Chapter 365: Introspection (1/2)

”Absorb!”

As soon as he uttered these words, Aiden felt a strangely familiar warmth radiated from his connecting palms and swiftly seep into the two torn, mutilated remains of the sahuagins' shark-headed champion.

In the next moment, the carcass pieces began to churn, ripples expanded, and traveled across their surfaces originating from Aiden's palms. They started out sparse and slow, but as the seconds continued to pass they rapidly increased in their pace and intensity.

Soon, both bodies were being visibly distorted and were convulsing on the ground.

While this was happening, behind the boy, the royal siblings, Drake and Scarlet were watching with wide eyes and their mouths agape. Although not experts, they were still fairly strong and could more or less feel the vibrations in the air, mostly conversing around Aiden. They could feel that whatever he was currently doing wasn't a simple matter, causing them to instinctively take a step back, and clench their fists.

They were slightly worried, and couldn't help but look at their friend with a new, fearful light.

On the other hand, Lily, who now has taken her place at her brother's right, was looking at the wobbling, twitching bodies with the same cheerful smile that she mostly had. Her eyes were shining with a mixture of excitement and expectation, she wished for nothing but her brother growing even stronger.

Meanwhile, the sahuagin champion's remains began to violently shake as the ripples and visual distortions seemed to have crossed a threshold. The hard flesh began to liquefy, its color changed from the multi-colored bloodied mess into a dark grey amorphous gooey substance before it once again became animated as it began to flow towards the respectively connected palms of the boy and get suck into the abyss of Aiden's body.

At a frightening pace, the two halves vanished, sucked away, and merged with the last known Primal's mass, adding to his ever-growing collection of creature data.

While Drake and Scarlet couldn't even register what was happening anymore as they stood in their place frozen with shock and Lily was acting as calm and elated as before, Aiden was also going through newfound emotions of his own.

Unlike when using the system, the process was vastly different, much more intense. What was a simple and mostly a process devoid of any feeling, sensation, or emotion, this time, it was extreme, powerful, fierce even.

For the first time, he could feel like something, possibly an organ, a solid object around his heart turned active. A now-familiar sensation, the warmth of radiating energy began to flow, course inside his body with a pang of growing hunger, or more likely thirst towards the liquefied mass of extrinsic organism.

The crystal hungrily began to devour all of the incoming mass. In a rhythmic, repeated manner, energy was released, waves of the pulsating power restored and refilled Aiden's used up stamina and power reserves.

It was at this moment that his eyes snapped wide open, and his face revealed shock and astonishment!

He could feel something new, something he didn't know existed before. As the new mass of life essences was assimilated as his own, he could now clearly and cleanly feel the latter parts of the process. Aiden could feel as this newly accepted essence began to resonate, gathering together and forming into a shape of a seed.

Maybe it was due to this event, or maybe he was just not paying close enough attention, but before now, Aiden could never access inside his own core. He could never see behind the crystalline walls, heck, he didn't even know he had one for the first place!

With great curiosity, he kept focusing, barely being able to contain his startled surprise mixed with fear and shock as he suddenly slipped past and found himself in something keenly similar to the dark world of his own soul space.

A new, previously unknown, and peculiar scene, an unfamiliar world expanded before his mental cognitive eyes.

At the center of this new enclosed space, a large, bright golden orb floated, shining proudly, similar to a star, a sun. Around it, several smaller balls of energy could be seen orbiting. Each donning a unique color and slightly different size and shape from the other.

Baffled by what he could see, Aiden floated closer to the nearest celestial-like body, which was also the one that has just been formed. Being close to the largest, or at the very least second largest if the central star wasn't taken into consideration, it had a light, pale blue hue around it. Unlike the rest, this one was still emitting quite a bit of heat, small ripples could be seen contorting its ball-like shape.

Without even thinking, Aiden suddenly reached out, the tip of his fingers gently touched its surface. As soon as they made contact, information began to rapidly flow into his mind, causing him to flick his arm away in the next moment and turn wide-eyed once again.

He looked at the floating orb that slowly drifted away, going back to its predestined circulation.