Dream Well water I had specially prepared on the side, replenishing lost focus and willpower.

Then I reached into my core, where my starseed had been steadily collecting force aura and residual Broken Star madra from Arakmedes’ Remnant, combining and blending them into an outer layer of Collapsing Star madra, a bounty at the core of my spirit growing fatter and fatter for the harvest.

I siphoned off several week’s worth of the starseed’s production of madra, adding it to my own.

That, combined with my bright and shining Highgold core, already at the threshold of advancement from all the benefits of the Spirit Well, was enough to tip me over.

My channels swelled, like the banks of a river about to flood–

And in that same instant, I wrangled them back under control. Too much madra, constrained into too small a volume had no choice but to compress–

And then, my madra finally stepped over the maximum density threshold of the Highgold stage of advancement.

This was the most brutal, the absolute most painful way that a sacred artist at this stage could advance without genuinely mutilating themselves. No art, no sacred tradition, no striving for a perfection of Paths technique; just an equation of brute math forced on spongy flesh and spirit.

My core was forced to evolve under the pressure, crystallizing into a new configuration capable of tolerating this new level of madra density. All of my syrupy Highgold madra drained into my core as I released the free energy from the starseed and added it to my own power, pushing me all the way to Truegold. Then my madra returned to my channels, flowing back outwards from my core with a new level of density. If Lowgold madra was like water, and Highgold madra like syrup, then Truegold madra was like engine oil.

But even more importantly–

With the Blood Shadow outside of me, that meant that—for now—the majority of this advancement’s benefits, to my madra quality, to the strength of my will—were isolated to me and me alone.

Now, I had a leg up.

I returned my focus to the Blood Shadow. It was time to reach the raw essence of spirit into it, and establish authority over the parasite’s spirit itself. To annex it, conquer it. 

This wasn’t the impossibility that it sounded like. Though this spirit was its own being, and thus its will was sovereign in its own physical or spiritual domain, this being had made its home inside of me, and had fed on me. By seizing the parts of it that used to belong to me, I could gradually build up control. I would crumble the wall between our spirits, and when it was all over, my entire body and spirit would once more belong to me and me alone.

I must have looked like some malevolent demon as I growled and grunted, focusing my razor-sharp malice and ire on this monster, threading my madra through our bond. Every step forward, every inch of spiritual control gained over it, was revenge for what it had shown me, for trying to deceive me and make me doubt my bonds.

For trying to make me feel alone.

The truth was, this exercise wasn’t just a necessity.

It was one I had looked forward to.

I wouldn’t forget such a grievance so easily. Just as I wouldn’t forget Sha Dellian, and was constantly looking for an excuse to feed him and his two hangers-on the shield they had given us.

My anger burnt hotter than they could have imagined.

Bruno screamed in agony as its will chipped away bit by bit, losing this tug of war. That tiny piece of the Bleeding Phoenix was hate incarnate, but it was tiny. And it didn’t have as much reason to hate me as I had to hate it. All it wanted to do was feed on me.

In comparison, my own motivations were downright perverse. Came with the territory of being a mad scientist, sure.

There would come a day, I vowed, that I would strike a substantial blow on the Bleeding Phoenix. The air would be choked with the vapors of blood as I burned it alive with the power of a sun.

Until then, it would be embarrassing if I lost to this tiny piece, right?

I was flooding the Blood Shadow with my madra. Not any sacred arts techniques - with the raw essence of my spirit, just as it was trying to do the same to me with its own blood madra. Through its link with me, it was trying to do the most amount of damage possible it could so that it would be easier to hollow me out and turn me into a Blood Vassal, a mere husk of my former self animated by the Blood Shadow’s will.

I almost buckled beneath the weight of the tide of blood madra it tried to drown me in. It was like the creature had its own version of the Diamond Veins–it was absurd that a creature at the Highgold stage of existence could use so much madra, so instantly. If I hadn’t been cycling Collapsing Star madra outside my body, in a half-baked ripoff of Lindon’s Soul Cloak that I had designed specifically for this moment, I might have been overtaken despite all my prepared advantages. 

To think that Collapsing Star madra’s thoroughly reactive nature with blood madra would prove so useful here.

But that reaction was double-edged. Before long, as I stood against the tide of crimson, my channels went from humming to painful to downright screaming.

This wasn’t a sacred arts battle. It was something closer to an exorcism. But rather than leveraging something as pretty as faith in a higher power, I was banking on being the bigger demon.

Even more than the higher quality of my madra, my madra control was my greatest weapon in this battle. I didn’t just use the full force of my willpower, but I also made sure to strike where it was not focusing on defense, outmaneuvering it and poking it from several different fronts at the same time, dancing between its points of influence in a mesmerizing ballet of willpower. 

I was never one to fight by relying purely on raw power, and I wouldn’t start now.

The tide of blood madra began to wane, and somehow, I was still conscious. I could taste nothing but blood.

Bit by bit, I finished subsuming the creature’s spirit. As more of it disappeared, so too did the strength of its will, until it became easier and easier.

And just like that, the Blood Shadow was mine.

