Every time I came back from death, my channels could conduct Anima faster, my Anima regenerated quicker, and my Endurance was higher. I could take hits that would have killed me in the first loop, and this was disregarding all the growth I was receiving in my spells and skills... I had never grown as quickly in my life, and Vrakth was the perfect forge to solidify my power as an Adept.
By the end, his left arm hung useless; even his crown could no longer regenerate after he lost one of his horns, leaving a smoking stump behind. Vrakth’s breathing was now labored as his chest was a ruin of burns and weeping wounds.
Still, even with all of this, his power was undeniable, as I bled and my bones broke as we fought. However, with Mortal Shell, things like broken bones were becoming more meaningless to me, as long as I had not lost a limb, it did not matter how many broken bones I had; Mortal Shell would still make me move despite all the physical trauma.
As we fought, it was inevitable that I would reach his heart again. Vrakth was watching out for this move, since I was especially focused on destroying the shield around his chest.
I could have gone for another horn, but the challenge of fighting the demon, while showing him my objective and not fully weakening him, was refining my battle style.
Every mage had their unique way of combat, although most of them usually copied the long-range style embraced by most mages, there were always slight unique tweaks to the way that every mage fought, especially when they were older than a century.
One of the unique ways to fully stand as an Adept was to have your unique battle style, and I was figuring out mine as I fought Vrakth, a style that was closer to a fusion of the Hollow Avatar’s ruthlessness and my fascination with manipulating magic in a manner that interested me.
The Hollow Avatar was barely present in this fight, almost as if it knew that this was one of the most important crucibles in my life that I needed to cross as I refined my battle technique and understood who I was.
My fist tore through the chest of Vrakth, and I seized his heart, pouring everything I had banked into the Edict and the forge at once, die, die, die, and I felt the soul begin to melt as his heart fought its own restart, and was losing.
He was screaming, and I was also screaming, as I poured everything I had against resisting the will of this powerful demon. I was glowing like a star, but slowly that glow died off as I ran out of power before the demon.
At this point, I was already used to emptying my soul, and this no longer killed me or made me automatically switch to the Hollow Avatar... I was now durable enough to survive for a while, even if I exhausted my entire soul.
My new Anima Depth could regenerate my soul in time, but this would be slightly delayed since I bottomed it out, and that was time that I did not have, especially when I was fighting a powerful demon like Vrakth.
That is the whole tragedy of my current situation. I had more Anima than any Adept had any right to, but a three-horned Narghul Sorcerer like Vrakth had a soul that was not liquid, but crystalline, the next evolution of the soul.
Acolyte had gaseous Anima, an Adept had liquid Anima that was far more powerful than gaseous Anima, and this same thing happened at the Arcanist level when the soul transformed to a crystalline state.
No Adept in existence could equal the power and capacity of an Arcanist Anima, but I think I was coming close; however, this may be just for an average mage. Vrakth was ancient, and the power and depth of the Anima depended a lot on life experiences. Vrakth, who had lived for almost a hundred thousand years, had gathered experiences that were beyond anything that any normal Arcanist could ever claim to reach.
My Anima Depth hit bottom, and my channels guttered, and in the half-second I could not act, the heart under my grip caught its rhythm, and Vrakth peeled my dead hand off his chest almost gently.
The sophistication in his demonic face was gone, only a beastly hunger awakened by how close he was to death. I could see beyond the facade of his casual cruelty that what existed underneath was a beast of hunger and wrath.
No doubt he had a thousand different spells that he could have used against me, but most of them would be useless against a combatant like me who seemed to be able to predict whatever he was about to do.
"This would be the last time," I whispered.
Vrakth killed me with his teeth. He grabbed me by the shoulders, pulled me close, and bit through my neck. I felt his fangs scrape my spine, and my silver blood pour down his throat as he drank it.
I knew my blood was poison to the demons, but Vrakth did not seem to care, whatever rationality was gone behind his eyes, and even as I died, I saw silver flame beginning to blaze out of Vrakth’s body; he was burning to death, but it did not stop him from continuing to eat my body... in the end, he went mad.
[ Cor Telluris — 7,000 → 7,800 ]
[ Stored Essence — 121,000 → 178,600 ]
∞
I woke to Mel’s voice, and I lay still for a long moment, because I needed to feel the shape of what I had become.
[ Cor Telluris — 7,800/10,008 ]
[ Stored Essence — 178,600 ]
The fourth Earth Gate required one hundred thousand, and I had almost double that. The gate was overdue. I could feel the barrier stopping me from crossing the fourth Earth Gate, and it was creaking... like a dam that was holding against a tide of essence many times greater than what it was designed to hold.
It seemed that I needed to apply a slight force, and this gate would come crashing down.
My channels had grown, my spells had grown, and my body had grown. The scars from nine loops of dying at Vrakth’s hands had been burned into my soul, and the burn had made me stronger.
I walked out of the tent, killed Rex, Rel, and Orath, sent the Adepts on their way with a casual display of power that shook the ground for thousands of meters, and I settled down cross-legged in the middle of the camp.
Then, before I reached for the fourth Earth Gate, I called up my Status Screen to show me what nine loops of grinding had given me.