Warrior of Light

mrsquishr

Chapter 3: The Heart of the Matter

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For Lucien the next few years were filled with a monotonous grind of tempering his body and maintaining his image of normalcy. After changing his eyes with the Light, he knew that his body would have to develop to sustain the greater flow of Light that further improvements would need, and so bided his time quietly.

By the time his fourth birthday rolled around, Lucien could feel that he was finally ready make more adjustments, his body sufficiently tempered by the Light cycling through him. He had spent his time drawing as much energy into his system as he could and had taken to sitting by the window while staring directly at the sun. His reservoir had swelled, and Lucien could feel it straining faintly in his chest. In the dark of night, he could now spot a faint luminescence emanating from behind his ribs, and the first order of business would be to improve the simple circle containing the burning Light.

Lucien chose the night after his fourth birthday to enact his plan, and waited until he was certain everyone else in the house was asleep. Standing from his bed, he walked to his door and crammed his blanket between the cracks in the doorframe, as well as ensuring his curtains completely covered his window. He didn’t know how flashy this was going to be, but it would suck if someone saw the glow and came to investigate. He could not be interrupted during the procedure.

Laying down in the middle of the room, Lucien slowly sank into a meditative trance. As his breath slowed, so too followed his heartbeat, and he began gathering his willpower. Slowly drawing Light from his reservoir, and gathering it above his chest, Lucien placed a balled-up shirt into his mouth to stop from biting his tongue.

This would not be so simple as the small circle he had carved previously, and the pain would likewise be incomparable to the earlier procedure. The increase in power would mean that a surge of Light would scour his veins, building into a new cycle that would far outstrip his current one.

Slowly Lucien gathered the Light into a line, compressing it until it resembled a small scalpel blade. Starting at his solar plexus, he carefully cut up towards his collarbone, then brough the blade back down to the start of the cut. Turning the knife, he traced along his ribs until he reached his side, then pulling it away and splitting it into multiple pieces.

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Peeling back the skin and muscle covering his small ribcage, the heat from the blade ensured that the blood had no time to escape his cauterized veins. Once the correct spot was revealed, Lucien kept the skin pinned with one of his hands and reformed the shards of Light into two serrated discs. Staring at them, they began to spin quickly, then began to sever the ribs covering his heart, revealing the burning circle of Light to the open air. He had no worry of infection with the Light coursing through him, as no disease would be able to survive the blazing heat.

Pulling the ribs back, Lucien recombined the two discs of Light into one mass and brought it down over the circle on his weakly beating heart. Carefully, small streams split off and began to flow first into, then away from the circle, burning trails across his flesh. Wrapping around the back of his heart, tracing out complex whirls and patterns on the surface of the organ. This would create a cage around his heart, trapping the Light and allowing for the eventual conversion of his heart into his core once enough power had gathered.

As the Light finished its task Lucien quickly reabsorbed it into his system and placed the ribs back over his heart, before laying the flesh of his chest back over them. Channeling a burst of Light into it, the seams glowed white and small amounts of smoke wafted up from them as they were sealed.

Lucien relaxed with a sigh and lay on the floor panting for several more minutes. Eventually though, he knew he could put it off no longer, and slammed his eyes shut. Focusing on the light cycling through his veins he began to draw it back into his heart, quickly filling it almost to bursting. Once he had every drop of power that he had painstakingly absorbed over the last 4 years of effort pulsing in his chest, he pushed through the agonizing burn and began to guide it over the complex scrip now covering his heart.

The light in the circle began to seep out into the fresh channels slowly, but then quickly gathered speed and blazed across the surface. Once the channels were filled Lucien felt his heart weakly beat, before it expanded and contracted hard, letting out a thud that shook his whole body. With this beat, Light surged back into his veins, and he redoubled his focus on guiding it through this new cycle.

Lucien could tell immediately that the large veins and arteries he had used previously could no longer contain the flow of power now coursing through him, and so directed it to seep into the surrounding smaller veins and capillaries. He felt all his muscles contract suddenly, in one giant cramp fueled by the new flow of Light, and it was all he could to not scream in pain. He felt his body burn from the inside, old muscle and flesh flaking away before being regrown just as quickly. Frantically guiding the Light along the last bit of the cycle, Lucien felt it reenter his heart and start the cycle again with the next powerful beat of his reinforced heart, bringing another wave of agony coursing through him.

This continued, wave after wave of Light burning the mortality from his flesh and remaking as something better, and it was several minutes before he was able to break through the haze that had fallen over him. Spitting the shirt out of his mouth, Lucien rolled onto his stomach before slowly pushing himself onto all fours. Smiling grimly, he was reminded of the last time he had changed himself and began to crawl towards his bed.

Dragging himself on top of his sheets, after several minutes of deliberate effort, he lay his head on his pillow and tried to slow his breathing. Gradually the gasps of air faded, and he drifted into an uneasy rest.