An hour passed.
Darian took a deep breath and, with a calm gesture, waved his hand. The chaos around him seemed to acknowledge him as an equal; his body stopped being dragged toward death, and the devastating flow of energy began to divert around him, ignoring his presence.
Before, he relied on a forced, crude dominance over space-time, but he was still being pulled. Now, even though he still didn't have full control, everything flowed smoothly and a thousand times more efficiently; with that, he managed to stop completely.
'It'll still take a good while for my soul to fully adapt to this spiritual root. But... the difference between now and before is like heaven and earth,' Darian thought, letting out a sigh of relief.
Feeling steady, he didn't retreat. On the contrary, he took deliberate steps forward, advancing on his own against the current. He approached the edge of the core and stopped, analyzing every tiny detail of that flow.
