Chapter 1076: Taming the Wall - 10th Chamber - Flow Change - 2 |
The inner space hummed with the latent friction of clashing magic, but Selthia was in high spirits. She practically radiated a relaxed, effortless amusement amidst the storm of power.
"In theory, you should have a much larger network," she observed, her gaze tracing the glowing, strained lines of energy coursing through him. "Like mine." She tilted her head, her smile turning almost nostalgic. "Well... Even though mine is crystallized right now, if yours doesn’t continue growing at some point, your development will eventually stagnate."
A brief pause, filled only by the crackle of displaced power.
"All the energy you’re expelling right now, wasting really, could build something substantial for you," she continued. Then, her voice hardened just a fraction. It was the tone of someone drawing a line in the sand. "Though I’m not about to tell you how to transform it without both forces recognizing each other as enemies and annihilating themselves. That would be giving you far more help than the situation demands..."
Ren gritted his teeth, his focus locked on the purple veins creeping up his ankles.
"Right now, I only know how to expel it without it tearing me apart," Ren replied, his voice strained but steady. "I don’t really have another choice." His focus remained on the purification process as he spoke.
Blue continued spreading through the inner space.
He paused. He weighed the risks, the drain on his stamina, and the sheer absurdity of the situation. Then, he offered a concession, something surprisingly generous.
"But if you want to absorb it yourself, rather than letting me purge it into the void..." Ren exhaled a sharp breath. "If it ends this faster, I won’t burn my own energy trying to block you."
She processed his words with the careful scrutiny of someone deciphering hidden traps.
It was a pragmatic offer.
Ren was throwing away energy in the purification process anyway. She could reclaim that lost power without spending resources fighting for it.
The only price? Leaving a system that was already slipping through her fingers earlier.
Silence stretched.
Ren kept working. He couldn’t afford to stop. The corrosive purple lines were now around his hips. Slowly, agonizingly, the brilliant hue of the Mantis crystal reclaimed another few millimeters.
Selthia thought it over.
It wasn’t the frantic calculation that preceded a lethal counterattack. It was a quieter contemplation.
"Nah," she said softly.
Ren broke his concentration just enough to shoot her an incredulous look.
"The amount of energy left in the core, and in the half of the crystal you’re trying so desperately to erase..." She waved a dismissive hand, the casual gesture of someone writing off a minor debt. "It’s really not that much for me. With your friends smashing the siphon on the outside, most of what I’ve hoarded all these years is going back into the network anyway. This small side is not a catastrophic loss."
A beat of silence.
"Honestly? I’d rather just stay and chat for a bit longer."
Without warning, she dropped to the floor. She settled onto the immaterial ground of the crystal space with the total ease of someone lounging in their own living room. Propping her chin in both hands, she fixed him with a look.
It was undeniably coquettish, not forced, but naturally, effortlessly alluring.
Then, she scooted closer. Just a few inches. Very, very slowly.
Ren immediately gathered energy. Mana surged through his veins as he gathered a dense sphere of energy, leveling it directly at her center of mass.
Selthia didn’t flinch. She simply raised an open palm, her movements completely devoid of haste. "Relax. I just want to get a closer look at you."
Ren held the volatile energy at the ready. A second passed. Then another. The blinding glow cast harsh shadows across her amused features.
Finally, with a frustrated sigh, he let the ray dissipate. Blasting an enemy who was sitting cross-legged on the floor, resting her chin on her hands, was technically possible. Tactically unnecessary, though.
He took a mental step back, trying to process the sheer absurdity of the situation.
This wasn’t how he had imagined things going.
He had braced himself for a war of attrition. He had pictured a brutal tug-of-war, both of them ripping at the corrupt energy from opposite ends, tearing the system apart until one of them was violently ejected from the crystal space.
He had prepared for the crushing weight of that life-or-death struggle.
Instead, his sworn enemy was sitting on the floor, elbows resting on her knees. She was watching him sweat and bleed magical energy with the exact same passive interest of a bored passenger watching rain slide down a windowpane.
