“Are you ready?”

Allan sat across the small room, his eyes glued to me as I prepared to meditate.

I could feel the heaviness in my chest, the heaviness that signified a vessel’s inability to hold its current power. To make way for a newer, stronger shell, to make space for a new layer, we need to break and cast away the old one.

I held in my hand several mana crystals and the ivory tooth I got from fighting the cryptid wolf. The nervousness that often accompanied my breakthrough sessions did not fail to surface.

Pain was the constant of every one of my breakthroughs, yet I still needed a few breaths before I jumped in.

I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths, each exhale taking with its needless thoughts and troubling fatigue. My body relaxed and my senses attuned itself to the unseen. Reality became a simple background, while I became more aware of the mana that encapsulated my body.

I cut out all ambient mana and focused on the catalyst in my hands. Slowly but surely, their mana filtered into my fingertips, through my mana veins, and then into my core. Bit by bit, I could feel the previous shell splutter and crack as the new layers within expanded and matured.

Strange, no pain so far. I guess that’s good.

All catalysts boasted a purity I had never encountered before, with little to no objections from my body. 

The ivory tooth was the centerpiece. Its cold crystalline surface sent a pleasurable chill up my arm. A tingle I was not that familiar with, but I welcomed it.

My core reinforced its new layer, and sent out a burst of mana that took with it the old shell.

Just like that?

I didn’t expect this breakthrough to be this easy. To me, this was an anomaly.

Both the mana crystal and tooth had plenty of mana left, and I had more than enough stamina to spare, so I continued.

The process was much slower as I continued, as if my core wasn’t allowing as much mana in, but that wasn’t much of an issue. With a bit of extra pressure, it returned to normal.

At least at first, but from there, everything went downhill.

The first trumpet of my demise was the resurgence of that strange feeling. The feeling of tiny insects crawling inside my chest. I expected it to go away like it always did, but on that day, it did the opposite. 

It was quick, unexpected, like a bolt from the blue.

I retched over in my seats as a terrible, stabbing pain grabbed hold of my heart. My body convulsed and paralysis followed closely behind.

My body, like a hungry beast, devoured all the mana in the crystals within a matter of seconds.

The surge of mana rushed into my core, intensifying the already crippling pain.

I felt myself being pulled in deeper, my grip on reality slipping.

Meditation requires us to be on the boundary of consciousness and unconsciousness, but this tried to take me under.

The ivory tooth ran out of mana soon after, but my body didn’t stop. It threatened to break the separation I had forged between myself and ambient mana.

I tried to calm down, to take deep breaths and to relax, but the feeling of someone repeatedly stabbing me in the chest only fueled my panic.

If I was awake, I would scream. If I had control of myself, I would wildly signal to Allan that something was wrong, but I could see nothing, do nothing. I could only perceive pain and the torrent of mana rushing into my body.

Another burst emanated from my core as I underwent another breakthrough, but this time it shattered all control I had of myself.

Ambient mana came rushing in.

I felt as if my body was freezing, yet burning at the same time. I felt as if I was being sheared apart while also being electrocuted.

Taking control of this situation was as if trying to fight against a raging current. The only available outcome was to be swept away by it.

With no other options, I visualized the world around me, but that exacerbated the problem.

A slurry of colors, chromatic stars, undulating tubes, circles expanding and contracting, triangles spinning in all dimensions. A visual vomit of things that added confusion to my list of troubles.

My core shook, and a loud crashing sound filled the silence. It sounded like a volcano erupting without cessation.

I tried shutting down my mind’s eye, but the visual noise still continued.

It was my core. My core was causing all this.

The thought caused me to do something I never considered possible, a fleeting hope that if I knew what it was doing, maybe I could stop it.

I switched all of my focus to my out-of-control core.

Everything then went dark, and I felt myself falling even deeper. All sensations of being grounded had faded, and it was as if I was floating through space.

Thousands of stars decorated the darkness, but whereas night skies would be peaceful, this one was far from it. The voice of utter chaos reverberated in my ears. Rushing wind, bellowing thunder, and crashing rocks. Only Armageddon could produce those sounds.

