Chapter 135: The Corruption Within
"That went... surprisingly well."
Silas closed the door behind him and dropped onto the sofa in his dorm, staring at the ceiling with a weary sigh.
The meeting with his friends had gone far better than expected. What had begun as a casual gathering had ended with him revealing the truth about the dragon blood.
"Still..."
"What Cher wanted was strange."
When they spoke inside the shuttle, he had told her everything Darius revealed. To his surprise, she asked him to keep the matter hidden, arguing that dragon blood was something no Enhancer could resist.
Her reasoning was sound, yet Silas couldn’t agree with it. Instead of keeping secrets, he gathered everyone and explained the situation honestly.
In the end, nothing changed.
Just as Cher had predicted, none of them was willing to give up the opportunity. Dragon blood was simply too tempting.
Even so, something about her attitude during that conversation aboard the shuttle continued to bother him.
’She sounded less concerned about the danger... and more worried about losing a guaranteed advantage.’
He couldn’t explain why that impression lingered so stubbornly, as it refused to leave his mind for quite a while.
"Agh..."
"I shouldn’t waste time on pointless speculation."
Silas rubbed his face, forcing the thoughts aside. He had spent an entire week outside the academy, constantly fighting and staying on alert. What he needed now was rest.
"I’ll rest in the Time Mind World."
He glanced at the bed before changing his mind. Instead, he filled the bathtub, sank into the cold water, and slowly submerged himself.
During the past week, he had only entered the Time Mind World once, using it to draft the plan for obtaining the dragon blood.
’It feels like coming home after being away for a long time.’
The familiar sensation of sinking through an endless lake embraced him. Only this time, something was different.
The usual tranquillity was gone. A strange hostility seeped into the water itself, making the endless darkness feel heavier, colder, almost malicious.
’Something’s wrong.’
Silas’ heart tightened.
His eyes swept through the darkness as his body instinctively tensed, expecting an ambush at any moment.
’It must be that bastard.’
’I haven’t let it out for days.’
His thoughts drifted toward the Shadowheart.
Yet the more he considered it, the stranger the situation became. Ever since the battle with the dragon, the Shadowheart had remained completely silent. Normally, it never missed a chance to annoy him.
’That’s... unusual.’
Only now did he realise he had overlooked the warning. He had welcomed the silence, never questioning it, but combined with the unsettling change in the Time Mind World, it suddenly felt ominous.
A moment later, he arrived.
The endless darkness remained, yet everything about it felt subtly wrong. Rather than approaching carelessly, Silas scanned his surroundings, ready to dodge an attack or block a sudden strike.
Nothing came.
The Shadowheart floated peacefully in the distance, its eyes closed as though it had fallen into a deep sleep.
’...That’s a relief.’
’I thought I’d spend the whole night running from it again.’
His tension eased, but only for a moment.
’Wait...’
’Why is it darker than usual?’
He drifted closer. Only then did he notice them.
Countless black threads spread around the Shadowheart like creeping vines overtaking an abandoned ruin. They coiled around it from every direction, gently swaying despite the stillness of the world.
Silas cautiously reached toward one.
The instant his fingers approached, a sharp thorn sprouted from the thread, forcing him to pull his hand back.
’This definitely isn’t normal.’
He tried several more times.
Every thread reacted the same way, producing razor-like thorns the moment he came close.
’Hey.’
He folded his arms and glared at the sleeping Shadowheart.
’See what your obsession with sleeping has done to my world?’
’Wake up.’
He shouted, called its name, and even considered slapping it awake. The moment his hand moved toward its face, however, every thread around it stirred at once, extending toward him as though standing guard.
’They’re protecting it...’
Or perhaps...
’They don’t want anyone interrupting whatever they’re doing.’
Neither possibility reassured him.
Silas backed away, unable to identify the strange growths or understand why they had appeared inside his own Time Mind World.
’Then I’ll look somewhere else.’
If the hostile feeling filling the lake originated from these threads, perhaps the rest of the world held more answers.
He began wandering through the darkness, carefully observing every detail. It didn’t take long to notice another change.
The Time Mind World had become smaller.
The last time he explored it, the darkness had stretched endlessly in every direction. Now, after drifting for some time, he reached something he had never encountered before.
