CHAPTER 15

Daelyn could finally sleep as he felt his mother’s arms surround him, as he felt her heartbeat echo through his existence, and as his final ounce of power drain from him. He fell into a long and deep sleep, a comatose sleep.

However, instead of dreaming, he found himself looking at his existence once again. This time however, there was no white or black void, he could feel the swirling energies around him, he could feel them flow in patterns, and he could feel them being pumped by his core.

The void was large, it didn’t seem endless as it had clear boundaries to it, but it was certainly large. He was in a large room, the walls, ceiling, and floor made from a crystal with a mix or red and black colours inhabiting the crystals. He began to spread his awareness, he tried to do it just like the first time he had entered the black void, he extended his comprehension and his touch outwards, towards the energies raging around him.

As he connected with the energies, he could feel a vibration. The energies vibrated and were pumped away by the large crystal room Daelyn was in at the moment. As he extended his touch outwards and reached the walls of the room, he felt that he could go beyond, and so he did. He explored three more large crystal rooms as he felt the raging energy inside of them, he felt that the energies were even embedded in the crystal walls.

The more of these rooms he explored, the more he felt a growing headache, and as he had explored all of the rooms and felt the energy raging through them, it had become a full-blown migraine. Despite the pain, he still continued expanding his influence. If he could not handle this small amount of pain, he would have been long dead.

As he tried to expand his influence outwards once more, he noticed that it became exceedingly difficult. He tried to expand his influence beyond the crystal walls, but found that it was almost impossible on all fronts.

He tried every direction he could, north, east, south, west, down, and finally up. He became more and more desperate, and he had almost lost hope as he arrived at his last option, up. It worked, he was able to extend his influence just like in the crystal rooms filled with his own energy.

 He extended his influence upwards, but found the same resistance outside of the crystal walls. He felt that he could continue his influence without much resistance, but only through certain tunnels. He extended his influence, he followed the tunnels that split up at almost every step Daelyn made. He expanded his influence more and more, and slowly felt a picture forming in his mind as he tried to map the tunnels under his influence.

As he conquered more and more territory, his headache also become progressively worse. The large tunnels became smaller and smaller as he progressed, however that did not mean that the pain subsided. The pain only progressed more slowly as he did not have to stretch his influence as far.

He had started expanding from the two tunnels at the top of the crystal room, and had yet to find an end to them. As he was about to give up due to the mental strain, he felt something. He felt his influence encounter itself at one of the tunnels. The tunnel was on the smallest level he had conquered up until now, his influence sent out from the two different tunnels exiting the crystal room, had encountered each other there.

Daelyn was baffled by this, did the tunnels seem endless because they were a circle? Were the crystal rooms the origin of these tunnels, and what were the crystal rooms?

These questions filled his mind as he looked at the map drawn of the tunnels, and suddenly, he understood. He understood what the tunnels were, what the crystal rooms were, he understood where he was, and what it was.

It was his body, the tunnels were his veins, and the crystal rooms were his heart chambers. He could not pass through the areas outside of the tunnels easily, because it was his flesh. He could feel the outlines of his body, organs, muscles, everything, through his veins. He was able to feel every nook and cranny of his body as his cardiovascular system was almost omnipresent in his body.

In the slight moment of enlightenment, the migraine worsened. It ruled out all of his thought, and filled his mind with pain. While it wasn’t as unbearable as the feeling of his soul being transformed, it still overruled all of his thoughts.

He quickly retreated his influence back towards his being in the crystal rooms, he felt his lingering influence in his conquered veins. He could feel what happened there, but he could not manipulate it, he could see it with an uncanny accurate vision, but he could not change it.

The headache became progressively worse as he retreated his influence, until he had retreated back into his being. His comprehension reigning over all of his veins, but his influence only extending to his soul. The migraine went away the moment his influence was removed from his veins, and his body.

Daelyn’s mind was tired from all of the exhaustion he had experienced. He involuntarily drifted into sleep as his consciousness left him, and he fell into a comatose like sleep.

His slumber was only disturbed as he felt multiple sensation from outside. He heard a soft yet high voice let out a yelp, he suddenly felt cold, and he could hear stomping around his room as if an elephant had entered it.

As if a miracle had happened, he awoke from his comatose slumber.

He opened his eyes, and looked around his room. He had slept for quite a bit of time. He did remember being carried by his mom, so he figured she must have put him to bed.

