146 [Bonus chapter]Ch. 145: Midnight Snack

I've only tried to go through this strange energy or around it. But if I were to draw it out of my father's body and into my own, the same way my magic draws wounds into my body for a split second of pain, that might work.

I gasp despite myself, my shut eyes flickering to reveal the bone-colored, bloodless faces of the imperial physicians before me. According to the practices of this time, they could be put to death for failing to save the emperor.

I mentally reach out to this energy again, seeing in my mind's eye the way it crackles and jumps like electricity. It's a beast uncontained, but only a small sliver of what must belong to a greater entity. Immense fear pools in my gut at the thought of meeting wherever such a foreign power must originally come from.

Regardless of that visceral terror, I orient myself quickly as I recall my brilliant plan at hand: slurp up the purple energy like spaghetti.