I pumped the light mana into my body as quickly as I could. The death cores the monsters had left behind were spewing out the mana they contained so quickly it was absurd, I had to figure out what to do about it. Light mana had helped me think before, I hoped it would do so again.

It didn't take long at all for my saturation to reach the point where I shifted into a floating being made of light. The world around me seemed to slow, but I knew it was just a matter of my perception. I had mentally called for an Aspect that would let me think quickly, and the light mana did not disappoint. I took note of the Concepts involved for later use.

The mana didn't just stop at speeding up my thoughts, it offered me options.

The first option, and the one I felt it strongly recommending, was to do nothing. The trees were spawned from me, and as such, it was highly likely that they would have some ability to absorb and use just about any kind of mana.

The problem with this idea was that the mana wasn't absolutely certain that my trees had that capability. No one knew what they were yet, and it was only a simple likelihood that they would have that function. They were not mana beasts, they were trees that held the genetic data of my tree form. Many of the things that made me special were tied into the Concepts attached to me, not my genes. If the trees couldn't absorb the mana like I did, it would likely kill them, as they seemed highly life attuned.

I couldn't take that risk. I needed certainty, I absolutely had to protect them.

The second option was to eat one of the cores, and use the mana in it to power my life core. Combining my ability to eat the mana they were expelling with an aura of life would bolster my trees, and wipe the death zones that were being created away.

The problem with that option was that it would take time, and I would have to push out a lot of life mana. There was a chance that so much life mana would cause my trees to evolve. My instincts were fine with that idea, it would undoubtedly make them more powerful. I was not, I did not want to risk turning them into sentient beings if they weren't already on that path.

Option three was to move the cores, scatter them in the forest, away from my trees. They would kill everything near them for a while, but nature would eventually push back the death mana on its own. I could, again, eat one of the cores to wipe away the remnants of death mana with my life core. It would be quick, and the chances of the life mana having any affect on my trees with that short of a burst were low.

I thought about that one for a while, it was an incredibly viable option. I didn't want to leave patches of death around, though. It seemed unkind, it felt like littering. I couldn't do that.

The fourth option it offered was to take the cores to the place where the thing I would have to fight in a little less than a month was. Whatever it happened to be, it sure was sucking up the local mana. It would suck up the death mana if I dropped the cores near it, I knew that much.

What that mana would do to it was less clear. It could go either way, or so the light mana told me. There was a possibility that absorbing death would weaken it, if it conflicted with what it was. There was also the possibility that it would be empowered by it. Either way, the cores would be dealt with, and I would be able to clear out the remains easily.

It sounded risky; I had suspicions about what it was that was forming, and I didn't want to empower it with death. But it also seemed like the best option for my needs so far.

There was one last option that the mana offered me. It was rated lowest on its recommendations, and there was a good reason for that. I could eat all of the cores myself, and do my best to break down the Concepts they contained. Two of them were strong cores, like the alpha primates. I wasn't willing to do that, now that I knew the risks.

Accidentally having a death mana Concept attach itself to me seemed like the worst possible idea. I could probably eat one core and process it just fine, it hadn't been much of a problem with the ice cores. But I didn't want to take the risk of eating them all. I would rather risk having a somewhat more difficult fight later.

Decision made, I had to figure out how I would move them. The cores themselves were not large, I could fly with them in my sky terror talons easily enough. The problem was the mana they were giving off. I could fly them there with my death core active, but that would make me a risk to anyone around.

The Aspect I had used to attack the baboons had only worked out so well for me because it had a target. If I hadn't had things to aim at, I wasn't sure I would have been able to keep myself from spreading death to anything living that I saw while under the mana's influence. It wasn't worth the risk.

I would go air. If I pumped myself full of air mana, and went for air Concepts associated with speed, I could make the distance in no time. The mana wouldn't have a chance to harm me much, not if it was only held for a minute. I could eat one of the cores to make sure I had plenty of mana to push it back with. Air wouldn't be as efficient at combating it as life, but it would work.

I nodded to myself and switched my core to air, swooping down to enact my plan as soon as I had a physical form again.

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My eyes darted over the cores, and I quickly picked one to eat. It was the second largest one, and something about it seemed to call out to me more than the others. I landed, and gulped it down, then grabbed the other cores in my claws and took off. The air mana propelled me so fast it almost hurt.

I flew high above the trees, I had to push myself higher still when I came to the area where the mana was being absorbed. I could feel it trying to pull the mana right out of me when I entered its area, it was very dangerous. I dropped the cores into the trees below, and headed back to my trees. I had a core to process, and remnant death mana purge. I felt an urgency to do what I planned quickly, which was probably the mana's influence, I had called for speed after all.

