I awoke to a feeling of weightlessness. The headache that had been plaguing me for the past several days was gone. In fact, my body felt better than I could ever remember. All the pain and fatigue that had stalked me for the past several months was completely erased. I could not even remember the last time I had felt so comfortable.
With some reluctance, my eyes fluttered open. I tried to look around at my surroundings, only to find myself suspended in a vat of purple liquid. I scowled in frustration. If Mare had used me in one of her experiments again without my consent, I was going to burn her core to dust. I did not care what the outcome was.
“You’re awake? That happened faster than I expected. Try not to move around too much yet. The process is still settling in.”
I peered through the purple liquid to find the source of the muffled voice. The hulking body of Svend was hunched over a ridiculously small console covered in pulsing lights. My irritation grew as my initial hunch was proven right. While I was sleeping, I had indeed been dragged into another experiment. At least this time there was not any pain.
Despite wanting nothing more than to bust out of the vat of liquid holding me, I was somewhat wary it might cause some unknown side effect. I waited patiently for several minutes and watched Svend work. I did not entirely understand what he was reading out on the small console but he seemed ecstatic and thrilled by what he saw there.
While he worked, I closed my eyes and tried examining my body to see exactly what might have been done while I slept. My attention was immediately drawn to the flames coursing through my body. While I had lost my temper against Berith, I had somehow managed to gain some control over the golden flames for the first time. It had been an exuberant feeling but I was not exactly sure what I had done differently. From what I could sense, the inner workings of my innate talents had not changed any. The two flames still flowed through my veins simultaneously, a hair’s breadth from touching. I followed the flow of the flames through my body as I examined them for any differences. It was only when they reached my heart that I noticed any difference. There, the fires swirled around each other like a hurricane. I could feel this swirl of fire drawing in energy, not just from within my body but also from my surroundings. It felt almost the same as when I trained. The power slowly grew and condensed to become stronger and stronger but unlike normal training, this required no focus from me.
I smiled in joy as I floated peacefully in the vat of purple liquid. This hurricane of energy was not something I was unfamiliar with. It was a sign that I was close to reaching a higher stage within the realm of my domain. If it finished forming completely, I would no longer be unable to harm the Demons when we fought. I would have enough power to put them on the defensive.
What interested me the most, however, was not just the hurricane but something else I sensed floating in the eye of the storm, a single spark of golden fire. It was smaller than a grain of sand, completely unnoticeable if you did not look very closely but it was there.
I was so delighted by the discovery I almost did not notice the purple liquid around me begin to drain away. However, no amount of joy at my discovery was going to erase my frustration at being used as a test subject once again.
I coughed up purple liquid as my lungs filled with air. I slumped against the glass of the pod and took deep breaths.
“You have… ten seconds to explain what you did to me before I burn you to charcoal,” I said through gasping breaths.
Svend replied with a nervous laugh. “Don’t get mad at me. You agreed to this.”
“When? When did I agree to get experimented on again?”
“Remember, I told you I was working on a way for the first generation of the Divine Body to reach the same level as one from an ancestral line? You agreed to one dose for you and each of your family members once I figured out the few kinks in the process.”
“You succeeded already, despite the busy chaos of the war?” I remarked in amazement as I picked myself up off the ground.
Svend coughed in embarrassment. “Honestly, the Preateritum remnant did most of the work. Even if I had several decades and hundreds of test subjects, I would not be able to get the same results Mare did in a few minutes. It is kind of frightening.”
“Does that mean I have a Divine Body now too,” I asked, nearly hopping with excitement.
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“Yes and no,” Svend replied as he scratched his head, “I am not sure what we did really counts as a Divine Body. It is a bit different but we have to wait for your body to stabilize before we can test the exact changes. Try not to exert yourself for the next few hours.”
I nodded as I stepped out of the glass vat. I accepted a towel Svend handed me and attempted to dry my matted hair with it. “That reminds me, how long was I out? Did my plan succeed?”
