Devourer Of Destiny - Chapter 153

An hour later, Ebon Dirge leaned back in his chair and looked down at the collapsed figure on the ground in front of his desk. This kid was undoubtedly fortunate: the new office/classroom had plush gray carpeting instead of the cold stone floor of the previous one. Some work had gone into reinforcing the interior here as well, so the shockwaves of their little session didn’t so much as chip the wall paint.

Albus was still rather skeletal in his build, but the sheet-white paleness of his skin had brought out more color now. One would naturally expect some black and blue after a solid hour’s thrashing, but this was not the case: carefully gauged, each hit that landed healed rapidly, and with each repaired injury the young man’s body was strengthened.

Listening to the rhythmic panting of the sweat-soaked youth, Dirge bounced a small red gemstone in the palm of his hand. He had obtained this from that disgusting poseur at the arena and had considered it a more than adequate agglomeration of blood-fueled life force such that he had ended his matches then and there, but he hadn’t yet felt the urge to fuel his homunculus shell any more than what it already had.

The gemstone represented a rare opportunity for the young man. Condensed using his partner’s Point Mass technique, the vast store of blood energy could serve as a tonic. The only complication was a lack of understanding the exact nature of Albus’ heritage; Dirge knew that he had a demonic forebear within the past three or so generations, but with the continual suppression the lad had been subjected to it was difficult to pinpoint an exact origin.

That was another matter that was vexing: Albus had been deliberately not only stymied but outright suppressed by his so-called teacher. Lucius had referred the youth over knowing that he had reached a wall in his cultivation, but Dirge was not sure whether the provost was aware that the obstruction was deliberate rather than an accidental oversight due to a lack of expertise in the subject.

Albus’ teacher not only knew full well about the student’s heritage but had acted to ensure he would never unlock it. This presented an issue: now that Dirge was amending these issues, word would carry to that teacher, along with his name. The Celestial Ascendance Academy was supposedly built on the principle of accepting all cultivation paths — righteous, devilish, demonic, and unorthodox — and the handling of this case showed that it wasn’t the case. If word of deliberate suppression spread, it could have some serious ramifications.

On the one hand, reporting the matter to Lucius might be enough to ensure Dirge remained protected from any attempts from above to stymie his ascent over this. On the other hand, if Dirge was careful in exploiting the matter, he might be able to create opportunities in the resulting chaos…

Making a decision on that count could wait. Right now there was one thing Dirge had to ensure for the near term: that Albus didn’t return to his teacher and prematurely ignite the issues.

“How is it feeling right now, Albus?” Dirge called out to the panting youth on the floor.

Albus gulped and exhaled a few breaths before he managed a comprehensible reply. “What is… happening… to me…”

“Well, you can talk. Sort of. I guess that means you’re okay,” Dirge replied nonchalantly as he continued to bounce the gemstone in his palm. “Once you’ve caught your breath a bit more, you might want to examine your physical condition, my dear.”

It took a few more minutes before the youth could stand again, but Dirge was patient. The adjustment phase of letting a new reality sink in had to happen in its own time, and Albus would still need more even with this barest of explanations he had been provided.

Steadying his breath, the youth breathed in deeply and then exhaled explosively. “Everything’s… lighter?”

Dirge smiled. “Congratulations, Albus. You’ve just broken through a stage of the Earth Realm. As you were no doubt taught, the primary indicator of advancement to the Earth Realm is the feeling that the pull of gravity is lighter, and that feeling increases with each additional advancement. Physique tempering isn’t just becoming stronger, faster, more flexible through raw enhancement, it’s an ongoing baptism of the body to transcend physical limits as the bounds restricting it weaken.”

Albus gave himself a looking over as he nodded at the explanation. The new ruddiness of his skin seemed to alarm him a little. “Where’re all the marks? Did you j-just make me think I had been hit with an illusion or something?”

Dirge laughed. “Oh, I could do that, but that wouldn’t have the same effect, Albus. No, you just got a good old-fashioned smacking around, although I used a very light touch. Your body did the rest; you were always on the verge of this breakthrough, especially after having gone through building your foundation so many times. In fact, we could probably do another session and you’d manage another, but I assume you’d like some rest and to think on some decisions you have to make.”

“Decisions?”

Dirge smirked. “You still aren’t sure whether or not to trust me, Albus. You know I won’t screw you over because some higher-ups are involved, but it’s difficult to connect the intellectual awareness of that fact with your gut instinct, which is telling you to run back to your teacher and ask his opinion, isn’t it?”

“I-uh, yes,” Albus admitted sheepishly with a downcast expression.

“That would be a supremely stupid thing to do, all things considered,” Dirge replied, “but it’s your choice.”

“I-it’s not that I’m ungrateful or anything, Miss, it’s just a lot to digest… why would it be stupid?” It took a moment for Albus to really consider Dirge’s words.

