Such a thing would normally be celebrated with a great deal of joy. A Willpower Initiate attaining a Body of Will was the equivalent of a student of some difficult trade, like practicing medicine, finally earning the right to call themselves a professional. It was usually the result of nearly a decade of arduous work, tirelessly dedicating themselves to their chosen pursuit. The same was true for achieving the Body of Will.
If Leor had accomplished such a feat in the realm of light, everyone who knew him would have gathered to hold a feast in his honor. His name would have been added to the recordbooks as one of the countless true defenders of the realm of light. It would be accepted that he was someone who could be called upon to complete dangerous tasks and trusted to embark on missions into the deadly fallen realms, that festered and became ever more sinister by the day, serving as the spawning pool for profane terrors.
That being said, the main thing to note was that the Body of Will was not just a simple milestone in the path to power. It was the true demarcation line that separated the warriors from those who were still too weak and immature to be called upon in a crisis.
As the flowing mass of Willpower inside Leor's body transformed in shape, it became something almost entirely new. It was no longer the formless and ethereal Willpower of an Initiate. Instead, it became like a second layer of Leor's body, an immaterial clone of his very being created from pure light-natured Will. The Willpower that was transformed into this second body then became one with Leor's own flesh, connecting itself to every sinew, muscle, bone, and brain cell.
This transformed Will would no longer serve as the fuel for Leor to empower himself, his weapons, or his Willpower talents, instead the Body of Will had become a permanent part of him. Rather than empowering his talent's itself, it would automatically generate ethereal Willpower that Leor could use for his talents. Because of this, he no longer needed to meditate to replenish his Will, now his body would be doing that for him at all times.
The Body of Will would also greatly enhance his body. It would be as if he were constantly imbuing every inch of himself with Willpower, and this process of empowerment would only continue to grow stronger as time passed. The longer Leor's flesh remained connected to his Body of Will, the stronger his body would become, as his flesh was slowly transformed by its presence.
The process of having his Willpower transformed into a Body of Will was not exactly painful, but it was incredibly strange and unnerving. It felt as if the great Will of light itself had reached down into his body and taken his soul in its hands, reshaping it like clay.
As the unnerving sensations slowly passed, Leor rose back up to his feet from his hunched position, using his polearm like a walking stick to help steady himself. His face was covered in a thick sheen of sweat as he took in one deep breath after another. The Willpower torch in his hand had long been extinguished, because the moment he began to undergo the changes, he had lost all access to his own Will.
Only now that the transformation was complete did his stores of Willpower slowly start to replenish, as the Body of Will began to generate new Will for Leor.
No sooner had he risen to his feet than a warm and slender body pressed itself against his chest. He felt the cat-like arms of Alina wrapping around him tightly.
"Well done, Leor! You're amazing! No one back home will believe you achieved such a thing so soon, even when we show them the proof!" she exclaimed.
Leor smiled warmly, squeezing the young girl to return her embrace, then quickly releasing her to examine his own body.
"I don't care if they don't believe me. As long as we survive to tell the tale, that's all I care about." He replied.
Leor's brows furrowed as he noticed that the sound of his own voice felt different in his ears. In fact, everything felt different. As he focused his mind, he realized he could clearly hear Drelk's quiet breathing many meters away against the far cave wall.
Turning his eyes toward Bone, Leor's eyes opened wide as he felt the powerful spiritual energy contained within the massive Beast, like a mass of great power sealed under intense pressure. It was a similar spiritual energy to what he had felt when he passed through the fields of herbs, but he had never been able to sense the unique energy coming from the Beasts before.
He realized only now that it was not because it wasn't there, but because his senses had been completely blind to it. He didn't know it at the time, but he only felt the energy coming from the herbs because the plants actively projected that energy as part of their reproductive process, like releasing pollen. The Beasts, on the other hand, instinctively concealed their energy in response to their dangerous existence as predators and prey. Now that his own senses had undergone a massive change, Leor could finally sense the hidden power.
With the overall enhancement he had received from attaining the Body of Will, he guessed that he was now close to matching Alina in physical combat once again. He would probably still lose the fight, just because her prophetic ability made her incredibly difficult to defeat, and also because all his talents were specialized for fighting against defiled. Still, it restored some of his pride now that he knew he could stand his ground against her once again.
As Leor was busy examining the world around him with his new senses, and adjusting to them, a desperate wail erupted from behind him. Everyone was still on edge after the brutal battle, so they reacted to the sudden noise aggressively, turning to face it with their weapons drawn. But soon it became clear there was no danger, and the companions slowly relaxed their tense bodies as they instead began to wear expressions of pity.
The cry had come from an older dark elf woman. She looked to be middle-aged, maybe halfway between the ages of Thale and Drelk. The woman was lying on the ground, clinging to Thale's arms as she trembled and wailed in utter despair. A similar scene was soon replayed again and again as the former defiled dark elves began to awaken from their decades-long nightmare. One by one, they returned to the world of the living to face the difficult reality they would now endure.
It must have been a truly shocking experience for them. Leor remembered what it was like when he had nearly been consumed by the defilement, back when he first came to this realm. It was like a strange dream where his spirit itself had been taken away from him, leaving nothing but an abyss of emptiness where everything that made up his old self used to be.
When it happened to Leor, only a very short time had passed. But what if, instead of a few minutes, it had been decades? What if he had stepped through that portal as he left the realm of light, only to wake up sixty years later with strange mutations covering his body and everything he knew and loved gone? Could he endure such a thing?
Leor found it difficult to decide which was the greater nightmare: being consumed by the defilement, or waking up from it after so long. It helped him better understand why there was such a strong taboo against waking the mind of a defiled who had passed into the realm of a Twisted one. Aside from the fact that it was incredibly difficult to do, likely requiring special circumstances and a handful of Willpower masters all working together to pull it off, it was simply too unbearably cruel for all involved.
Better to send the poor souls off into the embrace of the great Will of light, where they could reunite with their loved ones in the eternal joy of the source of creation.
Over the next twenty minutes, all two dozen surviving dark elves slowly awakened. Thale did his best to comfort those among the group of grieving elves who needed it most, gently explaining the current circumstances to them as best he could. Though that wasn't much because Thale himself had only just awoken. The survivors were an even mix of men and women. The youngest were a pair of teenage boys around thirteen, and the oldest was a woman close to Drelk's age.
"Who is in charge here? Someone tell me where we are, and what's become of Draemyr. My father is a member of the board of governors. Has any of the leadership escaped the disaster?"
The question came from a tall dark elf man a bit older than Leor, probably in his mid-twenties. If it weren't for the blood covering his body and the glowing red eyes, he would have been considered quite handsome by dark elf standards.
"I doubt it. It's been sixty-three years since the dragon lord fell to defilement. If anyone had survived this long, I would have come across them by now. Draemyr is long gone, along with everyone in it."
Drelk was the one who responded to the question, propping himself up against the black rock wall as he stared at the group of dark elves, a glistening pool of moisture collecting at the bottom rim of his wrinkled eyelids. There was a strange expression on the old elf's face, like a mix of bitterness and despair clashing against a long-buried hope that was starting to ignite once again.
The old elf had been alone on this mountain for decades, with only the mostly mute Beasts to keep him company. He had only just gotten Rynn back, and when he did it she had quickly become the most precious thing in his life.
Now he was bearing witness to a dream that had probably been too painful to even hope for. At this moment, it must have felt like Drelk was watching his lost people being raised from the dead.