As he groggily started to get up out of bed, he heard shouting in the living room. As he stood up from his bed, he felt a large headache and saw a lot of colours flashing before his eyes. He sat back down on the bed, and as the pain subsided he thought ‘You’d think that waking up after having a nice nap would be nice, but noooo. You just have to get out of bed with shouting and another migraine, and combined with having a colour book instead of eyes, results in a shitty morning.’

He was truly going to puberty, both mentally and physically.

As he made his way towards the doorway of his room, he saw his parents, and three other dark elves. It seemed like one was cowering behind my father, and one was lecturing the last one.

As I approached the dark elf holding my father’s leg, I noticed that she was very small. She seemed to be around one year old. Is it save to have a one year old be on her own like that? Oh wait! Dark elves age slower and have their growth spurts at later ages, of course!

As I approached them, the dark elf woman lecturing the child suddenly looked at me. She was about to say something as her attention was directed towards me, and suddenly all of the gazes in the room were directed towards me.

The three dark elves and my mother and father looked at me. Not knowing how to act, and still being quite sleepy, I said: “Good morning” with a groggy voice.

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The expression of the three adult dark elves softened as they heard me say that with a look that clearly betrayed how long I have been asleep.

I turned towards my mother and said: “Mom, can I eat something? I haven’t eaten anything since this morning, and after meeting Orthrus, I’m quite hungry.”

“Of course sweety. But first you have to introduce yourself to the guests.”

Suddenly, I realised that these were people I did not know. I was being rude! Oh, I hope they do not mind it that much.

I quickly walked over to them, and with a bow I introduced myself: “Goodday, my name is Daelyn, I’m three years old, and I’m son to Lyvia and Grey Theandor. Pleased to meet you.”

As I had introduced myself, I straightened by body to see the reactions of the guests. The dark elf woman seemed to be pleased with my introduction as she displayed an expression of adoration. However, the two smaller ones did not seem to like it.

The smaller one of the two seemed to stammer something, and as I came closer to her, she shouted.

“MONSTER!!”

I quickly turned around scanning my surroundings, I saw no such monster.

“Where? Where?” I said with a panicked voice.

Both Grey and Lyvia burst out in laughter at seeing this spectacle, while Celeria could only just about stifle her laugh as she thought it was quite funny. Daelyn did it in such an obscene and dramatic way, they could not help but laugh.

However, as the three adults heartily laughed, Ania did not think it was funny.

‘Why are they laughing? There is a monster in front of them! I must protect them!’

She reacted quickly and grabbed a hidden knife from her boot. She had been given some advice from the guards, while most of it was just some dumb gibberish, she took one advice to heart. ‘Always carry a weapon, it doesn’t matter what kind, just carry something you can defend yourself with.’

She was eternally grateful for this advice as she unsheathed the dagger from its scabbard which she had hidden in her right shoe. She gripped the handle with a steeled expression as she charged towards Daelyn.

Daelyn turned around just in time to see the blade coming towards his face, time seemed to slow as he saw the blade coming towards him in slow-motion. He attempted to dodge but that would be futile. He realised this, and raised his arm to meet the blade. A flesh wound sounded better to him than having his brain carved in.

As Ania charged forward, Lyvia, Grey, and Celeria only saw it at the last moments, they saw it as the blade was about to pierce Daelyn’s right arm. Their expressions changed from those of joy and laughter, to horror and shock.

As the blade penetrated the skin, and made its way through Daelyn’s flesh. He grit his teeth, it hurt like hell, but he had felt worse, far worse.

The blade went through Daelyn’s arm, and only stopped centimetres away from his face as the small  guard of the knife was stopped at the point of entry. His quick thinking had saved his life.

As the girl was about to withdraw the blade from Daelyn’s flesh and try to assault him once again, he gripped the handle of the blade with his left hand and tried to hold it in place at all costs, he would not let her strike twice.

However, Daelyn had forgotten something. Dark elves were stronger than humans, and the girl withdrew the blade with ease despite Daelyn’s attempts to stop her.

As Daelyn braced himself for another attack, he closed his eyes, he had only been able to see the world in slow-motion for a few seconds, and the pain had brought his mind back to normal. He waited for the girl to attack him again, but as she held the knife above her head, her wrist was grabbed by Lyvia’s hand.

Lyvia lifted up to her eye level, smiled, and said with an expression that could only described as devilish: “What were you doing little girl?”

Ania might have been able to hold out against her mother, but against this lady, she could not. She looked so scary, and she looked extremely mad. Her lips parted, and her voice sounded like she was trying to control her anger: “What, were, you, doing?”

