As the voice commanded, the crystal hallway lost its colour, turning dull and still. Along with it, the dominant force descended from the void into the physical realm, occupying the area as its sole ruler. It rapidly enveloped the struggling Ocelia and quickly took control over her body, forcing her hand to move closer towards the tome of forbiddance.
"You will not regret it once you had taken a liking to your new appearance. Just let fate takes its course." The emotionless yet kind voice whispered into her ears, drowning her in an endless sea of warming concern and peace. Although Ocelia knew that this was just an illusion created by the mysterious being, with her current trivial power, she could only resist it futilely.
She watched as half of her arm turned transparent and smooth, becoming like a masterpiece of elite craftsmanship. Her delicate skin changed its hue from the subtle pink to flawless azure with a reddish shade blended in. Her body hair disintegrated into nothingness, enhancing the reflective property of her firm surface, making them glittering with sparks.
As her body slowly converted itself into a different structure, Ocelia didn't experience the previous heart-breaking agony as she expected, she could only feel the blessed sensation of pleasure rushing through her conscious. However, Ocelia tried her hardest to resist the conversion as she could, she knew that if she felt delighted about the current situation, there would be no turning back.
Her strong gripping motion caused her unrelenting hand to crack under its pressure, making tiny parts of her hand to fall apart, turning into dust as they hit the ground. The rift continued to spread from her fingertips towards her arm, breaking several patterns of herself, changing her figure from a beautifully created statue to a ruined artefact. By destroying her hand, she had widened her distance between herself and the tome.
"Quite stubborn, but worry not, dear child. Your physical appearance would matter not as you embraced your new nature. The limitation of the material realm would no longer restrain you." The calming voice returned once more with its melodic speech. Accompanied by her criticism, the scattering dust slowly merged into pieces of fragmented crystals. They flew towards Ocelia and reassembled themselves into a new arm, attaching itself onto her broken limb.
Taking her by surprise, that miracle caused her to doze off for a moment, giving the opportunity for the entity to control her hand and grasped the tome elegantly. Even if Ocelia recovered from her distracted state of mind, it would be too late for her to stop the fate that she needed to go through.
However, the total transformation from a human being to an elemental creature didn't occur after she had realised her failure. Instead, her hand had stopped itself from touching the tome, leaving the distance between the forbidden book and the crystal hand within a hand's grasp.
"Foolish creature! How dare you defile the body of the next guardian?" The hallway trembled under its fury, distorting the space and destroying the beautiful scenery. Because of the entity's anger, Ocelia's body violently shook as she coughed out her blood. Watching it dropped onto the ground, she found that her blood had shifted from its usual crimson hue into the bluish shade, hiding a hint of reddish tone inside.
"Ocelia, I'm sorry for coming in late." Hearing the unique yet intimate apology, Ocelia almost let out a sigh of relief as she instantly let go over the control of her body, giving it into the care of the owner of this voice.
"Child, no matter how you denied it, you will come here in the end." A white figure manifested herself in front of Ocelia, reaching out its hand at her. In both Ocelia's vision, the delicate palm of whiteness expanded endlessly before covering all of her viewpoints, turning into the white paper sheet that encompassed the sky, akin to the firmament at the top of this dull, senseless world.
As the distance between them shrank at an unimaginable rate, Ocelia's vision turned white as the crystal hallway crumbled under the might of the palm, alternating from the luxurious chamber into the lost ruin.
Opening her eyes, Ocelia surveyed the surrounding before laying back onto the ground as she had confirmed that she was back to where she once was. Surprisingly, Forus was looking at her face with his hollow eye sockets, caressing her palm gently, massaging it to relax her muscle.
Without any care, Ocelia gripped her hands onto Forus and pulled his head down, meeting his mouth head-on with her sweet lips. They continued to expel themselves of the stress and occasionally let out some awkward noises before Ocelia finally let go of her lover, feeling accomplished and worry-free.
The person who had forced Ocelia's hand to stop was naturally Forus. After he discerned that Ocelia had fallen into a state of unconscious, he tried to look for any lingering wounds and monitored her condition in the hope to find the cause of her slumber. Even then, he couldn't detect any abnormality even when he scanned the sorcery energy inside of her. As he didn't have his eyes, Forus wouldn't be able to see the strange shape of Ocelia's eyes and how the rose imprint on their hand shone faintly.
In the end, Forus decided to connect himself with Ocelia again, sending him inside Ocelia's vision right when she was about to take the mysterious book that changed her corporeal body into a spiritual one. Although he had successfully stopped Ocelia from crossing the line of unreturnable change, he also angered the mighty figure that appeared in the end.
As Forus connected his vision with Ocelia's, he also saw the ever-expanding palm that dominated the hallway, crushing every bit of resistance without any chance of resisting. Along with the destruction of the chamber, the sentence the lady of white spoke echoed his mind, reminding him about the inevitable of their end.
