Ebony's Fable

Veronica passed him some potatoes and he peeled them while she diced the peeled tubers.

Like clockwork, without conversation, they cooked up a storm.

It looked like he was cooking alone since Veronica's clone was invisible.

Even for deep cleansing, two hours was much too long for the wash-up. The main chef relented and got him to check on her.

She was asleep.

Ebony didn't question the drastic shifts since she just woke up from a 9-month coma. While she hasn't atrophied in the normal sense, her body was starved more than he was when he woke up. His blood should've been more than sufficient as an energy pack so he guessed that her digestive system hadn't fully kicked in after her evolution.

Her skin was ice-cold to the touch.

'Lower natural body temperature than me.' Ebony wasn't too surprised. Her blood did not heat up easily, and when they were empty in energy stores they were cold. Many creatures were the same. Reducing resting energy usage also meant lower body temperatures.

The Rime couple now had body temperatures below 0 degrees Celsius. If they slept in a tub of 'common' rarity water, it would freeze even without any magic or mana as their bodies would absorb the energy. It was quite magical.

Their physical form, in the resting state absorbs surrounding energy. This was how animals that evolve into 'monsters' take on a Worldcore's essence. It was also how a normal food source was enough for relatively crazy feats of strength.

The Xengs manually disable this effect unless they want the gradual increase in 'impurities' in them. Hence, they could not rely on 'normal' food source and needed food from ingredients of the same or higher evolutionary rank as themselves.

On the other hand, if the Worldcore was of a higher rank there was a benefit. This energy could be purified after all.

That was partly why people search to live on higher ranked Worldcores. One can technically not eat forever if their bodies absorb enough from the atmosphere. For humans, it was less obvious. 'Eating' energy in this method was not their natural born trait, and until the Emperor rank wasn't even reliable. There was a higher chance of demonising since not everyone knew energy and essence purification techniques.

Neither Ebony nor his wife evolved in this direction so they weren't going to be surviving or thriving in high-ranking Worldcores and abstaining from food. At most, this slows their starvation rate in the worst-case scenario.

Regardless, their water mana ore spits out Rare quality water and doesn't freeze at this temperature.

Ebony conjured a tall chair for her and angled the mirror up. Caring for each other's hair was something he'd seen his parents do from a young age so this felt natural very quickly.

Catching sight of the reflection, 'huh? I had white hair?' It was almost ridiculous how someone with senses and perception as high as himself did not know his own hair had turned pure white.

Freeing a hand, he conjured a flame. It was pure white, about the same as the flame on Ful's leaves.

His flame purity should be around the same as Ful. The dying version. He wondered how Ful was now that they were supposedly travelling again.

Waving the flame away, he removed the frost that covered the room and almost cracked the mirror.

Silky, voluminous and even darker black. She remained the same but the properties just became more intense.

Same with Ebony, their skin was like marble. They looked a bit inhuman to most but the sharpest of eyes that could still see extremely small pores close up.

Under her practically translucent skin were greenish, dark veins that stood out to him.

'Significantly different vein patterns? Looks like she changed her internals by quite a bit too.'

"Done checking me out?"

"Not quite."

"All that nonsense about charm concept and my evolution, you can at least have some heart palpitations…" She pouted.

"I do, you're using blood magic on me right now."

"Hmph…" She puffed her cheeks.

"It's colourful…exceptionally so. You're using a new skill on me." Ebony noticed his mind undergoing different processes for his meditation to work.

"It's not working so well." She proudly rested her back and tilted her head over the backrest to look at him. She'd long gotten over mere embarrassment. Nothing was embarrassing about her perfected body after all.

"Some form of desire sharing skill? It's working, I'm feeling hungrier than I was moments ago." Ebony quickly analysed the skill she was using on him.

"Slightly wrong. It's balancing and not sharing. Thanks to your meditation, I'm not feeling the urge to eat or tear you apart anymore."

"Could've kept me guessing." He leaned into her attempts to close the distance between their faces.

"Keep flirting in there, and I'll eat everything." Knock knock, Veronica sounded slightly serious for once.

She landed the peck and stood up. She dressed herself in the clothes he prepared for her. He highly doubted she would become a ten-metre giant so making backup clothes during her evolution was simple enough.

The good thing about Xeng-style clothing was that the casual wear was baggy and easy to fit for a range of sizes.

After a shocking display of consumption, the entire table was cleared in under a minute. The astral clone didn't fight for any food but Ebony barely dug into his plate and he almost wondered what he had on his plate to begin with.

