Chapter 278 – Everything.
Kaden didn’t expect this scenario to happen.
He had simply entered this mind space to find out what that black rune was, and who had given it to Luke. After all, he needed that information if he wanted to save Eliot.
But instead of answers, he found himself in a place where his chest was being shredded by emotions so foreign and overwhelming they froze him in place, leaving him ready to watch his existence devoured by sothing unknown.
No, if it were only that, it wouldn’t have been this bad. But Kaden knew he wouldn’t die even if that monstrous head swallowed him. He knew it instinctively.
Luke was the proof.
So this wasn’t about death. It was about sothing else...his mind being trapped sowhere, or worse... corrupted. Either outco was one he would rather avoid.
So...
"Synthesis." Kaden managed to utter the word, thanks to Reditha’s intervention, her voice reminding him of where he was.
By that point, the weeping woman’s jaw had already engulfed half of his body, leaving only a sliver of him exposed, one last fragnt before he’d be completely consud and forced to join the chorus of endless cries echoing from her throat.
He used Synthesis instinctively, not even knowing if it would work, but it needed to. The command he gave to the process was simple, yet chilling.
Everything. Synthesize everything in this place.
It was a foolish gamble. He didn’t know what he was facing. He didn’t even know if it was possible to synthesize a mind space. But Kaden had no other plan and unfortunately, no ti to think of one.
But there was one problem. His level of Synthesis mastery wasn’t high enough to do what he intended.
Kaden felt it.
So he poured everything he had, his entire Will of the Harvester, into the trait, forcing it beyond its limit. He dumped his full intelligence stat into it as well, pushing all his focus and power into a single intent: to surpass its boundary and evolve.
Synthesis began to fracture, breaking apart under the pressure, and sothing new started to erge from within it. But it was slow...painfully slow.
No, it wasn’t slow.
But in that mont, with his condition deteriorating and his knees already swallowed by the weeping mouth, it was impossible not to feel like it was.
He didn’t have much ti left.
Reditha acted once more.
Using every drop of blood in Kaden’s possession, she created a resounding explosion that shattered the suffocating silence buried deep within that place — an eruption that managed, even for a heartbeat, to halt the devouring process of the weeping woman.
It wasn’t very effective.
But it was enough, as now Synthesis had succeeded in its breakthrough and taken one step higher.
The process began imdiately.
Having evolved, Synthesis had beco a little more efficient...smarter, in a way. Without Kaden even needing to command it, the trait instinctively knew to synthesize in a manner that would bring no harm to its master.
A white do unfurled, enveloping both Kaden and the weeping face of the woman. But not only that... the do expanded, spreading outward until it shrouded the entirety of Luke’s mind space in its pale embrace.
The raft, the unmoving sea, the sky, the clouds...everything was drawn into the process, everything being synthesized into its master, just as ordered.
The process was tenuous beyond reason. Synthesis struggled violently. Even after evolving, it was attempting to synthesize sothing far beyond its current standing... and at this rate, it wouldn’t succeed.
Outside, the bodies of both Kaden and Luke trembled as though a violent current had been set loose inside them, drawing the imdiate attention of ris and Inara, who had been watching over Kaden.
Their eyes darkened at the sight.
"Do you know what’s happening?" Inara asked, her voice unusually tense. She pulled Kaden closer, pressing his head against her chest as if that simple act could stop his quivering.
ris, anwhile, was deep in thought. Compared to Inara, she knew the Cerveau and the foundation of how their skills worked. The sight before her reminded her all too well of them.
And that could only an one thing.
"Kaden is inside Luke’s mind," she deduced quietly. "He’s probably trying to take the information directly from the source instead of wasting ti asking."
She knew Kaden’s way of thinking.
Inara looked at her, brows furrowing. "So sothing bad must have happened inside for him to shake," she said, and then her voice shifted, monstrous and layered like dozens of beings speaking in unison. "We need to help him."
No more words were needed. Both of them blurred into motion.
ris left Kaden’s side and moved toward Luke, her eyes apathetic as she grabbed his head with both hands.
