The previous time I had crossed the First Earth Gate, I did not sense many changes, although to be fair, my senses were far more limited at that moment. I was distracted and focused on the new changes that were ongoing inside me, and I did not truly look into what was behind the gate... this one was different.
I want to describe what came through, but I am not certain I have the words, and I am fairly certain that some of what I am about to tell you is going to sound like the ranting of a boy who has spent too long being electrocuted. Bear with me.
Light came through the gate, but I could not tell you the color of it, even if you threatened to strip me naked in the rain and let me recite all three million verses of the Maluka... don’t ask me how I knew of the teachings of that mad god.
The light came through the place inside me where the gate had torn, and after a while, my senses could determine that the color was deep white. That is the only description I had for it, um, maybe it was closer to silver, and it was similar to the color of my new Anima, but still a bit deeper.
A flood of it rushed past the gate as if they had been backed up for a while and poured into me, from somewhere that I knew was not of this world.
This was the part that the First Earth Gate had done quietly. The +5 Anima, the denser blood that came from the Endurance, it gave me, those had been a trickle through a gate that had opened a crack. The Second Earth Gate had torn, and the flood that came through was not a trickle.
[Second Earth Gate — Open]
[Bonus: +12 Anima Depth, +40 Endurance]
[Substrate Infusion: Creation-Anima, Tier Two]
I was shocked at the sheer amount of attributes that I had just gained, and this was not even acknowledging the fact that what the Earth Gate gave me was superior to anything that my body could produce.
Then the analytical part of my mind clicked into place, and my eyes widened. Wait, that cannot be right. If I gain +12 Anima Depth, would that not push me firmly into the Adept Ranking, and that was not all. Gaining +40 Endurance would push this attribute to the Arcanist Tier!
Should this have been possible? I asked myself this question a moment before my body, and my Anima Depth began to tear itself apart.
I had been cut, crushed, stabbed, burned, had my organs emerge inside out from my body, and nothing hurt more than the first two seconds of torture I endured at this moment.
My shocked mind fled to the Hollow State at this moment, and this was the only thing that saved my sanity.
The pain vanished, and I became more complete, and immediately I knew what I needed to do.
I was correct, the Second Earth Gate was not meant for Acolytes, and even Adepts had to be careful before they pushed it open, and what was more fundamental about the Earth Gates was that they were not meant for the fragile bodies of mages, but for species that were far stronger than humans.
The Demon Slayer Title was never meant to fall into the hands of a human, even if that person was a mage, and if an average Acolyte could survive the First Gate, the second Gate meant death.
My Endurance was at 79, near the upper threshold of the Adept level, and adding 40 Endurance to it was not just numbers; this was Lower-Order Celestial Blood pouring into my veins.
The blood in my veins was slowly being transformed into Celestial Blood. There were 150,643 drops of blood inside my body, and before unlocking the Second Earth Gate, the number of Celestial Blood in my body was merely 5,650.
It was not a lot in comparison to my normal blood, but that was not considering that in two hours of relative time in the past, the Celestial Blood inside my body was just 135.
If I did not open the Second Earth Gate, then in a month or so, my entire blood would be that of the Celestial, but opening the second gate shattered the fragile balance of my body because I was not technically gaining new Celestial Blood from Endurance; I was gaining Celestial Marrow!
I could see the Celestial Blood moving through my veins; what I could not see was the Celestial Marrow inside my bones.
Because I could see my Anima Depth, I was able to tell when it was under profound stress, but I could not see the inside of my bones, and that was where the oversight had emerged.
"Crack! Crack!..."
My body collapsed to the ground, and it began to seize; my skin tore open, and my blood began to pour out of me.
All of my organs began to fail, and with the rate at which I was losing blood, I would be dead in two minutes.
However, this was not the only crisis I was facing; the newer, stronger Anima hit my reservoir.
The reservoir was cracked at fifty-five percent integrity, too damaged to hold the transformation to Adept, and although it was healing fast, adding a flood of new Anima into it was not doing me any favors.
I felt the cracks widen, and the reservoir begin to fail under a load it had never been built to carry.
My body was breaking, and my Anima Depth was shattering, and it was at this moment that Cor Telluris fully activated.
∞
Cor Telluris was never meant to be a patch that could work as a reservoir, and even though my body was failing, the core of this Celestial Construct was not.
My body was exploding under the strain of new Celestial Marrow being added to it, and like my Anima Depth, my body could not grow to the Arcanist level because the Celestial Marrow that had been placed into it was far too powerful for it.
Cor Telluris took advantage of my body being shattered and began to create new channels out of the broken shell. My Celestial blood chewed through my normal blood and spat it out, and my right eye swelled and exploded in its socket with the growing pressure inside me.
The new Anima that was entering my depth was being siphoned into the new channels that were appearing, as my body was being reshaped at the cellular level.
In the distance, tens of thousands of Khaaz Demons were moving towards my position, and behind them were larger shapes.
The foghorn from the pyramid sounded again.