Soul of Blades - Chapter 60: Immortality (Patreon)

Authors note: I settled for a somewhat fiery pip-squeak of a woman! Enjoy.

Chapter 60: Immortality

A blinding swirl of colours and spatial forces swallowed Alex whole. He was spinning, tumbling, carried along by an insidious current in the sea of cosmic energy.

Flashes of different realities blinked in and out of existence around him. One moment he was in a vibrant jungle, the next in a barren desert, then in a frozen wasteland. Each shift in reality yanked at him, tearing bits of his flesh and soul.

The powerful rift created by the collapsed portal held him hostage, his body shuddering under the sensation of being torn and pulled in every conceivable direction.

Notifications flashed past, as swiftly and often as worlds.

Pain assailed him. His wounds screamed at him, each tear in his flesh a searing lance of white-hot pain. The pain was excruciating, unbearable. His breaths came in gasps that claimed no air, his already heavily damaged body convulsed with each new wound that appeared.

Barely clinging to his sanity, Alex turned to his Dao. The Dao of True Immortality. Drawing from the wellspring of his essence, he imagined a cycle of life, death, and rebirth. The concept of immortality, in its most true sense, was not about a never-ending life, but about the endless cycle of rebirth and regeneration. With a heaving breath, he activated his Dao and channelled its power into his wounds.

His body ignited with a sensation more agonizing than anything he'd felt before. The rejuvenating power of his Dao ripped through his injuries, stitching his flesh back together and restoring his vitality. It was too much, too quickly. With a sharp gasp, his vision dimmed, and he lost his grasp on consciousness.

***

When his senses returned, he felt the coolness of a surface beneath him, grass. And heard the the rustling of leaves in the wind. His body ached, but it was a dull, manageable throb compared to the torture he'd just experienced. Blinking his eyes open, he was met with the sight of a person, staring at him curiously from a distance.

The moment Alex began to stir, the world around him roared in response. The air was thick with mana, so dense it was nauseating. Every rustling leaf, every gust of wind, and even the very air around him teemed with a force so potent it was hard to stomach. The leaves underneath him refused to yield under his weight, each one as immovable as a slab of stone. A stifling pressure pressed in from all sides, rooting him in place like a boulder under the weight of a mountain.

His eyes darted to the figure, who stepped closer, curiosity etched on their youthful face. The figures's lips moved, a question forming in an unfamiliar language. Alex strained against the weight of the world, attempting to respond.

It was in this moment of desperation that he made the fatal mistake of drawing a breath.

His instinct turned into his blunder.

What filled his lungs was more than just air. It was an ocean of mana, of energies so alien and vast, it dwarfed anything he'd ever experienced. It coursed through him, threatening to shatter him from within. Every cell, every fiber of his being ignited with an agonising pain. His body seized, his body igniting with pain as the influx of power threatened to tear him apart from the inside.

In desperation, he attempted to control the mana. He grappled with the foreign energy, desperate to force it out of his body, it was like trying to move a mountain. In the midst of his struggle, he attempted to clench his fist.

His arm exploded into a in a shower of gore.

Laid there, the oppressive forces of the environment pushing down on him. The figure watched, undisturbed but concerned. The mana invaded his body, causing his remaining limbs to start swelling.

Alex could feel the mana permeating his body, causing his chest, remaining limbs, and stomach to swell ominously.

This was how he would die, torn apart, assaulted by the very air he breathed and the ground he lay upon, unless he did something.

The Dao of True Immortality beckoned. The truth of the universe that existed independent of him. A fundamental principle that witnessed impermanence, change, and the cycle of birth and rebirth in all existence. Alex tapped into this Dao, using it as a lifeline. He connected with the wind, the leaves, even the curiously gazing figure, and the throbbing pain within himself.

As he aligned himself with the Dao, his skin began to tear. Each wound offered a means for the trapped mana to escape, relieving some of the unbearable pressure building within him. Only for the mana of environment to enter the next moment, and begin destroying his body from the inside all over again. Held his breath, it stopped the intake of endlessly potent oceans of mana, but did not halt them entirely, as lakes and pools trickled in through his newly made wounds. Each intake was larger than his mana pool, and threatened his life.

It marked the commencement of a brutal cycle: destruction followed by rebirth, tearing and healing, pain and relief. The damage was horrific, and the healing minimal, but it was a start.

His body continued the cycle of destruction and rebirth, breaking and reforming, each cycle more painful than the last. This rhythm rang in his throbbing head, its pounding growing louder with each passing moment.

The figure stepped closer still, their words floating in the air. But Alex couldn't hear them. His eardrums had ruptured under the immense pressure.

The relentless pounding in his skull became too much to bear. His dao overused, his world began to swirl, blurring into a haze of pain and mana. Then, just as abruptly, everything went black as he lost his grip on consciousness.

***

[Dao: ‘True Immortality’ - Progress 0.1 > 0.11%]

When Alex woke up, he was somewhere he didn't recognize.

