27 The Path Of Will

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I have returned. After months of suffering we have been reinforced. We are no longer and overextended branch of a swaying whole. I won't bore you with the details though. I'm going to try and post more though. Also big thanks to Mimic to giving me back my spirit. Simple comments and interactions grant me the strength to write. It's not power stones that drive me, but the readers. Thank you for your patience, and remember, if you see something, say something. I will correct it as swiftly as possible.

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POV: Deus

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I flopped back onto the bed, wrinkling the sheets as I laid in contemplation. Reading Grendel's Draconairy I learned a lot. The first is that Grendel has been around for a long time. She is Pyra's mother after all.  So seeing that this was a former matriarch writing, I will have to take most of what she says with a grain of salt.

Being the strongest of their respective races usually means they overstate the average strength or know it better than anyone else. More likely is that it's both. 

The blue light of calm emitted by the crystals dotting the room did not bloom into hope as they once did before.

Strength, power, endurance, speed, hell even knowledge I barely have any of that. This isn't like I was transferred with a system or a companion. All I have is the light of healing, and the little light of hope. Perhaps I have Scola's help.

I unconsciously fiddled with the necklace bestowed upon me by my captor. Containing a small piece of her consciousness, glinting in the cold light it seemed to watch my every move.

I couldn't bring myself to keep reading the Draconairy, otherwise I might just end up giving up entirely on the plan to escape. Hell I didn't even find something on the sleep cycle.

I was filled with some kind of ticking agitation, my mind unable to let me stay in this stalemate between my mentality to improve and the physical limits that I have come to accept as truth. There were no books about weapons or magic on the shelf. There was a lot about history and ecology, but nothing that would help me get into a state where I could confidently say: "I'm getting out of here one way or another."

'My mentality?'

Suddenly a plan started to come together. A desperate, insane plan. I know what isekai is, and though I think my situation is a little different, it can be categorised in the same way. So what did most isekai protagonists do to toughen up when given regeneration abilities?

They broke themselves. Time and time again they pushed their bodies past their limits till their bodies stopped working. 

But…

The way they did that was insane, it was beyond what norma-

'Ah, that's what's holding me back.'

The idea that I'm still normal. This idea that even if I was in this stupid, psychotic situation, I was still normal. I can regenerate lost limbs and fatal wounds. I can see across what I assume to be planets worth of space in mere moments, and yet I still consider myself normal.

I can't just keep holding onto everything human about me.

I live in a world where dragons hide in the shadows between the stars. Where monsters I could only see in movies have walked the earth for literal thousands of years.

Thinking back to the beginning of this whole tragedy, I told myself not to distance myself from reality, when that's all I've been doing.

Reaching over onto the night table, I grabbed the stone tablet I had so carefully written my plans on. The beds mattress shifted and dipped towards me as I leaned over, awakening a slumbering Scola. In the time I had taken to read the Draconairy she had fallen asleep.

*Shrik*

The thin lids that screened her eyes slid up and as the liquid in her eyes turned from a smoky grey to a deep black, small particulates sloshing within till nothing but the empty abyss of her stare remained. She seemed to still be half asleep.

What I was about to do might be a problem, and I most certainly couldn't allow her to see it. Reaching out, I stroked the rough stone like scutes on her head. My fingers ran across the bumps and ridges that covered the surface of her scales. Each was miniscule, insignificant even. Yet even so, they each had a story. Every divet and scar was a lesson learnt.

Scola was kind, perhaps a little clumsy, but well meaning. I didn't want her to suffer. She had gone through enough because of me. 

'That's why I hope she doesn't blame me for this.'

Getting up I walked over to the kitchenette counter, eyeing the knives that were placed on a stone plaque. I reached out to the chef's knife that sat in the middle, its blade rippling with sharpened tides of steel.(1)

However just before I grabbed the hilt, my hand stopped, the tips of my fingers curling inwards. I was planning on practising the green light of healing. I had the inkling that perhaps I had other abilities hidden within me, but none besides the blue light of hope had revealed themselves.

Practising the green light of hope was my best option for now.

'So I can't afford to be hesitating.'

I reached out, grabbing the knife and feeling it in my hands. Its weight was clearer to me now, though the emotion it represented remained muddled. I placed the blade against the skin of my palm, the sharpened edge finding purchase against my skin. 

'Still though, is this the right way? Those guys ended up as insane as their methods… Do I want to meet Maria as some crazed remnant of myself?'

I placed down the knife, looking around the dim room. The deep blue of the scattered crystals now seemed to be barely enough to see.

'And what about Scola? What if she is punished for my actions? Tyvelia isn't exactly reasonable.'

My feet began to move aimlessly as I wandered around the room, my had trailing along the stone cave walls. Finally I sat down beside the stone frame bed, my neck resting against the cushy mattress.

Whether or not I thought my body was no longer human, my mind remained human. I can't see self mutilation as an proper option. Especially when there were others who might be punished for it. I can't just throw Scola under the bus like that. Instead I am simply going to have to do this the hard way.

I felt my teeth clench slightly as I rubbed my knuckles against my palm. I felt a little frustrated though. Even if it felt logical to me it felt like I was giving up.

I just wasn't sure what to do anymore. Every moment where I wasn't acting or doing something felt like a wasted eternity. A moment of rest or even sitting like this just made me itch like some kind of adrenaline junky.

But I know that isn't it.

Its the feeling that I'm not doing anything to help myself. I feel like I'm shuffling in place, not making any moves as I'm slowly constricted. 

'Let's go for another run.'

If I just stick here with my stupid thoughts any longer, I might do something just as stupid.

I pulled myself up, walking towards the entrance as I sought some sense of usefulness. Pushing my way through the grand silver doors, I began to stretch my legs much to my thighs discontent. 

I grabbed the lantern off a hook on the wall. With a flick of the flint, the lantern lit the dark halls. The wavering flame was like a musician to a ball, deepening the shadows as they flickered and danced in the light. Their forms crawled up every surface with eerily smooth movements, the tune of their glissade following the flames' rhythm. 

…

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POV: Tyvelia

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My vision was rudimentary, a supplement to the senses I had been trained with long ago. A half measure with the sole purpose of guiding my hand. It lacks the vibrancy of my memories. Whether the calm amber hue of my egg, or flamboyance of the rainforest I had once called home. I remember the colour, the coruscating life, 

the sheer beauty of what I had lost on that fateful day.

Yet now, all I saw were shifting sands of white. Ever fleeting glimpses of what is. Flipping forwards at a pace I cannot hope to understand, forcing me to imagine the moments between reality and the darkness that was its proxy.

However, even if only for a moment, for the first time in millennium I was granted sight.

And it was that vision, that moment, that torments my mind's eye.

...

(1}- Japanese knives often gain beautiful patterns during their forging and that was what this knife is based off of.)