Chapter 38: Transcending the Limits
The flow of thoughts from the hive mind pierced through Richard's brain like a burning knife. He clutched his head in the real world as the images struck him one after another without mercy. The memories belonged to someone he knew all too well.
"She's really unwell…""Brother, I have someone who might be able to save her…""My friend could heal her…"
James had never been the person he pretended to be from beginning to end. Had Emma even been sick to begin with? Now everything made sense — that damned puppet of the matriarch had brought a leech with him to infect Emma and manipulate her into pretending she was ill from the start.
The memories flowed like an unstoppable torrent. Richard saw Emma's last flashes of lucidity — when she insisted they should go to the city. In that instant, he understood that those words had probably never been her own… but the creature's.
"Damn it!"
Each memory was like a stake driving into his chest, deeper and deeper. It was pure agony, a cruel reminder that he had caused all of this because of his blind confidence. He had believed that in this life he could have peace. He had struggled to gather food, to take his family somewhere remote, away from chaos. But still, bad luck always found a way to ruin everything.
Did he not have the right to live in peace? Not even this time?
Richard furrowed his brow and broke free from the link. His eyelids trembled as sunlight blinded him for a few seconds. The caw of a crow startled him, and he opened his eyes wide, breathing heavily.
"Don't worry, she took care of you while you were unconscious… Well, she looked after you since those two ungrateful bastards disappeared without a trace all of a sudden."
Isolda's irritated murmur dragged him back to reality. Her manifested figure stood at his side, watching him with those hollow eyes. She hadn't been able to follow John and Damian since she couldn't stray too far, but what she had noticed was that they hadn't even spared Richard a second glance before leaving. As if he were nothing more than a beggar lying on a deserted road.
Luna intervened in a serious voice:"Those two disappeared. I couldn't see where they went either."
Her voice broke the tension, but also surprised everyone.
"You can talk!" exclaimed Isolda, incredulous. She circled Luna as if she were staring at a creature from another world, fascinated. And she was. A damned monarch with the potential to dominate the entire world.
Luna ignored her and turned toward Richard, who still hadn't lifted his head."Now, what do we do?"
Richard didn't answer. He fell back, sitting with a weary sigh."I don't know… I don't know what to do from here on."
He ripped up the few blades of grass growing from the ground in frustration. He had dared to scream insults at the matriarch, but in truth he had no plan. He had no clear path to save his family. It was like a man armed with stones facing an army. A battle lost before it even began.
He didn't know anyone who could help him solve this problem. And if everything he had seen in the hive mind was true, then it meant that everyone inside and outside the base had already been controlled.
"No wonder that boy didn't become infected when the blood rain fell…"
Self-reproach consumed him. He had ignored small signs, little details that now screamed at him in hindsight.
Luna pecked his head sharply."Stop acting like some depressed emo already!"
"Aren't they alive?" she pointed with her beak at the two cores left behind by the leeches. "Besides, if you absorb those two sources, you should be able to evolve."
Richard stared at her in silence for a few seconds. He wanted to argue back, but couldn't. She was right — there was no better plan. If he evolved quickly, perhaps he could find another tomb like Isolda's. In the best case, he might even gain a way to strengthen his talents.
He took a deep breath and stood up."All right. It's time to make the preparations."
* * * *
Soon the day would end again, and Richard remained motionless, trapped in that self-induced state of calm. According to his own explanation, that method would allow him to make better use of the energy from both cores.
Isolda watched him with a mixture of intrigue and anxiety."Do you think he will be all right?"
But when she noticed Luna's accusatory gaze, she turned her eyes away in shame."It's not that I care, but… I wouldn't want to be left behind like an abandoned weapon in this place until some lost soul happens to pick me up."
Even after losing her memory, that girl was still the same — unable to express what she truly felt, not even with her own brother.
Luna cut her off immediately with a firm voice:"Don't make so much noise. If anything goes wrong, we could all end up dead."
The young girl looked at her in surprise."Is it that dangerous if he fails?"
Luna's cold silence was enough of an answer. She knew more than she had revealed so far, and although she didn't explain it, the way her eyes lingered on Richard made it clear that she wished him no harm.
With a whisper barely audible, she murmured:"I hope you survive this time…"
The cores began to melt, dripping like molten metal under searing heat. The bright red glow lit the gloom as if a beacon burned in the middle of the darkness.
Isolda staggered back in shock, her twin daggers glowing red as if they had been dipped in fire."I'm burning!"
Everything around them had turned into a living hell. Nearby objects caught fire and the blaze spread quickly. The stacked chairs and all the other debris were reduced to ash.
Things were spinning out of control."Luna, do something!"
The young girl pleaded with the crow, hoping she had a solution.
When Richard had warned her that everything could burn and that it was best to perform the evolution outside, where nothing could be damaged, her pride had blinded her. She had promised she would contain everything.
Luna looked at her with disdain."You really are a lost cause…"
The crow flapped her wings violently. The gusts of wind swirled, and instead of feeding the fire, they devoured the oxygen from the air. Slowly, the flames began to die, suffocated by the lack of fuel to keep them alive.
The first obstacle was resolved. But it would not be enough if this continued.
Richard's veins began to swell beneath his skin. Suddenly, the epidermis turned translucent, and layer after layer vanished under the scorching effect of the process. Epidermis, dermis, subcutaneous tissue, muscles… one after another, they were stripped away from his body as if evaporating into the air.
His insides were laid bare to the eye. His heart pounded violently, pumping golden blood; the nerves coursed through his body like threads of light; the blood vessels burned under the pressure. Everything was exposed, as if Richard was ceasing to exist piece by piece.
Every pain receptor screamed to stop, sending desperate signals that should have knocked him unconscious instantly. But his body, desperate to survive, released hormones that kept him chained to consciousness, prolonging the agony beyond any human limit.
Luna could imagine the level of pain Richard was enduring. She wanted to help him, but she could do nothing more than support him in silence and pray that everything would turn out well.
The only encouraging thing was that the most critical moment had already passed. From now on, his body had to rebuild itself, layer by layer, until his skin became hardened like an impenetrable armor, capable of resisting any conventional weapon.
"You can do it, Richard…" Luna murmured softly.
Isolda looked at her in surprise."You don't burn with these temperatures?"
The question hung in the air. The crow didn't even turn to look at her; she simply kept her eyes fixed on Richard, as if nothing else existed.
Richard's body trembled. His fists clenched so tightly that the blood vessels in his hands burst one after another, crimson threads sliding down his fingers. The pain was so intense that his breathing broke into ragged gasps."Damn it, this hurts more than in my past life!"
From now on Richard planned to respect with all his heart every evolved being who had managed to reach Warlord after awakening with a Monarch-rank core.
The level of difficulty did not compare to a normal awakening. The energy flowing through the body was proportional to the suffering endured during this stage of evolution, and it wasn't like comparing 1+1 equals 2 — it was more like 1+1 equals 11.
The forging process should have only affected the outer layers of the body, not the internal muscles or the web of blood vessels. But here he was, enduring a total internal forging.
"Those gods of war were sadists… and masochists at the same time."
In no record had it ever been mentioned that this process was necessary once someone awakened with a Monarch's core.