Chapter 38: Three streams of energy
Chapter 38: Three streams of energy
Ethan didn’t sleep anymore.
He wasn’t at ease enough to sleep.
Outside, the Anomalous Coordinate was still stirring. Gray wind slid through the cracks in the rock, carrying the very distant roar of monsters. Laira sat beside him, her torn wing reluctantly folded back, but blood still seeped from the edge of the wound, dripping to the stone floor drop by drop.
Ethan saw it.
He said nothing. He only reached his right hand toward the pouch of crystals set beside him.
Laira immediately frowned. "You want to absorb right now?"
"I need to level up." His voice was hoarse.
Mira, resting across from him, raised her head. Her complexion was still pale after hours of continuous treatment. "You can’t. These are wild crystals, full of toxins and Void contamination inside. Your body is too weak right now. Absorb them the wrong way and your wounds will only get worse."
"I know."
"You know and you’re still doing it?"
"Mm."
Mira choked on her words.
Laira looked at him for a long while, then placed a few small crystals into his palm.
"If anything goes wrong, I’ll cut it off right away."
Ethan nodded.
He didn’t explain. Didn’t mention the rank S Heaven’s Gate. Didn’t say that the [Eye of Truth] could see what others regarded as nothing more than a lump of energy mixed with impurities.
Some secrets are safer the fewer people know them.
Ethan closed his eyes. The cold crystal sat in his hand. Heaven’s Gate trembled faintly, and the moment the first stream of energy left the crystal, he activated the [Eye of Truth].
The familiar pain stabbed behind both his eyes.
But this time he wasn’t looking outward.
He was looking inward.
The dull gray shell of the crystal dissolved within his sight. The energy mass, once chaotic, was no longer a blurred smear. It separated, clearly, into three distinct streams.
One stream was milky white. Thin, light, gentle, like a small spring threading through cracks in the rock.
One stream was purple-black. Cold, deep, sticky. Just looking at it made the back of Ethan’s neck go cold. That feeling was far too familiar. It was exactly like the gaze of the Void Eye in his nightmare, silent, but never truly having left him.
And one stream was red.
Not blazing like Laira’s fire. Not clear either. It was rougher, heavier, like hot blood, like a war drum, like the heartbeat of a starving beast.
Ethan tried the white stream first.
He guided it into Heaven’s Gate. Very smooth. Not strong, but stable. His body absorbed it easily, and the wounds inside him eased a little, like cracked dry earth meeting water.
Then he tried to draw out a thread of purple-black.
The instant it touched Heaven’s Gate, the Void Flame on his left hand stirred at once.
It didn’t flare up.
But it woke.
Like a hibernating snake catching the scent of its own kind.
And Ethan felt something worse than pain. He felt seen. Marked. As if something very far away, very high above, had faintly turned its head toward him.
He forced the purple-black stream out of his body immediately, not letting it advance even half an inch deeper.
At last, he looked at the red stream.
After one breath, he carefully guided it in.
There was no explosion. But inside Ethan, everything seemed to wake up.
The red stream wasn’t gentle like the white one, but it didn’t destroy. It spread along the pathways within his body with a familiarity that was strangely uncanny, as if it had once flowed through this body long, long ago. Bone. Muscle. Energy channels. Each part was scoured and tempered by it, one place at a time.
The Void Flame on his left hand met the red stream and instantly shrank back.
Not out of fear. Out of wariness.
And somewhere deeper than his body, Ethan felt his left eye grow hot. Not the piercing pain like when he gazed into the Void. But as if the eye itself was drinking in that red stream.
Ethan opened his eyes. His gaze was deeper than before.
He didn’t understand what kind of energy this was. But he understood one thing: his body could not only use it. His body craved it.
And now he had his own rule.
Red, absorb.
Purple-black, discard.
Milky white, keep.
Ethan cleaned the first crystal.
The streaks of purple-black, like threads of blood, were squeezed out from the surface, turning into a thin wisp of smoke, then burned away with a casual flick from Laira. What remained was only a very faint milky white glow.
He tossed that crystal to Mira.
She caught it hurriedly, bewildered. "What are you doing?"
"Absorb it. There’s only pure energy left inside."
Mira looked at the crystal, then at him. In her eyes was a very large question: You have the ability to purify?
But she didn’t ask it aloud. She had learned, in this cave, that there were some questions best left unasked.
She pressed her lips together, lowered her head, and began to absorb. The light around her gradually steadied. Her complexion was still tired, but no longer frighteningly pale.
"Thank you," she said softly.
Ethan only nodded, then continued.
Each crystal Laira handed over. Each stream of energy he separated out. Red, absorb. Purple, discard. White, left for Mira. Much slower than absorbing directly, but safer, and more precise.
This method didn’t produce loud miracles. It only quietly pushed him upward.
Heaven’s Gate trembled.
[Rank: Black Iron Tier 6.]
The feeling of being clawed apart by the Void Flame diminished noticeably. He didn’t stop.
Another crystal. Then another.
[Rank: Black Iron Tier 7.]
The blood vessels beneath his skin lit up in the blink of an eye, then went dark. Thanks to the Partner link, Laira’s aura also inched up a bit, and the blood at her torn wing slowed a little.
But Ethan knew exactly where these crystals had come from.
They hadn’t simply fallen down in front of Laira. They had been traded for the tears in her dress, for her torn wing, for the stretch of time she had left the cave alone while he was unconscious.
He wasn’t allowed to waste a single one.
Ethan’s gaze stopped on the last crystal in the pouch.
