CHAPTER 10

Due to the large amount of power released and the depleted reserves of the three presences, they were all knocked aside by the overwhelming force, and were forced back into their original territories. They received such overwhelming pressure from the energy radiated by the centre object, that they were knocked out of the dream.

As the large creature awoke from its sleep and the three presences itself inhabiting it caught their breath, they looked at each other and saw the same disbelief in their eyes. What was that, where had it come from, and most of all, why did it have so much power?

They were perplexed by the sudden reaction of the centre object and embarrassed by their own inability to foresee it or even see it as it was happening.

As they wanted to continue their self-lamenting mental state, they suddenly felt the same power radiating from under them. They quickly leaped to the other side of the cage. They looked at the source of the power and saw that it was the small creature which they had healed earlier, the power seemed to only be a fraction of what it had been inside the dream, but it was still the same power. They could recognise the savageness and deadliness it radiated from a mile away. Their first instinct was to run away from such a dangerous power, but they were stopped by the dominating presence. He shushed them and approached the small creature, it was not afraid of it since it was the same as the small creature. Both creatures of death, and both hated for their nature.

As he approached it, he could hear it wail in pain, he could see its struggle on its face. It was trying to control the raging energies inside of it, it was trying to resist them, but it all seemed to be futile, as he was slowly torn apart. The dominating presence saw this, and rushed over to its side. It could see that it was in pain, it could see its struggle clearly. It realised what had happened, the small creature had been in the dream, they had fed it energy, and the small creature had awakened. It had awakened just like they had in the past, but it had awakened due to their interference. He was not supposed to awaken until he was far older, they did this to him in their blind pursue of their desires.

As the other two presences stood over the small creature alongside the domineering one, they noticed the same things the domineering one had. This was their fault, and those two could do nothing about it. They had already felt in the dream, their energies could not go up against that savage, deadly and uncontrolled kind of energy. They saw its futile attempts to survive, but they felt that it was going to die like this.

The domineering presence quickly turned to the other two and said with a determined and steadfast voice.

“You both know that we caused this, are you going to help me.”

The other two presences could only agree upon hearing this, they caused this, if they don’t do anything their greed will kill the small creature they did so much for. If they let it die, they will have wasted so much mana on nothing.

They quickly agreed and listened to the domineering one’s instructions. They were supposed to heal the body and sustain it as much as they could while the domineering one tried to calm the raging energies inside the mana core.

While they were executing their plan, Daelyn was in great turmoil as he was conscious during his awakening.

It started with a fleeting dream, a dream of four different areas. He could feel himself be in the centre area with the two different objects. His area became smaller and smaller as the lights adorning it became brighter, as they dragged the two objects with them and reached him, he felt the pain. He felt the pain it caused, he felt the pain from his whole existence being impacted with a force comparable to a herd of elephants. The fleeting dream changed to reality in but a second as he experienced the hellish pain and tried to endure it. As more and more energy accumulated inside the lights, the two objects pressed more and more, Daelyn could feel them gaining power and force. He could feel them pushing on him with greater power every passing moment, he was becoming more and more desperate as he tried to resist them.

From his desperation a thought was born. ‘Why not give up, why not let all the problems sink away into the never-ending abyss, why continue this hellish existence?’ these thoughts invaded Daelyn’s mind and started to spread outward.

Daelyn could not help but think of the relieve he could get if he gave in, he could not help but wonder if giving in would give him the rest he craved in this hellish environment.

He could not continue his thoughts, as one thought, one image crossed his mind and shattered the temptation of giving in. It was the image of him and his parents smiling, playing, and their expressions filled with joy. How could he even think of giving up on them? They never gave up on him despite his odd behaviour and urges, how could he betray them like that?

As the image of his parents shattered the temptation, another thought ignited an urge, a desire. It was the desire for power, it was the thought of what he wanted to become. He wanted to become a powerful mage, a mage so powerful that no one could stand in his way. He had only had one goal in life up until now, one real goal, and he wasn’t going to give up on it.

This goal ignited a desire for survival and a desire for power. He desired to have enough power to survive and thrive, he wanted enough power to overcome this situation and become stronger because of it. He knew that without power, he would not survive this, let alone the dangers in the outside world he had read about, giant monsters, dragons, undead, and much more lurked out there. How could he give up now?

