The Stargazing Witch & The Dungeon Planet
Chapter 134: The Blood of The Heart

Chapter 134: The Blood of The Heart

I knew I was balancing on a thin line.

I needed no one to explain that to me.

The large influx of mana pouring into my soul was already beyond what a human was supposed to handle, and it was flooding into and tearing apart my body, but it had to be done.

Espr yelled at me, calling out my foolishness, and to be fair. They were right.

Haha… reached a new level of pain. Congratulations to me.

The human body was never meant to handle the amount that had already entered my body, but I kept the connection live and allowed more to be pumped inside.

Name: Ceella Stella (Celestira Luxpoir) | Race: [Human?]

Level 267 | Awakened

Mana: 1348% Starlight: 55%

My body already had more mana within than the incident at Jellannax Station. My blood was dripping out and leaving puddles that were melting the ground from their heat. Steam was beginning to erupt from my body as everything inside cooked. 

A world made of mana…

I hadn’t used [Primal Guardian Lord] yet, so I was getting pretty close to actually dying. 

My soul inflated like a balloon, and the patches I had made previously opened as it expanded. However, that's what I wanted. I got to work creating new patches that allowed for the increase in size. I was ready for my control of the mana to drop considerably, but if anything, it improved as if my every action and thought simply commanded the mana.

The golden specks of sand that stuck in my body from the sword swing were burned away, unable to deal with the immense heat and mana radiating from my body. 

Al-Roo was strangled by fear as we watched my body sway, and as with a wave of my hand, scorching fire exploded out and melted the walls around me.

“Step two.” Blood dripped from my mouth and down my armour. “[Primal Guardian Lord] [Unleashed Awakening].”

My horns of bone violently grew out of my head, longer than ever before as they immediately shone a deep red as they dripped with liquid fire.

The infection of Espr that plagued part of my soul grew rapidly, but my soul's bloated size made it difficult for it to squirm over all of it.

Name: Ceella Stella (Celestira Luxpoir) | Race: [Human?]

Level 2?9 | Awakened

Bonded

- Primal Guardian Lord [Lv 289]

It had jumped from [Lv 252] to [Lv 289] in a moment. That was partially because it was working overtime, but I also knew Espr used the opportunity to exert its influence in the only way it could. In the past, I wouldn’t have overstepped the rules for its game, but right now, the rules were off the table.

(“ Do you even know what you are doing?! ”)

Wow, “Cough.” You are really angry.

(“ I don’t need your rebuttals ”)

…Well yes, I know what I am doing.

(“ What was all the bravado about not wishing to die anyway? You are killing yourself as we speak ”)

It is only suicidal if I die in the end.

(“ Is this really the time to be joking? Anyone else would explode if this amount of mana flowed into their bodies ”)

It is keeping you distracted, so yes.

In truth, this take-back was painful for me. My mind was already split between multiple different tasks, but I was still trying to keep Espr a little bit distracted.

If I couldn't control the mana within me, I would die.

If I couldn’t defend against Al-Roo’s attacks, I would likely die.

If I couldn’t prevent Espr’s takeover of my soul, I would lose what remaining freedom I had.

Out of the options, I was willing to take the third option, but… I was greedy…

So I will keep going!

My hand cracked as my bones and muscles reformed as a liquid mix of solar and fire energy dripped from my hand as I summoned another tidal wave of flames towards Al-Roo. 

He retreated under the sand as my fire melted everything in its path.

Skills are nearly impossible to use.

Maybe it was from my prior damage, but now, while I could control the mana, I couldn’t concentrate on a skill form. 

I need to keep this under control.

Not being able to use skills didn't lower my output, as right now, I was the most dangerous I had ever been. 

A large golden sand version of Al-Roo appeared, the entire desert split open, and multiple giants of sand emerged. 

The temperature around me increased to extreme degrees. 

The armour cracked, unsurprisingly, and the mana from my body was being released in excess to my entire surroundings.