He met a wall.
’This... is the first time my world has ever had a boundary.’
He drifted through the darkness until his back struck a wall.
It was as black as the world surrounding him, making it almost impossible to see, yet no matter how many times he punched it, the surface refused to move.
Silas began tracing its edge, slowly discovering that it formed a vast oval enclosing his entire special world. By the time he completed the circuit, he had a rough estimate of its size, and the conclusion left him unsettled.
Without question, this world had become far smaller than before.
’First the hostility... then the black threads and thorns... and now this wall... What is happening?’
He searched every corner once more, but aside from the wall and the thorn-covered Shadowheart, there was nothing else to investigate.
’I need answers.’
As he always did when faced with a problem, Silas tried to consult the Time Mind World, hoping the familiar shadows would appear and guide his thoughts.
Yet this was different, as nothing happened. Seeing this made his frown deepen.
’Now that I think about it...’
’During the last few days of the dragon blood quest, this world barely activated at all.’
He carefully recalled everything that had happened during those final days. Even the idea of using Terio against Leopard and Rachel had come as nothing more than a passing thought, not one of the perfectly guided insights the Time Mind World usually granted him.
’That damn dragon...’
’It kept me so occupied that I overlooked all these changes, and now I don’t even know where to begin.’
A wave of panic rose within him, so overwhelming that he almost left the meditation altogether. Then he remembered why he had entered this place in the first place.
Realising that fear and frustration were clouding his judgment, Silas forced himself to calm down and began his first meditation.
The session went surprisingly well. His thoughts gradually settled, and the panic faded until only calm remained.
What he failed to notice, however, was that the meditation ended far sooner than it should have. Before, he could remain immersed for nearly eight hours. But now, he lasted barely three.
It was even shorter than when he had first begun practising meditation. Yet the clarity filling his mind distracted him from noticing the difference.
’Now... the second meditation.’
His gaze lingered on the Shadowheart wrapped in black threads before he let out a quiet sigh and started the second meditation session.
The second meditation had always been chaotic. At first, Silas had struggled to understand its strange nature, but over time he had grown accustomed to the overwhelming flood of memories that accompanied it.
This time, however, no memories came. Instead, he found himself overlooking his own body. Beneath him stretched the familiar barren land, with a lone star shining at its centre.
’This...’
Something was wrong.
The star no longer radiated the pure brilliance he remembered. Its light had dimmed, and streaks of darkness flowed beneath its surface, as though the light itself had become contaminated.
Silas’ heart tightened.
He immediately focused on it.
As before, the distant star expanded into the massive well embedded in the barren earth. Before departing on the dragon blood mission, he had painstakingly carved three canals around it, forming the three petals that surrounded the Mana Heart.
The canals remained exactly as he remembered, and the petals were still intact.
The problem lay in the water flowing through them. It was no longer the radiant white stream that nourished the surrounding land. Instead, the water had turned murky, tainted by countless black threads drifting through it.
Silas felt a chill run down his spine.
’They’re the same...’
’The same threads surrounding the Shadowheart.’
His breathing became heavier as he inspected the well itself, only to discover that it, too, was infected by the same creeping darkness.
One realisation after another began connecting inside his mind: the hostility he had sensed upon entering, the black threads consuming the Shadowheart, the shrinking Time Mind World, the polluted Mana Heart... Everything pointed toward a single conclusion.
’Am I... cursed?’
Silas stood frozen, unable to process what he was seeing.
’But...’
’I haven’t even touched the dragon blood yet.’
He remembered Darius warning him about the curse hidden within the dragon blood, yet no matter how hard he searched for another explanation, none came to mind.
What had caused this?
When had it begun?
How had it spread so deeply without him noticing?
He had no answers.
’I need to dig deeper.’
The gravity of the situation became painfully clear; the Time Mind World had almost completely stopped functioning.
The Shadowheart seemed trapped in an endless slumber, as though it were slowly dying.
Even his Mana Heart had become polluted.
’I have to uncover the truth... and solve this before it’s too late.’
As he thought about the mission awaiting them in two weeks, along with Darius’ repeated warnings, Silas could only feel that fate had chosen the worst possible moment for this nightmare to begin.