His body was on a plush bed inside a lavish hut that was as foreign to him as the strange tube that trailed from a vessel of luminescent liquid into his mouth. It tasted odd but soothing.

As he stopped sipping the healing concoction, he was instantly assaulted by a multitude of pains. It felt as if the mana of the world was assaulting him, as if it was forcing its way inside his body, crashing through his defences to fill his reserves and overload him. Agonizing tears that seemed to appear everywhere within his body. He could feel the hurt, the harm, the raw wounds in his insides. The sensation was unbearable. Without a second thought, he resumed drinking the strange liquid, the tube not leaving his mouth. The pain dulled and the continuous destruction inside his body seemed to slow. His outer appearance remained unchanged, betraying no signs of the inner havoc.

The figure from before was there, tending to him, moving about the hut with purpose. Now that his world wasn’t engulfed in excruciation, he could make out her features, and see that it was a woman of roughly his age, if not younger.

She was short, very short. So short as to barely pass his stomach, the tip of her hair barely reaching where his chest would be, if he could stand. Although the word petite did not seem to suit her. She moved without care, as I’ve the entire world and everything in it belonged to her.

She must have saved him.

Alex strained his senses, attempting to make out the mutterings of his strange saviour. Piecing together the woman’s mumbled words and his own hazy memory, he realised he had been out for days. Three days.

She looked at him, eyes filled with curiosity, and asked, "Are you a cultivator?" Alex blinked in surprise at the query. The woman continued, "Or were you a cultivator and now you're a cripple? Why are you dressed like a slave?"

Alex glanced at his arm and leg, and felt a pang of sadness and confusion at the sight. He was still missing a leg below the knee. The demon royals, and R'jdar had really done a number on him. Only a stump remained below the knee of his leg, where it had been sliced off in his escape. Whatever his Dao had done, it had not managed to regrow his limb. His arm was there at least, no longer charred and disfigured but perfectly formed and healed. But how was it healed completely? And why wasn't his leg? Was it the healing use of his Dao? No, that couldn't be it, that had barely kept him alive. Perhaps it was the strange liquid the woman had been feeding him through the tube in his mouth, it seemed to have a powerful effect that constantly healed his body. His limbs were there, and he was mostly whole. But the smaller woman was insisting he was a cripple.

He noted that his clothes were gone, replaced with heavy silk attire that was almost impossible to move in. The weight was oppressive, but it had an odd sort of comfort to it.

He looked at his hands, attempting to flex them, and felt a surge of resistance. He couldn't move. The attempt brought a fresh wave of pain and tears across his body, instantly healed by the woman's medicine. His body was a battlefield, a war zone of constant wounds and regeneration, fuelled by the strange liquid he continued to draw from the tube. Alex blinked in surprise as her words sank in.

"I'm a...cripple? What, because of my leg?" He questioned, the words sounding foreign as they rolled off his tongue. His speech was slurred, and slow. It was strangely difficult to talk, it felt like he was submerged in sand, or gravel. His saviour, meanwhile, watched him with a peculiar look, her eyes alight with unvoiced amusement.

"No not the leg, that's nothing. You have stats, dummy. You'll barely even notice it, eventually." She waved dismissively. "It’s something else."

She paused, and squinted, peering at his helpless form.

"No Qi. No mana. And dressed like a slave." His saviour stated, inspecting Alex with a critical gaze. "That sounds like a cripple to me."

"No mana...?" Alex tried to reach within, to feel the familiar thrum of his mana. He tried to open his inventory and peer within, and a notification popped up, his system notifying him that his mana was on a cooldown.

[2 hour mana cooldown in effect. Skill unavailable]

He had no mana, no skills. A wave of realization crashed over him. He had been activating Mana Burn unconsciously. Continuously. His instincts must have kept him alive, burning the mana invading his body non-stop to counteract the damage, keep his reservoir dry, and rid him of the assault.

Cultivator… he had a vague recollection of the notion from films back on earth, the images his memories conjured strangely reminded him of the blurred memories of his Dao visions. But that couldn’t be what she meant… could it?

"What's a...cultivator?" Alex found himself asking the strange woman, his eyes falling onto the unfamiliar clothes draped over him. They were heavy, the fabric thick and lustrous. It was silk, he realized, and it was almost impossible to move in. He tried to sit up, but the weight of the attire coupled with the state of his body made it a Herculean task.

A burst of laughter escaped her, their gaze lightening as they found amusement in his question. "What you are?" She asked, a smirk tugging at her lips. "You're dressed like a slave and you don't know what a cultivator is? Next, you're going to tell me you don't know about Qi."

Alex blinked, the vaguely unfamiliar term pulling him from his thoughts. "Qi?" He repeated, his confusion deepening. He'd heard of mana, lived with it, felt it coursing within him, but this Qi...it was something he'd never encountered. Back on earth, he’d only ever heard it used as another term for mana— for energy. None of it had been real, back then.