In the moment I felt the Blood Shadow’s mind and will die, I gave one brief sigh of relief, as blood trickled from the corners of my lips. Then the strength in my abdomen gave out and I fell on my back, feeling numb all over my body. My throat was burning from all my screaming. I reached to my side to drink a second cup I had prepared, one containing a spoonful of all three waters, feeling my focus instantly pick up, my torn-up insides reknit themselves.

I stood up and bowed ostentatiously to my gobsmacked friends.

The hard step was done. One Bruno, successfully lobotomized.

“Thank you, thank you,” I said with a showman like flair, “I’ll be here all week.”

“Please don’t,” Yerin muttered, looking green in the gills. “I don’t know if I could handle the sight again.”

Ruby seemed to have popped out of Yerin during this time, to observe the process. She looked deeply disturbed. She looked at me in disgust, and then dematerialized, turning into a blood soup that flew back into Yerin’s core. No idea what her problem with me was. All I did was brutalize her kin right in front of her.

Lindon stared intently at the Blood Shadow, “You’ve pacified it?”

“Yep,” I said, “I’ve broken down its will and established a link between the two of us. But of course, I won’t just leave it at that. It is, after all, still too powerful.”

Now, let’s see.

Blood, and collapsing star madra, in a chaotic mixture that would definitely cripple the Blood Shadow to an almost irreparable extent if I didn’t do something about it.

Funny. I had gone from being in real danger of it to now being in the position of having to save what was left of it. My gut roiled with satisfaction at the feeling of domination. Now I was just parading around my enemy’s corpse, and it was fun.

After quickly etching some scripts on the floor around where the Blood Shadow lay, I commanded it to perform a cycling technique that I had engineered for this purpose. Madra exploded out from it in waves. Contrary to how it looked, the process was rather nondestructive. All the madra that exploded from it hit the invisible barrier that rose from the script circle, protecting the watchers.

Another circle of scripts collected and funneled the Blood Shadow’s expelled madra into a vial. Even these undesirable elements would be very useful to me, after some refining to separate out the genuinely toxic madra aspects. I could not have asked for harvestable madra more compatible with my lifeline, blood essence, and spirit.

I looked at them with a nod and a grin. “Hard part’s over now. You can go ahead and do your own thing.”

My channels were still aching, even after drinking the combined water of all three wells. But I still had enough gas in the tank left for one last working.

Lindon gave a nod at that. “Congratulations on your advancement. And… I am glad that you have handled your Blood Shadow. I would ask that you leave things as they are, but…”

“Hmm, not a chance,” I said with a grin, “But thank you.”

“Buddy,” Palutin said, giving me a raised eyebrow, “You’re one spot short of a loon,” then he cracked a grin, “My master always likes to say, if you’re gonna be stupid, best be tough too. But I’ll be damned if you ain’t the toughest piece of work I ever laid eyes on.” I chuckled incredulously at the praise. Then he turned to the rest. “Ya’ll let me know if he’s still alive by sun-up.” Then he just stalked off. Marigold stared at me for a while longer, as if to drive home her befuddlement. Dolph hovered next to her, also quite confused. A moment later, they followed Palutin.

“Glad you’re not a husk,” Yerin said, arms folded, “I’ll pretend that you know what you’re doing, but I’d bet my soul you’re still taking this too lightly.”

“I’ve never been good at giving things their due gravity,” I said, looking over at the Lightningroot Parasite. “And I doubt that will change any time soon. But thank you.” The Blood Shadow was steadily weakening itself, regressing in power as it lost out on several aspects of madra, leaving behind only light, blood, and a smidgeon of life. Probably from all the life aura it had eaten out of me. It seemed to have converted that energy directly to power instead of using it to construct a body.

The process of creating a clone apparently took a lot longer than if I had just let it feed on my lifeline and blood essence. Yerin’s was a clone right off the bat because it had fed off her for years, and the Sword Sage had replaced everything it took from her as it happened. For all that Bruno had nearly killed me, compared to the bounty Yerin had fed Ruby over the years, mine had barely eaten a nibble. Funny how that worked out.

I broke up the script circle and held out my hand towards it, commanding it to jump on me. It did, and wrapped around my arm like a horrifying nightmare pet. I walked it up to where I had kept the Lightningroot Parasite vial.

“If you are going to go through with this,” Ziel said, “You should probably record all the steps you’ve taken for posterity. Just so future generations know not to follow you into certain doom.” With that, he left.

Yerin chose that moment to walk off, while Lindon just shook his head and followed after, going back to work. Orthos had retreated into his shell to sleep, and in the end, it was only Mercy and I left in the vicinity.

“You have this under control, right?” Mercy asked me, and I gave her an emphatic nod, glad that someone had confidence in my abilities.

“I wouldn’t leave this up to chance if I could control it,” I said, “I’ve been working on this project for months. The Blood Shadow actually made things easier, in some ways.”

And I needed to do this.

I needed to take back control over my body. Control that this Blood Shadow had stolen away from me.

I uncorked the vial, and dumped the bug on the Blood Shadow. Sensing my intention, it swallowed up the parasite immediately.

The best way to control this absorption was to take it slow and steady, to not break down the bug for energy, but to break it down for structure and function as well. And that would take some finesse.

I made the Blood Shadow insert tendrils of itself into the parasite as gently as possible, taking care to make sure the bug remained alive for it to get possessed by the Shadow fully.

This would take a while.