Chapter 389: The Living Forge

Sixty-nine days, seven hours, and twenty-one seconds. It was the fifteenth day since Sieg had first begun attempting to generate mana within the scorched, barren realm where all else had burned away.

Time flowed differently between the two fractured dimensions. It was faster for Sieg and Noelle than for Wang Yu and Avia. By comparison, it was only the third day since the latter pair had entered the void.

They still wandered around the abyss, probing for a way through the octopus's barriers and testing the strange properties of the expanse ruled by that abyssal leviathan. For now, limited by time, they had made little progress.

Sieg, in human guise, gasped for breath. Sweat beaded across his brow. He seemed scarcely the same being he had been fifteen days ago—his mind and body alike had been consumed by exhaustion.

"Brother, this method doesn't work either. The container showed no measurable traces of mana."

Noelle's voice was thick with worry. As she spoke, she struck through another line in Sieg's notebook. She herself fared far better than her brother. After all, she wasn't ceaselessly channeling energy through her body for complex calculations and high-intensity manipulations.

"I see. We'll continue with another approach."

Sieg nodded, sweeping aside the instruments on the desk and replacing them with fresh tools. He felt the weight of urgency pressing down upon his shoulders. The weakness gnawing from within made it clear that his time was running out.

The drain from these past fifteen days likely exceeded that from the first fifty combined. Each time his fighting spirit surged, the void's barren hunger grew sharper, pulling at his strength until it bled away.

Unceasing trials sapped not only what little force he could muster but also the power stored in mana crystals and foodstuffs. With every passing moment, he and Noelle edged closer to utter depletion.

"Brother, you need to rest. I know time is short, but you're mentally and physically exhausted. If you force yourself to keep going, we might mess up the experiment."

Noelle gently took the magic lens from his hand, halting the experiment. She could no longer bear to watch him drive himself into ruin. She could scarcely believe he had endured this long at all.

"...You're right. We can't rush this. I'll take a two-hour nap. Wake me up then."

Sieg pressed his fingers against his temples. He knew she was right: without being at full capacity, he would never be able to complete this grand experiment.

He recorded the data from their latest failure, then slumped. Sleep claimed him immediately. Two hours—no more—was the longest reprieve he would allow himself.

"Where is the flaw? All of my brother's calculations have been tested countless times. He even nearly produced something akin to mana. Yet the outcome never changes. Why...?"

Noelle sat beside him, lifting his notebook and tracing each line, each proof. She found no errors in his calculations.

Sieg's research hadn't come out of thin air. Rather, this was the continuation of work that had begun in Skyborne City. Here, in this void where the birth of mana could finally be tested, he had extended the theories further.

Their experiments showed that their initial hypotheses and studies conducted in Skyborne City had been valid: collisions of non-magical matter at extreme energies produced qualities resembling mana. But pure mana itself always seemed to remain just out of reach.

Noelle, having studied alchemy alongside Sieg and Avia in Skyborne City, was no novice. She had worked side by side with her brother, verifying his calculations and advancing his trials. Yet even she could not fathom why results so sound on paper never manifested in reality.

"I understand now. I finally see why we've always fallen just one step short!"

His sudden cry jolted her. Sieg had woken early, after scarcely an hour's rest, his calm facade broken by a rare fervor. His eyes blazed with revelation and resolve.

"Anything else might deceive us—but not our equations. Not the properties we've observed. Our theory is sound. The error lies only in our preconditions. Given our current means, we cannot create a sufficiently high-energy environment."

He spoke half to himself as he swept the desk clear, leaving only a crude hourglass-shaped vessel forged of rare metals. It was within this vessel that he had generated the collisions that yielded near-magical phenomena.

"But it isn't enough. If our direction is right, then we lack only for energy. Even the finest materials, even draining half our mana crystal stores into this crude reaction chamber won't suffice. We must find another way. A better reaction chamber."

Lifting the vessel, Sieg felt the faint scars of past collisions lingering within. He shook his head, smiling with a gambler's defiance.

No, this would never be enough. They were running out of time. He trusted his calculations and the work he had accomplished with the Council of the Arcane. Whether this was folly or faith, he would see the path through to its end.

