Chapter 6: Core Forging
Iskander Hyperion
The memory surfaced as a drowning tide, pulling me towards the depths of my mind with shocking and breathtaking force.
"Brother! I am going to be a doctor, so I can find a cure for your sickness!"
Cassian's voice, young, bright, impossibly earnest, echoed in the sterile silence of my old room—my old prison. Not the Shell Room, but the sterile cage of my past confined in either the walls of a hospital or of the Hyperion main residence in the outskirts of Arcastead: Etharia's Capital City.
I felt it again, something I wished I would never have to feel again after my transmigration—the crushing weight of the anaesthetics, a woolen blanket smothering my mind, the relentless ache deep within brittle bones that felt like shards of glass grinding together.
How much I hated this.
My body, skeletal and frail beneath thin sheets, was a map of suffering, every joint a monument to decay. The familiar dizziness swirled, the world tilting nauseatingly even as I laid perfectly still.
I really hated this.
Sunlight, weak and filtered through thick drapes, fell on Cassian Hyperion standing beside my bed. He was a stark contrast to the room's oppressive gloom. Youth vibrated off him—vibrant, healthy, untouched by the blight that had claimed me.
He was everything House Hyperion prized: sharp intellect radiating from intelligent eyes, a calm demeanor belying fierce potential, the effortless grace of someone born to power. The youngest son, yet the only one whose gaze held genuine warmth when it rested on the broken former heir.
"Cassian," I managed, my voice a thin, reedy whisper scraping against a dry throat. A ghost of a smile touched my lips, a reflex honed by years of masking despair. Even that slight movement cost me, sending fresh tremors through my wasted frame.
"Brother!" He repeated, urgency lacing his tone as he stepped closer, his hand reaching out instinctively, then hovering uncertainly above mine, afraid his touch might shatter me.
The love in his eyes was a much too real ache even in memory, a reminder of everything I couldn't be, everything I stole from him simply by existing as this burden.
A coldness, sharper than any winter wind in Etharia, settled in my chest. "Don't," I rasped, the word cutting through his hopeful declaration like a shard of ice.
I tried to raise a hand to emphasize the point, a gesture of authority, but my arm betrayed me, falling limply back onto the mattress with a soft thud. The humiliation was a familiar burn.
"Don't even think about being a doctor."
His face fell, confusion warring with hurt. "B-but Iskander—"
I summoned the last dregs of my strength, the force of a lifetime of enforced command channeled into a glare. "No buts." The words were flat, final, silencing his protest instantly. The effort stole my breath, leaving me gasping, spots dancing before my eyes.
How I hated this. Hated the fragile vessel, hated the pity, hated the monstrous injustice of possessing a mind honed for strategy and leadership trapped in a body that couldn't lift a book.
The respect my family offered was a hollow thing, given to the ghost of potential, the talent buried deep beneath misfortune the only true, cruel god I'd ever known.
"Cassian," I continued, my voice regaining a sliver of steel as the dizziness receded slightly. I focused on his face, seeing the scholar, the philosopher, the artist trapped behind the misguided notion of medical martyrdom.
"You like arts, don't you? History whispers its secrets to you. Philosophy ignites your thoughts. Literature paints worlds on the canvas of your mind. Languages unlock doors you haven't even dreamed of."
I paused, drawing a shallow, painful breath.
"You are not a doctor. You are a thinker. A creator."
He gritted his teeth, the muscles in his jaw working. "Isk—"
Again, I cut him off, the strain showing in the tightening of my lips, the slight tremor I couldn't suppress.
"Cassian." His name was a command and a plea. "You will do only what ignites your soul. What fills you with that quiet fire I see when you debate ancient texts or sketch landscapes from memory." My gaze locked onto his, willing him to understand the desperate importance of this.
"You won't let duty, or guilt," my eyes flickered pointedly to my own wasted form, "or anyone dictate the course of your life. Not even me." I forced another breath, the air rattling in my chest.
"You will be as free as a bird soaring through the boundless skies. Unchained. Unburdened. Promise me. Do you think you can do this… for me?"