"My stomach is lined with solar acid now...supposedly." Xin had the fork in her mouth as she dug into the icebox.

"Why supposedly?"

"I didn't put much thought, got it by instinct, it was cheap."

Her feast only slowed down once she got the energy to make herself more food.

During which, Ebony updated her about what happened during her evolution. Not forgetting the fact that they might have Saint visitors the moment Elcra finishes its evolutions.

There was little need for him to explain too much. She could sense the very planet changing. The change had been too obvious to miss.

It was a doomsday event for the Empire. More so than Lure and the soul thieves.

Tova's report never came back to Ebony because the Sea was expanding. The other continent was so far away, no Scout Pigeon returned as the expansion seemed to have outpaced them.

Dusk did their best to expand their network across Elva but the planet's expansion exceeded expectations. They've already lost connection with Seven and Tidal. Hoarfrost Glades, despite being further from him was actually still in range. There was some sort of curve in the expansion and it hasn't drawn the Glades too far away. The expansion was uneven and erratic.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Dusk spent no small effort trying to help any town or city that had the very ground under them split apart. They also tried to keep families together. They succeeded to some degree but towns and cities that were already out of his Relay Network were out of his control.

As for the danger to the very lives of the Imperials, it was quite low. Masters could still run and jump to save themselves unless they faced large-scale earthquakes. Tornadoes and hurricanes were not damaging Navin's barriers unless the city itself had already split from the cracks in the earth that split the town.

Unless they had King-ranked earth mages, it was hard to keep a settlement together should a split under their very feet appear. Larger cities would need multiple King-ranked mages. Only Tidal and the largest of Cities had these people. Even if there were more King-ranked people, how many were mages that could help in a situation like this?

The most lethal part about the Worldcore's evolution was probably the ambient essences and gravity fluctuations.

For an Ancient-ranked Worldcore, they had a severe lack of Emperors.

The Elven Domain was an exception. They did have an Emperor.

Xienor was another exception. Every day was peaceful as if nothing was happening to their immediate vicinity even though no one was manipulating the elements.

It was unknown how many places were untouched while others were upturned.

The world as the Imperials had known had long ended. Only Tidal, and perhaps the 3 Great Farms might still be in order.

The Empire lost millions, tens of millions to Lure in a short time.

There was a lot of bloodshed.

But Tidal was hardly ever affected. Their population may have even increased in the meantime. They still had billions. The Empire wouldn't fall just because the world was ballooning.

At least hearing that Athena was under Yvette's care gave Xin some relief.

Lacuna Expanse's portal was also pulled apart, but Ebony had Relay Buffers everywhere. Dusk just needed time, and they would easily reconnect everything – except they might not want to do that. Too large an area, and the Buffers were a waste of Will to upkeep. While his range per node had increased, their Will upkeep also increased.

He made each crystalline solid mana buffer significantly larger than the previous version using natural crystals. To handle a larger flow of mana and Will, he deemed it necessary.

There was no point in having the buffers break whenever he tried to pump a measly billion mana under a minute to the other side of the continent.

In his resting state, his mana regeneration was still within reason. There would still be creatures who can match and surpass him, perhaps some Saints and higher with extreme Wisdom stat and Fortifications. Monsters and demons were another story.

Resolve's Cadence being able to affect mana regeneration was all the difference in the world. The fact that mana compression also works multiplicatively just brought it even further.

"We're in your Domain?"

"Mmm, not permanent yet. Centred around Dusk. Dusk has gotten heavier, but not spatially locked as of now." Ebony explained.

"Tier 4?"

"Mmm."

Xin took a deep breath and was slowly enveloped in Intent.

Then she coughed and her Intent was pushed back into the lifeforce within her body.

"You made your Will specifically target Intent manifestation?"

"No, I was messing with you. I wrapped you up in Will the moment I felt you trying to extricate yourself from my Domain. Drained a third of my Will to do that, it would take years before Dusk can do that to you passively." Ebony took a sip of frost plum wine that he opened for this occasion. It was not too bad for an experimental batch from all those years back.

"You're really going to bully me with your level advantage like that?"

"It would be the same even if you have 250 levels more, your Intent wouldn't grow with your levels. Only your life force."

"So you've achieved it then? 250 levels in seven months."

"You've been asleep for nine."

"I won!!" She poked his cheeks over and over again.

He let her have this win and took the cheek pokes without complaint.