He felt the two objects bash into him, and he stopped resisting them. He could feel that they were a part of him as much as the white void was a part of him, he swallowed them. He felt the power from the blinding lights, and he tried to break the objects, he tried to devour their power and make it his own, as they were already a part of him.

As the two objects broke inside of him under the great power of the blinding lights, he felt pain. He felt a pain even more excruciating than before, this was not a pain that originated from the outside, this was a pain from the inside. A pain that seemed to stem from a transformation of his whole being, a pain that came from a fundamental change of his form and his power.

As he tried to control the raging energies and the transformation, Daelyn found that he was unable to. The energies raged inside of him, they lashed out against his surroundings, and filled the once white void with a ravaged plain painted with a red and black tint. He could not resist the energies as they tore him apart and changed him, he felt the countless strings that he consisted of change, he felt them either change into black or red, blood or death, and he felt them clash with each other. They clashed inside of him, causing the energy outbursts to become larger and more numerous, and the clash of the energies was slowly tearing him apart. He felt himself being torn asunder as the energies continued their clash, he couldn’t resist them as they continued their uncontrolled rage.

As Daelyn was coming closer and closer to being bisected, he felt a presence that calmed the raging energies, and other presences that tried to heal him. He felt his body heal, he felt the contours of his body through the white void from the energies coursing through him. These energies healed his body, and made sure that it did not collapse under the raging energies emanating from the white void.

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The presence inside the white void raging with the red and black energies seemed to try and calm them down. It was in vain however, he could only affect the black energy and as he did that, the red energy retaliated against him.

Daelyn felt a vibration throughout the white void, the sounds of the vibration seemed to be the only thing that was left. The vibration silenced the sound of the raging energies, the sound of the other presences working on him, and the sound of his own thoughts. His mind was only focused on the vibration, as it continued to reverberate through the white void, through his body.

He focused on the origin of the vibration, and saw that it was his own hart. He realised something, if he couldn’t contain the energies inside the void, then he might be able to contain the energies inside his body. He did not know if this would work, but he did know that he could not sustain the current situation. He decided to take fate into his own hands, and try it.

As the presence was in his own domain, in his own body, he could send it a message. He could only send a short message, but had to make clear what his intentions were. He directed the message towards the presence inside the void, and let the message echo through the void: ‘break the void, let it flow’.

As the domineering presence tried to stabilize the energies inside the awakened core of the small creature, he found that he could do little to help it. Whenever he tried to stabilize the dark energies, he would be repelled by the red energies. As he continued his futile struggle, he suddenly had a thought, a thought that seemed foreign, a thought that didn’t seemed to be his. The thought read ‘break the void, let it flow’, as he read the thought he was perplexed, where had it come from? He looked at the centre of the raging energies, and realised it. He was inside of that being, the being had sent it, the being had sent a message from its soul to his. He didn’t understand what the being meant, by breaking the void or letting it flow.

His thoughts were quickly interrupted as the being inside the centre abandoned all attempts to resist the energies and instead tried to direct the energies as much as possible, it directed the energies outwards, it directed the energies towards the void. It tried to break its own core, it tried to send the energies into its body.

The presence inside the void was perplexed by this, it could not continue its state of shock as it was assaulted by the energies radiating from the being. While it could resist them this time, the presence had understood the intention of the small creature, and decided that it was the best course of action.

As the domineering presence left the void, he turned towards the other two presences who were filled with worry.

“What happened? The energy radiating from the small creature has increased in both power and amount, could you not stabilize it?”

The domineering presence answered with a quick and decisive answer: “There is not time to explain, focus all of your efforts on healing the body, try to increase the regeneration speed of the small creature.”

Daelyn felt his body being healed, as his being inside the void was torn apart piece by piece. As he stopped his resistance and redirected the raging energies towards the walls of the void, the energies took hold of him. They ripped him apart piece by piece, he felt the connection between his body and his soul falter and break, first his left leg wavered and broke. He felt excruciating pain from this, this pain had not rivalled anything he had ever felt. It did not end, it only worsened. He felt his right leg falter after the left one, followed by more pain, then he felt his arms falter, followed by more pain, then he felt his neck and his brain falter, followed by more pain. Each of his limbs were torn from his astral body as the connections were assaulted by the raging energies stemming from his own being.

