Chapter 75 - Shattered Serenity (Patreon)

Jiran floated within a universe of twinkling stars and flowing nebulas of soft light. The space surrounding him was quiet, serene. A dull vibration, like static born from excess friction, permeated everything. It brought a sense of liveliness to the otherwise hollow vastness of his soul.

The pinpricks of light flickered in and out of sight every few seconds, sometimes independently but often in sync with their neighbors. He watched, transfixed, as they created the illusion of gargantuan shapes passing through the dark.

Why am I here?

One of the millions of lights flashed in a pattern that caught his eye. He instantly recognized it, and upon desiring to touch it, appeared before it. When his hand connected with the smooth, blue ball, he experienced memories of passing through the center of a planet, only to resurface along a gushing river of Magma. He continued to watch as scattered particles of himself were carried on an invisible wind before coalescing into a boy, an infant at the moment of his birth. The boy soon grew, married, and raised children of his own. He died in a bed with his family around him. But death was not the end. His body broke apart and returned to the wind and the water. Soon those pieces were swallowed beneath the ground, only to return on rivers of magma once more.

"Are you… the memory of a life?"

The ball flickered and somehow Jiran understood its message. "Soon."

The word sparked a chain reaction of memories that cascaded through his awareness and left him gasping.

I’ve been here before. When I tiered. It’s exactly the same. No, that’s new.

In the distance was a gaping tear in the fabric of space and beyond it, flickers of a familiar gate. Flowing toward the rent in his soul was a river of pearly-white, fluid energy, iridescent and shining with the purity of life itself. It stretched into infinity, far beyond the limits of his sight, distorting and undulating like liquid free from the constraints of gravity.

Is that the ‘some of her little remaining mana’ that Madra put in here? Is this some kind of joke? I bet the emperors don’t even have that much mana.

Jiran desired to turn and it became so. He cast his sight in every direction, suddenly filled with awe at the vastness of his own soul.

Even with all of that mana in here, it’s just a speck of what I could hold. Like comparing the milky way to the entire universe. Why is my soul so big? Or is this normal?

A relatively small glob of mana the size of a planet detached from the primary mass and began leaking through the gate and into physical reality. The ball, still firmly grasped in his hand, warbled and flickered a goodbye before it sprang from his grip. The moment his fingers could no longer feel its smooth surface, he felt himself falling toward the rupture. Jiran let go, relaxing into the pull.

As he fell, a pang of desire to be free, explore, and learn radiated from him. It created a wave that instantly traversed the impossibly vast distance between the stars. Each and every one of them roared to life for a brief moment, resonating with the call of his soul.

Then, he passed through the gate. It flashed by and he picked up speed as his dark subconscious space whisked by his vision in an instant. He spun wildly as he fell back through the tube. Madra’s mana sloshed all around him, some of the white liquid splashed across his skin. It burned him and he hissed, though he couldn’t help but feel it was lifeless and empty in a way that touched his heart with pity.

Jiran’s eyes snapped open and a huge gasp of air entered his lungs as if he had been underwater for an hour. Every centimeter of his skin ached and burned, though that pain was secondary to the agony ripping through his aura. It writhed and thrashed like a thing come to life, screaming in oscillating vibrations that ripped at his heart and tore at his very soul.

Jiran could only observe with horror twisting his guts as an inconceivable amount of Madra’s mana gushed from his neck. It used his stretched-out aura as a highway to reach the five points where it connected with the platform.

Meanwhile, the mountain shook on the far side of the protective sphere encapsulating the node. Solid rock split and shifted while anything that touched the dome of force was instantly annihilated. A sense of profound unease touched the edges of his pain-stricken consciousness from seeing all that moving rock without hearing a single sound.

His gate rumbled a warning that was far more clear than any message before. Jiran fought through the pain, pulling his wild thoughts together through sheer desperation.

My aura is dying. It already sacrificed itself once, I can’t let it die again!

Jiran’s hand was still stuck to the jewel, he converted a portion of density to mana and watched as it was instantly pulled through his aura along with Madra’s mana.

Still can’t use mana, what do I do? She said to remember the Aahmra’s teaching, but I still don’t know what that means!

He tried to pull his aura free from where it was attached to the platform, but it just screamed in agony. Foresight blared even louder as Madra’s mana began to shred and tear the very fabric of his aura.

The mana is too strong, it's killing it! And there’s still so much left to come out. The mana… is too strong…

A memory flashed through his mind. Sitting in the Aahmra’s dojo, one of his hands covered in Coating and the other in aura. He smashed them together and the mana easily won. The Aahmra’s voice rang loud in his ears, "Aura without mana is nothing, as you say. Do you think that makes mana superior? You say mana is unnatural, but in your heart, you believe it to be superior. Tell me, Jiran of Feylon. Why do you believe something that you claim is unnatural to be greater than aura?"

Am I really going to let this dead, empty-ass mana beat my aura? No, no way. Absolutely not! He said I lacked conviction and belief. Of course I do, I have no idea what the aura is! It’s like a gas, but malleable. It can be both weak and strong depending on my desire. It’s me and I am it, but it’s not me and I am not it. This isn’t helping!

