Serikar laughed. "Listen to me. When you take your next step, be more careful. Only go for what you can handle. As for the monstrous core that you have already formed, I can help you by temporarily locking a part of it. This way your body, soul and mind won’t be shredded by the damn thing."
Just as the man stopped speaking, his slit-like eyes glowed, and for a moment, all Damon saw were those eyes before a blinding pain assaulted him. His very foundation, the core that anchored his being, was being split, sealed, caged.
Serikar’s voice rumbled again, calm and composed. "There we go... just a temporary limiter. You’ll still have access to your power, but not all at once. Think of it as a floodgate. You don’t need a tsunami every time you breathe, do you?"
The pain receded like a tide, leaving behind a trembling stillness. Damon collapsed to his knees in the void, gasping, soaked in sweat. And yet... he didn’t feel weaker.
No, it was the opposite. For the first time since forming his monstrous core, he felt contained. Balanced. His blood no longer raged uncontrollably. His mana didn’t howl like a storm in a bottle. Some sort of runes danced around his primordial mana core, bringing it under his control.
"You’ll thank me later. I don’t know how long it will last, but it should give you enough time to get your soul, body, and mind in order," Serikar said with a shrug, his image already beginning to dissolve into wisps of toxic mist. "Just don’t die before we meet again. And when we do... bring me chaos. Bring me the kind of madness that rewrites fate itself."
With that, Serikar vanished completely, and Damon jolted back to the physical world. He was still kneeling in the temple, and the snake statue was cracked and crumbling beside him.
The veiled woman became anxious on seeing the condition of the statue. "What happened? How did it crack?" She hurriedly dashed forward as Damon gasped and clutched his chest, his breath ragged as if he had just drowned and resurfaced.
"The snake... it wasn’t a statue," Damon rasped, his voice hoarse but steady. "It was... him. Serikar. He was inside. Or a fragment of him, at least."
The veiled woman’s eyes widened beneath her silken mask. "Impossible. You met my master?" Her gaze darted from Damon to the crumbling stone, and then to the faint traces of venomous energy that still shimmered in the air like green auroras.
"Master..." She silently bowed.
Damon shakily stood up, letting out a big breath. In his core, the runes still pulsed gently, savage and foreign, yet oddly comforting. His body somehow felt calmer. No longer on the verge of tearing apart at the seams. It also did not feel as if he had power had reduced. Probably because he never tapped completely into the potential of his mana core.
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