He exhaled, long and weary.
"Are you seriously the person the corruption chose, of its own free will, to be its main vessel?"
Selthia’s eyebrows shot up.
"I don’t mean that as an insult," Ren clarified quickly, cutting off whatever retort she was forming. "It’s just... the power you control still feels incredibly heavy. It feels profoundly serious. Even when I manage to deflect it perfectly, even when I’m not in immediate danger, it feels ancient. Like it has an oppressive will of its own."
He paused, glancing at her brightly lit, amused face.
"And yet, it chose someone as... ’cheerful’ as you."
Selthia studied him...
Her expression shifted. It wasn’t exactly offended, but it lacked the immediate, breezy acceptance of someone who had missed the slightly abrasive undertone of his observation.
"We’re more alike than you think," she said finally, her voice dropping an octave. "The entity and I."
She turned her gaze toward the shifting landscape of the inner space, watching the blue purity devour the corrupted purple.
"Of course, right now, with the entity crystallized and me acting as the primary siphon, my consciousness bleeds through a lot more. The entity itself is far more rigid and grim when you hear it directly."
She let out a slow breath.
"But the core nature of its energy, how to bend it, how to make it detonate, that was always easier to channel with the body I had when all this started. Raw, intense emotions are a vastly more efficient conduit than any formal training."
She looked back at Ren. The playfulness was gone, replaced by a quiet, reflective sorrow.
"Maybe being a child at the beginning wasn’t a drawback. Maybe it was an advantage. Emotions at that age don’t have the social filters and layers of control you build up later in life. They’re pure. Unadulterated. Even if they look chaotic from the outside." A heavy pause settled over them. "And my real body is still in there... Still frozen at that exact age."
Ren’s hands hesitated for a fraction of a second. The words struck a chord he preferred to keep silent.
"You too," Selthia pointed out. There was no accusation in her tone, just quiet recognition. "The entity tied to you also chose you when you were just a boy, right?"
"I’m not sure it chose me."
"No?"
"I’m not even sure I found it on my own."
His gaze drifted downward.
"There may have been insane luck involved."
"Maybe it was both."
"Maybe."
He forced his attention back to the task. He pushed harder. The pure blue light flared, surging forward to claim more territory. But the backlash was severe; the residual purple lines creeping up his thorax darkened, turning a sickly, necrotic black as they fought his dragon light influence.
A dense silence swallowed the room.
Ren’s mind drifted into dark waters and he found himself thinking about something uncomfortable...
He felt a creeping dread as he considered the cosmic horror of it all.
Two children. Two fragile, developing minds acting as the initial anchor points for ancient entities. Entities whose endgame seemed to involve wrapping themselves around so much of the world that human concepts of scale would become entirely meaningless.
It was a sickening thought. It made his stomach churn with a profound, existential weight. But he also knew it wasn’t a problem he could solve by dwelling on it right now.
He took a breath.
"Selthia."
She tilted her head, locking eyes with him.
"If you ever find yourself struggling with the weight of what you’re carrying," Ren said. His voice was low, devoid of malice or pity. It sounded exactly like the tone he’d use when speaking hard truths to himself in the mirror. "If you ever need help separating yourself from it... I could try to help you. If you come to me."
Selthia froze.
A faint flush of color crept into her cheeks. It was an incredibly human, jarringly vulnerable reaction.
Then, she laughed. It wasn’t her usual mocking giggle. It was a bright, startled sound, the laugh of someone who had just been handed a gift they hadn’t expected to receive today.
"I didn’t expect you to actually care," she said softly. There was zero irony in her voice. It was stripped bare, ringing with the genuine shock of someone profoundly surprised.
Ren kept his eyes on his work, offering no reply.
Selthia lingered on his silence.
"Same goes for you," she finally whispered. "If you ever need the same."
All around them, the battlefield was shifting decisively.
Selthia pushed herself gracefully off the floor.
"I’m leaving..."
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