The world faded to a blur of red and black. Distantly, the taste of blood mingled with the coppery bite of panic, his chest tightening with each shallow gasp. A distant roaring filled his ears as if a storm was crashing inside his skull.
The pressure behind his eyes grew with every pulse, a throbbing that blurred the edges of his vision.
When he lost consciousness, he understood sothing in his mind—only a single line—which made his eyes widen in realization and dread of whether today was the day he would die.
As his mind slipped away, one truth blazed through the agony—a truth that froze his blood in terror. Was this the end?
This was the last question in his mind, which now had lost the ability to even think, as he only lay there helplessly on the ground being assaulted by the brutal shockwave to his mind from the floating jade slip.
The only reaction he had was the twitch of his body and the more and more blood gushing out of his orifices.
Warmth pooled beneath him, the slick stickiness clinging to his skin, while the sharp tallic scent of blood overpowered even the stale air.
Before losing consciousness, he had commanded all his mana to heal him. Even with the erald glow of warmth enveloping his body, his will remained alive within his unconscious form.
Even then, it could only heal the physical wounds of his body, not the mind; the blood was going back in his body, the cracks in his brain being healed over and over, barely keeping him alive.
But his mind had lost it all.
He wasn’t even aware of what was happening at all until the mont he lost his consciousness.
His mana was being spent at a breakneck speed; those fatal injuries to the brain consud too much mana at a ti. He would at least have a 5% chance to survive, even with his mind out cold for don’t know how long, because of the rate at which his mana recovers here.
And this was his real body, not his body created by his consciousness.
Would it have made any difference in his impending doom? No one knew.
But the holy energy inside his body was not giving any chance—every single mont of breath, it was trying to devour the mana; the mana was holding the holy energy at bay, as its primary focus was healing, which was the last command it had gotten, still being implented by the living will inside the body which seed it would die at any mont.
The violent clash of golden and blue was making the situation even worse; besides, the fatal injury was being constantly revived by the humming jade slip.
Each surge sent an icy jolt through his veins, a static crackle dancing across his skin. The golden light flickered and sparked, chasing blue shadows in a dance of agony beneath his flesh.
New internal injuries were being ford inside Leon’s body, which, with ti, would be fatal, like brain damage he was getting as the burst of energy would shatter everything inside, his organs, muscles, nerves, bones, tissues, everything.
Pain was too much, but his mind couldn’t feel anything as only his body jerked violently from ti to ti like a dying lamb.
Nerves fired at random, limbs twitching in ragged spasms. The air felt thick, oppressive, every breath shallow and burning.
The body rembered what the mind could not.
The clash between the two energies had made the mana consumption to another degree, which was barely holding him from dying.
It wouldn’t be long, as his mana would be entirely spent, and he would die resigned to the fate of the jade slip, which humd without knowing the disparity it was causing.
In thirty seconds, he would lose all his mana, while still twitching like a mindless body on its last breath.
It should have been thirty seconds.
But sothing happened.
The air trembled, reality warping on the edge of despair.
Sothing which made the situation...
The ferocity with which the holy energy attacked increased, as if it had sensed the end of the mana, which was a pest to it.
It didn’t even wait for it to co out of Leon’s mana core, which looked just like his eyes, orbs of ever-shifting colour, size many tis larger than any apprentice ranked.
Which didn’t matter as of yet.
The cracks on his brain had started to increase as the healing holding his body from dying was not there anymore; the rate at which blood was gushing out of his orifices had increased several tis.
Dying was just minutes away.
Holy energy attacked the orb, which had barely any mana left inside it.
A predator circling its prey—hungry, relentless, unstoppable.
Not just attacked, it entered the orb and devoured any trace of mana left in it completely.
Leon’s dying body had nothing left; even the tiniest bit of mana being generated inside was being devoured by holy energy, which showed no rcy.
Holy energy, as if not convinced yet, now focused all its attention on the orb—the source—while keeping enough energy around his body to not let even an atom’s worth of mana in his body.
And it was possible—was it because the faith of hundreds of people was fueling the holy energy?
Definitely not the way the owner of the holy energy would have liked, as death was nearing.
It started to devour the orb, as if it didn’t even want to exist—the thing which generates the mana.
Just then, sothing happened, as if reality had separated the orb from the holy energy; a barrier was ford, separating them both, yet the orb was now filled with holy energy completely.
Holy energy grew inside the orb, its quantity increasing, fueled by faith, hope, and worship of the very people who had given a new life.
Even the holy energy never succeeded in devouring a single atom of the orb, because the barrier of reality was just from outside; it was ever-present for every single cell of the orb.
Yet holy energy never stopped its relentless assault to consu the orb, which looked like it was a pointless endeavour, as it never ca in direct contact with a single cell of order when the orb detected the holy energy’s intention to devour it.
After so long, the orb had made its presence known once again, like the ti when Leon had first t the orb.
Yet Leon was too unconscious to know this fact.
It protected itself, but not Leon, who was seconds away from death as his brain was about to turn into mush and blood was being lost too much.
His entire face was painted red; his once silver-white hair was covered in sticky blood; he was unrecognizable.
Unrecognizable and dying.
Without the ability to think.
Blood matted his hair, thick and heavy, its acrid scent choking the air. His lips trembled, the faintest breath fogging in the cold.
Because the jade slip never stopped humming and released waves of information which were like fatal ntal attacks to Leon.
It acted with purpose.
No rcy. No pause. Only purpose.
A purpose which might even lead to the death of its user, but it never stopped, as it had no mind of its own, only an object which worked the way it was supposed to.
Leon, seconds away from death, and then sothing happened—not the orb.
But to the holy energy, it had a sudden massive spike of increase, as if a new believer had given it fuel like never before.
Its attack continued on the orb; the results are unknown yet.
As the floating golden screen in front of his eyes displayed ssages with increasing intensity, he realised that hundreds of them had reached him.
Another chaos of its own was being ensued in the mind of a girl who was feeling dread.
But the one who was supposed to be the cause of dread was inches away from death.
A chilling silence wrapped around him, broken only by the ragged rasp of his own fading breath and the distant, echoing hum of fate closing in.
The death seed final. Cold.
A verdict without any hope.
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