Chapter 221 Recovery (1/2)

As Arran opened his eyes, his awareness of his body returned in an instant, and the feeling was anything but pleasant

He launched into a coughing fit, his throat dry like the sands of a desert At once, he produced a bottle of water frouzzled it down That was nowhere near enough to sate his thirst, and a second bottle followed quickly

When the second bottle was e slowly abated, and with his er overwhelather his wits

He quickly realized that more time had passed than he expected The lower half of his face was covered in a thick and itchy beard, and his body felt frighteningly weak — the result of not eating for weeks or even months, he suspected

While he wondered just how long he had been senseless, he decided there would be tiht now, his body was desperate for nourishment, and he would have to see to that first

He produced a s, then hurriedly ate it all, washi+ng it doith yet another bottle of water

The Dragon's Ruin wasted no ti the Natural Essence within the food, and soan to subside Although he was still nowhere near his full strength, at least he no longer felt as if he was on the verge of collapse

Thirst and hunger addressed — at least for theas he forced his stiff body into action

A quick look around the rooe piece of paper that had been nailed to the door On the paper, there was a ular characters

STAY NEAR THE MANSION UNTIL I RETURN

Aand the frustrating lack of detail were things he recognized instantly

That she had already finished Snowcloud's Te did not come as a surprise — his itchy beard made it clear that he had spent no shts Master Zhao's had left him

And from the look of it, they had returned to the House of Swords without him

Yet these were matters of later concern Without delay, Arran hurried out of the mansion and stripped off his filthy robe, then stepped into the streah the slad to wash the filth of his skin After some minutes, he felt like a new

He took a ht of his reflection caused him some shock His eyes were sunken and his cheeks holloith his face rese that of someone on the brink of starvation

He had planned to shave his beard, but instead, he merely cut it short If it wasn't exactly fashi+onable, at least it would conceal his emaciated state

All of this took him half an hour, and by the end of it, he decided it was tie slab of dragon on's Ruin , the weakness that still lingered within his body had subsided further

Fully recovering would take longer, but trying to rush it would do hiood

And er to finally examine his Destruction Realm It had been sealed off years earlier, when he had little understanding ofhe had learned since then, he hoped he could finally figure out how to use it And if there was any justice in the world, the Realm's poould match the amount of trouble it had caused hirass next to the stream, a trace of excite-sealed Realan to examine it

The Realm itself was exactly as he remembered it — a narrow connection to so a constant trickle of violent Essence

Both his Sense and his command of Essence had increased tremendously since the Destruction Realm was sealed, but he found the Destruction Essence was still as difficult to control as it had been before he knehat it was

Just h of it for a spell or attack seeht i but not unexpected Undeterred, he spent nearly an hour poking and prodding the Destruction Essence, trying to figure out to what extent he could make it submit to his will

In the end, he found that he could just barely circulate the Destruction Essence through his body — and that was enough to cause him more than a little excite the Destruction Essence through his body would strengthen his resistance to uessed, it would do so more efficiently than the Essence in Uvar or the Patriarch's amulet

Yet that wasn't what caused his exciteic was, the Patriarch's aave him a way to train it, and adifference