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168 – Under The Rubble

  Everything was silent.

  It was as if darkness devoured everything, even sound.

  Time itself seemed to stand still.

  However, there was one thing that managed to withstand the great tragedy.

  In the center of the darkness, a huge stone flickering with a bluish color stood strong, giving off warm light.

  The stone leaned to one side, seemingly because the foundation underneath was broken and not because it gave way under the pressure of the surroundings.

  Unfortunately, its light couldn’t travel far to illuminate the lonely walls of the mine, as the stele was surrounded by rubble.

  Nothing changed, even with its presence.

  The cave was silent.

  At least, that was until...

  Gasp!

  A sudden gasp reverberated through the cave.

  It was coarse but filled with strength, as if the one who breathed in had held their breath for a long time and needed to suck in as much air as possible.

  “Ugh...”

  Illyan, who had lost consciousness for a few minutes, woke up in shock.

  He gasped for breath, but it was more difficult than expected.

  His body was in a very bad state.

  At the st moment, he used the starstone stele to shield his body, but it didn’t change the fact that all the rubble would still raze everything inside the cave.

  While he was protected from behind and above, the rge pile of rubble rolled from the front right at him.

  The only thing he did was use all his blood energy, flow, and even spiritual energy to protect himself, especially his head.

  If his head burst open, then even his gift wouldn’t save him.

  Because of that, he used his hands to cover his head.

  Now, they were mangled to a great extent, as his entire body was pressed against the inclined side of the stele by the rubble that pinned him to it.

  His chest caved in under the pressure, which caused breathing problems, and even his heart beat irregurly.

  ‘At least I still live…’ Illyan tried to think positively as he looked around.

  There was almost no room to maneuver, as the entire pce was covered in stones.

  ‘And I can immediately finish what I came here for.’

  Illyan thought so as the light coming out of the stele started to turn bloody red, illuminating the area around him in a gloomy crimson.

  “Access to the Faruin Support System, activate...” Illyan muttered with a grin.

  Before, he always pced his palm on the stele to confirm authority, but since his back, which was bloodied, was pressed against it, he didn’t need to do so.

  Soon, the authorization process was completed, and the crimson light disappeared with it.

  ‘Now that’s done, so I need to focus on the other problem,’ Illyan thought as he wondered how to get out of here...

  He couldn’t move even a bit.

  It wasn’t just because he was injured but because there was no space to move to.

  At this rate, even the air would run out soon.

  But Illyan wasn’t worried.

  In fact, despite the excruciating pain coursing through his body, he felt more alive than ever.

  ‘This is much better than suffering because of the schemes of those around. Proportionate risk with even better rewards is something I can get used to.’

  Others would call Illyan crazy for saying that staying in the cave during the colpse was proportionate risk, and they were maybe even right.

  Illyan didn’t think the same way as normal people.

  One reason for that was his gift.

  But the fact that he didn’t dwell on his life as much as others was another reason.

  He wasn’t overconfident that his regeneration could allow him to survive anything under the sun, but he was sure to use it to its limits every time he could.

  After all, he had come to realize one simple truth during his life.

  ‘To survive, you need to risk your life.’ Those who sat on their bum wouldn’t face danger immediately, but there would come a time when they would regret their inactivity.

  ‘So… What now?’ Instead of dwelling on this, Illyan now focused on the way to get out of this pce.

  Illyan tried to push his hands against the wall of hard rocks, but he couldn’t move even a bit.

  He tried to use his blood energy, which had recovered, but this caused the rocks to tremble slightly before they stopped completely, while his blood energy got depleted again.

  “Oof… This is not the right method, huh?” Illyan sighed as he gave up on using his strength.

  Next, he tried to push his flow through his hands into the rocks.

  Since they were pressing on him, there was no gap, and he could easily infuse it inside.

  Of course, it was more difficult in his state, but after several tries, he finally succeeded.

  ‘Success!’

  The rock ruptured right after that since Illyan had pnned to do so from the beginning.

  However, the moment the rock cracked, there was a small tremble as small rocks and dust filled in the opened hole.

  ‘Damn it…’ Illyan cursed at the sight.

  His flow was also at the bottom after this, since the infusion into these hard rocks was quite difficult.

