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Mid Morning - Late Spring : The Tree of Prayer | Siratha

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"Nnngh..." Opening my eyes with a groan, a splitting pain ripped through my head, blurring my vision as I struggled to get up off my side. -Fuck...-

It had been well over a month since the incident at that point, and while I had been awake for several weeks and had spent every waking moment focusing on healing, I wasn't any better off.

*Vwoom* "Ack..." Gritting my teeth through the pain, I forced myself onto my belly and used as little aura as I could to carve away sections of scarred flesh around my head, snout, and neck before roughly cleaning the opened wounds and rolling back onto my side to try and go back to sleep.

*Pat* "Haah..." -I don't know how, but it looks like I'll somehow make a full recovery. ..-

Just a few weeks prior, my face was so mangled that I wasn't sure how I was alive, or if healing was even a possibility, but thankfully with Ilios's tender care and the.

. aggressive 'measures' I took upon myself, I managed to straighten out my shattered snout, reposition the scattered chunks of my jaw, and move the teeth scattered around the inside of my skull back to my mouth. ..

But my appearance and scarring were quite literally the least of my worries.

Considering the absurd amount of damage I took externally, I was certain the inside was just as fucked.

And the constant, excruciating pain I felt didn't help that hypothesis.

"Agh- FUCK!" It felt like my brain was destroying itself, similar to whenever I pushed it beyond its limit with my aura, but immeasurably worse.

It was actually so bad that I could only take control of a few meters of aura before my control simply scattered.

-I don't even want to try reading it outside my body. ..-

My chest ached at the thought that the damage could be permanent, but as I closed my eyes and tried my best to ignore my anxiety and fall back asleep, Ilios walked up and began cuddling next to my still-bleeding head. *puff-pat*

He had been extremely cuddly since the incident, almost never leaving my side for more that a few minutes at a time, and tending to my wounds as much as he could. He was also who I suspected dragged me over the rune in the Gods' Abode right after I returned from the void.

But there were also some behaviors I couldn't help but find odd.

Opening my eyes just enough to see his figure, I found him laying down on his belly, resting but on alert, with his sharp, unwavering gaze aimed at a melon-sized black orb on the ground several hundred meters away.

It was an object that seemed to appear while I was working on the Tree of Prayer's rune, an anomaly looking almost identical to a god's cell or space mana artifact.

However, after a few weeks of thinking about what it could be, instead of following my initial thoughts, I concluded that it was what hit me when I was returning from the void.

-It's black like divinity.. and while I haven't tested it, it's likely possible that divinity can pass through the shell of a gate without breaking it. ..-

It was also a perfect match for the damage I saw to my face, acting like a supersized cannon ball that completely shredded the smaller strands of divinity in my snout and dented the huge wall of it that I had crystallized in my skull to block it.

-It sucks that I ended up burning all the divinity I was accumulating for Father.

. but it saved my life...- So I had no room to complain.

After all, divinity was replaceable, even if it would take time.

Eventually closing my eyes again, I did everything in my power to force myself to sleep through the pain while guiding the liquid divinity I was accumulating from the rune to my snout, working like metal wires to hold everything together while it all healed.

It was the same routine I had used for the last month. -Thank the heavens for the divinity from the rune here...-

But this time, as I finally began drifting off, I was abruptly woken up by the tree vibrating, starting subtle and growing stronger with every passing moment. -Uh oh...-

Quickly waking up, my expression darkened. -Please don't tell me the runes I made are breaking...- I wanted to cry.

However, after a few seconds of the vibrations growing stronger and stronger, an absolutely unbelievable mass of mana slammed into the underside of the rune, increasing the output by severalfold before causing it to overflow and begin funneling a river of pure mana into my reserve.

"Uck..." It made me feel incredibly nauseous, but without the ability to freely move out of the way I just had to deal with it, even if it made falling asleep impossible.

But while I thought it would be easy to generally ignore and get used to, with every passing second, the river of mana grew faster, and thicker, until eventually...

"BLEGH-" I threw up a mix of stomach acid, blood, and a thick black sludge.

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It was my body's waste. -Oh fuck...- And it was a really.. really bad sign, implying that my brain was destroyed to the point that my subconscious couldn't maintain the recycling process my body used to sustain itself off mana.

If that were the case, it meant I was on the path of starvation rather than recovery, and no matter how much I wanted to fix it, all I could do was pray my body would figure itself out.

It was a truly horrible sensation... I had more mana than I could imagine, with a huge stream of divinity to accommodate it, yet there was nothing I could do but whither away.

For once.. I had no escape plan.. and no solution. -At this rate, my body will begin breaking down, and Dagr will come take it...-

"~It seems you're already aware...~"

Hearing the dreaded voice, my whole body tensed, and I opened my eyes to see Ilios sitting in front of me with a gaze I hadn't seen in a while. "Dagr..."

