Lord Joyde The Madman: Heylo, Guys and Girls! How are you all doing?
This chapter is one of them defining moments.
Well, it kind of has Leonardo inside of it so of course it is.
Anyways, here comes chapter twenty one of The Heart Of Blaze; Second Rebirth! I sincerely hope that you enjoy, let us begin!
Don't mind me guys and girls! I'm just a line break...
Several Minutes Later... - Searing Forge - Leonardo's Point Of View...
"So this is it, The Searing Forge itself." Victor states with pride in his voice as we approach the final destination of my little road trip.
During my time here, I've acquired several things which would have been impossible for me on Euphoria, namely the ability to commune with the elements around me, dragon and salamander DNA and the alchemical formulae of a multitude of magical materials.
Turning my head upwards to face the massive construction, not that unlike from my own forge back home, I close my eyes and let out a viral pulse to scan the area."Its... calming."
"Hmm? How interesting. To think you'd have the same reaction to all the heat and lava as I did back then." A strange, yet familiar voice echoes out from behind me as I turn away from the flowing magma and molten steel to face the smirk of a young girl."Do I know you?"
She chuckles at my response and I quirk an eyebrow at her."The strands of red hair and yellow eyes not enough of a hint for you, Uncle?"
"Uncle? Only one person dares call me that but... what the hell happened to you, Louise?" I tilt my head in confusion as she laughs at my obviously flabbergasted expression.
"And I'll be calling you that till the end. As for what happened to me well, that's kind of a very long story... I kinda exploded, or at least my heart did, anyway. Bits and pieces of that heart were flung around the world, promptly seeking out viable hosts for my power and stabbing themselves into random people." She explains and I can't stop myself as it is now my turn to chuckle.
That's a bit...
Urgh, shaking my head out of whatever possessed me at that moment, I ask."Anyways, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be trying to fix your heart?"
"Oh but that's exactly what I'm doing. You see, Alice here has a shard of it inside of her and I'm going to get it taken out with the help of father." Her reply makes me even more confused.
Why the hell would she need Alex to help her take out the shard... Blinking at my own unsaid question, I release another viral pulse and scan the little girls body."W-w-w..what the hell is this?!"
My loud exclamation make Louise stumble and look at me in surprise."W-what? Is something wrong?"
"How? How is it possible for you to be able to withstand so much energy? And this is just a *shard* of your heart, right? Just how powerful was the full thing anyway?" My questions make her confused in turn, as she tilts her head much like I did mere moments ago.
"What do you mean?" She asks me and I let out a massive sigh."Look Louise, you already know about how having a lot of mana makes peoples bodies break and become supernatural spirits called God's right?" I ask she she nods, letting me continue."See, the thing is, its not just mana which tears a person asunder like that, albeit its the only one whose effect is to become a god, all forms of energy would cause a living beings cells to shatter and erupt, its just common sense."
".. Okay, but I don't see what you're getting at?" Another sigh."Never mind, you won't get it if I continue explaining this way.. urgh, give me a second here..."
I sit down onto a nearby bench and she follows me as she tries to think about what I tried to say. Thinking for a while, an idea reveals itself in my mind."Louise, could you form some biomass for me out of your essence? I need yours specifically and not Alice's current state."
Nodding at me, she complies and makes biomass burst into existence in front of us and I take the sample into my hands. Consuming it, I notice something strange. The DNA strands don't match normal human ones and since I've fought Guiche I know that Halkeginia's humans aren't really much different from us Gaian's. It could just be that her BlackLight evolved her DNA itself into something more but...
No, wait. The left side of the helix looks exactly how a humans should but the right side does not... Why? Turning around to face her, I ask."Louise, are you human?"
"What kind of question is that? Of course I am." Is her instantaneous reply and I let out a massive sigh."Let me rephrase that, are you FULLY human?"
Blinking at my question, she replies, this time with a little more interest."Well no, my family has both human and elven blood within its history, why?"
Both human and elven blood?"Would you happen to have any uninfected workers or soldiers nearby? I need to check something out, right now."
Nodding at me once more, she orders the nearby shapers to gather the trainees nearby. Several orcs, elves and a ton of humans gather around us, all staring at Louise with great respect and spite towards me, probably thinking I'm just a fat noble. I let out another sigh."You and you stay here, the rest of you can go."
A human man and an elven woman, a most likely combination, are ordered to stay behind as the rest of the crew dissipates."Cut open your palms and fill these vials with your blood and then you may leave." Is what I state as I form two vials with alchemy from the earth beneath us.
They do as they are told and leave, their hands already healing from all the essence around us."Sen, bring the Analyzer Unit here." He does so and, after scanning the two filled vials, I see two very alike strands of DNA, almost as if they were cut from the same strand, as if two parts of a greater whole.
Taking the unit, I simulate the combination of these two strands and see as they fail to combine fully, creating a miss matched helix out of the two before... and yet, the one I saw from Louise is fully synced."What am I missing?!"
My exclamation made Louise, who was currently staring blankly upon the helix I formed, shake in her seat and ask."What are you doing here, anyway?"
"I'm trying to figure out how exactly you've become what you are, Louise. What is it that separates you from the rest of the Evolved? How is it that your Ascension seemingly never stopped? Why is your body capable of handling so much power without breaking apart?" I mutter out in response.
"Oh! Well why don't you just ask dad if you're so interested then?" I turn towards her and grin."And where's the fun in that?"
