Inero-ie emerged in a pitch-black corner of the Grave Tower along with the woman who had remained unconscious during all this time under the careful application of his Qi. Suddenly, his body collapsed and though he tried to use his arms to stop hitting face first, they did not respond. They barely even twitched. At this moment, his body was severely malnourished, a cost for jumping through the darkness repeatedly without letting his body rest. The woman had only made it worse as he bore the cost that should have been hers to bear and it showed.

Under the body suit, his body was left thin like a twig, as though he had not eaten for a considerable amount of time. His face had become healthy due to the healing pod was now dry, his lips were cracked as though they had not touched a drop of water for a long time. It was only under his unbreakable will that he had been able to abuse his own body to such an extent, in one go, without any rest reaching the Layer where the target was currently located. But no more could it endure and no more did it move. He lay there, the body of the woman weighing him down, making sure he could not even wiggle.

Devoid of all strength, unable even to crawl, all of his Qi had already been sucked out before he had to pay with his vitality. He could do nothing but lay there, extracting a trickle of Qi from the Refined Core that had somehow stayed in his mouth. Most of it was expanded to maintain the Melding to keep both hidden while the remaining wisp slowly, and carefully started circulating through his Qi circuits. Before the cycles even started though, the Qi was torn out of his control, his body devouring the Qi. Such was the extent of his Qi deficiency. The only reason he was alive was that he had been through this countless times before.

He could do nothing but slowly circulate the Qi and so he did just that, all while enduring the pain.

***

Time passed and after repeating the same mindnumbing task of extracting the Qi, bringing it into his Qi circuits in an attempt to start the circulation, only for it to be absorbed by his thirsty body. It took hours before even a single cycle could be completed and all this while he had to maintain Melding while keeping the woman unconscious. All this and then there was the sea of pain.

Once the first circulation was completed, from all of the major to the tiniest of circuits, the process sped up, and with it, his body gained some semblance of strength, enough to eventually move aside the unconscious body weighing him down.

‘Finally here,’ the thought passed through his mind now that he had some time to think. The pain and added upon it the unstable condition had forced every iota of his attention on stabilizing himself.

He laid down once again, and soon ice appeared, chaining his body to the floor such that he would not be able to move. Half of the Threads converged on his body information about each and every part of his body, from the blood to skin, to tissues, everything from inside to out, appeared in his senses allowing him to have a clear grasp of his condition. The condition was as he had expected.

Qi circulated through his circuits, multiple circulations completing every second but his physical body was still the same. He knew he could not go about completing the mission in his current state so he used the puppetry technique he had created for such situations.

As the process started the pain intensified even more, becoming even more blinding, even more unbearable but he bore it all the same, his mouth shut tight so much so it felt like his teeth would shatter. But he bore it, he endured it. If he could not even do this much then he would have never created a crazy skill that required him to overload his core for just a few hours of increased power. He would have never sought death which always reduced him to a terrible state but never fulfilled his desire for death. He would not have the capability to crawl back up, to live again, after being reduced to a near-death state time after time.

His muscles were forcefully pushed aside as threads of ice wove to create an imitation of muscles. The cold spread but he had already activated ice Melding so the cold temperature did not affect his physical condition. That did not stop his muscles from tearing. Many split but likewise, they too were stitched together with the threads of ice. His muscles bulged, and ice appeared directly on his bones. Bones that had been strong before but now he had no misconception that they would be able to bear the intense physical activity that would soon follow. Ice likewise wove around the bones, reinforcing them, acting as load bearers for them.

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The agonizing process continued inside his twig-like body. Ripples of the change appeared on his skin, cracking it as a structure was created inside his body.

He endured and endured and kept on creating the structure that would allow him to puppet his own body by using his ability to manipulate ice and his unbending will.

***

Inero-ie stood up, stretching, then jumping, then lightly jogging around an ice column. Just a few seconds was all it took for him to display a level of physical capability that was comparable to when his body was in its peak condition. A few more seconds passed and he had fully adjusted to puppeteering and picked up the unconscious body and stepped towards the exit of the Grave Tower.

As he stood some distance away from the exit, he found a scene he had not seen before, a scene unlike the bland, dark, and gloomy atmosphere of the lower Layers but also much less impacting compared to the bright and vibrant scenery of the top Layer. The light outside was bright enough to disperse the effects of his Melding, it was bright enough to easily see the surroundings. The traffic was moving, some heading inside the Grave Tower, some leaving, others going somewhere else but what was different from lower Layers was the life within the people here.

But he cared not for any of those things. The focus of his attention was the light that was present even around the Grave Tower. The moment he stepped into the light, his Melding would be dispersed and from then on it would not take long for him to be discovered no matter how well he suppressed and hid his Qi.

Among the sea of Threads emerging for his body, most started contracting, growing shorted in size, all but a few hundred Threads. They instead started lengthening, and moved upward, bypassing the thick and cold wall seeped with the aura of death. Wherever the Threads passed, so did his consciousness, expanding as far as the length of that Thread so he could feel the familiar aura of death that had heavily seeped the wall of the tower.

The Threads went through the thick wall and despite being tens of meters above the ground, the light was still bright. They started moving upward, and the light slowly lost its intensity, growing dimmer, and dimmer, and as he finally neared the upper limit to which he could extend the Threads, the space was dark enough for him to maintain his Melding. It was still possible to see the light form up here but it had lost its intensity, the space in between draining the light of all its strength, its ability to banish the darkness.

Inero-ie set the woman on his left shoulder and started climbing until he reached the required height and then jumped, appearing outside. Outside, on the walls of the tower was ice that had never seen light before, he quickly Melded with it and then with the darkness but this time not just to hide but also to reduce his weight. The Qi usage spiked when he did that but it allowed him to dangle on these otherwise smooth walls.

He started climbing even further up until he sensed the train tracks through his Threads. It was exiting from one of the nearby sub-sectors which was a few hundred meters away. The track was firmly secured by the beams extending from the walls of the sub-sectors which act as a base for the train tracks.

His threads rushed towards the nearest sub-sector and after considering all variables, and readjusting the woman, he jumped.

The force cracked the ice but he had been careful that none broke and he was sent accelerating towards the wall of the sub-sector. The pull of gravity was there, a very light tug that was unable to pull him down.

A moment before he crashed against the opposite side, he had been prepared, and the moment his limbs touched the ice, he activated the Melding, his Qi pouring into the ice, strengthening it, making it thicker, stronger, allowing it to bear the impact.

Climbing up was a familiar process much much easier. No howling winds were trying to throw him off, the ice was easy to manipulate, and no monsters were coming to tear him apart. It was easy

He jumped lightly, a slight tug as gravity tried in vain to pull him down, he grabbed onto the beam and pulled himself up. The beams constantly vibrated as the trains, some filled some empty, constantly came and left, some turning and entering a subsector while others continued onward towards their destinations.