The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 254

Chapter 254

Chapter 254: Round Two

I toppled forward, collapsing hard on the cold marble floor of the sanctuary as a pool of dark crimson began spreading around me.

Struggling against the numbing grasp that threatened to rip my consciousness away, I crawled away from the door, desperate to get as far away from those monstrosities as possible.

“Arthur,” Regis muttered, his voice soft.

With the plethora of wounds driving hot needles through my body and mind, I focused on trying to keep myself alive.

Reaching a shaking hand over my shoulder, I gripped the shaft of one of the bone arrows lodged in my back.

I stifled a scream as tears rolled down my face. Without mana to protect my body and adrenaline to dull the pain, even touching the arrow sent spikes of burning agony through my back.

Letting out a guttural yell, I snapped the shaft off. A wave of nausea overcame me and I threw up on the ground. With nothing in my stomach, I heaved water and stomach acid until all I could do was gag.

It took a few minutes for my body to calm down—honestly, it could’ve been longer since I blacked out a few times in between. Mustering what little strength I had left, I brought the bone shaft up to my mouth.

“You’re not going to—oh, yup yeah you are.”

Regis regarded me with a grimace but I didn’t care. The aetheric aura was pure nourishment for me and I already felt strength returning to my body.

I snapped off the other shaft lodged in my side, barely able to keep myself from throwing up. I consumed the aetheric essence from that as well, thinking of how I was going to get out of here now that I only had one leg.

The pool of crimson that had spread underneath me began to dry, a good sign that I wasn’t bleeding anymore.

After polishing off both arrows, I dragged myself to the fountain. Gulping down mouthfuls of the clear cold water as my body grew limp and eyelids became heavier, I leaned back against the side of the marble fountain and let the darkness overcome me.

***

I was jolted out of my slumber in a fit of coughs as if I had been drowning in my sleep. I clutched at my chest, gasping for air as the wounds on my back burned.

Suddenly, Regis shot out of my chest.

“What...the hell are you doing?” I asked, controlling my breathing.

“I swear that wasn’t me. Okay, maybe it was a little me,” Regis replied with a guilty expression.

I shot him a glare that sent him retreating back a few more feet. “I’ll tell you what I found out while you were sleeping, but first, check out your body!”

Confused, I looked down, preparing myself for the worst. I had gotten shot three times in the back and once on my left leg before that same leg had been blown apart by a shotgun that I could only imagine Satan himself wielding.

However when my gaze reached my legs, I couldn’t help but let out a sharp breath. There it was, my left leg—bare from the thigh down but completely intact and without a scratch. I touched, prodded and pinched my leg to make it sure it was real, to make sure that it was mine.

“Neat, huh! You’re like some sort of weird starfish or spider,” Regis said excitedly.

I let out a laugh, unable to contain my relief. “You can’t think of a better life form to compare me to?”

“Well, I was going to say lizard but they can only regrow their tails and that’s not technically—”

“Okay, I get it,” I chuckled before studying my leg more closely. “I get healing a few gashes and puncture wounds but my left leg was completely blown off. Do you have any idea how I was able to do that?”

“I was getting to that,” Regis began. “I don’t know how you got the idea of eating the aether coming from those monsters but that saved you—no, it more than saved you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your physiology right now is neither human nor asura. It’s something in between because of the sacrificial aether art Sylvie used on you. The problem you had once you became conscious was that your mana core is damaged beyond repair. Unlike a lesser, without a functioning and rather powerful mana core to boot, you can’t sustain this body.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. How would my own body not be able to support...my body?” I asked.

“If you think of why asuras are so innately powerful, it’s because unlike lessers, their body is reliant on mana to operate. Since the moment asuras are born, their mana cores are constantly being taxed to even sustain their very lives. If their mana cores broke, their whole body would slowly collapse.”

I grimaced. “Okay, so since I don’t have a mana core, my body is slowly shutting down?”

“It was, until you savagely started eating the aether from those monsters like some starving zombie,” Regis explained. “After that, your body began to sustain itself a little better.”

I looked down at my hands and feet, marveling at how different this body was compared to my old one. It wasn’t just my exterior appearance that had changed.