She makes a slight oh sound and then says."Well, maybe I can answer some of your questions then?.. The last one, about my body being able to handle so much power? That's because I sewed a literal fifty kilograms worth of Life Fiber threads into my skin."
"Life... fibers?" I ask with a confused glance, it sounds familiar but I just can't place my finger on it. Oh wait, isn't that what kept my hammer together before I came here?
She blinks."Dad hasn't shown them to you yet? Weird. Anyways, these things." She says as she pulls out a strand of her hair, to reveal that it isn't a hair at all. I think I've seen Trevor experimenting with these threads, although the ones I've seen were white.
"He has but... aren't those supposed to be white?" I ask she she beams at me."Yes, however after a certain period of time, the BlackLight within my body began to constrict the life fibers, making more and more threads constrict onto one another as if it knew what would happen. What happened was that the threads became one of the white threads you've seen before. Each one of these threads can absorb a nearly limitless amount of energy and are usually called Euphorian Threads. I thought you guys used them constantly from the name."
"We don't. In fact, we didn't even know how they were made. One of our scientists, a leader of the Acumenae, made them with the help of Zeus and presented them to us but... well, it never got much attention from the rest of us, really." Now that I think about it, there's a high chance Alex might've had a hand in us *forgetting* about the threads.
"Oh.. that's a bit strange? They're really useful too." She says with a finger on her chin, stuck in thought.
Shaking my head out of my stupor, I continue my questions."Anyways, even if your body was made completely out of these threads... that still does not answer where exactly are you getting all this power from?"
She shrugs."I have no idea."
Hmmm... she does not know... so what would be that much of a bad thing that Zeus would not tell her he had done to her?"Hey, Louise? Can you tell me what exactly Alex did for you when you summoned him here?"
"Well, believe it or not, I couldn't cast a single spell when I was still a normal person because I had an overwhelming amount of mana... I... I was a void mage..." She says and as she does so, her eyes grow wide from the realization.
The void... a realm of pure and uncorrupted mana, spanning time and space, existence and reality for innumerable eons. Alexander fixed her body so she could cast spells, sure... but he never took away her original powers, did he?"And you still most likely are one." I finish her thoughts as she nods.
"I've always been able to use void spells and I've used them several times since I've been reborn... and yet, I never questioned it. I just thought that my connection with the void couldn't be broken because it was tied to my soul or something." Connection to the void?
But that does bring up yet another question."And what exactly connects you to the void now? Your real body is still alive, right? Is it making new essence, mana, psi, anything?"
She gulps down hard and nods."Y-yes, it is... but not nearly enough to sustain me, which is why I have to get back to it quickly."
"That's to be expected since you aren't eating anything..." I say silently as I turn back around towards the ground in thought."The connection exists... we just have to figure out where." She tells me as interest forms clearly in her eyes and I smirk. This is the Louise I know, this is the person who's helped me create much of what I've made.
And now, I will help her find out something about herself. Turning back around towards the DNA strands I've combined beforehand, I infuse the imperfect helix with BlackLight and watch in amazement as it fixes every single imperfection, forming a perfect Helix not unlike that of Louise. Wordlessly, I compare the two samples and find out how there is an extra blue connection for every three others on Louise's Helix than the other one. Making the unit focus completely onto the blue connection, I find a constant stream of mana to be erupting from it."Sen, please zoom onto the blue connection as much as possible."
The man nods and does as he is told, showing us all how there appears to be a tiny portal into the void within each and every one of Louise's cells."What... dear god..." I find myself muttering out as I watch the energy continuously leak outwards, finding myself grinning fully.
Without another word, I consume the sample Louise gave me alongside the other one and the two vials of blood. I look towards the skies."So, do I get a reward for solving the puzzle?"
"Hehehe, how long did you know I was watching you?" The voice of Zeus echoes out loudly in our ears as he makes his presence known, causing the people nearby to kneel.
"I didn't. Just figured that's something you'd do in this situation considering you were completely silent the whole time." Is my rather direct reply, causing both Louise and Alex to smirk.
An imaginary shrug forms in each of our minds as he replies."Well, that depends upon you and you alone, Leo. The reward you are asking for will make you ridiculously strong, but it will take some time for your ascendancy to finish."
"You're going to remake uncle like you did me, father?" Louise asks with curious eyes and Alex grins savagely."Like I said, only if he gives me the go ahead."
"Sure. What do I do?" I ask him and we hear him laugh loudly."That's simple. Follow Louise into the searing forge and you will find two red pools, each of which will allow me complete control over your body and access to the resources necessary for me to remake your entire existence. The same process which is necessary for Louise to get her heart shard taken out of Alice is what you need to access your next frontier of power."
"And just how strong am I going to be after this?" My question gathers great interest from the people around me."Stronger than Allen, stronger than Samathar, stronger than even Heller and just a tiny bit less powerful than Louise."
His reply makes me shake where I stand, the very thought of becoming stronger than Samathar making me form the same savage grin as Alex showed us just moments ago."... I accept."
Don't mind me guys and girls! I'm just a line break...
And that is it for chapter twenty one of The Heart Of Blaze; Second Rebirth! I sincerely hope that you've enjoyed it.
I hope to do the next chapter tomorrow but... its relatively unlikely.
Maybe I'll manage to cough out a chapter for blood? Idk.
Anyways, read and review! And Good Morning/Day/Night to you all! ADIOS FOR NOW!