Chapter 385: Integeration

Like before, I was frozen in place when I saw her again, and despite all that I have seen, perhaps, it was because I have seen so much, that I was able to see how amazing and tragic this scene was before me.

She was still on her knees, and I had not forgotten her sheer... size. The first time I had seen her... a woman of jade and dark metal, kneeling, hands open in her lap, and if she stood her head would go up into the dome, I still cannot see the top of... I had wondered how one could grow to be so big.

I could not see her face, since she had no head. There was a cut across the base of her neck, and it is the same cut the wardens have. Flat green cross-section, metallic components showing, no head on her shoulders and no head at her feet. Whatever came through that door took hers first and did not leave it behind, and I have never worked out whether that means something or nothing at all.

Behind her, were the bones of her wings, arcing above her like the legs of a spider, and the floor were filled with her feathers. Each one the length of a man, jade and dark metal, scattered across the mirror floor like leaves fallen from the branches of a tree. They chime very faintly underfoot, like struck bells heard from a long way off, and there is no way to cross that floor quietly.

I stopped in the middle of it and looked up at her, and I realized that if I took my full Adamantium Titan form, then my size would be nearing her own. I glanced down at my skin, and it was pale, but if I looked closer, was there not a sort of metallic glint at my knuckles?

In the blink of an eye, I was becoming more like the Jade Oracle, and here was I thinking the first time that I saw her, that something that seemed to be made out of metal could not possibly have any feelings.

She had laughed at me then, but I think I knew the truth now... even if we were made from metal, our hearts still bled all the same.

"I said I would come back," I whispered to her. "I know it took a while."

I received no response, even while I waited for an entire minute.

∞

Past the feathers, in a wide ring set into the floor, were seven discs of green disks, which I knew were the remnants of seven pillars of Celestial Energy. Whoever had cut off the head of the Jade Oracle and caused the Caelith to crash had carried off these seven pillars, leaving only the base, that were like flat disks etched on the ground, but even with just the base alone, the Jade Oracle had been able to keep her prisoner sealed, until the Sovereign of the Stars and the Conclave began to harvest the last of the Celestial Essence in this structure.

All seven disks should be lit, but six were dead, leaving one to flicker at the edge of dispersion... Oh, that is a problem... my heart skipped a beat when I noted that all seven disks were cold, and there were no more light left inside them.

Was the demon free? How come I had seen no sign?

Then I saw a flicker of light on the seventh disk... it was incredibly weak, but it was there, and the breath I did not know I was holding burst out of my mouth. I did not know how she did it, but the Jade Oracle promised me a year, and she had been holding steady all this while.

"You said a year," I said.

The disc flickered, and I smiled. "Thank you."

I relaxed, and the subtle tension that had been in my heart vanished, and the pulse in my soul that had been leading me since nearing the Caelith became a grip.

∞

A bloody red light erupted from the walls, and it vanished, followed by a green light. This light stayed for a while, bright beyond measure, and strangely was not blinding, and then it vanished also and came back blue... my blue.

Every feather on the floor rang at the same time, so that the whole chamber sounded like a cathedral bell rung once, very softly, in a room the size of a small town.

[ Proximity confirmed. ]

[ Warden — Provisional — physical presence required. ]

[ Integration: BEGINNING. ]

"Now?" I said. "You are not even giving me the chance to understand what I am about to do."

I was not expecting an answer, my big mouth went ahead of me, and yes, I did not get any reply.

"Here goes nothing."

∞

I don’t know why I was expecting pain, but there was really no pain when it began, and any discomfort I felt was almost natural. Something was happening inside me, and it was like I was being fitted with new clothes, but these clothes were being sewed directly to my flesh.

The bond I have carried since the previous loop was like a thread, and it was expanding all over my body, travelling thorough my bones, channels and flesh, and I gasped when I felt them, like millions of worms swimming through every part of me, even my hair.

At this instant, the connection between me and the Caelith became pure, and the body of the Jade Oracle unexpectedly began to glow, and massive threads that resonated with the ones inside my body began to emerge off her.

They came out of the open hands in her lap and out of the base of the wound across her neck. The lines were green, but as they crossed halfway out of her body, they became blue, and they were slowly unspooling across a hundred metres of feathers and finding me.

I watched them come closer to me with a bit of fear, and then allowed them to flow into me, and they went past my skin, and began to fuse to the threads inside my body.

My mind exploded with radiance as I went to my knees in her feathers, and I was feeling no pain, just a weight that was both strange and familiar, since what I was feeling was thirty kilometres of celestial stone... all at once.

The experience almost tore my soul to pieces, and I pulled back, reducing the amount of information that was bombarding my mind. However, I instinctively knew that I was doing this the wrong way.

Celestial magic was not wielded from the mind... you feel it.

I gasped and slowly began to free myself from my past experience. This Caelith was not a facility made of stone and metal, it was my body. Every inch of it could be sensed and touched. Every cell in my body was its rooms, and if I could move my body, then I could move the entirety of the Caelith.

[ Warden — Provisional — INTEGRATED. ]

[ Structural presence: established. ]

[ Bond: soul-anchored.]

[Containment Status — available (read only)]

[Seal Integrity (7) — available (read only)]

[Prisoner Registry — access denied]

[Structural Command — access denied]

[Warden Archive — access denied]

[ Provisional Wardens may observe. Provisional Wardens may not act. ]

[ Full access requires: Whole Celestial State. ]