Chapter 36
The illusory scene vanished.
Like ink dissolving into water, Yoren's pain was wiped away in an instant.
A translucent milky-white light radiated from him, expanding outward like the shockwave of a nuclear blast. It rippled through the air, spreading in every direction before fading into nothingness. Silence returned.
"Clang."
The dagger lodged in his chest slipped free and clattered to the ground.
Yoren's eyes widened. He raised a trembling hand to his chest, fingers pressing against smooth, unbroken skin. The wound that had pierced his heart was gone.
Not just that. The gashes on his arms had vanished, his tattered clothes clinging to his bloodstained body—but beneath the dried crimson, there was no trace of injury.
If he had to describe how he felt in this moment, only one word came to mind:
Rebirth.
The Yoren who had been battered and dying mere moments ago had ceased to exist, as though an unseen force had erased him and rewritten his very being. It was as if the spectral figure from his vision had severed his suffering with a blade, burning his body to ash—leaving behind something new.
But no. He was still himself. This was his body, his flesh. The pain in his left eye had disappeared, along with the uncontrollable surge of power. Yet he knew, with unsettling certainty, that something else had taken root inside him.