His saviour’s smirk widened into a grin, her eyes twinkling with mischief. "Oh, you're joking, right? Is this jest?"

Silence.

"Cripple?" Alex repeated silently, more to himself than her. The word was a thorn, sharp and unwelcome. It bothered him.

"Yep. That's what you are." The woman wore a smirk, her words flippant. "No mana, no dantian. Kinda amazing you're still alive, to be honest."

"Dantian?" Alex murmured. Now there was something brought about no memories, no recollection. The word was as foreign as the concept it represented.

"The dantian," She nodded, her tone matter-of-fact, as if this were the most basic of knowledge, "is where your energy resides. But yours is kaput, hence, no qi. No qi, no cultivating. In essence, you're a cripple. Did they take your memory too? What's up with that?"

"Qi…" Alex questioned himself, scouring his memories for dregs of information to return with nothing substantial. He wished he had spent less time training, perhaps then he would have found these terms to be self-explanatory. Confusion was setting in. "I know what mana is, but this qi... and cultivator? Like Jin?…What are they?"

"Mana, qi, energy. Tomato, to-mah-to." The woman waved her hand dismissively, her eyes never leaving Alex's face. "And cultivators? Well, they're the lucky ones who can harness the most powerful of these energies; Qi. But you, right now you're an empty shell."

Alex could feel the weight of her words settling on him, much heavier than the air that encased him and hindered his every breath. An unfamiliar world was unravelling around him and he was allegedly a ‘cripple’ in it. But that wasn’t true, he’d had the system for a while now. But then... he considered the fact that he could barely move a muscle, and that the world, the very air itself, seemed to be trying to kill him.

"And surviving the dantian destruction... is that unusual?" Alex's voice was barely a whisper.

"Well, people usually explode. Couldn't handle all that raw energy without some of their own to protect them, I suppose. But you..." she tilted her head, eyes taking over Alex, "You're still here. Interesting."

Alex's attempted to move his hand to the heavy silk clothing that had replaced his own. It was near-impossible to move in. Maybe it’s true, he thought, more questions sprouting with each word of their exchange. Had he become a cripple in a world where power meant everything?

A faint buzz in the corner of his vision. He had system notifications to address, quest rewards to receive and view—but his present situation demanded the entirety of his attention.

Above everything, one thought nagged at him. A small detail that tugged at his mind, causing some facet of his consciousness to yell at the rest of him in alarm. It was a question.

Why would she think he was a cultivator?

"I still don't understand..." Alex's voice trailed off, the enormity of his situation beginning to dawn on him.

"Clearly," the woman retorted. She had a smug smile on her face, but her eyes were sharp, scrutinising.

"But how does one become a cultivator?" Alex ventured, curiosity gnawing at his understanding.

She shrugged, an odd sense of detachment in her gaze. "Dunno. I'm no cultivator, I'm just a high servant... an administrator."

That brought Alex pause. "A servant? But you... you move so freely."

The woman let out a short laugh, the sound ringing around them. "Yeah, because I'm not a cripple. Unlike you." Her voice was sharp, her eyes even more so. "You can't move because you're too weak."

"I'm not a cripple." Alex's voice was quick, defensive.

The short woman ignored him, walking closer until her lithe form was looming over where Alex laid. She reached out, a small hand touching Alex's forehead. In that moment, Alex felt something shift within him, like a lock being turned. A silent notification popped up in his vision, startling him.

[Administrator 'Mei' has granted you the D rank passive skills 'True sense' and 'Mana vortex'].

As soon as the notification disappeared, the pressure on his body lessened. He could still feel the small tears in his body as the environment assaulted him and the instant healing provided by the fluid, but it was not as intense as before. Looking around, he saw energy swirling around him in colours he couldn't describe. Bright blues that looked like flames danced along with colours he associated with earth, a vibrant kaleidoscope of reality. It was as though both his Outer Sense and Inner Sense skills had been multiplied in quality, distance, and capability by leaps and bounds. He could see the very drops of mana swaying in the air as if caught in a breeze he couldn’t feel, moving in oceans of energy.

"You'll need those skills to survive here," she said, pulling her hand away and stepping back. "And avoid the cultivators at all costs. You won't survive an encounter."

Swallowing hard, reeling from what had just happened. Had this girl... Mei, just controlled the system? And how was she an administrator? He re-evaluated his circumstances. He felt overwhelmed as he reviewed the information. Although... one thing the young woman, Mei, had said bothered him. “How will I know who's a cultivator?” he asked.

She simply deadpanned, staring directly into Alex’s eyes “Trust me, you’ll know”.

Alex managed to rasp out in response, "And where... where am I?"

"In a town," the woman replied, almost too casually, "in one of the outer realms- or worlds, of the Martial Empire. They rule the multiverse and the system. But you already knew that, didn't you?"

Alex was silent.