  It would regenerate, but that would drain all his energy before he managed to crawl out of here.

  Illyan closed his eyes. He needed to focus to figure out a new way...

  However, he was distracted as he felt a drop of blood flowing down his forehead.

  This made him frown, as he wanted to shake it off but couldn’t.

  ‘Haah… So annoying. Should I just blow it off with [Blood Ignition]?’

  Illyan thought so with a gloomy expression.

  ‘Wait, [Blood Ignition]?’ But this thought gave birth to another idea.

  Aurelia had expined to him that [Blood Ignition] basically destroyed all the energy and information inside the blood. When he used it, it was silent without any showy effects.

  However, whenever Aurelia showed him the spell, her blood sizzled as if water was added to boiling oil.

  ‘This is because I fused mana with my blood energy. There is much more information in the mana than in the blood energy, which also caused my blood to be much more votile for this kind of spell.’

  ‘The more energy or complex information inside the blood, the more votile the spell’s effects are…’ Illyan thought quietly.

  ‘Wouldn’t that mean that if I focused all my blood energy into one droplet of blood, it would make an explosion?’ Illyan thought crazily.

  Normally, infusing more energy into spells was a foolish idea since it could cause irreversible problems.

  The spell’s effect could change, or the entire spell formation could colpse, causing the energy to disperse, mostly in a violent manner. Unless it was a Mage who didn’t use spells, it was a big taboo to do so.

  However, this wasn’t a mana or spirit spell. Mana, which depended on control and knowledge, and Spiritual Energy, which depended on a person’s will, were different from Blood Energy.

  Blood Energy was used by Body Temperers and Sorcerers.

  One fought only using their body, while the other depended on their body’s innate ability to cast spells.

  ‘At the end of the day, as long as the body could withstand it, it didn’t matter.’ Illyan grinned.

  Even if his body could not withstand it, he didn’t mind. He just needed to survive…

  ‘Firstly, I need to ignite the blood that was already spilled. These bastards will definitely return.’

  Since they still didn’t have the stele under their complete control, they would still need to return. It was just a matter of time.

  So, Illyan didn’t hesitate to extinguish all the blood around him.

  Fortunately, he hadn’t been injured during the fight, so the blood was spilled only here.

  ‘I am still bleeding…’ However, Illyan realized that even if he carried out his pn, there would be more blood to get rid of.

  ‘How to stop it… I can’t use medicine since I can’t move, so…’ Illyan pondered on how to stop his bleeding.

  His regeneration would take care of it normally, but here he needed to save his energy. Not to mention that the rocks were cutting into his flesh all this time he was here, so it wouldn’t help either.

  ‘Sealing acupoints would solve this problem, but without moving hands… Maybe using the flow?’ Illyan remembered that time when he had to convince Terren that he wanted to learn flow for medicinal purposes.

  Before, it was just a baseless idea meant to deceive. Now, however, it sparked another inspiration in Illyan’s mind.

  Soon, the flow, which quickly regenerated inside him, started to once again stir.

  This time, however, Illyan just let it flow across his body.

  The flow coursed through in circles, and whenever it reached the pce where he was wounded, it seeped deep into those acupoints and sealed them off.

  Not all acupuncture points affected the bloodstream, but there were still enough to completely stop him from bleeding out.

  Thanks to that, all his wounds stopped bleeding completely.

  ‘Now then…’ Illyan thought as he started to mumble in a hoarse voice the incantation for the [Blood Ignition].

  “Moscaratus Haras Neobol’eter!”

  Energy from his body linked with the spilled blood as it ravaged it.

  However, there was no special sight to behold. No sound or fshing light.

  Because this was only cleaning up the mess.

  The real move would begin now.

  Illyan grinned as he tried to move one of his fingers on his hand and pushed it against the rock pressing his body.

  This time, he pushed all of the Blood Energy he could muster into the tip of his finger.

  It was to the point where the finger glowed and swelled as it shattered.

  But Illyan didn’t mind. He had already blocked the acupoint on this finger, so no blood flowed out.

  Instead, it all concentrated at the tip.

  Illyan muttered once again, this time with more power, “Moscaratus Haras Neobol’eter!”