“Worked like a charm,” Svend said with a big thumbs up, “The march of chaos was nothing short of a masterpiece. I have never seen soldiers move in such a disorganized way without causing problems but any time an enemy tried to take advantage of the chaos, there were always several units of soldiers in position to fight them. It was as if a disorganized cacophony of music somehow created a symphony. In the meantime, while you were distracting Berith, the innate talents we gathered managed to tunnel from under Dragon’s Nest and into the blood mist. Sebastion, Vissna, and I were able to rampage through the Demonkin army for nearly five minutes before the Demons that were fighting our other domain warriors noticed what had happened. In that time, we killed twelve Alphas, eighty-seven mature Demonkin, and no telling how many of the weaker ones. Meanwhile, Dragon’s Nest was able to slip into the blood mist completely uncontested. We are now flying at top speed towards Ater-Albus. We are about twelve hours in already and I estimate we will arrive in two days.”
“Probably to a reception of six very angry Demons,” I replied with a chuckle.
“Over half of the domain warriors are with us. I am sure we can handle whatever they can throw at us.”
“Let’s just hope General Arthur can handle the war without us for a week.”
Svend nodded solemnly. “This is a big gamble. If more than two Demons decide to stay on the front lines rather than stopping us, the stalemate will be broken and the alliance will be overwhelmed.”
“Don’t worry,” I said as I draped the towel over my shoulders and laughed. “The Demons cannot risk letting me reach Ater-Albus. All I need to do is reach the vault and reclaim my chronicle to regain my full strength and Berith knows it. I would not be surprised if they abandoned their Demonkin army completely just to stop that from happening.”
“Of course, that is assuming we can even reach the palace. Have you thought of a way past the splinter cannons protecting the city?”
“Sebastion said he would handle it,” I replied with a shrug, “I trust him to keep his word. After all, he knows more about their locations and blind spots than I do.”
“I hope so,” Svend mumbled.
I located the door out of the horrible testing room and waved at Svend as I left. “Let me know when I can test this new Divine Body of mine. Right now, I am famished.”
Svend nodded as he turned back to the small console covered in numbers I could not even begin to understand. “As soon as I finish examining this we can begin.”
I hurried out of the laboratory and after finding a new set of clothes, I made my way to the kitchen. Dragon’s Nest had grown increasingly busy in the past few hours I had been unconscious. There were now twelve people here, not including myself or the menagerie of animals that followed me around. Dad and Donte were both training with Sigmund the sword saint. Charly was in the library with Ghost. Sebastion was teaching Tia while the two of them avoided their father, Dom. As usual, Vissna was gorging herself on free food in the kitchen where to my surprise, Cyra was teaching my mom how to cook.
The other domain warriors like Ragnar and the Bellator elites all remained behind with the army. While I was confident the Demons would gather most of their forces to prevent me from being able to enter Ater-Albus, we could not leave the allied forces completely defenseless. I expected at least one Demon would remain behind to command the Demonkin horde and at least half the Alphas. If I took every domain warrior with me, the allied army would likely be routed within just a couple days.
“Mom, you are not preparing dinner, right?” I asked cautiously as I entered the kitchen.
“You missed dinner, sweetheart,” Mom said without looking up from the meat sizzling in the pan in front of her, “If you are feeling better though, I saved a plate for you, over there.”
I looked at the plate skeptically. I could not entirely tell what it was supposed to be but it resembled charcoal more than food. “Maybe… I am not very hungry.”
Cyra chuckled as she pointed to a different counter. “I made the plate over there. Everything else is for our giant lizard disposal system.”
I sighed in relief at the much more normal-looking food nearby. I felt Mom’s eyes on my back as I hurried over to the food but pointedly ignored her glare as I hurried away with the meal. Only once I was a safe distance away did I turn back to look at the danger I barely escaped.
I watched as Cyra calmly explained various meat preparation methods. Mom’s eyebrows were knitted together as she stared hard at the dish pan. Her eyes were sparking with electricity as she stared unblinkingly at the food. As I watched, I noticed something off about the scene in front of me. The meat in the pan was sizzling but there was no flame underneath.
“Are you using your electric innate talent to cook food!” I blurted out in surprise.
Mom was too focused to answer so Cyra confirmed my suspicion. “Your mother wanted to practice how to more finely control her talent. Cooking is how I learned. Plus, this way she gets to learn two skills at once.”
“How… how much food did you burn trying to learn this, Mom?” I asked, dreading the answer.
Sitting nearby, Vissna burped loudly. “Enough that I am actually starting to feel full,” The dragon said with a satisfied grin.
Mom’s face had turned red as she avoided my gaze. Electricity sparked from her fingers and the smell of burnt meat filled the room.