Chapter 198: [Chapter - 198]
The master bedroom doors burst open, slamming hard against the stone walls.
Leo barged in, still covered in forest mud, Zarthian blood, and soot of their mounts, reeking of blood and filth.
He ignored the expensive rugs and the terrified gasp of a maid, as his eyes locked instantly onto the large bed in the centre.
Shadow slipped in right behind him, silently dismissing the maid and sealing the doors shut.
Leo rushed to the bedside. "Seraphine," he breathed.
She lay motionless beneath the fur blanket. Her condition had plummeted in the few hours he had been gone.
Her skin was still pale and translucent. Her blue veins bulging along her arm. He could barely see her chest moving with impossibly shallow breaths.
The golden lightning she had shown at the banquet had scorched her internal mana pathways. The resulting void was now actively cannibalizing her remaining life force. She was dying.
"Sera... Sera... Sera..." Leo muttered, his hands shaking, "I am here. I am back. Just you wait. You will surely get better in no time."
He dug into his bloodstained pouch and pulled out five fist-sized dire-wolf cores. They were all from Level 19 beasts. They pulsed with dense, violent blue mana.
Though he had harvested dozens more monster cores from different Zarthian mounts ranging from Level 13 to Level 27, he chose to start from somewhere in the middle.
In this world, a monster core was not simply a clean battery of magical energy. It was the life essence of a monster. To a normal human, unrefined beast mana was highly toxic.
Mages and alchemists typically required complex, stable rune arrays and a slow, methodical extraction to safely utilize a monster core's mana in the form of potions.
Consuming or absorbing one directly usually resulted in the beast's violent mana attacking the user's mind, nervous system, and even the meridians leading to madness, organ failure, or death by the body exploding.
Leo didn't have the time or the alchemy lab to make the potion. On top of that, potions did not really work on Seraphine.
So he had to make drastic a drastic choice.
He leaned over the bed, intending to plant the five cores directly onto her bare chest and force her body to absorb them through sheer brute force.
[DING!]
The System flared, filling his vision with flashing crimson borders.
[CRITICAL WARNING: HOST INTERVENTION REQUIRED]
Aiva's voice rang in his skull like an emergency siren.
[Master! Stop immediately! Do not force the direct absorption!]
'She is dying, Aiva!' Leo roared mentally, 'Her core is completely empty! She needs the mana right now!'
'You only told me that she needed this.'
[But her meridians are too weak!]
[I told you that there is another way]
Aiva snapped back, the text flashing with aggressive speed.
[While five cores are utterly insufficient to fill the void anyway, the violent, unrefined nature of the monster mana will act like a highly volatile poison.]
[Her pathways are already severely scorched by divine lightning.]
[If you force this violent mana into a fragile, damaged human vessel, her body will violently reject the foreign signature.]
[She will undergo spontaneous magical combustion. You will burn her alive from the inside out in seconds!]
Leo froze. The blood drained from his face. His hands hovered mere inches above Seraphine's chest.
'Then what do I do?' Leo demanded, the arrogant Warlord stripped away to leave only a desperate man, 'Tell me exactly how to fix her.'
[The energy must be filtered]
Aiva stated clinically.
[You must absorb the violent mana yourself. Your Draconic Bloodline is an apex existence. To the Dragon Soul within you, the malice of a Level 19 dire-wolf is nothing but food.]
[Your core will forcefully subjugate the beast mana, and purify it within your own meridians. You must then transfer this purified life force to her.]
'How?' Leo asked internally, 'Blood transfusion? Tell me the exactly how.'
[Negative. A blood transfusion only affects the circulatory system. The energy must be delivered directly to her mana core, which is rooted at the sacral chakra at the base of the pelvis.]
[The transfer requires the continuous, intense exchange of highly concentrated bodily fluids to act as a physical bridge between your refined core and her empty one.]
[And the perfect way to do so is through Dual Cultivation, Host.]
[Based on the void's size, you will need to process at least twenty-four or more cores in total.]
[You must absorb them in batches, process the intense heat, and fuck the life back into her. The friction and fluid exchange will act as the necessary conduit.]
Leo didn't hesitate. He set two of the cores aside and tightly gripped the first three Level 19 cores in his bare hands. Closing his eyes, he willed his Draconic core to devour them, forcefully dragging the violent raw energy directly into his own body.
The reaction was instant.
Liquid magma erupted through his arms and tore into his chest. Searing heat flooded his meridians and boiled his bloodstream. The empty husks of the cores crumbled to ash in his palms as Leo fell to his knees with a choked, guttural scream.
His veins bulged beneath his skin, as his Draconic Bloodline roared to life, refining the invading beast mana.
"Master!" Shadow cried, rushing forward from the door. Her eyes wide with panic as she stared at Leo's eyes.
She saw the blue veins starting from his wrists, tracking all the way up Leo's neck and the unnatural, suffocating heat radiating from his skin.
"Stay... back!" Leo gasped. He forced himself up, his muscles trembling in liquid fire.
"You are burning," Shadow said, taking a step toward him, "Master, your skin is blistering! Let go of those monster cores, It is too much for you!"
"I know what I am doing," Leo grunted, his teeth locked together against the pain, "It's the only way to save her. I have to refine the raw beast mana in my own blood before passing it to her."
Shadow's eyes widened in horror. "Direct consumption? That's suicide. It will tear your mind apart before it burns your body."
"My bloodline can handle it," Leo said. His voice was dropping into a low, inhuman growl as the Draconic energy fought the wolf mana.
"Listen to me, Shadow. I am going to heal her. The process will take hours. It will be violent, and it will be loud."
He locked his glowing purple eyes with her dark ones.
"You guard that door. No one comes in. Not even Belladonna!"
Shadow straightened, her panic instantly replaced by cold, professional obedience. "Understood."
"Good," Leo nodded as he watched shadow turn and step out of the room.
He tore off his blood-soaked armour, ripped away his ruined shirt, and shed his trousers and boots. His naked body looked like a map of glowing blue rivers.
The refined energy settled heavily in his lower abdomen, radiating an impossible heat. His arousal was immediate and painful—pure, concentrated life force demanding release.
He walked to the bed, the air around him distorting from the heat. He knew he had twenty-one more cores to get through, but he had to start the transfer now.
He climbed onto the mattress, aggressively suppressing his primal urges. This wasn't about pleasure; it was about survival.
He pulled the heavy furs away, exposing her thin cotton nightgown. When his burning fingers brushed her skin, she felt like ice.
"I am here, Seraphine," Leo said, his voice thick with the effort of containing the inferno inside him. "I have got you. I am going to bring you back."