Chapter 502 I Am Sorry

What was a mage but their soul?

When the Anima that entered my soul tore through it like nothing, I knew that I might have just lost everything. How much can you be broken and put back together before what comes out is no longer you?

The only reason I could still think, could still feel everything that was happening, was Mortal Shell. It held the shreds of my soul together and tied them to my body, so that even shredded, I could still function.

Then there were my channels. All ten thousand and eight impossible channels, holding the fragments of my soul and binding them to my flesh. The reinforcement I had given them while slaughtering the Narghul Sorcerers was showing its worth, because otherwise I was sure they would have been shredded alongside my soul.

That might not be far off anyway.

After the Anima tore my soul apart, the pieces began bouncing around inside my channels, and for now they were being contained, and who knew how long that would last. My soul was healing, and I feared it would not matter. No matter how many times it healed, paper is still paper, and paper cannot cover fire.

Even my body, firmly in the realm of Sovereign, could not hold, simply because there was too much power pouring into me.

[ Adamantium Titan: 167 → 185 → 193 ]

This Celestial skill had been born when it swallowed my Endurance, my Titan’s Marrow and five Unattuned Law Fragments, and my body became something no mage could understand. Adamantium is a substance that cannot be found in this world, and when I acquired it, I also gained the Law of Flesh.

For all the advantages it gave me, I was still too small to contain what was pouring in, and in the blink of an eye, before even a third of the essence meant for my flesh had arrived, I hit a wall.

[ Adamantium Titan: 200 (Sovereign) ]

[ Threshold detected. ]

[ Growth: BLOCKED ]

I had not known where the peak of Sovereign lay. I had believed I should have reached it at 150, and it turned out the true peak was 200.

Were there Sovereigns in this world who had reached the peak of their own abilities? Maybe. I wondered whether any of them had ever grown as fast as I could.

And what did it matter? The essence kept pouring in, and there was nowhere left for it to go.

Perhaps if I had received the ordinary Celestial essence I was used to, my body would have held. Adamantium is very adaptable, and I would have had time to do a great many other things. I had a great many Law fragments and even two active Law Shards. I could have made a miracle out of this disaster.

The power flooding into me was beyond me, and so it destroyed me.

The part of me that could still fight through the pain withdrew every channel in my lower body and wrapped them around my chest, trying to reduce the area I had to hold, and almost immediately the flesh and bone below my waist came apart, molecule by molecule, until there was nothing left of me under the ribs. I floated in a sea of essence, my torso suspended in the light, and I screamed.

Every cell in my legs died, nerve endings firing one last time before they were unmade, and because I was made of Adamantium and the Law of Flesh was constantly fighting and correcting the destruction, I was caught in a loop of death and rebirth.

My titan form collapsed as the disintegration climbed. My stomach literally dissolved. My intestines, liver, kidneys, all of it came apart in a cascade of silver light that rose into the air and was carried off by the tide of Celestial essence closing over me.

I tried to hold myself together. I reached for the Laws of Flesh and Blood and pushed them to their maximum. I reached for Adamantium Titan, and I even swapped Godslayer for The Unbroken Titan in the middle of it, and none of it was enough.

My chest dissolved. My lungs, my heart, the core of Cor Telluris that had been with me since the beginning, came apart in a shower of golden light, and all I could do was wrap my channels around the pieces.

I felt my heart stop, and the core that had been the seat of my power for so long broke and scattered. For a moment I could see it, a tiny sphere of compressed power holding the essence of what I was, and then it too was carried away into the storm around me.

I should have died then, and I do not really know how to die unless I permit myself to. Until the last shred of my will was gone, I would not go. I would fight to the end.

My arms dissolved, then my shoulders, and then my neck. I was nothing but a skull, and a brain wrapped tightly in my channels.

I had no idea I could be broken to that state and still remain.

I reached into the essence with my will, took hold of the power that was tearing me apart, and tried to make it mine.

The skull began to crack, and the last of my physical form began to fail. I was holding my channels with my skull. If it went, there would be nothing left to root my final form, and I did not stop trying to take hold of the Celestial essence that was ravaging me, even knowing I was losing.

I do not know how long I held on. By then, what kept me alive was past stubbornness. It was the simple conviction that as long as I could still think, I would not stop fighting.

It could have been seconds. It could have been hours. Time had lost all meaning in that place of light and death.

I held on.

This world is cruel, and no matter how hard we fight for the things we want, sometimes they are simply too great, and our dreams slip out through our broken fingers anyway.

And still I held on, even as my dreams flew out through broken fingers. When the last fragments of my skull were about to dissolve, when the last scraps of my brain were about to scatter, when there was nothing left of me but will and pain...

A cold consciousness woke inside me.

The Hollow Avatar.

"Enough," it said.

The tone had not changed. It was still that cold, mechanical voice that felt so alien even though it sounded like my own, and I had no eyes, and the remnants of my soul wept.

"Hollow... I am... I am so tired."

"I have been away for so long. I am... sorry." A pause. "Your body is at its limit, your soul is shattered, and you cannot ascend further until you complete the Seven Earth Gates and construct the First Pillar. And still... what you have built, Elric, in such a short time, is remarkable. I can build the future with this. Sleep, Elric. When you wake, your enemies shall tremble."