“And more exciting still...remember when you were like, ‘Regis, get in my hand!’?” Regis said in a voice annoyingly similar to mine. “Well you thought that it was the aether from me that you were manipulating, right? It was actually the aether you already had inside your body. For some reason, when I went into your hand, all of that aether you had consumed—which had been spread throughout your body—came toward me.”

“Interesting...wait, does that mean you can basically siphon aether out of my body and use it for yourself?” I asked, suspicious.

“Maybe,” Regis answered before hurriedly continuing. “But I didn’t! Okay, maybe a little, but only once I knew your life wasn’t in danger! Until then, I went inside your leg and made sure all of the aether you had left in your body was focused on regenerating it. That’s why your leg is in perfect shape while the injuries on your back aren’t fully healed.”

I let out a sigh, tired by how my own companion was trying to pull fast ones over me.

“Look, I could go walk over to that door and trigger the range limit to put you in pain—hell, give me a few hours and I can think of even more creative ways to punish your incorporeal ass, but I don’t think keeping you on a tight leash is how we’re going to get out of here.”

Regis’ eyes widened at the thought before he nodded fervently.

“So you said that the aether I consume is spread around my body, momentarily nourishing and strengthening it before it’s all used up, correct?” I asked.

“Yup. From what I gathered, the aether tries to keep you at an optimal state so it prioritizes recovering wounds first, which is probably why you don’t feel that much stronger.”

“Good. And I’m guessing that if you consume the aether in my body, you’ll get stronger too in some way or another?”

“That’s what it feels like right now, didn’t you notice?”

I raised a brow. “Notice what?”

“My horns! They grew like an eighth of an inch!”

I stared at him, deadpan until he let out a cough.

“Anyway...what were you were saying, my beautiful master?”

I pointed at the metal door a few feet away. “We’re going to go back out there and try to harvest as much aetheric essence as possible either from the arrows or from those chimeras themselves and come back here.”

Regis’ eyes grew wide “Seriously? To what end?”

“Until I get strong enough to kill them all,” I said matter-of-factly.

Crossing through the door and walking up to the triggering point in the hallway wasn’t any easier the second time. The fact that we knew what was coming actually made it worse, but this time my body felt just a bit lighter and stronger, plus I knew what to expect.

With a rumble and explosion of stone fragments, the bow-wielding chimera broke loose from its statue first—the same as last time.

I broke into a sprint back toward the door to the sanctuary. I couldn’t allow myself to get surrounded here.

The goal was simple. Consume as much aether from the chimeras as I could while sustaining as little injuries as possible. The fewer injuries I had, the more aether that I consumed would go into strengthening Regis and my own body.

“So,” Regis began as we continued fleeing back while more stone statues began splintering. “We split the aether 50/50?”

“Nice try,” I scoffed. “80/20 after my wounds have been healed.”

Regis clicked his tongue...or made a sound that resembled it. “Stingy-ass.”

“Maybe if you become an actual weapon of some sort after getting stronger, I can allocate some more to you,” I replied, looking back over my shoulder.

The two of us parted ways as the chimera leapt off the podium it was on and landed with a ‘thud’. Locking its beady eyes at me, it unhinged its needled teeth-filled jaw and let out a monstrous wail that sent chills down my spine.

Maintaining my balance in this body while moving anything faster than a brisk walk took more control than when I was a toddler.

Still, I managed to make it back close enough to the sanctuary door without tripping this time. Whirling around to face the chimera, I stared as it ripped off one of its spiked vertebrae and nocked it on its bone bow.

The chimera released its attack, launching the bone arrow in a piercing howl that tore through the air.

I rolled out of the way, not trusting myself to dodge by a small margin. As the arrow struck the wall, the entire room trembled, and before I could even gather myself, the chimera already had two arrows ready to fire in its bow.

It didn’t do that last time, I thought.

Thankfully, Regis had reached the chimera by this time and was dancing crazily around its face.

The room was soon in chaos as Regis did his best to occupy the bow-wielding and shotgun-wielding chimera while I coped with the rest. _{freёweɓnovel.com}