MaeveMcCarthy
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Chapter XLI
🕑 Added 2023-11-23 17:51:41 +0000 UTCLily stood motionless, her chest rising and falling erratically. The cold sweat on her forehead shined like tiny pearls of dew.
“W—what...”
Her voice was barely above a whisper, the words escaping her trembling lips.
She had just been in the most hauntingly vivid dream, hallucination – or whatever that was, really – that she had ever experienced. Every detail of what she had just witnessed remained imprinted in her mind. She remembered the symbols she had so fervently researched in the past, the signs that were deeply interwoven with the founding days of the Church—the serpents winding around the rugged cross, and that other enigmatic sign she’d come across both in the forbidden Book of the Dead and amidst the ancient parchments of the [Librarian], showing a serpent delicately wrapped around a chalice.
The memory of the sinister entity urging her, almost taking control of her very being, to accept the intertwining of the serpent and the chalice still sent shivers down her spine. And there was the appearance of the Ouroboros— the serpent consuming its tail... the eternal cycle of life and death.
This symbol had led her into what she guessed was the second stage of the Adjunct Skill Hadrian had taught her, and, most importantly, it had opened the door to her inner desire for...
Still confined to her room, she hesitated before speaking slowly, “freedom.”
With the dust from this extraordinary encounter beginning to settle, Lily, feeling reborn, held her hands up to the dim light filtering through the window. There were no traces of the ominous black veins she half expected to see. Her skin was as pristine as it had ever been. And yet, she knew that deep within, something had shifted. Her very essence had been tainted by a skill, a forbidden magic, which, if known, would surely lead to her immediate execution by the Church’s goons.
[Death Magic level 1]
A mixture of trepidation and revelation bubbled within her. Rather than being dominated by fear, she felt a surge of determination. Her piercing eyes, previously filled with doubt, bore a resolute glint now.
Had she ever desired this power? Absolutely not. Was this a path she had chosen? Never. But, in the light of her newfound abilities, couldn't she turn the tide to her favor?
A mischievous, almost wicked grin crept onto Lily’s face.
The memories of the Pope's cruel training sessions were still fresh in her mind. Then there was [Cardinal] Atticus and his tempting offer of the Holy Flame, arguably the strongest skill in the Papal State.
Yet, she now realized that both the coveted title of an [Angel] and the might of the Holy Flame were mere trinkets when weighed against the price of her own autonomy and freedom.
Clutching her fists, she couldn't hold back the surge of self-reproach. “What an absolute fool I’ve been,” she muttered angrily to herself, her voice tinged with frustration. “Such a damned fool.”
...
Lily’s mind was a tempest, swirling with the echoes of Hadrian’s voice and fate. She couldn’t leave him to face his demise. Not when she, perhaps, had the power to find a way to help him. If not her, with all her knowledge from Earth, then who?
The cool touch of the stone wall of her chamber that she leaned against brought her back to the present. She looked out the window, then at the moon, looking for a focal point, a kernel of calm in the storm. And there it was in her mind— [Meditation]. If anything could help her find clarity, it would be this. She jumped down from the bed, settled onto the chilly floor with her legs crossed, and let her eyelids fall shut.
She focused on her breathing – each exhale seemed to take away a layer of confusion, and each inhale brought her closer to some unseen truth.
[Meditation]
As the skill took effect, the world around her melted away, and she was back on the mountain, the black plateau that had haunted her awakening. But now, it was different. There was no menacing rain, no darkness closing in on her. Just a desolate peace.
Walking forward, her bare feet met the roughness of the stone path. Pain lanced up from her soles, but it was just another sensation, observed but not capable of disturbing the deep well of tranquility she had tapped into.
She surveyed her surroundings, finding a new addition: a small water basin on the side of the mountain that led to the peak. As she approached the carved basin, a gust of wind assaulted her, making her immediately look up and her heart race—but there was no black rain, just the wild elements acknowledging her presence. Arriving at the black wall, she peered into the basin, where a serene scene unfolded beneath the water surface – a stark contrast to the desolation surrounding her. Through the calm mirror of water, she saw the same vast expanse filled with a shallow ocean, its sky a thousand hues of gold and azure.
It's that place, she gasped internally, looking around.
For a moment, she thought she was about to have a hallucination, but within seconds, she understood how wrong she was: it wasn’t a hallucination. It was total clarity.
Suddenly, everything snapped into place in her mind. The clarity was almost painful, the way it stripped away the layers of confusion and fear that had muddled her thoughts for so long. As Lily’s mind honed into sharp focus, the mountain range around her seemed to pulsate with an inner life, every rock and crevice sharply defined as if she was seeing the world for the first time.
It wasn’t just a metaphorical awakening but a literal enhancement of her senses in her inner world – a gift from all the levels she’d gained in her [Seven Worlds of the Soul] skill.
