Chapter 246: The Ley Lines.

Victor slowly opened his eyes.

The first thing he felt was weight.

Not pain, not fatigue, but the simple weight of his own physical existence returning all at once.

Inside Rowena’s ring, he had spent so long without needing to think about muscles, breathing, or gravity that returning to his own body felt, for a few seconds, like being dragged back down to the bottom of an ocean.

His fingers moved first.

Then his feet.

Victor took a deep breath, feeling his chest expand with some difficulty. His energy was still far from fully recovered, but his body no longer felt empty like before. His heart beat normally, his blood circulated steadily, and that suffocating sensation caused by extreme exhaustion had disappeared.

"Fuck, this is heavy..." he muttered, running his tongue over his teeth as he tried to get used to his own body again.

Victor slowly lifted his torso.

The bed creaked beneath his movement.

He remained sitting for a few seconds, letting his hair fall partially over his face while he felt every part of his body begin responding again.

His muscles were still stiff, his circulation felt a little sluggish, and there was an unpleasant pressure behind his eyes, but nothing that truly worried him.

The strangest thing was somewhere else.

Inside him.

A new energy remained quiet somewhere deep in his circulation.

It was not blood.

It was not mana.

It was not any of the three abilities he normally used.

It was that same clean, peaceful presence Rowena had taught him to perceive inside the ring.

Natural Energy.

Victor went still.

"So it came with me..."

Rowena’s voice immediately answered inside his mind.

"Not exactly."

Victor raised an eyebrow slightly.

"Explain."

"You didn’t carry my Natural Energy out of the ring," Rowena replied. "What you’re feeling belongs to you."

Victor lowered his eyes toward his own hand.

That made the situation even more interesting.

He raised his right hand and placed it over his face, covering almost the entire left half. Only one eye remained visible between his fingers.

"Let’s test something."

"Victor..."

"Relax."

"That is exactly when you say that that I start getting worried."

Victor ignored her.

He searched for that energy.

At first, nothing happened.

Then he remembered what Rowena had taught him.

Do not grab.

Do not devour.

Do not force.

Feel.

Victor breathed slowly and allowed his awareness to follow that different current through his body.

It responded almost immediately.

Natural Energy rose through his chest, passed through his neck, and moved toward his face.

His eye began to burn.

"Ah..."

Victor clenched his teeth.

His red iris glowed.

For an instant, the red became even more intense, almost neon.

Then it changed.

A thin green coloration appeared around the pupil and began spreading outward.

The red faded little by little until the entire eye became a deep green, impossible to confuse with any vampiric trait.

Victor slowly removed his hand.

And the world changed.

"What the fuck..."

The room disappeared without actually disappearing.

The bed remained beneath him.

The walls stayed where they were.

The windows were closed.

But something else was layered over all of it.

Lines.

Thousands of them.

Victor could see them passing through the floor, the walls, even the air.

Some were extremely thin, like tiny green threads traveling through matter before disappearing.

Others were larger and pulsed slowly, carrying an incomprehensible amount of energy toward places his physical eyes could never have reached.

The ceiling stopped mattering.

Stone stopped mattering.

Distance stopped mattering.

For a single fraction of a second, Victor saw beyond.

Far beyond.

Beneath the building where he was, green currents crossed through the earth.

Beneath those currents were larger ones.

And far below them...

A structure.

Victor stopped breathing.

It looked like a root.

No.

It was far too large to be called merely a root.

That thing stretched through kilometers of earth like a gigantic artery buried beneath the world.

Energy flowed through it, split into thousands of branches, and continued spreading in every direction.

Victor tried to follow one of them.

His vision crossed cities.

Forests.

Mountains.

Rivers.

He saw small currents of energy entering trees, animals, and the soil itself.

He saw plants responding to it.

He saw tiny organisms glowing like points in the darkness.

And for an instant, he realized that every living creature was connected in some way to that enormous network.

Then he saw deeper.

Much deeper than he should have.

There were roots.

Enormous roots.

Not one.

Thousands.

Maybe millions.

They crossed the entire planet.

Victor felt his own brain begin to fail as it tried to comprehend the scale.

"Rowena..." he murmured mentally. "This is..."

"The Ley Lines."

Her voice was much more serious now.

Victor kept watching.

"Ley Lines?"

"You’re seeing the paths through which Natural Energy circulates across the planet," Rowena explained. "Yggdrasil’s roots extend throughout the world and feed those lines. What you’re seeing is the foundation of Natural Energy."

Victor could not look away.

That green was everywhere.

"So Yggdrasil really is connected to the entire planet."

"More than connected."

