Inside the darkness, Shawn felt the weight before he saw it.
The mindscape had become completely black once again. The violet lights were gone, and the heavy, ancient presence that had been tearing at his soul had vanished. Only Eva remained, her hand cold against his wrist.
"Shawn," she whispered.
"I feel it," he replied.
It didn't feel like power.
When he breathed in, the air didn't carry the damp, stale scent of the underground chamber. Instead, it felt sharp and clean, like standing atop the highest mountain in the middle of winter.
With every breath, the empty, hollow hunger behind his navel began to ease. The current flowed quietly through his veins, slipping into the tiny pathways the inheritance had just rebuilt.
There was no pain.
No heat.
No rush of adrenaline.
It simply felt right.
It was so quiet that it was almost terrifying.
Then the ground beneath his feet gave a long, slow shudder.
It wasn't a violent crack. It felt more like the foundation of the world had shifted ever so slightly beneath him.
Outside the mindscape, the white currents flowing through the laboratory walls suddenly doubled in size.
Then they tripled.
They were no longer thin strands.
They had become thick, braided rivers of pure World Energy, pouring silently through the stone walls.
They curved around Morgan, flowed past Boulder, and bent away from the servants like water weaving effortlessly around rocks in a stream.
The air inside the chamber didn't simply grow colder.
It became lifeless.
Every trace of warmth and light was drawn relentlessly toward Shawn's body.
Morgan slowly lowered his hands to his sides.
His face had grown pale beneath the fading golden light of the platform as he looked toward Boulder.
"...How much can that boy hold?" he asked, his voice unsteady.
Boulder gave no answer.
He didn't know.
No one did.
Inside the mindscape, the warmth had reached Shawn's bones.
It filled the old fractures hidden within his ribs, smoothed the ragged edges of his spirit, and settled at the center of his chest like a perfectly still pool of water.
He didn't have to guide it.
He didn't have to grit his teeth or struggle to stop it from overwhelming him.
Eva looked up at him through the darkness.
A faint white glow had begun to rise from Shawn's skin, reflecting gently within her eyes.
"...The world is simply giving it to you," she murmured, a soft smile touching her lips.
"It isn't fighting you at all."
Shawn remained silent.
He couldn't answer.
He could feel the immense ocean of energy turning high above the mountain.
He could feel thousands of currents descending through the earth, pouring into the clean pathways the inheritance had created.
His body didn't overflow.
It didn't twist.
It didn't burn.
It simply expanded, accepting the pressure as effortlessly as a sponge absorbing water.
Outside, the winds finally reached the walls of the manor.
They weren't violent enough to tear away the roof or uproot trees, but they blew with unwavering force, pressing every blade of grass and every branch flat against the earth.
All of them pointed toward the underground laboratory.
A flash of white lightning split the black sky above the mountain.
No thunder followed.
Another flash came.
Then another.
Each illuminated the empty courtyard for only an instant before darkness reclaimed it once more.
The world was waiting.
Waiting for him to move.
For the very first time since the experiment had begun, Shawn's physical body reacted.
Deep within the hollow space behind his navel, where his former cultivation had once been torn away at the roots, the vast ocean of energy slowly began to turn.
It had no shape.
No color.
It hadn't formed a crystal.
It hadn't become a core.
Yet the empty space slowly contracted.
It drew inward, tighter and tighter, until the pressure reached its limit.
Then it gave a single, solid thud.
Like a heart awakening.