Inside the machine, torrents of energy roared like raging rivers.
Ritter's eyes sparkled.
"Damn... I've never fought such a rich battle before."
He had paid for this entire journey out of his own pocket.
The Life Force he carried had taken him most of his life to accumulate.
Now...
He had stumbled upon a treasure vault.
The girl sat cross-legged upon the central platform of the energy nexus.
Her ice-blue hair floated gently despite the absence of wind.
The aura surrounding her grew stronger and stronger.
An overwhelming flood of energy converged through the machine before pouring endlessly into her body.
Standing beside her, Ritter carefully observed every movement of that energy with his crimson eyes.
"Hm?"
It didn't take him long to notice something strange.
The enormous amount of Life Force flowing into the girl's body wasn't being completely absorbed to strengthen her.
A considerable portion of it passed through a unique "node" within her body.
After passing that point...
Its nature subtly changed.
It became purer.
More active.
As though it had been refined and amplified.
Anyone who had studied basic physics knew one thing.
Energy couldn't simply appear out of nowhere.
Yet...
The energy entering the girl's body actually increased.
Ritter immediately understood.
So this was their so-called "infinite energy."
The girl herself was the amplifier.
Ten units of energy entered her body.
Fifteen units came out.
But...
As Ritter watched the amplified energy leave through another conduit...
He noticed something else.
The girl's own vitality weakened ever so slightly.
His eyes narrowed.
He had never believed in "infinite energy."
If civilizations capable of crossing the stars had searched the universe for decades without finding it...
There was no way these people had actually created it.
Every time energy flowed through that mysterious node...
Every time it emerged stronger...
A tiny fragment of the girl's life essence was consumed.
She wasn't an endless battery.
She was a converter.
One that burned its own origin to upgrade energy.
The purified energy was immediately sucked away through another massive conduit.
As for where it went...
That hardly mattered anymore.
Once something entered Ritter's territory...
Getting it back wasn't easy.
"So that's how it works..."
He finally understood.
"I was expecting something revolutionary."
"So this is your so-called 'infinite energy'..."
"So this is your 'Pseudo-God Project.'"
"You use a living person as both fuel and an energy converter."
"You burn away her life to manufacture higher-grade energy."
"Pilurka..."
"You people are something else."
Without another word...
Ritter acted.
His blood mist surged forward, forming an enormous soft, elastic crimson sphere.
It forcefully plugged the machine's massive output conduit.
"Mmm..."
The girl let out a muffled groan.
The incoming energy suddenly lost its only exit.
Instead of flowing onward...
It began accumulating violently inside her body.
The perfectly balanced circulation instantly collapsed.
An endless amount of energy continued pouring in...
Yet nothing could leave.
Ritter certainly wasn't about to waste everyone else's hard work.
"Hold on, little one!"
Although his tone remained relaxed...
His movements never stopped.
Blood mist continuously scanned every inch of her body.
Back on Roger's ship...
He had practically served as half the crew's doctor.
No one knew his vice-captain's physical limits better than he did.
He placed a hand against her back.
The vast reserve of Life Force he had collected over countless battles flowed gently through his palm into her body.
Rather than forcing it...
He carefully stabilized the raging torrent and guided it along the proper pathways.
"Forget about the output."
"Absorb everything."
"This is priceless."
"The people outside..."
"Could spend their entire lives working toward this..."
"And most of them would die before ever reaching this amount of energy."
"Use it."
"Temper your body."
He completely bypassed the machine's intended operating process.
Every ounce of incoming energy was intercepted.
The girl's body couldn't withstand absorbing such violent power indefinitely.
But...
Ritter could.
Her skin gradually shone with a soft radiance.
Her ice-blue eyes became deeper than ever.
The once fragile aura surrounding her became increasingly solid and majestic.
Ritter could clearly sense it.
Her very existence was evolving at an astonishing speed.
Her life itself was becoming more complete.
"That's it."
He grinned.
"Now this is the proper way to feed someone."
As endless energy continued pouring into her...
The girl's body gradually approached its limit.
Her absorption rate slowed.
More and more unrefined Life Force accumulated around her.
"Tsk..."
"Looks like the bathtub's almost full."
A strange gleam flashed across Ritter's eyes.
Then...
He did something even crazier.
At that very moment...
He finally understood how the girl had managed to survive until his own era.
He stopped channeling energy into her.
Instead...
He activated his cultivation technique.
The blood mist surrounding him transformed into a gigantic vortex.
It began wildly devouring both the machine's incoming Life Force...
And all the excess energy gathering around the girl.
The machine converted Life Force into energy.
The girl amplified that energy before storing it.
Ritter simply inserted himself into the middle.
Like a living purification furnace.
He absorbed the violent, impure Life Force.
Compressed it.
Refined it.
Removed every impurity.
Then transformed it into the purest essence of life itself.
Finally...
Through the hand resting against the girl's back...
He gently fed it back into her.
He had completely bypassed the machine's intended process of conversion followed by consumption.
Instead...
Ritter himself became both the purifier...
And the amplifier.
The refined Life Force entered the girl's body directly.
Strengthening her foundation.
Extending her lifespan.
Most importantly...
Greatly extending her lifespan.
This...
Was the true reason that centuries later...
When Ritter finally found the sleeping girl...
She had remained asleep for eight hundred years.
Yet her Life Force was still abundant.
Everything began here.
At this very moment.
Ritter had laid an unimaginably solid foundation for her life.
Immortality?
That would be exaggerating.
But living for an absurdly long time?
Absolutely.
Even the Giants...
Would eventually die of old age before she did.
Outside the machine...
Dr. Alpha stared at the wildly fluctuating data racing across his monitors.
His synthetic brain nearly crashed.
"Impossible!"
"The energy output conduit has been physically blocked!"
"Why is so much energy entering..."
"Yet almost none is reaching the storage systems?"
"The Life Force is..."
"It's flowing backward?!"
"A tremendous suction force has appeared!"
The expressions of Galvan and Lyselin atop the city walls darkened.
They could clearly sense the violent instability spreading throughout the machine.
They wanted to stop it.
But they couldn't.
The Allied Army refused to let them leave.
Everyone knew...
The instant the three generals abandoned the walls...
The coalition would immediately storm the capital.
This was Pilurka's royal capital.
They couldn't afford to lose it.
Imu slowly turned the pure white mask toward the machine.
It was as though those unseen eyes pierced directly through its outer shell.
"...Forcefully rewriting the system..."
"...Plundering..."
"...Reshaping..."
"Mist Lord... Ritter..."
"...Just what are you?"
Inside the machine...
Ritter sensed the immense, stable ocean of Life Force now flourishing within the girl.
He nodded in satisfaction.
"That should do."
"If I keep pouring more into you..."
"This tiny body really will burst."
"Time to switch methods."
He finally stopped absorbing and feeding energy into her.
Instead...
He casually formed another blood mist tube.
It connected directly to the machine's energy conduit.
His vice-captain was full.
That just meant...
It was his turn to keep drinking.
Watching the girl, now surrounded by a faint holy radiance, her presence completely transformed from before...
Ritter smiled.
Then gently patted her head.
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