Advent of the Three Calamities - Chapter 683: It's been a while [3]

Chapter 683: It’s been a while [3]
I didn’t know how long I slept for.
The only thing I knew was that I woke up feeling like shit. My entire body was sore all over, and my eye… my eye. It hurt like hell. It felt like a smouldering rock had been lodged where my eye used to be.
The fact that I didn’t wake up despite the pain was a miracle in itself.
“I… guess I was that tired.”
Rubbing my face, I pushed myself out of bed and walked to the bathroom, where the mirror greeted me with a hollow stare.
So not only did I feel like shit, I also looked like shit.
“It’ll probably take a little bit for me to get used to this appearance again…”
No, but most importantly, squinting my eyes, I leaned my head closer towards the mirror and stared at my eye.
“What the…”
Though subtle, the colour of my right eye had changed. If I looked closely, I could see faint traces of white swirling within it.
I felt a little creeped out by the sight.
Thankfully, it wasn’t extremely noticeable. However, it was clear that it was still growing. I felt that it wouldn’t be long before my entire pupil turned white.
The thought of having one white eye and one hazel eye made me feel uneasy. It would look strange. Maybe… even a little creepy.
“Why am I even bothered with something like this?”
Letting out a quiet sigh, I turned away from the mirror and made my way back to the main room. It was modest in size, furnished with nothing more than a single bed and a desk. The curtains were drawn shut, casting the room in a dim gloom. I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled out a small container filled with a thick, black liquid.
The moment I did, a primal, terrifying pressure swept through the room, pressing down on everything like an invisible weight.
“….!?”
If not for the fact that I was quick to hide the pressure, I was afraid of attracting the attention of everyone within the city.
Looking around, I bitterly smiled.
“I don’t know if this is the best place to do this, but I don’t think I can wait much longer.”
I planned on merging with the bone. Right here and right now. I felt that I had no choice but to do so. It was as if I were carrying some sort of bomb that was ready to explode at any given second.
Perhaps I was being extremely paranoid, but I didn’t want to delay the matter.
I was also incredibly excited to do so. This was a primordial ranked bone. The power that it contained was extremely massive, and I couldn’t wait to acquire a new skill.
Just what sort of skill would I acquire from a primordial-ranked bone?
I salivated at the thought, and just as I was about to reach for the bone in order to merge with it, a figure appeared.
“Wait.”
“Hm…?”
Stopping, I turned my head to see the figure of a certain owl.
It was staring at the bone with deep apprehension.
‘Now that I think about it, Owl-Mighty was also present back when Lazarus was undergoing all of the torture. However, it probably doesn’t remember anything.’
The only one that remembered everything was Pebble.
Unlike Owl-Mighty, Pebble was the only one that was still linked with my soul. It was the only one that had actually seen all of Lazarus’s ‘regressions’.
Wobbles was also unaware.
“What’s wrong? Is there something wrong with the bone? Did I…”
“No, it’s not that.”
Owl-Mighty shook its head as its piercing eyes fell on the viscous liquid ahead. It looked to be closely analysing it before eventually looking back at me. Its expression looked a little serious as it looked at me.
“…The soul within the bone is extremely weak.”
“Hm?”
Weak soul? Wait, did that mean—
“There’s likely not going to be a will once you merge with the blood. It looks like the woman from before completely erased Xa’hurl’s existence from the world, eliminating even its will. The faint soul that I’m feeling in the bone is extremely weak. Even if you do try to form a will, it will very likely not work. Perhaps in the future, but that is also not likely.”
“…Ah.”
So it was this..
I didn’t really know how to feel about this piece of news. Was I sad? Was I angry…? I wasn’t sure. In all honesty, I hadn’t even thought about the will. All I thought about was fusing with the bone and gaining a new skill.
“Wait…”
A thought suddenly occurred to me.
“…If there’s no will, does that mean that merging with the bone will be a lot easier?”
I thought back to the time when I tried to merge with Pebble’s bone. It took several months in order to battle its will before being able to fully merge with it.
In this case, if the will was so weak that it was practically gone, wouldn’t merging with it become a lot easier?
“That should be the case.”
Owl-Mighty’s words were all that I needed to hear in order to confirm the thoughts, and my heart couldn’t help but leap in excitement as I immediately squeezed my hand and channelled my mana into the bone.
