Knock, knock!
"My lord, I've brought your dinner. I made sure to bring it quickly, so it's still warm," Iria said from outside.
Seven didn't respond. Again, his connection to the outside world had been severed; her words reached nothing but deaf ears.
With no response, she stepped in.
Creak.
But she immediately froze from the cold. It was dinner time already yet the window was still open, letting winter air spill into the room.
"How many times I have told you to close the window when you're sleeping, my lord—"
Her words drifted off as she saw Seven sitting in the middle of the room, drenched in sweat; his clothes clung to his skin like he had just been dragged from water!
A dark puddle had formed beneath him.
Setting the tray of dinner on the desk, Iria grabbed a bucket and towel, dabbing at the floor, and gently removed Seven's soaked polo.
She wasn't ignorant of what had happened: the young lord had finally reached the stage of sensing Zi within his body!
For years, Seven Hart had tried again and again to sense it, every attempt ending in failure. Truth is, just a month ago, he had given up, adopting a carefree routine, and indulging himself as if opening his first Zi Ring had never been meant for him.
At least, that was how it appeared.
Perhaps it was boredom that had driven him to ask to accompany her to the village yesterday.
But something was off.
Normally, he paid no mind to their proximity. Iria had seen him half-dressed countless times, sometimes fully naked(?), yet earlier, he had instinctively covered himself.
His cheeks had also flushed when she hugged him, and he had stiffened when she kissed his cheek.
She couldn't help but doubt the current identity of the lord she serves. Then again, her doubt has no meaning since not even the renowned family walking the path of magic had achieved such a feat of transforming into someone or possessing their body.
"What am I thinking? I deserve punishment after having such thoughts about the young lord."
In the end, she shook her head.
After cleaning him, she washed her hands, pulled a quill and thin sheet of paper from her uniform, and wrote.
Her strokes were precise, recording 'his' accomplishments over the past year. It was a ritual mandated by the head of the Hart family for the attendants to keep track of the achievements of the young lord they served.
With the year ending soon and Seven's sixteenth birthday approaching, she noted all the positives, though none reflected skill with a sword.
Step, step.
She folded the paper and approached the window.
Her expression turned cold; thinking 'this had gone far beyond her expectations for the youngest. This might be the final letter before he'd be disowned.'
Seven's fate would also be hers; if he ends up being exiled, then is she; if she ends up being executed, then is she!
All she could hope was for Seven to accomplish what he's trying to accomplish right this moment.
"Foile," she whispered before the window.
A masked figure emerged from the shadows outside. Without a word, they snatched the paper and vanished like a ghost.
Iria exhaled, relief barely touching her lips. It was the other reason why he shouldn't have doubted Seven's identity, as there is always someone under the name of 'Foile' who is watching him every second without fail.
But as she turned around, she gasped.
"My lord!"
- – – 777 – – -
Seven had been trying to break through the boulder that sat like a dam in the river of his blood for a while, but it just wouldn't budge.
Thus, it resulted in his body outside leaking out blood, from his eyes, nose, mouth, and even his ears, and the reason why Iria gasped upon seeing.
As much as she wanted to heal him, she couldn't bring herself into: healing required her Zi to enter his body, by doing so might interrupt the process he was dealing with at the moment.
She could only wipe the blood away and take care of his body, specifically hugging it from behind hoping it might give him some comfort.
Wham, wham!
Trying to break through again, he noticed his mind hurting as he did, realizing if he pushed recklessly, it would rupture the vessel, ending his life.
But then, he noticed the faintest detail.
'There must've been a reason why the Zi, looking like a normal blood cell in blue earlier, had morphed into a thread upon the separation.'
Indeed, he was right.
Running simulations with his mind, they all led to one thing: blockages might be the impurities of his body. If it turned solid, all he needed to do was crumble it into dust.
He focused on a single thread, the thinnest filament of blue light flowing upstream, curling around the edges of the green mass.
Slowly, like a serpent wrapping around a sword, the thread carved a tiny fissure and the poison quivered.
But…
'Blughh! It hurts, damn it.'
For the first time in this inner world, he felt pain. He could also feel a little sensation from outside, but there was nothing except the feeling of blood flowing out his body.
Everytime the thread cut deeper into the boulder, the pain would intensify.
Guiding more threads, he wrapped the boulder until it looked like a ball of blue yarn, with the boulder's surface not visible at all.
He felt like throwing up the whole process, the feeling of blood coming out seemed to be in massive waves, starting to feel nauseated.
'Not yet, damn it. Hold your ground, Seven Hart.'
He began talking to himself, compressing the boulder with increasing force.
The boulder trembled, fractured, finally splitting into shards that didn't dissolve into the bloodstream but instead floated like jagged ice.
Every fragment that broke away and hit the surface would bring a burst of agony.
Truth be told, he wanted to give up this very moment. Pain of this caliber was overwhelming his sensations, feeling like he might lose his mind any second— if not because of a warmth sensation around his back.
Honestly, that was the only thing that forced him to keep holding.
Iria, he knew it was her, cheering for him from the outside.
He pictured the green shards as smaller boulders in a river and the blue threads covered them again, crushing them fully into a harmless sediment.
Thump!
Of course, he still kept on moving forward in the process, and the sound of the beating pure white hellfire echoed loudly.
With one last fragment left, the largest of them all, he halted the advance momentarily and focused on it alone, crushing it just like he did to the others.
The sensation finally lightened, and more warmth seeped into him, as if Iria was hugging him even tighter.
Thump!
Before he noticed it, he had finally reached the destination: the heart made of white flames.
'Heh, forming an orbit is all that's left. This one looks easier than the rest.'
Truly, this stage was more of a reward. A reward for those who dared to swim upstream, defying the current of their own limitations, and emerging stronger on the other side.
So, not wasting any second, he guided the threads to form an orbit around the flame and only an inch would be its completion.
But…
Sczkk, sczkk!
Just as the threads were about to connect, the pure white hellfire twisted into a black inferno, darker than the void around him.
Followed were hands that suddenly shot out from that black flame, seizing both ends of the threads and shattered it into splinters, sending him an even more immense pain that he couldn't handle.
"Aaah!!"
Seojin's scream tore through the silence as he was violently thrust back into the outside world, gasping.
It was now daytime, again.
In the end, he spent an entire day only for him failing the attempt of opening his first Zi Ring because of, if his memories of the novel was right, a curse.