When I went to land near the death mana remnants, I almost crashed. The air mana cushioned me, and kept me from skidding out of control. I could not feel my legs. I hadn't even noticed how bad they were. I could move them, but they were completely numb.

I quickly switched my core to life. I would need it to restore order to the area anyway, and it would likely help me break down the Concepts I held in my belly. With the life core active, there would be no temptation to take them into myself.

Warmth flooded me, and sensation returned to my legs. I regretted my choices. Every nerve in the lower half of my body screamed in pain as the life mana flooded them. It brought healing, but its battle to push back the death mana that had infected my limbs required the flesh to be torn apart first. It made me wish I had chosen the web of life Aspect so I wouldn't have to feel my body heal. But a sour sensation in my stomach reminded me why I hadn't.

It was disgusting. The nugget of decay and sickness I had willingly consumed made me retch. I made an earnest attempt to remove the core from myself, but it wouldn't come up, nothing would. The only way to remove the death mana from myself now was to digest it. I shifted to my mana beast form as soon as my body was healed. It would be easiest, and safest that way.

I sank into the task of breaking down the Concepts. There were only four, it didn't matter to my mind what they were, I needed them eradicated. I would break them down like nature broke down anything rotten, and be done with it.

It was more difficult than my previous experience with the icy water cores. I switched away from life to see if that was the problem, but though I was less repulsed by the Concepts, it remained difficult. I thought perhaps that it was my lack of affinity with death. Water was probably easier for me because it was one of my primary elements.

I do not know how long the process took, but I was utterly exhausted when it was complete, and I slipped into sleep without even being aware that I was doing so.

I opened my eyes in Belua's realm to find myself on top of a large bed in a place void of Concepts. It was what she said she would arrange, and I was thankful for it. I allowed myself to drift off to sleep for a second time, mentally thanking her for the space.

I awoke hungry, which was strange. I had never felt hunger in the goddess's realm before, and I had just consumed so very much mana. There was no way I should be hungry already. It wasn't the pressing desperate hunger of starvation, so I decided to ignore it for the moment, as I so often did. There wasn't any elemental mana to eat in the room anyway, so I would have to go out, or somehow manage to wake up to get food.

There was something far more interesting than my hunger to pay attention to. Torill was sleeping next to me. I didn't want to move and disturb her, so I laid still, enjoying her presence for a while.

It didn't take long for her to wake on her own, and when she did, I had a whole new reason to regret the night's actions.

She somehow knew I was awake, or judged that I had slept long enough, because she hit me on the top of my head. It wasn't a light contact either, if my constitution wasn't so high, she almost certainly would have given me a concussion.

"You idiot! I warned you about eating cores! Now look at what happened! Are you happy?" I heard her heart pounding, her voice told me she wasn't angry with me, she was afraid.

I looked inside myself, trying to see what she meant. Sense Concept seemed to work in Belua's realm, even if most other System abilities didn't.

I saw what she meant. I wasn't just hungry, I was hungry. The Concept had attached itself to me. There was no use denying my mistake, I'd known the risks of eating cores, but done it anyway. I wasn't sure if it happened because the core was one I didn't have an affinity for, or because hungry was a Concept that quite simply applied to me. I was willing to bet it was the latter. I didn't even remember that Concept existing in the core, it must have infected me before I even got started breaking the Concepts down.

I had to be honest with Torill so I sent her a sad, "I'm sorry, cores are just so useful. I can't say I won't do it again."

"Well maybe a couple days with hunger burning in you without any chance of satisfaction will change your mind about that." Now she sounded angry.

"I'm not sure it will, I'm always hungry, I doubt the Concept will make much of a difference. There's seldom been enough mana or food for me to experience being anything but hungry in this life."

"Oh, I didn't know it was that bad. That will make it harder to remove." I heard her sigh. "I suppose we should start trying to get it off you sooner then. I'll have to figure out some other way to get it through your skull that what you are doing is dangerous. I won't always be available to help you with mistakes like this."

I blinked, and moved to look her in the eyes. "You can remove Concepts? I thought it was permanent."

"Well, it's difficult, and it hurts, and depending on how things go, you may lose some strength, but yes, particularly since it thankfully isn't attached to you. It's only attached to your body. Once they become part of your soul they are way harder to get rid of. We should get started now, I think this room might just be the best place for it."

"What happens if we wait? I am not sure I can take the possibility of being weakened until… a couple weeks from now."

Torill's eyes narrowed, "What's happening in a couple weeks Angel?"