The fight drained out of him, replaced by a profound sadness, a dawning understanding of the cage I was trying to break him out of, even as I laid trapped in my own. His shoulders slumped, his gaze dropping to the intricate pattern on the rug.
"Yes, brother," he whispered, the words thick with unspent tears and reluctant acceptance.
Cassian, Alfred… a pang of fierce, protective longing lanced through the memory. I hope you are safe. I hope you found your skies.
And a darker, vengeful thought: I hope that genocidal monster King Grey finally met an assassin's blade he couldn't dodge.
Though knowing that freak of nature, bred for war beyond Earth's comprehension, I doubted it.
The memory faded, the sterile sickroom dissolving like smoke.
———————————————————
My eyes snapped open—a jarring, visceral transition from the suffocating past to the brutal present. The simple act of opening them felt like a victory chant.
Alive. Still alive.
The familiar, oppressive violet glow of the Shell Room bathed the scene, casting long, distorted shadows over the carnage. Below me laid the colossal, ruined bulk of The Thing. Its obsidian flesh showed no sign of decay, the spilled ichor still glistening wetly, dark and viscous under the dim light.
Time within the Relictombs was a fickle, terrifying thing, held in stasis by the Ancient Mages' incomprehensible power. I must have been unconscious for hours, perhaps longer, yet the tableau remained horrifically fresh.
I shifted slightly, and agony, deep and grinding, flared from my abdomen. Memory slammed back: the hooked tail-spike punching through me. Instinctively, my hand flew to the wound… and encountered cold, hard chitin.
I was still impaled. A wave of nausea, cold and sour, rose in my throat. Gritting my teeth, bracing against the blinding pain, I wrapped trembling hands around the thick, barbed base of the tail embedded in my gut.
With a guttural cry ripped from raw vocal cords, I pulled. It slid free with a sickening, wet schluck, accompanied by a fresh gush of warm blood soaking my ruined tunic. I collapsed back, gasping, stars exploding behind my eyelids, the coppery tang of blood thick in my mouth.
Wait. The thought surfaced through the haze of pain. I… feel… different. The agony was immense, a white-hot brand searing my entire being, but beneath it… beneath the tearing, visceral hurt, was a thrumming sensation.
A cool, potent energy gathering low in my abdomen, near my solar plexus. I looked down, dreading the sight of spilled organs. The wound was grievous, deep, bleeding freely, but… it wasn't gaping with the obscene finality I expected.
And as I watched, breath held, I saw it.
Faint, ethereal sparks I could clearly see as bright as day—violet motes of pure arcane light—shimmering like captured starlight, swirling towards the ragged hole.
They danced across the torn flesh, sinking into it. And beneath my blood-slicked fingers, I felt the tissue… knitting.
Slowly, impossibly, but undeniably.
The bleeding slowed from a pulsing flow to an ooze. A disbelieving, breathless laugh escaped me, tasting of blood and triumph.
"Sylvia!" The name was a croak, then a shout, raw with exhilaration. "Sylvia! I did it! I'm alive! And I have… I have an aether core!"
The words felt surreal, miraculous, echoing in the death-still corridor. Her voice washed over me, a wave of profound relief so potent it momentarily eclipsed my pain.
"Well done, Child. Truly… magnificently, recklessly, terrifyingly well done," The warmth in her tone was undeniable, a balm to my battered spirit—she was impressed, I have done something she herself, a goddess, thought impossible.
However her wonder soon hardened, sharpened with maternal fury.
"But don't you dare do something like that ever again!" The force of her projection vibrated in my bones. "I felt your life flicker! I felt the silence stretch! It took so long for the spark to return, for your breathing to steady! I thought…" Her voice cracked, the spectral equivalent of a sob. "I thought I had failed you, too."
The raw fear in her voice, so alien to her usual serene wisdom, struck me harder than The Thing's tail. My reckless triumph suddenly felt… selfish.
"Sorry…" I mumbled, the word inadequate. "I didn't mean…" I trailed off, the pain and the lingering euphoria making articulation difficult. But I won. I survived.