Daelyn’s mind was filled with pain by the disconnection of his limbs, he thought that he could not feel more pain. He was wrong, as all of his limbs were disconnected from his body, his chest began to surge. He felt the energies harboured inside it surge as the energies inside the void made the connection falter more and more, Daelyn felt every passing moment with more and more excruciating pain as he directed the energies outwards. The connection between the last part of his body began to falter more and more, until it finally broke.

As the connection broke, the white void seemed to fade away as the energies were still being directed outwards. As Daelyn felt the void fall away from around him, he felt something assault it from outside, the white void began to show cracks, as if a crystal was being broken under enormous pressure. The energies started to converse on his being in the void as the cracked void began to fade away, returning to their origin, and condensing the tendrils inside Daelyn’s existence into thick threads of raw energy.

Daelyn felt a change inside his being, his soul, as the energies converged onto him. He felt the two energies that had changed every fibre of his being clash once again. Forming two sides, they fought like animals as they tried to gain control over Daelyn’s being.

Daelyn’s mind was filled with the clash of the two beings, he once again sought his refuge in desperation. He once again asked himself if he could not just give up. However, this time, he did not falter. The memories of his family and his only goal in life, his only real purpose he had given himself, crossed his mind. It was for but an instant, but as he once again saw them, he gained an even stronger conviction. He had felt the power the energies radiated, and from all the pain he had experienced by these energies, he had realised one thing.

Power comes at a price.

Daelyn realised this, and he also realised that to gain power and survive, he would have to pay the price in his blood, sweat, and tears. He steeled himself, and emerged from his refuge of desperation with an even stronger conviction than before, and faced the raging energies.

Daelyn broke the two sides, he separated the energies, and entangled them with each other on a level as small as possible for him. He was no longer resisting the energies, he was completely made from them, continuing his resistance would only prolong his suffering and extend his lifespan by but a few miserable moments. He weaved the energies together like two wools of string, he intertwined them together on the smallest possible level, before pushing. He pushed them with all of his will together, he applied pressure to every little string of his existence, and he forced them together.

As the energies were being pushed together on the smallest possible level, they could not resist it, and began to gravitate towards each other despite their clash. Daelyn used every ounce of his willpower to increase his pressure, and as he was about to give up from over exhaustion, something happened. One pair of entangled energies did something he had not expected, but had subconsciously created. The energies did not connect directly, but instead created bridges from both dark and red energies. These energies were not a merger just like the threads, but caused a pull force which stabilized the energies, they acted as magnets repulsed from the other element but drawn to their own, causing the energies to stop their clash between the threads as the bridges were pulled back and forth between the dark and red tendrils.

The shape of the energies resembled that of double helix. Daelyn suddenly knew this, he knew that the double helix was normally the form of DNA, and he knew what DNA was. He was completely taken aback by this discovery, but before he could continue his wondering, the energies reacted once more.

As the first tendrils intertwined with each other, more and more followed their example, either under Daelyn’s influence or on their own. This caused the energies within Daelyn to stabilize, before they once again began to exert their power, making Daelyn go on the defensive once again.

The combined energies may be stabilized, but they were still too much for the small body and core to contain. They started radiating their combined power, and that power was not small. The power was not as strong as the powers combined, but it was still stronger and more powerful than the individual powers. They started their rampage once again through Daelyn’s being, as it was the only thing that remained of him.

This was quickly halted by an outside force, the outside force broke the white void completely, causing the rampaging energies to flow through Daelyn’s bloodstream. The transformation had only taken moments because of the large amount of energy, but for Daelyn it had felt like an eternity of toture.

Daelyn immediately felt a change as the energies left his body, while they were once ravaging him, they were still his. He felt the connection to his limbs return to him one by one, until he was whole again. The blood filled with energy rampaged throughout his body, he felt every fibre of his physical body be restructured to accomplice the new energies. He felt them be destroyed and then be rebuild, he was astounded at his recovery rate.

He could only be perplexed at his abilities, but his train of thought quickly interrupted by a throbbing pain. He felt the one body part that he had felt until the end waver, the body part which dictated a large part of his existence, his heart.