Chapter 69

Metamorphosis

  Burning pain awoke Lykan to the state he was in. On the bright side, he felt that he could now survive, if barely the contamination that had taken root within his body. Yet, there was something wrong. Something horribly wrong.

  Magic, or the guiding force in the world was being denied to him. His control and feel of magic were being severed, all while the pains he was feeling from the corruption inside his body were burning away slowly. Only then to leak out of his frayed meridians and burn onto his skin.

  His body tried to adapt, healing as quickly as it could. But there was no use. The more his body tried to cope with the pain, the more burning corruption formed within his body to then be burned away. Only then to cool in the crisp night air, to then form and meld with his body.

  He felt layer after layer of his skin get melted away, only to be reformed with the burning miasma of corrupted Qi energy. Then his body would heal, only to be remade and formed with the corrupted Qi becoming a part of his body.

  Just when the pain was too much. A shining light of hope filled his vision.

  The gods have seen your plight and offer you two options. There is just one problem, your status as an immortal has taken your soul out of the cycle of death and rebirth. Do you wish to end this existence, knowing that you would never be added back to the cycle of death and rebirth? Or do you wish to continue with a cursed blessing from the gods? [End] or [Continue]

  Lykan looked at the message and it wasn’t even a choice really. [Continue] Lykan thought and tried to say, though his word came out as more of a cough than anything. His lungs burned from the intense heat that he was now suffering.

  Cursed Blessing Bestowed. Magic Immunity.

  Magic Immunity. You are now immune to the opposing forces of the world. You are unable to interact with or be acted upon by the external energies of the world. You are still able to see the magic of the world, but its grace and majesty will forever be denied to you. As this is a blessing it will be hidden from mundane skills and magical abilities that help others evaluate people.

  With that, Lykan felt a calm peace wash over him as the burning that had been consuming his body slowly abated. To sum up Lykan’s thoughts and emotions at the exact moment after he received the blessing, relief. He felt relief from the pains of the world.

  Slowly he began to relax, as the pains that had been tightening and contorting his body into spasms slowly abated. Finally, he was left with nothing more than the faint feel of a foreign entity within his body, but was relieved to find that it was just there. The corruption from his personal wounds, along with the corruption from the dragon he had merged with was within his body.

  Only now after the fact, was he able to think about what happened. He looked to see that the disfigured dragon had changed. Or rather reverted back to the size of a regular psychic dragon. The disgusting transformations that had been overtaking it were now gone entirely.

  He looked and was surprised to see that a bond now bound the dragon to Nayali. Then looking at Nayali he found another figure. Lykan paused as he tried to understand what he was seeing. After a few seconds he realized it looked like a spirit of some kind had superimposed itself over Nayali. Before he could go down that train of thought too far, Nayali spoke.

  “What happened?”

  “What?” Lykan asked, shaking his head as it looked like the spirit was speaking frantically, but Lykan was unable to understand what the spirit who was possessing Nayali said.

  “I said what happened? Our bond. The bond from the duel that bound us, it is now missing?” Nayali asked.

  Lykan looked at her and was surprised to see that the magical bond of old-world magic that had bonded them was in fact now severed.

  “It is my blessing. I was offered it to survive and live on.” Lykan answered.

  “What? What do you mean?” Nayali asked. The more she spoke, the more the spirit around her began to speak wildly, shaking uncontrollably.

  “Are you possessed by a spirit?” Lykan asked, gesturing to the figure that looked familiar somehow, but could not stand still.

  Nayali paused for a second, then realized “you can see her?”

  “Barely, she won’t sit still long enough to get a good view. I take it she is a high wood elf priestess?” Lykan asked, the fact that this was a high wood elf priestess who helped with such a joining was impossible to miss. Lykan guessed it was the high priestess herself who would help with such a joining.

  Nayali paused for a second. Finally, so did the face of the spirit who was imposed over Nayali’s face.

  “You don’t recognize her?” Nayali asked.

  Staring Lykan could see someone, but the features were blurred and hidden by Nayali’s face. Then he saw her clearly, “Octavia?”

  Upon hearing the word, the figure went wild with movements. It was clear that the spirit was speaking, but Lykan was unable to hear the words.

  Nayali just paused, as she read the look of confusion on Lykan’s face. “You really can’t hear her, can you?”