Isn't that what matters?
"Don't worry," she said, the anger receding, replaced by a weary tenderness that somehow felt worse. "I shouldn't have shouted. The relief… it was overwhelming." She paused. "But now that you have this…"
She meant the core, the humming vortex of aetheric potential I could now feel nestled deep within me, anchored where the Life-lantern had fused with my desperate will and the Thing's death-throe aether.
It felt alien yet intrinsically mine, a miniature sun of violet energy, dense and powerful, yet… alarmingly faint.
I closed my eyes, focusing inward. Yes, there it was—a compact sphere of swirling yet solid violet light, nestled where Cassian's anatomy lessons had pinpointed the solar plexus' location.
But its radiance was dimmed, its vibrant hum reduced to a feeble whisper. It was drained, exhausted from the monumental task of stitching my broken body back together.
"Sylvia," I breathed, excitement warring with sudden apprehension, "can you see it too?"
"Yes, Iskander," her voice was soft, filled with awe and lingering concern. "I see it. A miracle born of madness and will. A true aether core." A beat of silence.
"But it is… depleted. Almost empty. You channeled everything—the ambient aether, the vivum edict from the orbs—into sheer survival. Healing such catastrophic damage… it consumed nearly all you had."
Refuel. The thought was primal, immediate. My gaze, sharp and predatory, snapped back to the colossal corpse beneath me. Its dark flesh, even in death, seemed to pulse with a deep, shadowy energy.
A reservoir. A feast. And beneath the fading adrenaline, a new sensation gnawed: a deep, hollow ache in my gut.
Hunger. Real, physical hunger. The aether sustained me, yes, but this body, this Asuran body, clearly craved more. Or perhaps the core demanded fuel the ambient energy couldn't quickly provide.
"Iskander?" Sylvia's voice held a note of dawning horror as she followed my gaze. "What are you thinking about?"
"I need to refuel my core," I stated, the logic cold and undeniable. "And this creature… it's practically made of concentrated aether. A banquet."
My mouth watered, not with appetite, but with desperate necessity. The thought was repulsive, but the void within me, both physical and aetheric, screamed for filling.
"Mana cores are refueled by absorbing ambient mana or through focused medita—" Sylvia began, her tone instructive, trying to steer me towards reason.
Her words cut off as I lunged. Not with grace, but with the feral desperation of a starving animal. I landed face-first on the cold, yielding flesh of The Thing's flank, near the gaping wound I'd torn in its side.
The smell hit me first—a nauseating cocktail of ozone, spoiled meat, and something metallic and alien, like cold iron left in stagnant water. Then the taste. My teeth sank into rubbery, fibrous tissue that yielded with a sickening tear.
The flavor was indescribably foul—rancid oil mixed with bitter herbs and the coppery tang of its ichor, coating my tongue, clinging to the roof of my mouth. It was the worst thing I had ever experienced, a violation of every sense.
In my past life, taste had been a rare, cherished escape—Alfred sneaking in delicacies, savoring flavors that momentarily masked the medicine's bitterness.
In confrontation this was desecration.
Gagging, tears stinging my eyes from the sheer vileness, I forced myself to chew, to swallow. Fuel. Survival. Each revolting mouthful was a battle against my own revulsion. But I could feel it. Faint trickles of purple, potent aether, thick and sluggish, seeping from the consumed flesh into my core, like viscous tar slowly filling an empty vessel.
It was working, but agonizingly inefficient. The energy felt crude, tainted, requiring immense effort to assimilate. I couldn't fight like this, stopping to gorge on fallen foes like some carrion beast.
Through watering eyes, I caught a glimpse of Sylvia's projected form. Her hand was pressed to her mouth, her luminous lavender eyes wide with undisguised shock and profound distaste.
To a being of her grace and beauty, her divine heritage, this scene—a demigod tearing into raw monster flesh like a rabid animal—must be the height of barbarity, a grotesque parody of existence.