  Crackle!

  The glow on his finger became even more prominent as it suddenly blew up along with the rock close to it.

  Dust flew everywhere, making Illyan cough, but soon after, it settled.

  There were once again small tremors as some small rocks started to fill up the space, but not completely.

  Once Illyan could see again, he noticed that alongside half of his finger, there was also a hole the diameter of an entire head missing in the rock in front of him, with many cracks covering it.

  This allowed him to move at least one of his wrists.

  ‘This worked out much better than expected!’ Illyan was delighted to see this.

  Although his blood energy was once again at the bottom, it would slowly recover.

  “But they may get here if I take too long.”

  Alone, in the darkness, Illyan started to talk to himself with ughter.

  He didn’t expect any answer, nor did he seek it.

  But he received it anyway.

  “This wouldn’t happen if you didn’t help that girl.”

  A soft voice echoed in his ears as a silver breeze flowed around his head.

  “Zephyr…?” Illyan mumbled as he looked around. Of course, he didn’t see anything.

  “It has been a year. It looked like society’s influence calmed your mind, but it seems… Those scars won’t heal completely.”

  Her ughter appeared in his mind as his head started to ache.

  “What did you mean by ‘saving the girl’?” In the end, Illyan asked.

  “Not even a greeting, huh? Learning manners is useless if you don’t honor them, fufu.”

  “Answer me…”

  “Alright, grumpy. It is exactly as I said. If you didn’t bother with that redhead, you wouldn’t be stuck in here…” Zephyr said with a pout.

  “What are you saying? Are you stupid?” Illyan held his head as he groaned. He didn’t understand her gibberish.

  Zephyr’s imaginary silhouette narrowed her eyes as she gred at him.

  “Didn’t you waste a lot of time killing those guys that surrounded her and then throwing her towards the escape?” Zephyr asked leisurely.

  Illyan sighed.

  “Yes, I did. So? It is not like running on foot would allow me to escape. I wouldn’t have thrown her if that wasn’t the case,” Illyan said with a tired face.

  “But you wouldn’t need to kill all these guys if you didn’t go help her, no?”

  “You mean the guys that would probably stab me in the back if I ignored them?”

  “You would survive it.”

  “Don’t be so compcent, Zephyr. Letting them attack me from behind? I would achieve nothing if I left. The node would be unauthorized. There would be blood of mine across the cave, and Aurelia would be dead, which would cause our deal to be void. There was not even any guarantee that I would be able to get to the exit before the colpse. Without the stele’s protection, I would be as good as dead. This was the best course of action and turned out fine. This is not like you at all,” Illyan said as he closed his eyes.

  It felt strange that he was the one who needed to tell her this. After all, she was part of him. It was basically justifying his own decisions.

  “It is the best course only because you survived. You need to live before thinking about the future…” There was a weak mutter that Illyan almost didn’t hear as it faded away.

  After a while, he opened his eyes again, and this time there was no silver breeze anymore.

  “Fuu… Really… Who or what are you, Zephyr?” Illyan muttered.

  Was she really just an imagination of his?

  ‘No, there is no time…’ Illyan shook his head as he started to ponder how to get out of here.

  ‘It is too narrow. I am too big to crawl around. Maybe I could try this…’

  Illyan closed his eyes and employed the [Blood Feeding Technique].

  Soon, steam was coming out of his body as his skin turned red.

  In the next few minutes, his body started to visibly shrink as his muscles withered, with their vitality being absorbed by his blood.

  “Gasp!” As this happened, the space between his body and the rocks finally widened a bit, and he could take deep breaths for the first time in a while.

  As this happened, his body fell more deeply into the crevice.

  He didn’t stop the technique until he completely got rid of most of the muscles covering his body.

  “This is better…” Illyan muttered as he stretched out a little.

  “Now then… It is time to use [Blood Ignition] again,” Illyan said to himself as he felt that the blood energy inside of his blood not only recovered but also got strengthened by a small margin, all thanks to the appropriate use of the [Blood Feeding Technique].

  Putting his palm against the rocks, Illyan's eyes shone with determination.

  He was prepared to crawl out of this hellhole no matter how long it would take…

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