Dirge sighed, a tad dramatically but he needed to put on a show here. “You’ve been betrayed, Albus. Think about it a bit. The chance of your teacher and all of those he referred to you not recognizing your issue is absolutely zilch.”

Albus opened his mouth to retort but then shut it. His brow furrowed in thought as he considered the available evidence. “You’re right.”

Dirge masked his surprise behind a smile. He had been expecting more of an argument, a defense of the teacher he had risen with, an excoriation for impugning the man’s methods, something other than this immediate surrender to the truth. This made him adjust his opinion of the fellow, just a bit.

“So, you said something about a decision,” Albus continued, “and I imagine that’s not just about trusting you.”

Dirge nodded and then held out the palm of his hand and displayed the crimson gemstone. “This is something I came across in my travels, a gemstone of blood energy. Combined with your current accumulations, it’s very likely that we could have you reach the Sky Realm very quickly.”

Albus frowned for a moment. “I hear an unspoken ‘but’ there.”

“Your heritage is demonic in nature, but even I am not exactly sure what. Whatever your teacher and his friends did has made the waters murky,” Dirge explained. “There’s a very high chance that the process will transform you and because I don’t have that information the end result could be very unpredictable.”

Albus shrugged. “Okay. When can we start?”

Even Dirge was a bit taken aback at that. The sullen youth who didn’t even want to talk to him before was now an eager participant in experimentation; did he accidentally get hit on the head a little too hard?

“Miss Sable, I can look in a mirror,” Albus said in that deep voice that was so odd coming from a walking skeleton like him. “I’m no looker, and there’s not a lot I can do about it. Even if I sprout wings or tentacles or fangs, it would at least make me more interesting than Albus, the bony boy.”

“You said it,” Dirge replied with a smirk. “I think you might need another session of smacking around first, just to make sure everything’s in order. Once we’re sure about it, I can perform an infusion.”

“So I can’t just swallow it or something?” Albus asked, a bit apprehensive.

“If you want to explode in a shower of gore, sure,” Dirge commented. “You’re fortunate in that I’m probably the most qualified person you’ll ever meet for handling this process. Now, are you ready for another round, or is there something better you had to do first?”

Albus sighed. “I guess not. Please be gentle?”

Dirge laughed. “In your dreams, kid.”

——–

Between the second beating and the infusion process, Dirge’s work took the better part of the day. At around the halfway point of the infusion, he had a terrible premonition about the young man’s heritage, one that was confirmed as the process continued.

Rather tired from the continual exertion himself, Dirge directly sat back on the surface of the desk as the transfusion was complete. Crouched on his feet in a fetal-like position in the middle of an improvised circular diagram that had been drawn on a mat, the red light around Albus faded from around his trembling body. The young man’s white robe had been discarded at the side of the room since it might have interfered with the process, and so he was bare all around.

Already he saw the difference like that between heaven and earth in the transformation, but it was far too late now to have any misgivings. “It is done. Rise, Albus.” Dirge rarely was reverent, but he felt the situation called for a bit of ritualism. Given how transformed the lad now was, he would certainly remember the moment for the rest of his life.

Straightening out, Dirge got a good look at the transformed person in front of him. What had been an emaciated youth was now an almost supernaturally well-proportioned man, broad of shoulder and chest with a taper to his waist. Rather than the look of malnutrition that defined his bones, now he had muscles that rippled and stretched with each movement. His straw-like, unremarkable hair of before was now a lively blond, although still short-cropped, and his sharp pale blue eyes were actually noticeable.

If that had been all, Dirge might have been able to fool himself into thinking the lad was just exceptionally healthy following the process, a masterful application of life force into a body that was starved for it. But there was also a generous adjustment to a certain other… attribute, one that highlighted precisely what kind of heritage Albus had inherited.

“Miss Sable?” Albus asked, in that deep voice that was now suddenly very appropriate to the form he had assumed. The lad was apparently sensitive enough to Dirge’s concern that he hadn’t paid much attention to his own state.

“See for yourself, Albus,” Dirge said, forcing a smile as he waved a hand and a screen of water coalesced into a mirror.

Albus gasped.

“Yes, I think we can say it worked out pretty well for you, didn’t it?” Dirge asked.

Meanwhile, Dirge was facing other concerns. Given the rules of the academy, it was going to be rough making sure Albus had proper… nutrition. There would likely be a need to smuggle more in, lest the lad gave in to certain instincts that might kick in if he was left underfed now.

In another situation, Dirge might have broken out in riotous laughter, but Albus was his responsibility now. The good news was that helping the young man continue to advance would probably be one of the easiest things he had ever been tasked with.

Right now, though, Dirge would have to find a way to inform the lad that one of his great-grandmothers had sex with an incubus and didn’t bother telling anybody.