His eyes were full of disappointment and his expression was dark and emotionless. "~You're in a death spiral, yet you still waste your energy on anger... How upsetting...~"

Gritting my teeth, I slowly got up off my side. "I don't want to hear it, you fucker..." My eyes burned with an anger I hadn't felt in years. "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be in this state..."

"~So you wish to blame me instead of yourself...~" His expression continued to darken as he stared into my soul. "~I have to admit, I'm disappointed. Had you taken this moment as an opportunity, I may have been more inclined to give you more time.~"

*Crrrrrunch* Digging my claws into the ground, splintering the wood, I forced myself up onto my feet and looked down at him with so much bloodlust it caused the air to vibrate.

"Opportunity?!" A hint of craze and disbelief instantly seeped into my voice.

"What opportunity?! My body is crumbling, and my brain is literally mush.

If I do anything rash as it is, I'll only accelerate myself into a grave. "

He paused as he turned his gaze back to my soul. "~Is that what you think?~"

"Yes, you dense fucker." Had he not been in Ilios's body, I would have hit him with whatever strength I could muster.

"If I push myself at all, my nervous system will crumble, and whatever neurons are left in the pool of mush that is my brain will stop trying to heal.

All I can do now is wait for my body to figure its shit out on its own. .."

There was another long pause as his eyes traversed from my abdomen to my skull as if following my spine. "~I don't understand... Why are you giving it the chance to heal?~"

My expression instantly morphed with disgust. "Do you not realize how fucking stupid that makes you sound?"

"~Hm.. what a shame...~" Letting out a breath of disappointment, he finally averted his gaze. "You still limit your understanding to that of a mortal's."

But like a can of gasoline being thrown into a campfire, it made my anger explode. *Pat-Crack* Pinning him against the ground, I mustered every ounce of strength I could just to hold him there. "Limit my understanding?! What alternative is there to healing in this situation?!"

His eyes instantly snapped to mine as he finally opened his mouth and spoke. "Your alternative is to take the next step forward and migrate from the mind and body of a mortal to that of a god. If you let it heal, you will only further delay your ascendance, and I cannot let that happen any longer."

*Fwip* My surroundings instantly blurred as I lost touch with the ground and slammed into the wall so hard I could no longer feel my body. *THWAAACK* -F..fuck...- I couldn't move at all, even as I helplessly fell to the ground. *THUMP*

I was paralyzed.

"If you wish to waste more time, do it in your next life.

" Walking up to me, Dagr's demeanor slowly heated and his voice was laced with bitterness.

"You should be thankful I even gave you time to say farewell to your family.

Be proud that you even had the opportunity to live this life.

.." *Pat* Setting his paw over my reserve, he looked straight into my soul.

"If it weren't for my brother, you wouldn't be here. .."

But instead of fearing death as the pressure of his paw started increasing, a string of words suddenly surfaced from my soul. "Why would I let you have this body, Dagr."

His gaze instantly sharpened upon hearing the slightly different tone in my voice. "You dare..."

*Crack* Gripping my limbs with my aura, I forced myself up once more, ripping countless muscles and snapping tendons without care.

"This body is mine and mine alone. I don't believe I recall agreeing to give it to you.

" A wave of memories flooded my mind as my physical consciousness started to blur.

"What I recall is saying I would have my successor build you a new body.

Since when did that mean I would give it to you. "

Dagr's anger only compounded. "FROM THE MOMENT THAT MORTAL CONSUMED YOU, CREATING A BODY FROM NOTHING WAS NO LONGER AN OPTION!"

"Greedy bastard..." My voice, resorting to the brainpower of my subconscious to relay the voice from my soul, spoke coldly as my body started to crumble. "I am a creator. In my prime, I could create worlds, and through my reincarnation, I have only further expanded my understanding of existence."

"But you said you were to be the one that consumed those mortals' knowledge! Not letting them consume yours!"

"You seem to misunderstand." The air around us began crystallizing as we both looked into each other's eyes.

"We are not separate, and no one consumed another.

" My voice echoed through the tree with a cold, chilling anger woven into it.

"When our souls reached the crossroads of existence, we all stepped forward as one to form anew.

I am not the human from Earth, I am not the 'god' of the dragons, and I am not the Ancient Fenrir that was your brother.

" Lifting my head up over him, confidence wove itself into my gaze.

"I am a new being, once again growing as I once had.

But this time, I won't stop because of your greed, and let my world get destroyed because of it. "

*Snap* The instant I finished, my head spun upside down, my spinal cord sheared, and my vision along with my other senses completely vanished.

*Thump* In an instant, I found myself listlessly floating in an infinite, perfectly empty space, with only my consciousness to keep me company...

I was in limbo, the realm of the dead.. waiting to be reincarnated.

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