The little girl began chattering her teeth as she was too scared of the dark elf in front of her to even stammer the most basic of words.

While Lyvia was interrogating Ania, Daelyn was sitting on his knees on the ground. The wound hurt, and it was bleeding. He felt his energy and his blood leave his body as his connection to it weakened.

He felt he could manipulate it, and he tried. He tried to have the blood continue its cycle inside of his body, while he used it and the energy the blood contained to heal himself. He remembered the map he had made of his own body, and used it. He sought out all the details of his stab wound, and directed his energies and his blood to heal it.

He tried to will the energies inside of his blood to heal him, but nothing happened. His blood returned to his body, but he could do nothing with it.

He remembered the map he had made of his veins, and used it to reinstate even the smallest veins in the stab wound. As he thought more and more about how to heal the wound, he suddenly had an epiphany of information waltz into his mind.

The natural healing process of a wound concerned it first closing up with a reaction between the blood and an protein called fibrinogen. These create another protein, fibrin, which covers up the wound. After the wound is covered up, and is disinfected by the body, the cells start to split to regenerate the lost cells.

Daelyn had no idea where this information came from, but he did know that he was going to put it to good use. He started the process of clothing the wound, accelerated it, he used the energy in his blood to kill any bacteria or virus, and finally he started the process of cell division or mitosis. He fed the cells his blood filled with energy, which had them grow in less than seconds and split once again. Daelyn continued to do this until the wound was healed.

Grey, Ayda, and Celeria stood next to Daelyn was they were about to address the wound, as it addressed itself. They saw the peculiarity of the blood returning to the wound, and the wound closing at an unbelievable speed.

Ayda looked on with a scared expression, Grey gazed at the process with wonder in his eyes, and Celeria was completely baffled at the display.

As Ayda started to become more and more distressed, she cried.

Hearing her cry, Lyvia looked down, only to see the wound closing at the last second and the eschar peeled off. It looked like it never happened, but she had just seen the wound.

She looked away from Daelyn and looked at both Celeria and Grey, both baffled at the display, but in different ways. They could only watch as the healing process ended, and the room was shrouded in silence for several moments.

Celeria was the first to speak up.

“W-what just happened? How did the wound heal so fast, and how did the blood go back into his body?” She asked with a stammering voice, as she failed to hide her anxiety.

Lyvia could only sigh before answering her: “I will explain in a bit, but before that, please calm down Ayda.”

Celeria regained her composure as she picked up Ayda and started rocking her. She turned towards Lyvia with a face that was expecting answers.

“We will tell you later, we wanted to tell you anyway, but not so soon. I trust you to hold your tongue, but your children are another story, especially Ania.” She said as she directed her gaze upon the girl that was still suspended in the air.

As Ania once again gained the woman sneering glare, she could not help but cry. She was too scared to make any sense of the situation, and this woman was too scary.

So, before any answers were giving, two children needed to be calmed down.

As they looked at Daelyn, they saw his complexion, and both Grey and Lyvia were not happy when they did. His complexion was only slightly better than this morning. He must have used quite a bit of magic power and blood to heal that wound.

Lyvia decided that calming the children down would be priority number one, punishment would come later.

They took the children and sat them down at the table. They gave Daelyn food to recover from using his magic, and started to comfort the two girls. They were still crying from either Daelyn’s presence, his performance, or Lyvia’s performance.

Celeria had seen Lyvia’s gaze, while she was a bit irked about someone scaring her daughter like that, she could not blame Lyvia. She loved her children, and would also be infuriated if something happened to them.

Half an hour and multiple pieces of candy and chocolate later, the two girls had calmed down and stopped crying, and Daelyn’s complexion had become a little better.

As the girls had finally stopped crying, Celeria looked upon them with a stern gaze as she thought about the events that had transpired. She could not help but sigh as she started her questioning.

“Ania, why did you stab Daelyn?” She asked with a soothing yet demanding voice.

Ania could only look on in fear for as her mother asked her this question, she murmured an answer nobody could hear.

“Could you please speak up dear? We would like to know why you stabbed Daelyn?”

Celeria said every word with a smile plastered on her face, and the most calm tone one could muster, but her words carried daggers.

“Because, he *murmers*”

“Sorry, dear, could you repeat that?” She once again said with a warm smile, yet cold tone.

Ania stood on her chair and shouted at the top of her lungs: “Because he is a monster!”