  Lykan had been one of the most experienced and capable with magic. His senses were so high that he could tell what types of magic were being used, even while he was dealing with his injuries. But now it was clear that he was missing the obvious state of magic as Octavia was all but screaming at him.

  Tears ran down the ghost’s cheeks.

  Nayali looked at Lykan, only to see that the glowing golden eyes that had once shown so brightly, were now back to their original brown hue. Or at least that is what Nayali thought would be his original hue. He had spoken often about how his eyes were brown before his time with the wood elves and sounded surprised that they had somehow changed after his stay with the high wood elves.

  Now it seemed that whatever magic he had been given by the great forest spirit, during his stay in her sacred forest had now been severed. Which led her back to her original question?

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  “What happened? Why do you look so different?”

  Hearing that Lykan let out a slight chuckle.

  “What? What’s so funny?”

  Shaking himself Lykan tried to regain his composure. “I guess the old saying is true. One can never truly change their destiny, only delay it.”

  Nayali was concerned by the comment for a moment, and before she could break in to ask what he meant Lykan continued.

  “I was given a choice, either I could die and stop suffering, or I could receive a cursed blessing that would let me live. Unfortunately, I am apparently immortal, which would mean that dying would be permanent for my soul. As such I chose to live with the cursed blessing. The blessing I received was Magic Immunity.” Lykan said with a faint chuckle, as he began to collapse to the ground.

  Nayali stared at him with confusion for a moment, wanting to comfort him but there was so much to unpack in that confession. First, he was immortal? Also being immortal meant that one’s soul was removed from the cycle of reincarnations. Also, there were such things as cursed blessings? Then finally her mind landed on the most important part, Magic Immunity?

  She paused looking at him, as so many things started to make sense. The sudden severing of their magical bond. The way Octavia could no longer cast her spells of purification on Lykan. The way he all but lost his glowing golden eyes. He was cut off entirely from magic. A sad look filled her face as she looked on at Lykan with pity and sorrow.

  “Six…no seven years, today…” Lykan said, looking off into the distance. This was the same look everyone had when they looked at their status. Hearing that Nayali twisted her head, once more confused by his words. It was clear that Lykan was going through a lot, and honestly Nayali was not sure how she could be of help.

  “Seven years?” Nayali asked curiously.

  Forcing a broken smile to his lips Lykan nodded, “yeah seven years. I as eleven when I was cast out for having Magic Immunity. Now seven years later, on my birthday apparently, I got the same cursed blessing that made me a pariah to my homeland.”

  Nayali didn’t know what to say to that, didn’t know what she could say to that, other than “happy birthday?”

  Chuckling the sad defeated chuckle of someone who just hit rock bottom Lykan smiled.

  “Thanks.” He said after a minute of silence.

  The two stood there for a few minutes. Octavia for her part spoke to Nayali.

  “For what it’s worth Octavia says she is sorry.” Nayali said.

  Lykan turned towards the two that were inhabiting one body. Lykan not feeling like saying much just nodded.

  “She asks what you will do now?”

  There was a long silence, before Lykan got to his feet, dusted off his torn and well-worn clothes. Then he gathered his travel bag and began walking.

  “Wait, where are you going?” Nayali quickly said, grabbing her things and trying to follow Lykan.

  The psychic dragon Florijma looked on in confusion for a second before following its new bonded partner.

  “We have five more pillars to cleanse.” Lykan said.

  Then as if that was enough, Lykan continued.

  He had a lot to think about. He knew there were better ways to cleanse the corruption from the dragon and from himself. The simplest way would be to just cleanse the sources directly. When there was a joining, all the corruption went towards Lykan side due to his damaged meridians effectively suctioning off all the waste into his body. This worked out perfectly for the dragon, but not so much for Lykan.

  Had she treated them independently they would have both been fine. Yet, why had Octavia done something so stupid? Did she want him to bond with a dragon?

  Now Lykan wasn’t even certain if he could. While not technically magic, at least not compared to the current standards old-world laws were in a way magic. Also given the link between him and Nayali had been severed it was clear that the blessing might stop him from using old-world laws as well. While he was certain the old-world laws that he enacted would stay, he wasn’t certain if he could create new ones. It was apparent that anything that was bound to him directly had been severed upon receiving the cursed blessing.

  Did Octavia read Nayali’s mind and find that she was disappointed with the bond? Is that why she made such events happen?

