Chapter 229: Drain

23^rd March 2012, New York City

(Jasmine Sayre POV)

I nodded at him. I looked towards my love, Selene, who was a lot paler than usual and looked quite green. She had unshed tears in her eyes. She jumped at me and kissed me. She gave me an intense look but didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. I could feel it through our telepathic bond. Feelings of unconditional love, fear, and worry.

I gave her a hesitant smile and turned away. I created a portal towards Central Africa, “See you on the other side.”

I stepped through and went forward. I could only hope that tomorrow, I would still be myself when I came back to them.

The sight that appeared before me was as breathtaking as the first time I ever discovered this place. I ignored the portal closing behind me as I admired the view. It was a cave that was as large as an entire stadium. There was a small body of crystal clear water in the middle. There were no stalactites or stalagmites, just a smooth spherical surface that made up the walls and the ceiling. The ground itself was almost entirely smooth. It was like someone had created a perfect dome in the middle of a large deposit of Vibranium.

But what made the sight magnificent was the fact that the entirety of the walls and floor were glowing with a faint blue light. The spring of water was exactly underneath an intersection between ley lines and whatever ambient magic that arrives in the water is immediately absorbed by the vibranium and spread through the hill. As far as I know the entire hill was charged with magic, making this one of the best places a wizard or witch could visit.

I sighed and steeled myself once more. This wasn’t the time to hesitate anymore. I walked towards the small lake, disturbing the previously undisturbed body of water, and slowly put down a cylindrical ingot made of Vibranium in the bottom. It looked more like a rod than an ingot, and it too, glowed in a light blue color, however the glow was significantly more intense in my rod.

The rod worked as an exterior power source for the entire ritual. It could function as a battery that would release the magical energy when needed, but it could also channel some of the magic released by the ley line, while also absorbing any ambient magic that could contaminate the lake.

With that done, I took out my calligraphy brush and a small knife. I had mastered the art of calligraphy a very long time ago when I went to Japan. It was the main way the Japanese drew their runes, and they used paper and scrolls as bases to draw on.

Normally, if I was going to perform a ritual of this scale, I would have carved out the ritual circle using my telekinesis months ago and wait for excess magical energy to be absorbed by the vibranium. It was quicker, more precise, and free of man made mistakes. Unfortunately, this ritual was very last notice, and I didn’t have time to prepare properly. Luckily, I could substitute this with my frankly excellent calligraphy.

I needed a binding agent to shape the magic and channel it. It was one of the main problems with externally powered rituals. I had to write every instruction myself to avoid any type of ambiguity which could have unforeseen consequences. Once the ritual begins, I would have no control over the magic, it would simply function alongside the runes.

Normally, a mage would just use their blood to channel the magic; since a mage’s body already knows how to channel magic, it was the easiest thing they could use to power the ritual. I, however, found that a mix of dissolved vibranium powder and mage blood was a lot better. It had a lower risk of being overwhelmed by the power, and it spread out the magic far faster, meaning that the ritual would be performed quickly.

I opened my pouch which was an extended storage space filled with gallons of my silver blood and vibranium. It looked eerily similar to unicorn blood. Perhaps unicorns were the result of magical horses who instinctively channeled purely light magic in their bodies, changing them over the centuries until they became what they are today. I’ll need to test that theory later; this wasn’t the time to make wild theories. I had much bigger problems in front of me.

Back to the matter at hand, I had made sure to remove any magical energy from the blood and vibranium mixture before storing it. I dipped my calligraphy brush in the liquid and carefully started to create the ritual circle. It took a long time, maybe even hours, but I had to be very precise, and the ritual was huge. That was because it wasn’t exactly a single ritual, but two rituals chained together, one to absorb my magic and another to actually change my core. I wouldn’t have any magic in me to activate the second ritual which is why I needed to combine them into a single ritual.

Finally, after a very long time, I finished drawing the circle around the small lake and I took a proper look at my work. Almost the entire cave was covered in runes that branched from three major ones. The first one was the Mind Rune, the second one was the Soul rune and finally, the Reality rune. They represented the trinity, the mind, the body, and the soul. One would wonder why the reality rune represented the body, but to understand this, we need a clear definition of the body. A body, in magical terms, is the physical form that anchors the soul and connects it to the mind. The concept of reality is the physical universe that we exist in. Which means that the body was a reality construct, meaning that with a few modifications, a reality rune could represent the body. These three concepts, mind, body, and soul, represented the identity of any living thing in the world. They were also tied together with an energy that we call magic. Everyone is born with magic, but mages have the ability to absorb it from the atmosphere, which fills their cells with the energy, and they use it to manipulate the physical world. A ritual that affects magic, is a ritual that will need to deal with the mind, the body, and the soul. It was why so many people lost themselves attempting to use such a ritual. Without the proper knowledge, people could end up messing with the relationship between the three concepts which, in the best case, will simply end in their deaths.