It was completely different. Nearly the size of a ping-pong ball. Its surface wasn’t dull gray, no white streaks, no purple threads. It was entirely a deep red, like a drop of congealed blood.
Mira looked at it, her expression changing. "A rank D crystal?"
Laira was silent. Ethan was silent too.
He knew where this one had come from. Laira had traded one wing and nearly half her life for it.
Ethan picked it up. Very hot. Not the heat on the outside, but a heat that transmitted straight into the blood.
"I’ll absorb it."
"A wild rank D crystal isn’t like the ones before," Mira said tensely. "If the contamination concentration is high, your body may not be able to withstand it."
"I’ll only take the part I can take."
That sentence nearly admitted a piece of the secret. But Mira still didn’t ask.
Laira placed a hand on his shoulder. "I’m here."
Ethan closed his eyes and guided the energy in the crystal into Heaven’s Gate.
This rank D crystal didn’t have three streams.
No white. No purple.
Only red. Purely one color of red.
It wasn’t a spring, nor poisonous smoke. It was a raging fire compressed tightly inside the crystal. The moment Ethan opened the path, the red stream flooded into his body like a levee breaking. No need to guide it. No need to force it. His body received it like a beast starved for days finally pouncing on a meal.
A layer of faint red blood mist appeared around Ethan, slowly rotating. On his pale face, a trace of blood color gradually returned.
"He’s fine." Laira lowered her voice.
Mira looked closely and nodded. "Yeah. At least no signs of losing control yet."
But inside, the red stream was doing something else.
It struck against bone, pressing the fractures closed. It flowed through muscle, making each fiber that had been torn by backlash begin to knit back together. It scoured the energy channels, widening the sections still weak after he had forced the Partner Resonance. And his left eye grew hot again, drinking again.
The Void Flame on his left hand contracted, this time far more clearly. The purple-black glow was forced deeper into the burnt flesh. It didn’t vanish, but its range shrank.
Ethan almost heard a very faint hiss. Not from outside. From within the wound. As if something was furious at having its prey stolen away.
At that exact moment, the outside world changed color.
The gray mist beyond the mountain crevice suddenly turned into a layer of purple-black smoke, flooding in from nowhere, settling down over the forest and the ruins. The already unstable space shuddered in waves.
Mira noticed first. She jerked her head up. "Void Mist."
Laira stood, her red-orange eyes looking straight toward the mouth of the cave.
From afar, a roar rang out. One. Two. Then dozens.
The ground began to shake.
Within the purple mist, countless dark figures appeared. They didn’t resemble any pack of monsters from before. Their entire bodies were covered in purple-black scales, their eyes hollow, black fluid dripping from their mouths. On their backs and joints grew shards of crystal sharp as thorns.
The same purple-black color that Ethan had just refused.
And they weren’t wandering. Not hunting at random.
All of them, at the same moment, turned toward the same direction.
The cave where Ethan was absorbing the red stream.
In the darkness behind his eyelids, somewhere deeper than Heaven’s Gate, a colossal pupil slowly opened.
It saw him.
And this time Ethan understood, clearly enough to chill him to the bone: the Void Eye didn’t want him to obtain the red stream. It didn’t want him growing stronger down this path.
So it summoned its servants.
Ethan bit down hard on his teeth unconsciously, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth. The red stream inside him grew more and more violent. He couldn’t stop. Cut off now, and the rank D energy would backlash into his body.
He couldn’t open his eyes.
Couldn’t stand up.
Couldn’t reach out to hold anyone back.
A raspy, thick roar rang out right outside the mountain crevice.
Boom!
Something slammed into the rock wall. Dust rained down from the cave ceiling.
Mira sprang up. "Laira, you can’t go out there! Your wing..."
Laira didn’t answer. She slowly walked toward the mouth of the cave, each step leaving a small trail of blood on the stone.
Mira lunged over and grabbed her wrist. "Your wounds are too serious. Go out there again and your wing will really be ruined."
Laira stopped. She looked at the hand holding her. Then she looked at Ethan.
Her voice was very calm.
"He can’t be interrupted."
"But you’ll die."
Laira gently pried Mira’s hand away. She patted the girl’s shoulder once, the motion not forceful at all, even a little tender.
"Watch him."
"Laira..."
She had already turned around.
Her wings spread open. The healthy wing was still strong. The torn wing trembled violently, and the moment it stretched taut, blood immediately gushed out far more, flowing in a stream down the bone frame. The pain drained the color from Laira’s lips.
But she didn’t slow by even half a beat.
To her, torn wing or not, pain or not, none of it entered the calculation. In her mind right now there was only one thing: not a single monster would be allowed to reach the cave behind her.
Deep red flame blazed up around her. No longer as brilliant as before. No longer as stable as before. But still hot, still fierce, still carrying the full pressure of a Crimson Dragon.
"I promised I would protect him."
She shot out of the cave.
Boom!
A jet of red flame ripped through the veil of purple mist. The roars of monsters exploded outside.
Mira stood frozen for a few seconds, then bit her lip and turned back to Ethan, both hands pressed against his shoulders, pouring the last of her energy into keeping the layer of recovery around him from going out.
Whether it was a hallucination or not, in the moment Laira flew out, she saw Ethan’s eyelids tremble faintly.
As if he knew.
But he couldn’t stop.
"Hurry, Ethan." Mira’s voice shook. "Laira is waiting for you."
Outside, the explosions came one after another without pause. Red flame. Purple mist. Claws raking stone. The sound of a torn dragon wing tearing through the wind.
And amid all those sounds, Laira’s roar rang out.
No longer free-spirited. No longer teasing.
Only pure killing intent.
"Whoever steps in..."
"Dies."