So, she walked away from the basin and toward the same perilous ridge where she had met the demonic figure and sat down in the most hostile place on the mountain. The cold, hard edge of the ridge bit into her flesh. Yet even as the blood welled up from the new wound, the physical discomfort was barely a concern compared to the mental acuity she now wielded. It was as if the pain grounded her, a counterpoint to the potential of getting lost in the depths of her own thoughts.
Her Mana churned within her, a tumultuous sea that had become responsive to her calm. As it regenerated with unprecedented speed, Lily sensed her body knitting itself together, the minor abrasions and stresses of the day's exertions fading from both her inner world and the real one.
In this state, she looked for answers, for something she could do to help Hadrian.
With her mind as clear as the serene scene reflected in the basin, an idea sparked within her – an idea as bright and sudden as lightning in the night sky. The grumpy [Monk] might still be saved.
It was an audacious – or rather, heretical – thought, but for the first time, Lily felt equipped to throw down with no barred punches.
After all that’d happened so far, from her tragic usage of the Book of the Dead and the mysteries that the [Monk] was hiding, she was now convinced that her fate and Hadrian’s were intertwined.
And as her meditation deepened, as the last vestiges of the outer world faded from her awareness, Lily surrendered herself to the vast expanse of her inner self.
Within that internal universe, ideas began to coalesce. Healing Hadrian was no longer a question of ifbut how, and the answer lay in the very skill that had just been awakened.
The knowledge she had acquired on Earth, the skills she had honed here, and the untapped potential of Death Magic—a magic that dealt with the cessation of life but, perhaps, held secrets to its preservation and restoration as well.
The air was cool against her skin, the stone beneath her unyielding, but within Lily burned a flame of resolve that no physical discomfort could quench.
She would save Hadrian.
...
Lily’s eyes snapped open, the room around her coming into focus with a clarity that felt new, almost alien. She was out of [Meditation] now, the depth of her inner world replaced by the familiar room.
The revelation sat within her, heavy and powerful. Light Magic, with all its purity and sanctity, could not touch certain afflictions in the body, could not cure diseases that took hold in ways beyond the Light’s – well, perhaps the God of Light’s – reach. But Death Magic... that was a different story altogether.
Her heart drummed with a mixture of fear and exhilaration. Death Magic was taboo; the forbidden fruit that came with a price, but it also had potential—raw and untamed. During her research in the Forbidden Archives of the Papal Library, she had pored over ancient tomes that only a few were allowed to touch. She knew the texture of the pages that whispered of Death Magic's intricacies and dangers, the weight of the knowledge they contained.
With her training in Light Magic, she understood its essence as a force of good, life-giving energy directed to knit together the flesh and the spirit. To counteract Death Magic's direct infusion was to understand its inverse, to understand how to fight it. Her hands, once used to channel the healing warmth of light, now held darker powers.
She remembered reading about certain casters who could direct Death Magic to the vital organs with surgical accuracy, seeding decay and destruction from within. She realized that if Light Magic could be used to heal with such granular control, perhaps she could harness Death Magic with the same finesse.
The concept was revolutionary, heretical even. To use Death Magic not as a blunt instrument of doom but as a scalpel to excise disease and undo the workings of afflictions that Light Magic could not touch. It was a perversion of everything she had been taught, a dark mirror of her healing practices.
Slowly, Lily rose to her feet.
Her fingers trembled not with fear but with excitement. If she could control Death Magic with the same degree of precision that she had mastered Light Magic, she could potentially save Hadrian.
The night was still as she stood there, the moon casting a pale glow through the window, wrapping her in a cloak of silver. In the quiet, she allowed herself to believe the impossible.
I’ll use Death Magic to save him.
She would use the teachings that were meant to be locked away, buried in the shadows of fear and superstition, and she would turn them into a beacon of hope.
And so, Lily set out to work this out.
First, she needed to make sure that this would even be possible.
Under the silent vigil of the moon, her hands, steady and sure, moved with purpose. She called upon [Divine Geometry].
In front of her, the air quivered as if it were a canvas, and her fingers danced in intricate patterns. With each movement, a filament of Death Magic materialized, dark as the night yet filled with a strange, pulsating life.
The room around her seemed to hold its breath as she worked, the silence as deep as the concentration etched on her face. Remembering the complexity of the Mandala she used in the failed Elysium ritual, Lily pushed herself further than ever. Her mind, sharpened by the meditation and the epiphany of her newfound skill, raced through her extensive knowledge of pathogens, the structure of bacteria, the replication of viruses, and the insidious nature of toxins.
As the image of the Mandala grew in her mind, her fingers weaved through the air more confidently. She recalled the simplicity of the Lotus flower she had crafted for [Minor Healing], but this... this was different. While Light Magic was always meant to be used for healing, it had never been attempted before for Death Magic. So, thanks to her skill, she knew that she needed a more elaborate Mandala to selectively navigate the human body without wrecking it with the passage of the lethal Death energy.