Sorry, Dragon Mama, I thought grimly, swallowing another foul chunk. Survival isn't pretty.
"Iskander," she said, her voice tight with controlled distress, "you don't need to… consume it physically to absorb the aether. Not now. With your aether core awakened, you should be able to draw it in directly, passively, like normal asuras absorb ambient mana. Though," she added hastily, "you are far from normal!"
A harsh, blood-flecked laugh burst from me. I raised my head, ichor smeared across my chin. "Tried that," I gasped, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, only smearing more gore. "Didn't work fast enough. Felt the pull, but it was a trickle. This…" I gestured at the half-eaten monstrosity, "...is a firehose. A disgusting, putrid firehose."
But her words sparked hope. Passively. Like Ki.
Pushing myself away from the carcass, I sat cross-legged amidst the gore and wreckage, the taste of death still coating my tongue. I closed my eyes, forcing down the nausea. Ki.
The memory was clear: Alfred guiding me through meditative techniques, not to heal my broken body, but to find fleeting moments of peace, to manage the pain. Focus. Breathe. Draw the energy inward.
I reached for the humming core within my solar plexus. This time, it responded. Not with the violent influx from the flesh, but with a gentle, insistent pull.
The ambient aether in the Relictombs air, thick and potent like an invisible fog, stirred. Violet motes, visible only to my internal sense now guided by the core, began to drift towards me. They swirled, drawn by the vortex within, seeping through my skin, flowing along pathways I hadn't known existed, converging on the dim core.
It was slower than eating, but infinitely cleaner, simpler and profoundly… right. The gnawing physical hunger receded slightly, replaced by a deep sense of aetheric replenishment. The core's faint whisper grew steadily stronger.
I opened my eyes, exhaling a long, slow breath that tasted cleaner. "Aether is potent," I murmured, flexing my fingers, feeling the lingering aches fade faster, replaced by a thrumming vitality that surpassed even my first awakening in the Shell Room.
"I feel… renewed, again."
"It is," Sylvia agreed, her voice regaining its gentle warmth, though the shadow of my recent feast lingered in her eyes. "A combination of your unique physiology—a biological Asura forged for experiment—and your… audacious… success in forcing an aether core into existence. The potential is staggering, Iskander."
She drifted closer, her form shimmering. "Now, let me help you learn to wield this vessel properly. You possess the body, but not the instinctive knowledge."
"Properly use?" I echoed, intrigued, opening my eyes fully and meeting her gaze. "What does that mean?"
"Yes. You are, for all intents and purposes, a toddler Asura. Try to absorb aether without meditating. Just… will it. Feel the core pull."
I focused, trying to replicate the meditative pull through sheer intent. Nothing. The ambient aether remained indifferent. I frowned. "Still feels like I need to… invite it in consciously. It doesn't just flow."
Sylvia chuckled softly, the sound like distant wind chimes. "It seems I need to teach you something Asuran children learn even before they can form coherent words. The foundational awareness of the self as a vessel." Her expression held a mix of amusement and profound sadness.
"Welcome to infancy, little demigod."
A spark of playful defiance ignited in me, cutting through the lingering gore and pain. "Yes… Dragon Mama,"
I said, leaning into the nickname, hoping its irreverence might chip away at the sorrow I still saw deep within her lavender eyes. A tiny, almost imperceptible smile touched her spectral lips. Progress.
Under her patient, divine guidance, I began the process of attuning. Not just absorbing, but purifying the aether drawn in, refining it within the core before letting it suffuse my body. It was a subtle dance of will and awareness, feeling the energy circulate, shed its ambient coarseness, and integrate seamlessly.
We quickly realized my aether core itself was unique—a forced construct, not organically grown. Unlike mana cores that progressed through distinct, quantifiable stages—red, orange, yellow—my aether core felt… static in form, yet infinitely malleable in capacity.
Its power wasn't tiered; it was a well whose depth I could expand, whose water I could refine.
As I meditated, passively absorbing and refining, Sylvia observed with growing wonder. "The density… the potency," she murmured. "Aether is orders of magnitude stronger than mana. What you did with brute strength before…" She gestured vaguely at the ruined Thing. "…imagine augmenting that strength with aether."