Rowena remained silent for a few seconds.

"She keeps the planet alive."

Victor frowned.

"How?"

"The Ley Lines carry Natural Energy to practically everything. Forests grow over them. Ecosystems form by following their flows. Some creatures are born where the concentration is higher. Even certain regions considered sacred exist because a Ley Line passes directly beneath them."

Victor tried to focus on that colossal root again.

His eye began to hurt.

"Then what I’m seeing..."

"Is a tiny part."

Victor fell silent.

Rowena continued:

"If you could truly see the entire network at once, your mind probably wouldn’t withstand it."

"That sounds like a challenge."

"No."

"I didn’t even finish."

"I know you."

Victor smiled.

The vision disappeared.

The green in his eye faded rapidly until it returned to its original red.

Victor blinked a few times.

The room returned to normal.

Stone.

Wood.

Curtains.

Furniture.

Everything looked almost disappointingly simple after what he had just seen.

"This is absurd," he muttered.

"I warned you."

Victor wanted to ask much more.

He wanted to know how far the Ley Lines extended, whether they could be used directly, whether there was some way to travel through them, whether Yggdrasil was truly physically present somewhere in the world, or whether what they called the World Tree was something far greater than a simple tree.

But a nearby sound interrupted his thoughts.

"Rrrrr..."

Victor went still.

A low purr.

He slowly turned his head.

Scarlet was sleeping beside the bed.

Not in her humanoid form.

A large red fox was curled up close to his body, her head resting on her front paws.

Red fur covered almost all of her body except for her white chest and belly, and her enormous tail was wrapped around her own legs.

Victor stared for a few seconds.

"So it was you."

Scarlet let out another small purr in her sleep.

Victor smiled.

Only then did he notice she was not alone.

Carmilla had fallen asleep in an armchair beside the bed, her head slightly tilted and her arms crossed.

Even asleep, she looked as though she had tried to maintain some dignity until exhaustion finally won.

On the other side was Serafall.

She had not even bothered with dignity.

The General was sitting in another chair, but at some point she had apparently given up and leaned part of her body onto Victor’s bed, keeping one arm near his waist.

Her black hair was spread across the mattress and her expression was completely relaxed.

Victor looked at the three of them.

He stayed quiet.

For some reason, it hit him differently.

He did not know exactly how long he had been unconscious.

A few hours?

A day?

More?

But apparently, they had stayed there.

Victor lowered his eyes toward Scarlet.

The fox kept sleeping.

He raised his hand and began slowly stroking her head.

"Rrrr..."

Her ears moved.

Victor ran his fingers between them.

Scarlet made a soft sound and gently pushed her head into his palm, still without opening her eyes.

"You really like this..."

He continued.

A few seconds later, the fox’s eyes began to open.

At first only slightly.

Then Scarlet saw Victor.

Her eyes widened completely.

"—!"

She lifted her head so quickly that she almost struck his hand.

Victor smiled.

"Hi."

Scarlet remained still for less than a second.

Then she jumped.

Her body changed in the middle of the movement.

The fur disappeared.

Her frame grew.

Arms and legs appeared as the animal form was replaced by the vampire.

"VICTOR!"

She crashed onto him.

Victor was thrown back against the pillow as Scarlet wrapped her arms around his neck so tightly that any ordinary person would probably have struggled to breathe.

"Hey..."

"You woke up!"

"I noticed."

Scarlet squeezed even harder.

Victor let out a small laugh and wrapped his arms around her.

"I’m fine."

"You were out cold!"

"I noticed that too."

"Don’t joke!"

"Fine."

Scarlet buried her face against his neck.

Victor felt her warm breath against his skin.

She was trembling slightly.

That made his smile fade.

Victor placed one hand behind her head and began stroking her hair.

"Sorry."

Scarlet did not answer immediately.

"Idiot..."

"I know."

"You used everything."

"I had to."

"You didn’t have to use everything."

Victor went quiet.

Scarlet raised her face.

Her eyes were wet.

"You always do this."

Victor touched her cheek.

"But it worked."

"That’s not the point."

"I know."

The impact of Scarlet jumping onto him had made the bed shake hard.

It was enough.

Carmilla opened her eyes first.

She blinked slowly, still clearly disoriented from sleep.

Then she heard Victor’s voice.

Her face changed.

"Victor?"

Serafall woke almost at the same instant.

Her head rose quickly.

"Victor?"

Both of them looked toward the bed.

Victor was partially lying down, Scarlet practically on top of him, still clinging to his neck.

For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.

Victor looked at Carmilla.

Then at Serafall.

And smiled.

"I’m back."