I have to increase the power of my aura. It needs to be like the Aahmra’s; immutable, powerful, and greater than mana. Think, Jiran. Think. Before it dies again. What is aura?

Wait, dies… again? It sacrificed itself to seal the wall of my soul. How could it do that in the first place? Unless it’s made of the same thing as that wall! Is aura just an extension of the soulwall? That makes complete sense! Madra’s mana is pouring out of my soul, riding along the pathway of my soulwall and into this machine.

Jiran’s voice filled the silence of the sphere, “If the soulwall is big enough to contain an entire universe. And my aura is just the barest fraction of my soulwall leaking into reality; then how could it ever lose to a little drop of mana? Even if that drop is thousands of planets worth, even if it was a million planets worth, it would still just be an insignificant speck compared to my soul.

“My aura is my soul.”

“My aura is a universe unto itself.”

Jiran pulled and his soul quivered. Power unlike anything he had ever felt flooded into his manabody and it instantly stabilized. He formed a thick layer similar to blocking sound but with the desire, the need for it to withstand Madra’s mana. The mana flowed smoothly along the new reinforced surface, no longer penetrating into the delicate membrane within.

Jiran breathed a sigh of relief as the torment ripping through his body and aura eased to a dull throb. He watched with mounting disinterest as the ‘drop,’ of mana continued to flood out of him, no longer a threat. Internally, his thoughts raced.

This all started at the challenger arena. That was just an audition. Fighting above my weight class and having a ruptured soulwall were the only real requirements she needed. Madra’s gaze was upon me indeed. Every quest, every reward, every moment has been leading me here. I finally know what she’s been wanting this whole time. She took half of my childhood away so she could turn me into a living sparkplug. My family is who knows where. My only friend lost hope in his life and could be off getting himself killed right now. All because I was the best tool for the job.

Anger seethed and churned within his chest like a serpent.

Wait a second! This node didn't turn itself off. Why would it? That makes no sense. Something had to come and turn it off. Something powerful enough to stop a node. All the mana coming out of me was just to turn this thing on. How much would it take to shut it off? Worse still, Madra pumped enough mana into my soul to turn on thousands of these nodes And Daughter said Madra is dying, then it stands to reason a lot of them have been turned off already.

Not only did she hijack my body and soul, but she's also pitting me against something that is capable of turning off thousands of these nodes. Likely whatever that is, it’s at the very top of the entire planet’s food chain. A planet big enough to have nine stars that rotate around it and I’ve just pissed off one of its biggest players.

Nope, no way. I'm out. This is way above my pay grade.

Fuck! Mayalyn’s people are so dead. When whatever turned this place off comes sniffing around to find out why it's back on again, there's no chance it's going to just ignore the cute little town at the base of the mountain.

The last dregs of Madra’s mana finally drained out of his aura and the doors of his gate slammed shut.

[Quest complete!]

[Hide and seek: Reactivate the density absorber node at the designated coordinates.]

[Rewards: Sanctuary]

The arms detracted from his body and aura to slide back into the panels which closed with a soft hiss. A popping sound echoed through the sphere as the gem released his palm. A cut in space suddenly appeared before him and widened into a portal. He recognized the familiar scenery from the mettlerise looking down at the ocean waters below.

Except that ocean was raging. Waves thirty meters high churned against one another and crashed onto the beach to tear out chunks of land and swallow them whole. The skies thundered and lightning blasted the ground, setting trees burning as lava flowed down the rocky slopes. Betas clung to the side of the mountain, hunkering down to weather the storm.

Jiran leaped through the portal with a snarl. The density within his stomach was overwhelmed and claimed into the fuel that ignited blue flames from his feet. He rocketed through the air toward Azurelight with single-minded focus. Grasping tentacles of aura tore trees from the ground as they pulled him forward like an octopus skimming the depths of the ocean.

A single beta braved the storm, leaping from its perch to intercept his mad dash across the quaking island. Its eyes were consumed by gluttony as it screeched and dove, hungering for his flesh. Its flock took notice, diving after it and angling to follow. The moment the first beta was within range, a vine of aura wrapped around its body and tore it in half with a single yank. Blood and guts fell like rain as the two halves were discarded. All save for a single chunk of flesh which Jiran pulled to himself. He didn’t bother chewing the raw meat before swallowing it to replenish the contents of his stomach. Seeing one of their kin so rapidly disassembled, the other betas turned feather and flew away in terror.

Azurelight soon came into view and Jiran’s heart lurched into his throat. Two alphas dove from the high skies to beat their wings above the collapsing buildings and screaming people. Their bodies together were more massive than the entirety of Azurelight. Each beat of their wings tore shingles from roofs and shattered windows despite their bodies still being far above.

The monsters’ roars sent shock waves rippling through the air that tore apart the ground. People collapsed in droves, bleeding from their ears as death descended from on high.

“Mayalyn!"