I didn’t think it was possible, but I could look around.

At first, a blinding light greeted me, but my eyes adjusted not too long after.

What I witnessed was nothing short of spectacular and no less terrifying.

A massive orb of the purest black and layered in the brightest white. A plane of swirling clouds spun at its equator. Two jets of light rushed out from its poles, shooting far off into the nothingness.

The entire thing looked like a vortex, with a spinning white and black orb at its center.

A burst of light blasted away the cloud of whatever energy it was devouring, and I felt my body undergo another breakthrough.

Is this my core? Why is my mind interpreting it in such a way?

I observed the thing for several minutes, noting all my affinities swirling around the central orb, but that’s not all I saw. Light, dark and others I could not recognize participated in this spiral dance.

Then I sensed it, that malignant crimson energy that came from the wolf cryptid, as well as the dark humanoid.

It oozed out from the black orb just enough for me to recognize its presence, but it never left it. I could feel a faint amount of it inside the swirl of clouds as well.

But unlike the other energies I felt, this one didn’t get blasted away. It attached itself to the black orb like a leech.

I disparaged my circumstance as the thing continued to churn before me.

Did this happen because I absorbed that corrupted mana? No, I know for a fact neither the mana crystals nor the ivory tooth contained it.

 Is it because I tried to force mana into my core, when it was not yet ready?

Maybe a combination of both? Then again…

I could only speculate the cause, but I knew for sure that whatever it was, it caused a runaway reaction, that I could not stop.

Maybe if I deprive myself of any mana, I could stop it.

I made a feeble attempt to block my mana veins, just to test the waters.

No, it’s way too strong.

I then felt my vessel filling up once again. Another breakthrough was coming.

Every time it did that, it would blast away the cloud of mana. I concluded that if I use that moment to regain control of myself, maybe I could stop this.

As expected, the blast came. Pain rocked my body, but I held firm. I rested as much control away from the ongoing reaction.

My will slammed against the wall of what I perceived to be my own mana, and my core groaned in annoyance.

 It tried to pull mana back in, but I closed all of my mana pathways.

A tug of war had started as my will combated my mana core.

The pressure increased.

I could see the cloud mass slowly returning, felt the flow forcing my mana veins open.

I was losing.

This isn’t enough. Why is it doing this? A mana core is not supposed to act this way. 

Wait….

Another idea came to mind.

I held back the wall of mana while I tried casting a spell. I searched for the water rune somewhere in my sea of consciousness. The moment I found it I focused all the mana I could into it, and as I did, the two beams of light intensified.

I could feel mana leaving my body, and the pull on the surrounding mana lessened.

The orb swelled tenfold and white cracks appeared on its black surface.

I caught a glimpse of the orb exploding before I was thrown out of meditation.

My eyes flew open, and I came too, gasping for breath.

My chest ached, and my ears rang.

My face was wet. No, everything was wet.

“Atsumi!!!”

The sting of mana burn came in with a fierce vengeance.

Then the sound of Allan’s voice.

The blurry view of a cloudy morning sky.

“Allan, where…?” I asked.

“Oh, thank god. You’re awake, I…”

His voice was unsteady, and he choked on his words.

“If only I had recognized this sooner.”

The blurriness finally left my vision, and I saw his face with almost perfect clarity. His emerald green hair stuck to his skin and water dripped from his face.

I noticed the taste of iron on my tongue, then an intense wave of nausea hit me, and I sat up and emptied the contents of my stomach. A mess of half-digested food and blood splattered all over the grass I sat on.

Several large streams of water occupied the grassy field.

The one below me swept away the mess, revealing the reflection of a young girl, familiar yet out of place.

Her hair shimmered like snow beneath dull moonlight. 

Her eyes looked like the purest cut of ametrine, with a rune like no other etched into it.

Blood oozed from every orifice on her face.

Who?

Before I could search for the owner of the reflection, my vision darkened, and I collapsed.

A powerful fatigue arrested me, and I could do nothing but fall into slumber.