  So many thoughts went through his mind. The most important of which was that he had been a fool. He thought Octavia had cared for him, but clearly that had all been in his mind. Why else did she not try to use the rituals that would link them during the full moon. Looking up, he saw the waning rays of the full moon lighting up the night sky, it was clear that she could use such a ritual as she was here now. Likely using a version of the spell, though this time to join with a budding future priestess of the great forest spirit.

  So many thoughts, so many emotions flooding through him. He wanted to turn back and ask Octavia if she had ever had feelings for him, or if it had all been in his mind. Then again, they were only together for five forced years. To an elf such time is meaningless. To Lykan, such a time had been his entire existence. But that was two years ago now. Two years where she could move on.

  He wanted to turn back and ask her why she did what she did, but in the end, he knew he couldn’t. He was too much of a coward to ask. He also made plans.

  In a way this was better, at least that is what he told himself. He was free of any emotional bondage between himself and Nayali. Clearly Nayali had some harsh feelings for him, for Octavia to act the way she had.

  As he walked, he tried to go through what he could still do.

  It was clear that magic was gone. A quick test also revealed that the old-world laws and their form of magic were also banned to him.

  He then went and delicately placed a finger on the runed bracelet he wore. It was a simple test bracelet that was used to help him constantly practice his technique. With little surprise he could not fill it the normal way, with mana. But when he tried Avensa’s way, filtering everything through his mind first he found he still could.

  This was good, as it meant he could still go back to the art of rune crafting as a profession. From there he tried his skills and found that they still worked. He was particularly surprised to see that his Qi infusion and Qi cultivation also worked. So, it was clear that Qi, at least as far as his cursed blessing was concerned, was not magic. This was good.

  Nodding to himself, he made plans to move on. He had been bound far too long to two places. Two places that spit him up and discarded him once he was no longer useful.

  “Lykan.” Nayali said, a tone of regret in her voice.

  Lykan turned back to see her. He looked at the glowing face of Octavia and part of his heartbeat in a pained filled rhythm. Just looking at her glowing features made his heart ache.

  “For what it’s worth she is sorry.” Nayali said.

  Hearing the words Lykan huffed, then turned his head away before his emotions could give him away.

  “Lykan please say something.” Nayali pressed.

  Lykan wanted to say something, but his emotions were too raw. He had too many thoughts flowing through his mind, and he knew if he spoke now he would only speak out in anger. Shaking his head, he continued his way forward. He had five more pillars to clear in this immediate area, before he could move on. That was his goal, he needed something to keep his mind occupied and away from diverging thoughts.

***

  Had he turned back he would have seen Nayali and Octavia speaking. “What have I done?” Octavia cried out in her mind.

  Nayali for her part felt lost. She was able to see and experience the minds of everyone she met. However, there was now one glaring hole in her ability to sense and read minds, Lykan. She could not for the life of her connect to his mind at all. Still, she didn’t need to be an empath to know he was feeling some sort of way. The only problem, when she tried to read him, he had too many thoughts going through his head.

  “I can’t feel him. I can’t feel him anymore. It’s like he’s lost to me.” Octavia cried out from within her mind.

  “Don’t worry. I will talk to him. I will fix this.” Nayali said, though she knew here words were mostly just empty promises. Truthfully, Nayali didn’t think anything could fix this, at least not anything she could do. But she had to say something to her sister priestess. In a way she felt partly to blame for this mess. She had hoped that Octavia would do something reckless to ruin her chances with Lykan. But she had no way of knowing this would be the result, neither of them did.

  The further they walked, the more the night sky began to give way to the glowing rays of light on the horizon.

  “This spell will break with the morning rays of the sun. When that happens, I will be unable to help until the next full moon. Let him know that this calamity is why I can’t…” Octavia’s final thought was cut off as the rays of the morning sun arose casting light on a new day. Whether it was a trick of the light, or an effect of having already conquered one of the pillars, Nayali could see off in the distance five dark patches that she assumed were where the dark pillars stood. Looking at them it was clear that Lykan too could see or sense them as he was on a path heading towards the closest one.

  She wanted to say something, but guilt forced her to stop. She knew she was partly to blame for what happened. She had purposefully not told Octavia that the man she was treating was Lykan. Someone she clearly had feelings for. Instead, she let her own biases of males and human males in general guide her down a path of no return. The only problem was that everything had gone so wrong.

  How do I fix this? She asked herself, only to realize that somethings once broken cannot be fixed, not truly.