Damon Bloodborn's POV
The silence in the room was not the peaceful quiet I was accustomed to, but a uneasy stillness. For eight months, this room had been the locus of a slow and agonizing failure. I stood by the door, my back pressed against the cold wall, watching my best friend wither away under the weight of an impossible task.
The room was tidy, even though Kalon had become meticulous in his obsession.
Kalon sat on the floor, his legs crossed, a glass jar and gold ring hovering over his hands. The glass jar contained Dregol's poisoned heart, which remained undisturbed.
Panting sounds echoed off the walls. Not mine, but Kalon's. I watched a single bead of sweat roll down Kalon's forehead, and down dark rings beneath his eyes. He looked stressed. The stress had carved deep lines into his young face, and the dark circles around his eyes were so pronounced they looked like bruises.
How long had it been? Eight months since I helped him go to the bier rooms and committed an act of absolute sacrilege. Stealing from the storage room and desecrating the body of a celestial. At the time, Kalon's certainty had been drive. He had moved with such conviction that I had allowed myself to be swept up in his wake. I had always known him to be what others called me. A genuis. Someone who saw the unknown, something invisible to the rest of us.
But as I watched him now, my teeth gnawed in regret. Not because I feared punishment, even though the thought of reprimand still made my blood run cold, but because I felt like a traitor to my own people.
Every morning, I walked the citadel's halls, greeting senior scholars and sharing tea with elders who praised my bright future. Each smile I gave them felt like a piece of glass in my throat. As Ariadne would say, I was an accomplice to a heresy. Now, the burden was becoming unbearable.
I had expected Kalon to succeed within weeks. He had always achieved the impossible. But for eight months, he had been trapped at a dead end, trying to mimic the complex mana signature of the deceased Dregol using his own hand as a conduit.
"How long do you intend to repeat the same thing?" I finally spoke, my voice breaking the silence.
I walked toward him and sat cross-legged on the floor, directly in his line of sight. I kept my hands folded.
Kalon stopped his failed gestures. He looked up, his eyes bloodshot and weary. "Then what must I do, Damon? I need to forge something that can match the cadence of this heart. If I cannot unlock the storage ring, then what I did was for nothing. Our risk was for nothing."
I looked at the jar, then back at him. "Perhaps too much knowledge can indeed make one short-sighted," I remarked, a my tone sour.
"W-what?" he stuttered, taken aback by my sudden retort.
"You have gained the ability of blood transmutation," I said, pointing a finger at the grey heart in the jar. "You've spent years learning how to weave flesh like thread. Why are you holding onto your own? Why try to force your own flesh to change its mana signature when you can forge a new one entirely?"
Kalon blinked, and I believed he was reasoning my words.
"You've studied that heart for months," I continued. "It already has the foundation. The mana signature is embedded in its very flesh. Stop trying to mimic it. Mold it, make it yours. You can make any flesh your own, Kalon. Any boundless life can be yours if you have the will to shape it."
Kalon reached out and loosened the lid of the jar. The acrid, poisonous scent hit us instantly. Using his blood mana, he lifted the grey heart into the air. It hovered between us.
Kalon's hands moved in complex, frantic gestures. I watched in horror, my stomach churning, as the heart began to stretch and tear. The flesh pulled apart, only to be woven back together by threads of blood mana. There was a wet squelching sound that filled the room.
The heart elongated, sprouting five protrusions. The flesh bubbled, molding itself into the likeness of a hand, though it remained the same color. It was a macabre construct. Kalon guided the storage ring, into the grip of the construct.
The ring began to resonate. It shook violently in the construct's grip, emitting a low-pitched hum.
A smile began to form on my lips. We had done it. But that joy faded instantly.
Kalon's body suddenly stiffened. His arms began to shake with in a tremor. His eyelids flickered rapidly, and his eyes rolled back.
"Kalon!" I shouted, lunging forward to catch him.
"Master!" Proteus cried out, dropping his ink pen and parchment as he scrambled from his chair. Even Bane, uncoiled from the corner, his black scales scraping against the stone as he rushed to his master's side.
I grabbed Kalon's shoulders, but his body felt pulsed with mana. I could sense his mana heart and it wasn't failing. Instead, it was beating rapidly.