The attack from Al-Roo, which impressively greatly damaged the armour, made me realise I seriously underestimated his weapons' potential danger. I knew one clean hit before I connected my body to the core could be serious, so I tried to avoid everything, but I didn’t expect one sword slash to peel my armour like a banana.

I could feel the mana from the core being used to power Al-Roo’s latest demonstration.

“Getting a little worried?” I said, having a feeling, no matter how far, he could hear me.

“...You are far more abnormal than I realised.”

“I will take that as a compliment.”

He said with a cold judgement, “Your actions will destroy everyone who lives in this world, even Lu.”

I scoffed, “I made peace with that long ago, and someone else has been trying to guilt me with that for a far longer time without success.”

With a mighty roar, a tsunami of flames erupted around me as it soared high and flooded the land around me. 

BOOM!

The ground shook as the giants came crashing towards me, made up of so much of the golden sand that I was feeling a little nauseous touching it. 

Mountains of sand in the form of a fist came crashing towards me, and I countered with my lava. I couldn’t block as it was still possible to break through the fire-solar mix, as I couldn’t condense it to the point to make it a good shield. 

Sending pillar after pillar towards the sky to push against the giants. 

ARGH!

The ground around me sank, and sand weapons were fired down like artillery at my location.

In my limited area, I tried to dodge, but each one exploded on the ground due to the force behind it upon landing. 

My fire shot into the sky blindly; my mind was too hazy to make pinpoint counters, and I had to rely on probability to deal with a number of the sand shells.

Each moment, the sand grew larger, and more and more weapons came down upon me.

The fire danced and consumed all in its wake, even threatening to take me at this point. I could direct the flames, but the amount of mana within them made them a true danger even to me. The drips of liquid energy that fell from the waves punched a hole through my armour and my flesh, sizzling the already-cooking blood in my body.

Then the Starlight connections between me and the core began to pulse orange. 

BANG!

I caught the mountain of sand with a large mountain of liquid solar, vaguely shaped like a glove. The rocks instantly began to superheat and melt in front of my eyes. 

“Cough cough cough!” I wheezed, as at this point I could feel my vocal cords not working properly. Blood and mana were dripping from my mouth, both liquids burning my lips with their touch. 

Almost…

The fight dragged on as I felt large amounts of mana being taken from the core, directly inputted into the sand and moved towards Al-Roo’s giants. For a moment, I tried to stop that from happening, but it just caused a reflux, which caused me to collapse to the ground and a chunk of my stomach to explode.

Then I felt it.

My mana was flowing back into the core as the core was shifting from a bright blue light into a deep red. 

The sky, in turn, grew into a deeper orange.

Al-Roo passed in a panic.

(“ What are you planning? ”)

I said back, nearly wanting to laugh, A large mana source on its own would never have cut it. 

Even at this point, I wasn’t sure if everything was going to work perfectly, but I was giddy on the inside that I had managed to pull one over Espr. My true plan was only ever a passing thought that I never went back to. I never knew the scope of Espr's abilities to know my thoughts, and I wasn’t going to jeopardise my one shot at a cure from a sabotage attempt.

A large amount of mana on its own was never going to solve my problem. It would just be another delay, and any mana from non-natural storage sources wouldn’t be able to be properly transferred into my body without dangerous amounts of waste. 

No, I needed a replacement, a second heart, if you will.

Something to solve my mana regeneration issue but also have enough power to push Espr back. 

You know… I always wanted my very own sun. 

(“ You're insane. Even with the healing factor, many of your organs have melted. The only reason you are still together is that mana is basically moving your body for you, and your reinforced starlight has sewn your body together and allows you to function like a marionette ”)

Starlight is very heat-resistant. 

I couldn’t create Starlight mana, but I could reinforce it. Usually, the result was minimal, which was why I combined with Sun or Fire energy for certain offensive skills, but when my mana supply was ungodly large, even a poor conversion ratio could do wonders.

I said I wasn’t going to give up, Espoiramissa.

A dead world’s core certainly was less than ideal, as the core, like me, seemed bad at regenerating mana, but importantly, I could still feel that it was generating mana, just not enough to keep a whole world alive.

And now, I was going to use all of it for one person.