NOVEL WEB Chapter 157: Cursed Holy Energy
The holy energy and mana—both of them were wild beasts clawing for dominance inside him. Whenever they came in contact with others, every heartbeat brought a fresh jolt of heat and a cold, twisting ache, as if the elements were tearing at his insides.
He remembered that at first, when the amount of holy energy wasn't big, he didn't feel anything at all.
But after he came out of the dimensional space, the holy energy started to stack up by thousands of times every second due to the time difference of the people inside the dimension—whose faith was the cause of the holy energy being generated.
Only after ten minutes had passed in the outside world did he start to feel how quickly it was increasing. Yet that wasn't when he discovered the real problem that was troubling him.
The problem was revealed only when he used his mana for the first time outside—during the process of healing the beggar.
He had to spend an extra five percent of mana to do the same thing he would normally do, because a portion had been lost during the first clash between the two elements, when he tried to call out the mana from his core.
That wasn't all—it also came with intense pain as the two different energies tried to devour each other using his body as the battleground.
Holy energy would burn cold, slicing through him like ice-laced fire, while mana throbbed hot and wild—a clashing storm inside his veins.
As he reached for his mana, a stabbing pain would lance through his veins—a flash of searing cold, the metallic taste of blood rising on his tongue.
Practicing the healing element on himself and experiencing the torturous pain of merging orbs—pain couldn't make him falter. He could endure it through sheer will.
But the even bigger problem wasn't the fact that he lost five percent the first time this happened. It was when he had tried to heal the internal damage that occurred in his body.
More than a hundred of his mana were being wasted just trying to heal his insides.
He tried to heal with holy energy, but every attempt felt like pushing against a locked door. The energy recoiled from his will, buzzing angrily at the edges of his senses, filling his mouth with a faint, electric bitterness—as if rejecting his existence entirely and forced to be with him.
The only thing he could do with it—besides the natural effect of being burned by it, which gave him a boost in overall strength—was to contain it inside his body. Nothing more.
And the last time he had used his life element to heal, more than 10% of his mana was wasted as a result of the two energies trying to devour each other.
Which came along with even bigger internal injuries, costing him nearly 300 mana to heal as his life was constantly getting attacked by the holy energy while he was healing himself—multiplying the cost of mana several times over.
I know if this goes on like this, a stage will come when I won't even be able to draw out my own mana.
Techniques like Mana Body Enhancement and Raijin's Descent—his strongest techniques at Transcendent rank—had already become very hard to use because they required pure mana to flow throughout his body in the first, and lightning energy to follow a distinct path in the second. But his body was now filled with holy energy.
The techniques could be interrupted at any moment, resulting in me getting a massive backlash from it.
Even with so much mana inside his body, he felt like he had become broke now, as too much maintenance was needed just to use his own mana and techniques.
He had become tens of times weaker than he usually would be.
He didn't feel confident going to the festival now, as their safety wouldn't be guaranteed because of his lack of strength.
Everything would have been fine even with his current strength, but the mysterious platinum blonde-haired woman he had seen inside the Royal Palace before—she was the real threat.
Even now, the memory of her gaze sent a cold ripple down his spine, sharp as a blade drawn across bare skin.
Previously, if interference arose, he could have held her off and, at the very least, made a safe escape.
But now...
His feelings were completely different from before.
I'm getting killed in one move—if not within five.
"Arrrgghhhh! This fucking holy energy—instead of making me strong, it's acting against me and making me much weaker."
"Whatever. I have one and a half days, which means more than four years inside, to fix this problem."
Or else, he might just have to resort to an assassination for the Duke's eldest son.
Just thinking about it pissed him off a lot—he had trained so hard and become so strong only to end up assassinating him in the dark.
He wanted to put on a humiliating show for him—kill him in front of his very king and people from his own kingdom—and even then, they wouldn't be able to touch a single hair on his head.
That was what he had imagined. It was supposed to be flashy—and now, his revenge looked dull.
No. I'll fix this problem somehow. No matter what, I will do it before the festival starts.
He knew trying to gain control over his stubborn element was not a choice, as he felt a subtle yet undeniable rejection from it—even though that wouldn't change the fighting between the hunters of two different energies.
So he had to find a way to store this raging energy somehow, like how he stored his mana, which would stop the clashes.
But he had no idea how to go about this, so his only option was to try to find a solution in the Cosmic Shop.
He called out his system as his new level-up stats appeared, along with the Cosmic Shop at the end.
[Character Information]
[Name: Leon]
[Level: 8]
[Class: Elemental Paragon (SSS)]
[Age: 12 (Soul Age: 28)]
[Race: Human]
[Title: Hope Breaker (Common)]
[Cultivation: Apprentice Rank]
[Affinity: All (Rank 7)]
[Strength: 44]
[Agility: 43]
[Stamina: 44]
[Mana: 2050]
[Intelligence: 170]
—[Cosmic Shop]—
—[Cosmic Chat]—
He didn't pay any attention to the increased stats and focused only on the Cosmic Shop, as he had a much bigger hurdle to overcome before the festival started.
His fate—and his revenge—now hung on whatever answer he found in the Cosmic Shop's cold, golden light flashed.