All the mana that had been going towards the seed stilled suddenly. Col froze. 'Did I just fuck around?' And then like a vacuum had been created the winds started back up again, more violent than ever before. Only, their direction had changed. All of that wind, all of that mana, it headed towards Col with a vengeance.
Col was about to find out.
He was stunned as he stood in the eye of what appeared to be a miniature mana hurricane. The mana swirled and surrounded him. It was deceptively peaceful where he was. But he didn't let that fool him. He could see that the ape's bodies had been lifted by the violent winds.
Their skin was getting torn apart, their blood mixing with the winds to give it a greenish hue. And that's when a bright light shone overhead. He looked up but he couldn't see the light's true form. But he knew what it was. The spirit seed had followed the mana instinctively and now hovered above him.
The mana kept condensing in the winds and the hurricane kept getting smaller and smaller, the winds stronger as well. Col couldn't understand what was going on. Hadn't he asked for a Path? What was all this then?
He couldn't even think of escaping. By now the winds were so strong that the ape's flesh had been shredded. All that was left were their bones, rattling in the wind. 'So much for all that philosophical thinking, To eat or Not to eat huh? Heh' Col joked. His Father always said: If the world beats you down and you can't get up, laugh in its face. At least you'll freak the hell out of your enemy.
Joking was an excellent mechanism to deal with absurd situations, Col was now realizing.
As he went off on a tangent, the seed shined brighter and brighter. The light was now overwhelming and even the very air around them trembled. That's when it struck him.
Col fell on the ground, convulsing in pain. It felt like every cell in his body was tearing itself to pieces and building itself back up again. Col could barely hold onto any of his sanity and bit his tongue off. He wasn't in a proper mindset to even think about that. It was all just another addition to the pain.
However, it was just getting started. Col's muscles violently contracted. He went past the normal limits the body sets for itself for protection's sake. As such, his trained muscles broke his bones.
One after another bones in his body started to snap. Col's lungs were pierced and he was drowning in his blood. He couldn't even understand what was happening. How had he reached this point? Who, what was attacking him?
When he thought that death was near and that the pain had reached a crescendo, he was reminded that it was only just beginning.
The circling mana that had been around him started moving. At first, only a small wisp went towards him. It soothed the pain and he felt like he had even recovered a bit. So he willed for more.
That was a mistake. The whole hurricane started collapsing on him. Blinding hot pain like was never experienced before by an Earthling tore through Col. He felt like his whole existence was being rearranged. The pressure alone from the mana and the space around him was suffocating him.
An inhumane wail rose from the clearing. It was such a sound that carried infinite pain and madness. It was the wail of an abomination being born.
That's when the seed sprung into action. For all the pain that Col had experienced in the last 10 minutes this had to be the worst. When the seed attempted to take control of the mana from him, he felt pain from nowhere and everywhere.
What he didn't know was that his soul had escaped from his body and was the entity gathering the storm of mana around him. It was beyond dangerous and Col had no idea the implications of it being able to do this.
However, that was the precise reason he was in so much pain right now. The spirit was assimilating parts of his soul alongside the mana in the surroundings. The nascent Path inside Col took offense at this. Competing with it in terms of energy absorption?
All the pores of Col's body opened and he began to absorb the energy around him. It even began to pull in some of the spirit's overflowing energy. Then Col's body began to transform. Cells died and more took their place. It was like the young man was being forged anew in a crucible of mystical energy.
It became a cycle. He would be soothed as his body rebuilt itself. He would be broken down in excruciating pain, only to be built back up again. It was a preview to hell.
The mana in his surroundings forged his flesh. Muscles, tendons, and everything in between was being reinforced by the energy of mana. The cost was high, maybe too high, but he was transcending what he had been on a physical level.
The seemingly indestructible bones of the apes which could stand to deflect even bullets were reduced to their purest form of essence. The energy was then poured into the young man's skeleton to make for an even more beautiful emerald-like frame.
The material changed from calcium to something more practical for this world, stronger, denser, and more in tune with the energies of the world. It even carried special abilities of its own.
The most significant change, however, was metaphysical. Inferior humans did not have any mana veins. However, the… being Col was about to become most certainly did. Therefore they had to be created. What better material to use to manipulate the mystical energies than the essence stolen from a being of energy itself?
Mana veins were traced following their most optimal path and the body followed. It was the most optimal configuration possible for Col. However that did not mean that the pain was less. Far from it, it grew even more intense. Mana veins were connected to the soul, but exactly how was a mystery to many scholars over the ages.
Just because it could not be pinpointed doesn't mean that he could not feel it. As the mana veins were forged so was the soul. The entire entity that was Col's soul tried to retreat into his body now that the body was actively drawing mana to itself and had no need for guidance.
It mostly succeeded, however, the spirit had a few things to say about that. It was holding on to what it had swallowed. The amorphous multidimensional entity of the soul mostly retreated and left a single thin string between it and the seed.
It became like a conduit, with energy from the seed flowing into Col's soul strengthening and forging it and it fed back in a feedback loop. The more the energy passed into Col the stronger the soul. As the conduit was made from Col's soul the stronger the soul the stronger, firmer, and wider the conduit. The better the conduit the more and the purer the energy Brian could handle.
The stronger soul also meant stronger, wider energy channels. By this time Col could no longer even scream. He had torn through his vocal cords ages ago and they had regenerated in a vicious cycle.
He had been adamant through all his suffering and by sheer force of will alone he had retained his consciousness. He couldn't afford to be defenseless here of all places. He had already been attacked twice.
However, the forceful widening of the mana channels had been on an entirely new level. He couldn't even last 5 seconds of that harrowing pain. His entire consciousness turned white and then his brain shut down to protect itself.
No being was meant to feel something like that. It was pain directly transmitted from the soul to the body and from the soul to black. The moment it started, everything turned to white. And then, adamantine will or no, Col's world, which had been twisted upside down more than once that day, faded to black.
The next morning….
Col felt like he was lying on clouds. Everything he had experienced the previous day felt like a nightmare. He had never felt so comfortable before. It was like he was lying on his bed back home. He rolled over and that's when things started to not make sense.
One by one his senses started to come back to him. His room was unnaturally bright even through his closed eyelids. His mouth had a weird bitter taste. Wasn't brushing his teeth a daily habit of his before sleep?
And then the smell hit him. It was as if he had gone to an unlicensed butcher. He abruptly woke up and sat up. What he saw made him horrified. He was in the middle of a veritable sea of green blood. Dozens of the lightning apes were around him. They had been torn limb from limb.
He was certain he had not done… this. Then he heard a sound behind him. He turned around and there behind him were the most beautiful pair of green eyes he had ever seen. They certainly would have been even more so if they were not set in a face caked in blood, mouth still full of the limb of one of the poor apes. And even more unsettling was that this person did not stop chewing the raw flesh, having no trouble at all with the tough bone.
And then the fear hit Col.