With the ritual being fully drawn, I only needed to put my sacrifice for the second aspect of the ritual, the celestial seed. Ego really was a dumbass to leave parts of his power around. Another celestial would figure out what he’s doing in seconds and would hunt him down to the ends of the universe.

I put the seed inside a small circle right outside the lake, and I finally entered the lake. With a pulse of my magic, the ritual circles started to illuminate, and I could feel the magic being drained from my body. I did my best to release as much magic as I could, knowing that the vibranium infused blood could handle it and channel it into the walls of the cave.

Slowly, I could feel myself becoming more drained, more tired. People, even myself, often simplify our magic as if it was a core of energy that we could use. The truth is that mages absorbed magic into their cells, like plants do solar radiation. We store the energy in our own cells, and our magical capacity is the maximum amount of magic a wizard could absorb. Using body magic like myself and the Asgardians, allows us to enhance the amount of magic that can be absorbed by our cells, empowering us physically and increasing our capacity. It often turns the blood gold, and when it achieves its maximum capacity even with body magic, the blood turns silver. In this case, there’s nothing that can be managed to go further. I still have to practice it to avoid my magic atrophying, but I reached my pinnacle in terms of magical capacity.

Honestly, I never cared about the capacity. Mine were huge, like honestly, I could wipe out continents if I chose to, and I have rarely exhausted my magic in my long life. Still, seeing it drain like this felt disconcerting to say the least. It was like someone was ripping a blanket off of me, removing the warmth that I always felt.

Unfortunately, the magic absorption was far more important than I told my family. The main reason why I had to drain it, was the fact that since I was planning on replacing my magic, I needed to make sure that the trinity, the mind, the soul, and the body, would be connected. It was the main reason why I was so afraid of going through with this ritual. People with cosmic energy cores instead of magic were not bound by the trinity, because they were beings of energy. As a reference, mortals are beings of matter, once the body dies, the mind and soul are released and the individual dies. A celestial, for example, while they could bond into a body of their choosing, are mainly beings of energy.

Destroying their bodies does nothing to them; they would just reform later. Their mind is contained inside their souls, meaning that only attacks against the soul could kill them. It was why the god killer was probably so feared. The necro sword was probably a soul based weapon that was powerful enough to kill celestials’ souls in their physical shells by affecting their presence, their soul.

By removing my magic, and the Death’s imprint there was a good chance that a core of cosmic energy wouldn’t be able to replace the magic in combining the trinity that made up my reality. For me to fully exist, I needed for my mind, body, and soul, to remain separate entities and yet connected. It was the basis of my existence, of my humanity. It was why I was so scared of what this core of cosmic energy would mean if my ritual succeeded. Would I stay human, would I become nothing more than a beast, would I still love my wife, my daughter, my siblings, or would I become nothing more than a being of apathy, that saw how pointless existence was at its base and will choose to let things go the way they are without interfering in the slightest. I didn’t know and that was the scariest part.

My magic was almost fully drained now. I could visibly see that the entire cavern was a lot brighter, the vibranium having absorbed my magic. I could feel the seconds ticking, until I was completely drained, and I fell back unconscious in the water. And yet, I wasn’t unconscious, my body simply was. It was a very odd feeling. I could feel my body, my mind, my soul, exist separately, only chained by the ritual itself with my magic being completely drained.

Finally, the second part of the ritual began. It was weird, to have such an outside view of something this abstract, this conceptual happening in front of me. I didn’t see what was happening; my body had shut down, and yet I could see it without my eyes.

I could feel the temporary artificial chains that bound my trinity, absorb the cosmic energy needed to replace them permanently. It was going well, for a while, until suddenly, something inside my soul overwhelmed the connection. Something couldn’t be bound with the cosmic energy. What the hell was happening. It was impossible. How could my magic be able to handle it but not the cosmic energy which was far more potent.

I could feel the link between the trinity breaking. The agony I felt couldn’t be described with simple words. It was like someone was killing me, splitting me to pieces on a fundamental level. I couldn’t handle it, the agony. I was prepared for this to be my death. There was nothing I could do. I wasn’t the one powering the alchemical ritual, meaning that I couldn’t even try to affect it in any way.

I closed my eyes, preparing myself for the inevitable. The ritual had failed as I died. I felt a comforting coolness surrounding me, reassuring me and stopping the pain. Was this death? I didn’t know, but at least, I would die without any pain. I tried my best, but I guess that wasn’t to be.

Was this the end of the Morrigan? Perhaps it simply was my time. Perhaps this was preferable, to the identity death that could have happened to me had the ritual succeeded. My main regret was the fact that I would leave my family alone in a very troubling time. As for the multiverse, I didn’t give a fuck about it. After all, I would be too dead to care.

These were my last thoughts before my mind was scattered like grains of sand.