‘While it’s a pity that there might be no will, the fact that it’s easier to merge with its good. It’ll save me so much trouble.’
VOOOM!
A powerful pulse suddenly swept the entire room, knocking the curtains away and sending the chair onto the floor, alongside the table. Thankfully, I had restricted all of the noise and as such wasn’t worried about attracting unnecessary attention.
But the pressure that was coming out of the bone was extremely powerful.
It was so powerful that for a moment, the restriction that I had set up almost shattered.
“Kh.”
Putting even more pressure on my hand, I circulated my mana even more rapidly and watched as the bone dug its way into my skin, crawling beneath its surface like some sort of worm before penetrating my muscles and entering my insides.
The process didn’t hurt much, but the visual stimulus was a little hard for me to take.
‘Focus. Focus. Focus.’
I had to remind myself over and over again to remain focused. This next part was going to be integral for me as I was dealing with a primordial ranked bone.
This was going to be the strongest bone that I had ever encountered, and while it no longer had a will, the power that was contained within the simple bone was still not something trivial.
Gritting my teeth, I focused all of my attention on the bone that was streaming through my body. I was currently in no control of it. I was still unsure of which bone it would end up replacing. The only thing I could do at the moment was endure the pain that I was currently going through.
Thankfully, the pain was something that I could bear.
The only issue was the massive pressure that came alongside the bone. It made my chest feel incredibly heavy as my hands and body started to tremble uncontrollably.
For a moment, I nearly lost concentration as a result of the situation.
It was vital for me to remain focused.
The moment I lost concentration, there was a high chance that the built-up pressure would suddenly explode alongside my body. The sight… It would certainly not be a pretty one.
‘Focus, focus…’
Beads of sweat formed at the side of my forehead, dripping onto the floor before suddenly sizzling and fading into water vapour.
Sizzle! Sizzle!
More and more water vapour started to form around the room, causing the place to turn into some sort of sauna. Breathing started to become more difficult, and my concentration nearly slipped a couple of times. However, I remained focused on my task.
I was nearly done.
I just had to focus for a little bit longer, and everything was going to be okay.
“Kh…!”
Gritting my teeth even harder than before, I felt the viscous bone finally latch onto a certain part of my body as both my eyes flared open.
Now!
I knew that this was the most vital step. Without wasting a single second, I channelled all my mana in the direction of the bone, forcing it to remain fixed on the spot.
“——!”
This time.
This time… I truly felt the pain.
If I had been able to endure it before, this time was different. The pain was sharp and vivid, stealing the air from my lungs. My mouth opened instinctively, but no sound escaped. For a fleeting moment, my mind went completely blank. Every thought was wiped away by the sheer intensity of the pain.
Thud!
Even as I felt my body fall onto the floor as it started to convulse, I found myself unable to think properly as I started to thrash around the floor, gripping onto anything that I could.
Bang! Bang!
I heard the sound of several things smashing and breaking, but it was all quite faint and muffled.
I continued to struggle on the floor, gripping and reaching for anything that could help me. However, the more that I struggled, the more difficult things became for me.
“…..!”
Darkness took over my vision shortly after that.
By the time I woke up again, I found myself lying on the floor as I blankly stared at the ceiling above me.
“Haa… Haa…”
A sharp throb pulsed through my head as I fought to keep my eyes open. Strange dots danced across my vision, and every movement felt disjointed. Out of sync. My head felt incredibly light, as if it might float away at any moment.
Still, forcing myself up, I blinked a couple of times and tried to regain my bearings.
When I did, I finally saw the state of the room.
“…..”
It was bad to the point where it couldn’t even be called a mess. The bed was broken in half. The window was shattered. The chair… Where the hell was the chair? All I saw were scattered pieces of wood.
‘Thankfully, everything isn’t very expensive. Otherwise…’
Holding onto my head, I forced myself up and staggered towards the bathroom, the only place that was still intact within the room.
Slowly moving towards the sink and placing both of my hands on it to rest, I raised my head up to stare at myself.
It was in that moment that I saw it.
My eyes.
One red. One white.
“…Ah.”
I opened my mouth, closing it shortly after as information started to flood into my mind, momentarily halting me in place.
[Eye of Existence]