She winced.
Disgust coiled inside her at the re act of touching him. But she swallowed the urge to recoil and forced herself to act.
Ice began to form around her palms, crawling across Luke’s scalp, spreading deeper. She pushed further, her cold invading his skull, his brain, and then his body entirely.
She was only at Interdiate rank, so her power was still limited, but with Luke chained and his mana sealed, her ice flowed unhindered through his body, freezing every cell, every vein, every organ with uncanny precision. Soon, Luke was frozen from the inside out.
ris exhaled, a stream of white mist escaped her lips, cooling the air around her.
Luke wasn’t dead yet, but he was close.
anwhile, Inara acted differently. She was the Mother of Monsters, and hearing the title, one might think her power was only to destroy, to kill, to create abominations.
And one would be wrong.
There were all kinds of monsters. So could heal. So could craft...they could do more than just lower the number of living beings in existence.
Deciding what to do, one of her leeches slithered out from her left ear. This one had greener skin than the others, smaller and more slender, lacking the thickness Inara preferred.
Inara had nad her Heli. This was the leech she had used for an experint she hadn’t been sure would succeed.
It had.
And now Heli was able to use healing magic.
So, she slowly crawled across Inara’s cheek and down to Kaden’s forehead — where, still held in her arms, he lay limp — and attached herself there. A faint green glow spread from Heli’s slick, moist skin, enveloping Kaden’s head in a soothing radiance.
Kaden’s shaking began to ease. Then, slowly, it stopped.
The combined effect of their actions was jarring.
Inside Luke’s mind space, ice expanded across everything, freezing it completely. Even the sea below was turning into a sight worthy of Antarctica.
The weeping face’s power began to falter, strained beneath the crushing weight and cold of the frost, while Kaden’s mind grew clearer, revitalized, fueling Synthesis with renewed strength.
The entire space began to crack, like splintering wood under unbearable pressure. Everything that existed within the mindscape was being torn apart, as if an invisible hand was dismantling it with brutal precision.
Those fragnted pieces began to drift toward the white do surrounding Kaden, fusing together in waves to complete the synthesis process.
Soon, everything within the mind space was devoured...except for one thing.
The weeping face of the woman.
Even now, just looking at her, one could feel sorrow so deep it chilled the bones and made the heart falter.
She refused to be absorbed. Black tears fell faster and faster from her vast eyes, streaking endlessly, but it was useless. She had lost her anchor in this place, and she had failed to devour Kaden’s mind.
So slowly, agonizingly slowly, the black, clouded face of the weeping woman began to lt away, like black steel consud by incandescent fire.
The liquid darkness reached Kaden and seeped into him, flooding his body. Synthesis strained to its limit, working desperately to filter and reshape the corruption as it entered.
Then, all that remained around him was void, an endless, hollow space wrapped by the white do. And even that void began to crack, collapsing inward, its fragnts flowing toward Kaden as though obeying an ancient order.
Synthesis wasn’t taking its master’s words lightly.
Its master wanted everything. So everything he would have.
At the end, there was only emptiness.
Emptiness so profound, so strangely familiar that, had Kaden been fully conscious, he would have understood where else he felt that feeling. But he wasn’t.
With that, the process ended, and Kaden was ejected from the devoured mind space.
He took a deep breath, his chest rising sharply. His eyes quivered, then fluttered open, revealing his blood-red irises to the world once more.
The first thing he saw was himself lying in the arms of both ris and Inara, his head resting on their laps — their smiles bright enough to paint the heavens in the hue of a blooming rose as they saw him awaken.
And the second thing he saw...
[You have synthesized and devoured the mind space of Luke Thornspire tainted by ****.]
[You have obtained the fragnted mories of Luke and ****.]
[You have obtained 0.05% Divinity of the Sorrow Pathway.]
[You have obtained the Trait: Black Tears of Sorrow.]
Kaden’s mind froze, his eyes widening slightly at the glowing text before him, then his expression blanked completely as visions began to flood his mind.
—End of Chapter 278—
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