His lips moved, and through its movements I could make out one word.
'Enlightenment'
Then, he slumped into my arms, completely unconscious. The hand construct he had forged remained on the floor, its fingers still gripped tightly around the storage ring.
Proteus and I worked to lay him on the bed. Bane immediately climbed up, his body protectively around Kalon.
Time passed. The sun set, and the stars began to twinkle through the window. Bane head rose above Kalon's chest. Then, without warning, the window casements flew open with a violent bang. The pressure in the room shifted instantly. Ambient mana from the outside began to swirl, funneling directly into Kalon's body.
His eyes snapped open. He sat up abruptly, taking a deep, ragged breath. As he exhaled, a burst of excess mana radiated outward, snuffing out the candles.
"Thank you, Bane," he rasped, his voice sounding deeper. "Thank you, everyone."
I sat in the wooden chair beside him. "What happened? You looked like you were being torn apart."
"The astral realm..." Kalon whispered, staring at his hands. "I got dragged in. The ring... it doesn't just hold items, Damon. It's a bridge."
I began to piece it together. The storage rings were spatial constructs. It was known that they were created using chaos magic. A power only the guardian had. This ensured raiders couldn't smuggle artifacts out of the Great Ruins.
"It's normal to see a world like the astral realm when you activate a high-level spatial anchor," I mused, though I was shaking inside. "The ring must hold a pocket of that space. But Kalon... you were there for hours."
"Damon," Kalon said, turning to look at me. His eye bags were still there, the dark rings still shadowing his face, but as I watched him, they began to fade. His skin smoothed. "I can now enter the astral realm at will."
My chair slipped. I fell backward, my head hitting the stone floor with a dull thud. My ears rang, and for a moment, the world was nothing but a blur of grey stone.
"Oh my!" Proteus exclaimed, rushing to help me up.
I ignored him, scrambling back to my feet, my eyes wide with disbelief. "No. No, that's impossible! One can only enter the astral realm during moments of pseudo-enlightenment. Even the greatest geniuses might slip in subconsciously once or twice in a lifetime while they sleep! You cannot enter it at will!"
Kalon didn't argue. He simply reached for the storage ring, sliding it onto his own finger.
Objects began to materialize on the bed. A longsword with runic patterns etched in the pommel. A wooden flute bearing similar carvings. Vials of potions and rolls of ancient parchment.
I stared at the pile of loot. The sword was well refined. The potions, however, were common. Simple healing brews you could find in any stall in the citadel. It was clear that while the Aeolians were masters of runes and tools, our Lamian alchemy was still superior.
"I no longer need to mimic Dregol's mana signature," Kalon said, a sly smirk crossing his face. "The ring recognized the construct, and in that resonance, I found gained enlightenment. It's all thanks to your advice, Damon. I couldn't have reached this state without you."
I clenched my fists in annoyance, but I quickly loosen it as he praised me.
I had meant to help him out of a dead end, but instead, I had launched him further into something I couldn't even touch. He was no longer my equal. He was ahead of me, walking a path that aligned with the laws of Enora.
'I should be grateful my friend isn't a villain,' I muttered to myself.
Kalon picked up the wooden flute, inspecting the runes. "These are common among Aeolians?"
"Yes, master" Proteus answered.
"The drunt is right," I said, glancing at Proteus. "Aeolians magic is versatile. They use instruments to channel wind and sound magic. But it's useless to us. We don't have the elemental affinity for it."
"Intriguing," Kalon said, dropping the flute back onto the pile. "We have one year left before we are deployed to the great ruins. One year to prepare. I'll be bringing Proteus and Bane along. We need to train harder, Damon. I won't have my people dying in that wasteland."
Proteus, the drunt, beamed with a pride that made my eyes roll.
"So now you want me to start shielding mortals?" I sighed, standing up and heading for the door. "What's next? You'll have me carrying your luggage too?"
"You'll get to know then," Kalon's laughter followed me down the hallway.
I walked toward the training grounds. The weight of the eight-month burden finally lifted, only to be replaced by a new, more daunting task.
The great ruins were no longer a distant threat. With Kalon's new power, they were our inevitable destination. And I would have to work twice as hard just to keep sight of his back.