The filaments of Death Magic wove into a Mandala that was both ominous and elegant, its form a step beyond the simplicity of a lotus yet not an impossibly complex one. This new design resembled a dark orchid.
She imagined each set of petals as a layer of her different approaches to diseases.
As she guided the dark Mana, Lily's mind was as sharp as a surgeon's scalpel. For bacterial infections, she envisioned the Mandala's outer petals radiating a pulsing frequency to disrupt bacterial cell walls, causing them to rupture without harming the surrounding human cells. For viruses, the tighter inner petals of the dark orchid would resonate to interfere with the viral replication process – a precise disruption that would leave the infected cells untouched but the viruses inoperative. Lastly, for toxins, the core of the Mandala was designed to emit a faint vibration that would bind to the molecular structure of the toxins, rendering them inert and dissolving them into nothingness.
She wasn’t sure that magic could push itself this far, but she wanted to leave no stone unturned as she weaved and weaved.
Lily's hands stilled as, slowly, a new, dark Mandala appeared in front of her.
[*Ding!* Adjunct Skill – Lesser Mandala of Eradication acquired!]
[*Ding!* Adjunct Skill – Lesser Mandala of Eradication level 1!]
[*Ding!* Skill – Divine Geometry level 5!]
...
The moment stretched, taut as a tightrope as she wriggled the doorknob once more. Her breath hitched as dread dusted her skin with a cold sheen of sweat.
Locked.
The realization wrapped itself around her thoughts like chains.
She was locked in.
A laugh, brittle and short-lived, broke out from her lips, a disjointed echo in the cramped space. It was a laugh that knew no humor, only the absurdity of the situation.
She pressed her palm against the wood of the door, the grain rough and unyielding. There was no give, no creak of wood yielding to human will. There was only silence.
Marcus had actually locked her in after Brother Lucien had told him that she had been practicing [Meditation].
I need a way out.
She stepped back, her eyes darting around the room. There had to be another way – perhaps the window. But the room was too high up from the ground—had Lily still been in control of Light Magic, she could have healed herself after breaking her legs from the fall; however, in these conditions, she would just end up with a pair of broken legs and Marcus doubling down on his efforts to keep her safe... probably using ropes.
She looked at the doorknob and frowned.
There’s something I can try...
Lily reached for the Death Magic within her and tried injecting it into the lock. She knew from her studies that this energy couldn’t easily find purchase on inanimate objects, but that it still held corrosive properties, so, perhaps...
She looked at the knob, completely undisturbed.
It’s not powerful enough, she clenched her jaw.
“Ok, let’s try something else...”
She didn’t want to waste more time crafting another Mandala, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t inject her knowledge into the spell the same way she used to for [Minor Healing] before getting [Divine Geometry].
Taking a deep breath, Lily channeled the visceral memory of the black rain, the way it seemed to strip everything away, corroding her deeply, down to her very soul.
Lily allowed the energy of Death Magic to flow from her, not in a torrent as it had with the rain, but in a precise trickle. She guided it with thoughts of the doorknob’s mechanism, visualizing the metal corroding and the pins within the lock disintegrating.
Finally, after a few minutes of intense concentration and casting, she felt the tumblers inside the lock give way, thoroughly corroded.
[*Ding!* Skill – Death Touch acquired!]
[*Ding!* Skill – Death Touch level 1!]
[*Ding!* Skill – Death Touch level 2!]
...
The night cloaked the monastery in a shadow. Lily treaded lightly, knowing that she couldn’t get caught before getting to Hadrian. They would notice she had destroyed the lock, but it would be fine as long as they noticed after she healed the man.
As she navigated the stone corridors, the darkness felt almost comforting. Never in her entire life had she felt this...
Free.
She knew the [Monks]’ regimented schedule well enough to know no one should be up at this hour.
Everything should be fine, she thought to herself.
Upon reaching Hadrian's room, she confirmed the absence of light under the door and the absence of sound within.
Taking a moment to gather herself, Lily repeated the process that had freed her from her own confinement. The lock was no match for the targeted decay of her Death Touch. The metal groaned softly, yielding sooner than she had expected.
[*Ding!* Skill – Death Touch level 3!]
She was about to push the door open when she heard a gasp from the corridor.
“What did you do?!” Came a shrill voice.
Comments
Erebus
Thanks for the chapter.
BerciTheBeast
Indeed.
BAAAB The Blood God
But you wrote RIDGE instead of BRIDGE i think but correct me if im wrong
BAAAB The Blood God
Thanks for the chapter, very interesting as always !
phantom
How rude that someone would further delay the protagonist gloating that she has meditation.
BerciTheBeast
TFTC! Did they see the death magic, feel the death magic, or are just upset she broke the lock and maybe quarantine? Also rude, another cliffhanger :')
Luboš Hemala
Trouble right behind her back. I hope she reawakens Light Magic soon as well.
Isley
good chappie
Jason Bryant
Tyftc!!