"I'm glad you made it back." It was delayed by the feast. He couldn't be more relieved that she did not seem changed by the Blood that ate Divine creatures for meals.

❅❅❅

'This is her strongest state?' Ebony felt a bruise fading slowly.

If it wasn't for her swords limiting her, he should have been pierced clean through.

"Limited by your swords."

"You take that back." She glared at him angrily

"After rehabilitation, would you like to learn Phantasmal Shade Sovereign Arts?"

"Sure!"

Ebony was quite pleased. To think that someone could forcibly shut down his meditation. As expected from someone he thought would continue to spur his growth.

He'd figured out that she could put all emotions and desires into one during their little spar. When she put every morsel of her being into becoming a wrathful creature, she then used her emotional balancing. It disturbs his meditation and almost cut the effect he got from meditation by 90%.

Stopping his meditation basically cuts all mana-intensive spells since his mana pool was so small in comparison to his output from regeneration. All his channel spells turned effectively ticklish to her.

That wasn't so much of an issue within his Domain. Dusk and Spine had plenty of mana stored.

It was also the first time he was disrupted in this manner, so he could reduce the effect and stabilize his meditation better the next time. He shouldn't forget that Mental magic was still in her blood. Not only was his regeneration affected, but the wrath also causes his mind to be filled with…well, wrath.

The entire outer layer of his mindspace was filled with rage and a lot of bloodshed.

The entire outer layer was ridiculous. Mr Guru couldn't do something of that scale and that was when he was much weaker with a smaller mindspace.

Still, Ebony was hardly affected by it. Only some of his spell control went a bit haywire for a second. Since it didn't even penetrate the inner layer, much less the core of his mindspace there really wasn't any adverse effect. His body was dissociated from his mind when he really fell into the battle lull anyway.

This balancing caused her to calm down more than it made him berserk. And it helped her make better technical decisions.

She was much stronger when her expressions turned cold. Arrogant.

Pride.

When her gluttony fuels her pride, her Sword Art becomes…impeccable. Despite being Tier 5, he did not have an immediate upper hand with his Art.

It was somewhat understandable since they knew each other's habits and techniques better than anyone else so she definitely knows what he was capable of and developed her Art against his for decades.

What she wasn't so familiar with was when he used wires in his fighting style.

Adding on the dimension of time with his delayed attacks, he used a fighting style that she was not familiar with to catch her off guard. Her foresight did make his delayed attacks a little more than a distraction. Her reaction and reflex speed were off the charts so delayed ice wires suddenly coming into existence around her limbs were evaded by precise transmutation of just wherever his wires form.

The best part, the Will he prepared to grab ahold of flames was not working.

Her transmuted flame form was tied to Intent that he couldn't overcome.

'No one can cut or hurt her if they can't overcome her reflexes and speed of transmuting into a bundle of fire. Or have Will or Intent that overcomes hers.' Either that, or they have to use Aspects, Sorcery and the like.

Ebony on the other hand, touched Spine with his wife stored inside as a mass of blood and flames. She quickly settled back into her human form, sealed and preserved by the internal walls of Coreflame of Preservation.

She loses quite a lot of physical strength in her flame form and grabbing all of her with gravity was simply a matter of forcing her to transmute her entire body and catching a moment where she had a lapse in her attention. What Ebony did best was to catch these lapses in attention.

His wife was harder to trick than most with her foresight. So he had to overwhelm her foresight and directly use his advantage within Dusk. Flooding all spaces and milliseconds with enough wires while leaving her one way out. And into Spine, where the thickest Coreflame of Preservation was prepared by Dusk and Ebony combined.

He was quite confident of basically putting anything inside Spine into a form of cryogenic stasis but he made sure people and creatures alike would still be awake. Maybe not hear or smell but he wanted them to be able to see and think. If a King could free themselves, he would be thoroughly impressed.

After all, he'd already tested with the Spirit Possession Emperor – Tagen was his name. That inside Spine, the Coreflame of Preservation can trap spirits and similarly intangible creatures. At this mana density and purity, Veronica confirmed that even Astral bodies would face resistance trying to slip through. Will probably did more than mana in this case.

Spine was practically only made of Preservation except for any connected plum bombs. He made the Will set to Preserve all non-injured parts of himself, making it default that whenever he enters Spine, all of his life force would be pushed towards any injury. Although it helped speed up mana chassis recovery too, the healing effect for that was much more minute. Now that his wife was awake, he could use her life force signature and mentally update his and Dusk's Will for Spine to include her.

Spine is their greatest shelter.