Grand Ascension-Chapter 98: Scram
"Re...turn. Com...plete. Fo...rm..." the eyed hand spoke.
It was chanting ritualistic codes, codes to reform the missing ninth chain.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The chains vibrated, even more than they did before the chant.
Glow!
They glowed brighter and spread apart, creating space for the ninth.
Between the fourth and fifth chain, a gap pulsed.
The hand’s eye focused, the red light intensifying and pouring into that gap that had been created between the fourth and the fifth chain.
Something sprouted out of Makun’s spirit body.
It started quite small, pulsing with vibrant red, and then it sprouted like tumorous veins of rusted steel pushing through the translucent flesh of his soul, thickening and coiling with the sluggish greed of parasitic vines.
Flicker!
Makun’s spirit body struggled to collapse, for the pain was more than what it could support.
However, even unconscious, Makun’s body knew it could not let this happen.
BOOM!
His chaotic will surged like a storm trapped inside a glass cage, spiritual energy clawing and slamming against the walls of his spiritual body in a desperate bid to break free.
But the suppression charms pulsed—
Once! Twice! Thrice!
They pulsed slowly, with obscene throbs like diseased hearts beating in the dark, each pulse squeezing tighter around the raging torrent, strangling the wild energy like iron vines crushing a thrashing serpent.
The very power that was meant to liberate him was brutally sucked inward.
It poured into the charms like fresh blood drawn into leeches, then was spat back out as raw fuel, greedily devoured by the growing chains.
Instead of shattering his bonds, the stolen energy only nourished the birth of the ninth chain, a thick, black-iron monstrosity that tore its way out of his spirit body with a wet, grinding scream, heavier and crueler than all the others before it.
Link by link, the chain materialized, each segment wrenching itself free from the marrow of his spirit like a parasite birthing itself backward through time.
Each one was carved from his essence. Cold burning ethereal iron formed from his own suppressed will, his own Ashe, his chaotic element.
It sucked his vital energy, which had increased by a great margin in the last few days, and made sure not to fully finish it, the way a leech draws blood without ever letting the host bleed out completely.
The ninth chain was forming, nearly whole, one final link remained and it was over.
The hand’s eye gleamed with satisfaction, the red in it brightening as even more blood poured out of it.
It had unexpectedly appeared after a mechanism installed by them had been touched.
However, what it had not expected was to meet the final piece of the great project here.
The missing ninth chain was trouble, however, with it here, reforming it was easier.
Now that a third party wanted to oppose them, it would take larger measures to prevent interference.
...
Outside, in the bounded field, the eye blinked. A large drop of blood fell from it. It was as large as a hot air balloon.
However, the more it fell, the smaller it got.
When it reached Makun’s forehead, it had already reached the size of a water droplet.
Pierce!
It went through Makun’s frontal lobe, deep down to where his spirit body lay.
The eyed hand wanted to use this drop of blood as extra protection against the interference of whoever had worked against them.
Inside the drop lay countless hidden laws and hidden restrictions.
These laws, rules, and restrictions would be activated upon infringement, and this would alert the eyed hand, providing it with time to intervene.
The blood slowly drifted toward the ninth chain, upon contact, the process would reach the final stage and be completed.
Snap!
The hand’s eye looked around. It felt something.
WOOOSH!
Absolute darkness erupted within Makun. The presence of nothing. A void so complete his astral body felt like a candle flame in an infinite vacuum.
The pressure that came with it was immeasurable.
Jorg’s control over gravity could not hold a candle to the pressure emitted by the darkness.
It was a pressure that could crush planets, destroy worlds, birth stars, and snuff them out with just a thought.
Makun’s tied soul flickered, it flickered even more violently than when it was being chained by the eyed hand.
This was something that could not be described, it was immense and seemed to have no limit.
CLANK-CLANK-CLANK-CLANK-CLANK!
The eight chains and the ninth chain that had just been formed trembled, they vibrated violently.
The links that were going to be completed began to crack, hair-thin fractures spreading along their length.
They were all going to break, now.
The hand’s eye widened, its bloody pupil filled with what could be described as shock.
BOOM! BOOM!
Red light exploded out of it, swarming into the chains, maintaining them together.
They could not break, not when they were close to accomplishing the great goal.
More blood dripped from it, swarming Makun’s forehead like a living plague of black oil.
It swarmed toward the chain in hope of completing the process in rapid succession.
However, as soon as it reached the layers where Makun’s spirit body lay, it was swallowed by the darkness.
In fact, it was not swallowed, it ceased existing.
The eye widened in shock.
"You..." it spoke, voice trembling for the first time. "Oya... The... Dark Mother."
The darkness, it felt familiar, it had felt it before, it knew who she was.
But why would she intervene here, now, in this reality, in this boy’s body?
She was the one that stood against them.
Silence.
It remembered, she was bound, weakened, chained by her own laws.
The fear faded, confidence swelled.
"You... cannot... stop... this. Not... anymore."
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Bloody light exploded within Makun in every direction, threatening to overturn the darkness.
The eyed hand had decided to act.
She could do nothing against him at the moment.
A cold snort spread out through the darkness.
Parasite. Who do you think you are.
Scram.
The pulsing red light vanished from within Makun.