"A stronger, higher-energy environment... Why bind myself to devices? I already carry the most powerful of reaction chambers inside my body."

Muttering, he gathered the materials he would need. Did he have such an environment? Yes, he did.

He had worn the guise of a human only to reduce how quickly his strength would dissipate, to buy more time for trial and error. But now that he was certain about the path before him, there was no longer any need to do so. As a dragon, his very body would be the high-energy crucible he needed.

A colossal crimson dragon emerged within the region illuminated by the Lighthouse curio, his body still bearing a dense lattice of wounds left behind after his living armor had been torn from his flesh—here, there was no surplus of energy left for Sieg to heal himself.

Sieg swallowed the reagents whole, muscle and sinew guiding them with precise control toward the space near his heart. A dragon's anatomy was unique: its heart, the core of its power, was linked by countless channels to other organs. The ingested materials were carried into this new, living reaction chamber.

"Brother..."

Noelle stared in shock at Sieg's draconic form. She herself was weak, almost hollow, having consumed little energy despite conserving what strength she could.

Even without focusing, she could feel the radiant light swelling within Sieg's chest, the heat pouring out with it, energy flooding through his veins only to spill wastefully into the barren air of this withered realm.

This was no accident—his draconic essence was too immense, too rich for such a desolate world. Energy bled from him at a terrifying pace. Having heard his words, Noelle understood what he intended to do.

"Noelle, I'll maintain the reaction as long as I can, though I don't know how long I'll last. Soon, I may lose consciousness. When that happens, I'll pour all the reserves I have left into the chamber in my heart.

"You know how the experiment is conducted—once I fall, my body's instincts will respond to your guidance. Please... keep it going."

The blaze in his heart grew ever fiercer, like the build-up before a dragon's breath—only this time, the energy gathered inward, compressed upon itself, stoking an unbearable strain. Sieg's body began to burn from within, as if it were a living forge.

Tears welled up in Noelle's eyes, but she nodded. She knew how perilous this path was. Yet what choice remained? Either they birthed mana and allowed the two realms to intertwine, or they would perish in this ashen world as the explorers of yore had before them.

By then, Sieg could no longer hear her. His mind had gone dark. Only his body endured, instinct alone maintaining the furnace within his chest, its rhythms responding to Noelle's touch.

She pressed her palms against his scales. Through their bond of blood, she could influence his body, regulate the growing reaction within his heart, guiding it toward the precise state their earlier trials demanded.

Yet his life force was bleeding away through that very connection. She could feel her brother edging closer to death with every beat, each flicker of the heart-furnace harder to sustain. If only they had more time...

Despair had scarcely taken root when a change occurred. The living armor Sieg had shed began to move of its own accord. It clambered back upon the dragon's body, pressing its biomatter into his torn wounds, knitting the gaps in his flesh together piece by piece.

The armor withered, its plates cracking and falling away. It was burning itself out—offering its life to fill Sieg's. No one could say why: was it unwilling to die in this broken realm? Or had it come, at last, to recognize Sieg as its true bearer?

A low resonance filled the air. For the first time, an unfamiliar fluctuation rippled outward. Within Sieg's burning heart, something impossible took shape: a singularity, a point of impossible force, strange and luminous.

Noelle struggled to maintain control, the process threatening to spiral beyond her grasp upon crossing a critical threshold. But the brink of success lay before her—she clenched her teeth, refusing to let this moment dissolve into failure.

"I never imagined you would truly reach this point," an elder's voice murmured beside her. "I cannot thank you enough. You will surely succeed."

A lantern was pressed into her hand. She accepted it without thought.

The very next moment, a singularity of mana was born within Sieg's heart.

Meanwhile, in the void, Avia was guiding Wang Yu in channeling the power of the dream god to lay claim to the void itself. To her surprise, their approach showed promise. Yet before she could test things further, the entire void flashed with sudden light.

"What's that?!"

Wang Yu stared stupefied. Space seemed to refract endlessly at a single point, as though pierced by the reflection of another realm.

What erupted from the rupture was a searing beacon—a pillar of fire so brilliant it speared the heavens, a conflagration that seemed to shatter the void.