NOVEL WEB Chapter 168: Call Answered?
A blinding radiance erupted, flooding the room with searing heat and forcing her to shield her eyes.
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The air vibrated, a deep whoom echoing as Leon's body rose—weightless, burning, and utterly at the mercy of the golden pillar.
Slowly but surely, bathed in the brilliance of golden light, his body started to heal—not as fast as the time when he was using his life energy, but due to the sheer quantity of the holy energy, which was being constantly increased every second.
It worked just enough.
His brain, which had been turned to mush, was being healed from the inside slowly but surely.
That was not all.
Leon gasped for breath as a mouthful of blood came out in the process, and his eyes shot wide open. He could only see through the lens of red through his eyes.
The blood clung sticky and warm to his lashes, blurring the world into shifting shades of crimson. The sharp copper tang filled his mouth as he swallowed hard.
Yet he could feel it—his whole body, feeling the warmth all around from inside and outside both.
There was no weight on his body or feet, meaning he was floating, his mind barely functioning, yet he could think clearly.
He drifted in midair, the sensation both liberating and disorienting; the air was unnaturally still, every shallow breath echoing in his ears.
But at the same time, he was numb, and the mental torture of his mind, which was still giving him horrible migraine, was being soothed every second.
The dull throb behind his eyes faded, replaced by a subtle, pulsing warmth that radiated from his skull down his neck.
He knew what was responsible for this. Despite his eyes covered in blood, he couldn't feel any trace of mana from his body.
Which means holy energy was helping me.
He was a bit mad at the energy, as he wouldn't have reached this point if it weren't for it—his mind would have worked, and he should have been able to buy some treasure from the shop to keep himself alive, if he had a few moments.
But his mind was knocked out cold in just a second.
Suddenly, a floating message appeared in front of his eyes—he couldn't see, but he felt it.
A cold tingle swept across his brow, as if a draft had entered the room. A faint ding chimed somewhere inside his mind, bright and insistent.
My intelligence stat is increasing, and I'm slowly starting to grasp the technique for forming a mana heart, rather than just knowing its name.
Frozen Eclipse Mana Heart Formation Technique
It was minor growth, but it was constantly being increased—the pain in his mind was being healed.
But unknown to Leon, the Jade slip, which hadn't even hit the ground yet, hummed once again as it floated to the same height.
Leon, who was trying to focus on the information in his brain little by little, was suddenly hit by another shockwave, which he hadn't expected to happen again.
The invisible force crashed over him—his skin prickled, every muscle seized, and a high-pitched ringing swallowed all other sound for an instant.
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Inside her giant room, which was just a cage but a bit luxurious, the distant walls of her cage shimmered with runes, humming a low, ceaseless note. The air inside was stale, tinged with the scent of old parchment and fading incense.
The white-haired beauty beyond the imagination of the spirit race, who was about to sacrifice her cultivation to stop Leon from dying—
But then, seeing something unexpected, she slumped back to her velveteen red throne, mentally exhausted and relieved as she looked at the floating blue screen in front of her, in which her future master was floating in a small pillar of holy energy.
The velvet was cool against her skin, its softness almost a mockery in the harsh, echoing chamber.
She didn't know how it happened or why it happened.
Even she was unaware of much about holy energy, as the Church of the Almighty's strong members had kept information from leaking out for millions of years. Additionally, the other churches, which were always at odds, assisted them in this process.
But she knew it wasn't their will or a secret deal between them; one of them could be understood. However, the grudges they harboured, which ran deep in history, were beyond her imagination, yet they were a harsh reality.
And a strange one.
She thought there were higher beings at play here, who were keeping everything in check.
But she didn't know if it was the Lords of the realm above the Divine Realm or the gods these churches claim exist.
Or there was also another possibility in her mind—that the Lords are the ones who are playing God.
She didn't find it the least bit weird, as they are too strong to act however they wanted; her opinion doesn't matter when she can't even look them in the eyes.
The memory of the Lord of Time and Space was still vivid in her mind—that was the greatest thing she had ever seen in her life.
She remembered the way time itself seemed to freeze, every heartbeat stretching, the silence so complete it pressed against her eardrums just by her natural presence.
She dreamed of having that level of mastery over time.
But things took a different turn, for the words she wasn't even able to comprehend anything noteworthy from the frozen planet in space and time.
As in just 2000 years later, the clash between her and that bastard Dimensional Keeper happened.
And now here she was.
Since the time she remembered him, he had always been the strongest, and even when the Lord was just a few meters away from them, he was the only one who was looking directly in her eyes.
Which had made her respect him in that moment.
Yet now all that was lost as that bastard had trapped her for millions of years.
Once she was out of here and felt prepared enough, she was going to pay him a visit with her master.
She paused for a second, noticing on the screen that the Jade slip was acting up once again. She didn't move from her throne and only watched with a sharp look on her face.
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"ARRRGGHH!"
A scream tore through Leon's lungs as he experienced the heart-wrenching pain in his mind, his hand clutching his forehead.
arrrghh! Fucking hell, that devilish jade slip still isn't done! Argh! But this is good!
He was not a masochist.
He thought it was good because his brain was already overloaded with information, and yet it was sending even more.
But he didn't feel despair anymore as he hadn't lost his thinking like before and felt only pain.
The reason—
Holy Energy.
It was keeping the physical wounds from forming inside his brain; more importantly, his mind was not going blank anymore.
The pain was terrible, yet the effect of the holy energy's unexpected healing effect on the mind was keeping his consciousness, unlike life energy, which had overpowered physical healing but couldn't do anything for the mind attack earlier.
A glass bottle filled with milk appeared in his hand out of thin air; he poured it down on his face to clean the blood covering his face and eyes to finally see.
The cold milk stung his battered skin as it washed away the sticky blood, trickling in chilling rivulets down his neck and chest. For a moment, everything smelled faintly of cream and iron.
And just then, another shockwave came.
"ARRRRGGGHHH!" The empty glass bottle hit the ground as he clutched his head even more tightly.
With his vision blurred by tears, a new floating window shimmered into existence before his eyes. Even before he could read its message, a jolt of understanding slammed through his mind—something had changed, and nothing would ever be the same.