"Tch!"
The sound of disgust echoed through the entire Void as Ryuk's face scrunched up in pain, even as he remained frozen in the same pose.
'This is no cultivation. This is just pure madness!' his thoughts screamed in his head as he felt the raging energy coursing through every single vein in his body.
The Primordial Frost Scripture he began with had its fair share of discomfort when he first cultivated it and that was due to the biting cold—but this?
This was beyond discomfort.
It was pure violence.
Like being torn apart, tissue by tissue.
The Void energy entered through every inch of his body, spreading around chaotically, and the sensation felt like molten fire crawling across his spine.
His bones were painfully reshaping, and he felt as if something was drilling through his vertebrae, carving a home for itself right inside his brain.
It hadn't even been a full second, yet Ryuk felt the red liquid begin to leak from his eyes as the wriggling veins inside them burst one by one, causing him to weep tears of blood.
'I can't stop it. I can't stop it!?' he thought in horror, trying to clamp his mouth shut and resist the pull of the energy—but no matter what he did, he had lost control.
His mouth hung wide open.
He tried to break the pose, and when he glanced at his hand, he saw trails of Void energy chains wrapping tightly around it, locking every single fibre under their control.
When Ryuk looked below, he was shaken to find similar tendrils crawling over his body, vibrating against the ground he stood on.
The roots then spread to every grave that littered the area beneath him.
Trying to move was like trying to shift the entirety of a graveyard in space.
Ryuk's face slowly paled before utter horror appeared in his eyes.
'I'm stuck like this!? With the pain!? Until when!?' he asked no one.
But something soon responded.
[It seems the Host must remain stuck in place by the Void Energy, which removes permission to relax during the cultivation process.]
[I'm afraid the only thing the Host can do is silently endure as much as possible.]
[On the plus side, there is no need for external action on the Host's part]
[The Host's task is simple: endure.]
"Endure!? Endure this!? For how long?" Ryuk shouted in half-terror.
It had barely been a few seconds, and he was already dying.
It felt like he was being devoured from the inside out.
The Void energy was gathering around his heart and compressing it with icy hands.
It was like cold fingers squeezing your chest from the inside.
His breath began locking up as his heart struggled to beat against an invisible blockade.
Moments later, red blood began to trail from the corner of his lips as he remained in the same position.
Cracks began forming on his neck as he instinctively tried to scream out—yet he was forcefully stopped—and blood once more filtered through the fractures on his neck.
But then, the true horror began when the notification flashed.
[Cultivation is proceeding evenly.]
[The formation of the First Node—the Cerebral Node—will now begin.]
The system notification flashed as Ryuk's painfully opening body suddenly froze again.
His bloodshot eyes went still, a chill overtaking them as if he had been trapped in space.
But Ryuk wasn't lost in space—he was lost in sensation.
The sensation of someone whispering directly into his ears.
His vision began fracturing as the world broke apart into darkness and blood red.
He felt as if he could see behind himself—as though he had suddenly grown a new pair of eyes—but the imbalance disoriented him.
He felt time looping, losing track of his own thoughts.
This wasn't a hallucination.
This was the Void energy slowly scraping away his sanity.
It was like meditation—with someone drilling through your skull while you remained perfectly aware.
When Ryuk thought this might be the end and that he would be sent back to the Shadow Realm, the notification flashed again, anchoring his consciousness back to the physical world.
[Host must remember—the pain is not a flaw of the technique.]
[It's a signal that the Host's cultivation is rising through the threshold. This is the Host's weakness being stripped away.]
[The Void rejects weakness and offers unimaginable strength to those who endure. Only by suffering through this can the Host unravel the true power that bends reality itself—the power of the Void!]
[Therefore, Host must endure! Losing consciousness is not allowed!]
[You must endure—for as long as it lasts!]
[The rewards will be well worth it, Host!]
[It's the only way to survive what is to come!]
[Host doesn't want to disappoint his uncle, right!?]
[Host doesn't want to lose to the Knull!]
[If so—endure! Endure, Ryuk!]
The system notifications began flashing faster, turning red and bolder, acting as the conduit anchoring Ryuk's consciousness to the exterior world—even as every inch of his skin began cracking into pieces.
His nanobody tried to heal him, yet quickly got enveloped in cracks right after.
The notification kept flashing endlessly, bringing reason after reason to endure, and endure—even as a pool of blood soon formed beneath him.
His body and limbs completely soaked in red, his eyes rolling back before twitching once more, only to roll again from the pain.
Just before he could black out, the notification flashed one more reason—and Ryuk's head finally slumped, forcing him through the ordeal.
And like that, for an unknown amount of time, the sensation continued.
The pain never lessened—it only increased. And the system's words only deepened, barely managing to keep him anchored even through the torment.
'It's hard. Too hard…' The thought echoed through Ryuk's mind, as he struggled through the darkness, finding the golden guiding light etched within his soul pushing through the bleakness—a dim but shining answer that he could still make out:
[Endure. Endure, Ryuk. You must endure.]
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A/N:
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