The Primeval Era-Chapter 26: That Beat! II

Shockingly, as if his heart was the drum of some primordial force, the sound began to emanate outward. The beat echoed in the surroundings, a deep resonance that made the leaves tremble and the moss pulse in response!

Uncle Adam heard it.

His eyes went wide.

The moment the beat of Damian’s heart echoed in the surroundings, Mana began to surge wildly. The tendrils that had been flowing steadily toward him now flooded in torrents, drawn by the drum of his heart like iron to a lodestone. The concentration around him doubled, then tripled, power rushing in faster than any Flesh Awakening cultivator should be able to absorb.

Uncle Adam was astonished as he looked at the scene with a surreal expression.

Things began looking very, very alarming at this moment.

Because this level of Mana, this concentration of power, was not something that a Flesh Awakening entity could handle. This was the kind of absorption he might expect from a Third Circle cultivator, perhaps even Fourth. The sheer volume rushing into Damian’s body should have torn him apart already.

Internally, Damian continued to feel that unique beat of his heart.

Every time his heart beat, now infused with Mana for the first time, he felt like a rushing wave of power was being transported across his body. It spread through arteries and veins, reached every extremity, touched every cell.

It made him feel a surreal sense of power that he could not even explain.

Because nobody touched their heart or any of their other organs until the Fifth Circle of cultivation, at Organ Sanctification!

As Damian felt the terrifying power just from bathing his heart and other organs even a small amount, he wondered why everyone would not be doing this.

Why wait until the Fifth Circle?

Why deprive yourself of this incredible sensation?

Why not...

Oh.

The answer became clear right after.

SQUELCH!

The moment his heart was going to beat once again, it seemed as if it had received far too much for its current state. The organ that had been singing with power suddenly seized, overwhelmed by energy it was never meant to hold at this stage.

And it was not alone.

His other organs, nearly simultaneously, burst.

His liver ruptured.

His kidneys failed.

His lungs collapsed inward.

And the pain was quite literally unfathomable.

The cascade continued as his organs ruptured and the damage spread outward. His marrow cracked within bones that were not reinforced enough to contain it. His blood churned and boiled in vessels that could not handle the ignition. His bones fractured under pressure they were never meant to bear. His flesh sizzled as Mana burned through pathways that had not been properly prepared.

He felt like he would pass out at any moment.

His vision went red, then black, then red again.

Every nerve in his body screamed at once.

This was death.

This was what happened to those who defied the natural order of cultivation.

This was why no one attempted what he had just attempted.

But at that point, at the very edge of oblivion, Damian opened his mouth.

A river of crimson blood gushed out, painting the moss beneath him in arterial spray. His lungs were collapsed, his heart was ruptured, he should not have been able to speak at all.

But he managed.

He managed to utter one word as it was not through any vocal chords.

"PERSEVERE!"

BOOM!

A gush of blue-gold flames erupted over his body with force that bent the trees around him backward. The fire was not orange or red but the color of dawn breaking over an endless sea, blue at its heart and gold at its edges, ancient and sacred and utterly impossible!

He looked like a primordial celestial creature surrounded by waves of healing flames.

The fire wrapped around him like a cocoon, penetrating his skin, sinking into his flesh, reaching the devastation within. Uncle Adam shielded his eyes against the brilliance, watching through his fingers as his Young Lugal became a pillar of light in the shadowed clearing.

Damian felt his consciousness returning rapidly, stronger than ever, as he stopped the action of flooding himself with Mana and simply watched.

He felt the incandescent and gorgeous blue-gold flames bathe every part of him that was injured. They permeated across the ruptured organs, seeping into tissue that had been destroyed moments before. His heart, which had burst like overripe fruit, knit itself back together fiber by fiber. His lungs reinflated, the collapsed tissue reforming as if time itself was running backward.

His marrow sealed.

His blood calmed.

His bones mended.

His flesh cooled.

The flames corrected everything in a ridiculously short period of time, undoing damage that should have been permanent, that should have been fatal, that should have ended his story here on this mountainside.

In a matter of seconds, he was whole again.

He was breathing hard, flickers of blue-gold flames beginning to die off like embers floating away on an unfelt wind. Each spark that left his body carried with it the memory of pain, leaving behind only restoration.

He touched his chest as if he wanted to make sure that his heart was still there.

And he could feel it.

...!

The beat.

DUM!

The beat!

DUM!

Shockingly, the beat of his heart was actually still faintly discernible outside of his body.

It was not nearly as loud as before, not the thunderous drum that had drawn Mana from the very air, but when one truly listened, it was there. A subtle pulse that should not be audible at all. A sound that marked him as something different from ordinary cultivators.

Because unfathomably and truly, when he sensed the Mana in his body, he found something miraculous.

He sensed stable tendrils of Mana calmly moving through his heart.

Through his marrow.

Through his blood.

Through his bones.

Through his flesh.

It was faint across all these systems, barely a whisper of what he had tried to force into himself. But it was there. Settled. Stable. Part of him now in ways that should have been impossible.

He had Mana coursing through areas where only Warriors up to the Fifth Circle would have the capability and honor and glory of possessing.

However small it was, it was real.

Oh!