Because of their sweet activity, Ocelia could only notice that her hands had turned smooth and dull, just like when she was in the vision. The rate of the transfusion was getting faster and more dominant as time passed, constantly whispered into their ears about the time limit. Although she didn't know what would the raging lady of white would do if she didn't go back to the crystal tower, Ocelia knew that if the figure wanted to kill her, she would have already ended both of them long ago.
If the two needed to go back to let Ocelia face her destiny again, they would try their best to drag out time to find the hidden quest and completed it before escaping back to the real world. This way, the white figure would never be able to locate them again as the system of the Fleeting Emotions Ruin would not allow that. If not, the monsters of this realm would have already escaped the ruin long ago.
On the other hand, if they could not find the secret mission created by the realm, they would have to face the impossible-to-defeat entity, losing the chance for Ocelia to remain human in both soul and body. Then, they could only hold on until the dimensional gate opened itself and used it to go back towards their homeworld, forsaking their secret mission and escaped the wicked world.
First, the two needed to find a way to get stronger at an extraordinary rate to enhance their chance of survival. Having organised their thought, Forus suddenly moved closer towards Ocelia, telling her to guide him to the collapsed area where the judgement of the dark hand took place. Although she was confused at first, Ocelia naturally had the undying trust for him and immediately led him to where he desired.
Forus then asked Ocelia to find the drop of black blood that spilt out during the stalemate that they fought in the darkest night of their life. At that moment of crisis, Forus couldn't be bothered to check if the blood could bring them any surprise. As the realm was designed to help the sorcerer-in-training honed their skill, it would give out rewards after rewards to indirectly encouraged them into giving more of their effort.
Using the grey soul within his mind, Forus began to spread the grey tendrils outwards, creeping towards the drop of blackness. The tendrils gently vibrated as they detected the essential Death Aura that leaked out from the darkness, getting excited about the upcoming feast. However, according to Forus's will, the tendrils didn't dare to head straight into the blood and could only hover around it, waiting for Forus to check for any side-effects.
Because the tendrils were a part of his soul, Forus could sense their desire, and in turn, felt a little excited as well. With the combined knowledge between the couple, Forus could not find any abnormality that would happen after he absorbed it. In the worst case, he would feel the pain from the overflowing of the Death Aura inside his body.
Without any hesitation, the tendrils listened and obeyed, rushing towards the drop of blood and sucked the Death Aura into itself. The instant Forus started to absorb the Death Aura, he slowly sat onto the ground, trying to calm his breath, resisting the pain that slowly spread through his bloodline.
His hand violently combusted into a liquid-like state as numerous tentacles extended outwards, aimlessly twisted in joy as the Death Aura slowly penetrated Forus' very existence. His skin turned rotted and decayed, only to recover in the next second before starting to rot again. The endless creation and destruction of his physical body caused sweet to form, dropping down from his face.
Despite all of that, Forus still hadn't let out a single cry of pain. He silently endured the suffering as if it was nothing, gaining more respect from Ocelia who was slowly retreating to the safe distance as time passed. She knew that Forus might be breaking through at any moment now, and disrupting a sorcerer's breakthrough was akin to humiliating their bottom line and identity. No ordinary sorcerers would never let anyone see their advancement in sorcery, however, due to their infallible trust, Forus could relax his guard and tried his best in advancing into a first-ranked sorcerer while Ocelia was guarding him.
While setting up defensive arrays and the like, Ocelia would occasionally gaze towards Forus, who was sweating like mad due to the overdosed of Death Aura and the rapid usage of the sorcery energy inside his body. The more the Death Aura started to act, the more Forus needed to use his sorcery energy to speed up the recovery of his body, battling against the process of decay created by the overflowing Death Aura.
His skin would turn black, then grey due to the decay, and finally fell apart and disintegrate into dust, disappearing into the foggy surrounding. However, the pain that he felt did not lower, but instead, the process of escalating his recovery would bring an even higher amount of pain to him. Not only that, but the abundant amounts of Death Aura also caused his transformed arm to turn frenzy, madly rushing around without any destination, trying to eat every bit of dissipating Death Aura.
After a series of skin and flesh fell and got replaced with a new one, the Death Aura around Forus had already intensified to the point where it condensed into the dark mist, decaying everything within its touch. His new layer of skin would become rotten after it came into existence before decomposing into nothingness and repeated the endless cycle. The sweats that Forus previously produced would never drop onto the ground as they would immediately dissolve into physical particles after coming out of his pores.
Countless black dust started to gather around Forus, forming a demonic shape that resembled the summoning ritual, looking utterly sinister and ambiguous. Brought by the completion of the terrible array, a faint laugh of amusement and joy echoed the whole surrounding, travelling outwards to the world of dullness, pushing the white mist away from the ceremony of the wicked.
With the gathering of the Death Aura and the completion of the advancement formation, Forus faintly grinned as his mind span countless times over, trying to engrave this feeling into his soul. He was about to press on and started his advancement towards the first-ranked sorcerer!
