Chapter 122: Void Assimilation
“Listen to the flow of water, that sound of it, the existence of it, what is the meaning of it, what is water without that flow, what is the flow without that water, understand it, comprehend it, become it.”
“Become the water, because you are the water, water is life, life is water. The cycle of life is the flow of water.”
“You are the water and its flow, you always were.”
As Axel focused the entirety of his existence on the very voice of Lucien and what it meant and instructed, he lost his sense of self, he started to visualize it, a river of unending proportions and length, but its flow of water was so calm and culminating that it was hard to comprehend, maybe even impossible.
While Axel himself was lost in epiphany, Lucien slowly lowered his voice and at a certain point, stopped talking. He had told Axel beforehand what the process in general is going to be.
Lucien used his aura, shaped it into a small dome-like structure, which isolated Axel from everything all around, light, sound, the flow of the air, and everything else. Slowly, the small transparent shape started to turn black. With that, it was total isolation.
He cut a small part in his finger and grumbled, used his blood to draw a strange and complicated-looking circle, while he kept muttering some incomprehensible words. When the circle of blood was completed, it lit up in a bright red light. The dark, small dome became even darker and somewhat sinister.
While inside of Axel’s mind, after an unknown amount of time, his trance of epiphany had ended, he found himself opening his eyes, but he knew he hadn’t actually opened his eyes, now it was the real part of the process, and unfortunately what he was doing, what he was attempting is much much more deep than just a mere practice or developing the ability to fight without seeing. It is a special type of ritual to void oneself into the imaginary but absolute emptiness.
It was called the void ritual, it is something that allows you to sense anything and everything through the flow of the energy in the air itself, through one’s existence. Through one’s soul. After having the sensation of opening his eyes, he saw nothing. It was simply black, it was as if someone asked you, What can you see while keeping your eyelids closed.
You would see nothing, he was having the same sensation, yet he could somehow move around, he was standing and walking, but he could feel nothing, none of his senses were telling him anything.
With a sigh, he sat back into a lotus position, he emptied his mind again, and he started to focus very deeply on the words that Lucien said, his instructions before starting everything. In this unmoving, unchanging, everlasting void of nothingness, he had to find the flow, the water that flowed so calmly that it could easily be mistaken for being still and unmoving.
There is always something, something that is moving, even within the void itself.
And he finally found a trace of something, something that was moving ever so slightly, the movement was so minuscule that it was like dropping a bucket of water into an ocean.
He tried to delve deeper, deeper, deeper and deeper into the existence of the void itself, he was changing, his existence was fading, he was becoming THE VOID.
Just as he was about to be assimilated, entirely into the true void itself, out of nowhere a sky-shattering sound could be heard, far, far high in the distance, the black void shattered, the sky cracked, and light invaded the world of darkness and stillness. Axel could hear it, the void itself cried out in pain, in anger, in indignation, in desire for retribution of the ever so hateful light invading its territory.
Axel growled at the light instinctively like a wounded beast ready to die just to break away from the light and send it away. Then something fell from the skies, a shiny golden figure, it radiated a pure and majestic golden light that even scared away the void itself. The blackness burned away at the place it landed from the skies.
The golden-haired figure was revealed; it was Lucien, obviously. Who landed just a bit far away from him, Axel growled at the figure threateningly. Axel was slowly and more thoroughly being assimilated into the void itself. Lucien looked at him, and a concerning frown appeared on his face. He cursed aloud,
“You gotta be fucking kidding me, you’re almost assimilated with void in such little time. FUCK??”
Axel was growling at the figure of Lucien like an unholy beastly abomination, but he was not going forward. The golden light was hurting his eyes, he was unable to recognize Lucien or even see his face. The golden light was too blinding for him, as if he was, for the first time, witnessing the existence of light itself.
Lucien shot forward at an inhumane speed, Axel felt fear, pure fear from the treacherous existence of light itself. He hurriedly moved backwards, but he was too slow compared to the golden figure. Lucien immediately grabbed his throat tightly, and howled like an abomination with an unholy shriek from the impossible-to-measure pain he was feeling from the light.
The scream was so unnerving and wrong in its concept itself that even Lucien winced back slightly, but did not let go of Axel; his situation was not good either; the void energy out of retaliation was corroding his hands. He gritted his teeth and using almost 80% of his power in one go, using a special kind of spell he immediately set Axel’s entire figure on fire, he needs to purify Axel from all the void energy or corruption, then bring him back, he glanced upward and broken sky of the void, from which light was entering was being repaired at fast pace, goddamn it. The void was closing up.
With the most ungodly and alien scream he had ever heard, as a result of Lucien setting Axel’s body on fire. Axel’s void assimilated form struggled so madly that his arm grip loosened, and the figure of Axel kept banging on the surface of whatever it was standing around. Axel went utterly mad.
Lucien became outraged at the whole situation, and charged forward at the figure of Axel madly, without holding back his strength even using his dragon bloodline, Lucien started beating down on Axel with no other choice and even with almost all of his strength he barely knocked out his abomination like figure which now was entirely burning in a golden fire. Lucien caught his breath and, seeing all the corruption washed away from him, instantly picked him up and flew upwards like a rocket.
There is only a little gap remaining from the shattered blackness like sky, and barely escaped through that holding Axel’s charred and unconscious figure. The moment he broke out of the voided space, they both crashed onto the ceiling of the training hall because of the high speed they came out. Axel was already in a terrible state, but his state became even worse. Lucien hurriedly fed him multiple health potions, one after another, without stopping. Until finally his condition had started to return to normal. He said in frustration,
“You bastard, I just saved your life by risking mine. You’d better repay me well. Otherwise, this was so so not worth it. Damn it.”
50 Golden Tickets = 1 Extra Chapter
200 Power Stones = 1 Extra Chapter
1 Magic Castle = 4 Extra Chapter