"Augmentation?" The concept was electrifying.
"Yes. Non-Asuras use mana to temporarily enhance physical capabilities—strength, speed, durability. Crude and limited in a way. While Asuras like us do it mindlessly, but you don't have mana. With aether…"
Her eyes gleamed. "You could amplify your already formidable physiology tenfold. Perhaps more. Sustain it longer. Make flesh like steel, speed like lightning."
The possibilities unfolded in my mind like a dazzling, dangerous tapestry. Freedom incarnate. But Sylvia's next words were a bucket of cold water.
"However, such augmentation requires channels. Mana channels for us… or in your case, aether channels. Conduits woven throughout your body to carry and direct the energy from the core to the muscles, bones, nerves. Your body, as forged, lacks them. The pathways exist only for passive absorption and core function, not active deployment."
My gaze, inevitably, drifted back to the monstrous corpse. Then to one of its massive, bladed talons, lying amidst the wreckage like a discarded scythe. A dark, reckless idea bloomed, fully formed. Biological sculpting. Forced evolution. Again.
"Child," Sylvia's voice was instantly wary, exhaustion warring with apprehension. "What is in your head this time? That look…"
"What if," I said slowly, crawling towards the severed talon, its edge still wickedly sharp, "I make the channels? Artificially. Like I did with the core." I hefted the talon; it was heavy, cold, lethally precise.
"Surgical incisions. Follow the muscle groups, the major nerve pathways Cassian taught me…" My mind raced with stolen anatomical knowledge. "Then flood the cuts with concentrated aether as they heal. Force the pathways to form around the energy. Seal it in."
I looked up at her, my violet eyes probably gleaming with the same mad intensity they had before I shoved the orb into the Thing's maw.
"What do you say? Like Wolverine… only do-it-yourself. And less metal, more… aetheric scar tissue..."
"No!" The word was a whip-crack, filled with protective fury. "Iskander, absolutely not! I will not stand by and watch you mutilate yourself further! This is madness! There has to be another way! Time, practice, understanding your core first—"
Her protests faded into the background hum of the Shell Room's violet light. Pain was an old companion. Fear of it had held me back for a lifetime. No more. This body could heal seamlessly. This core could fuel that healing.
I positioned the tip of the talon against the skin of my right forearm, over the specific muscles Cassian had once pointed out. I focused on my core, drawing a thick strand of violet aether, holding it ready like molten lead.
"Sorry, Dragon Mama," I murmured, not sounding sorry at all. "Can't hear you over the sound of progress." And before she could project another word, before doubt could take root, I pushed.
The talon, honed by the Relictombs and The Thing's own predatory evolution, sliced through my skin like parchment. White-hot agony lanced up my arm, stealing my breath.
Blood, bright red against my slightly grey skin, welled instantly. I gritted my teeth, tears springing to my eyes unbidden. Deep enough. Follow the muscle fiber. I dragged the talon downwards in a slow, deliberate, excruciating line, about six inches long, feeling it scrape against the dense tissue beneath.
The pain was a living thing, a white noise screaming in my nerves. I ignored it, focusing on the aether strand. As the cut deepened, I willed the violet energy into the wound, flooding the raw, bleeding trench.
"CHILD!" Sylvia's scream was pure anguish, a sound of utter helplessness.
The effect was immediate and astounding. The invading aether reacted violently with my Asuran biology and the aether filled core. The bleeding slowed dramatically as the violet light intensified within the cut, searing and knitting simultaneously.
I was remaking the wound. I watched, fascinated despite the agony, as the raw edges of flesh and muscle seemed to shimmer, to reorganize.
The aether wasn't filling the new cut, instead, it was forging a conduit within it, binding with the tissue, creating a defined, glowing pathway that pulsed with contained power before the skin seamlessly sealed over it, leaving only a faint, hairline scar that shimmered with residual violet light for a moment before fading.
The pain subsided to a deep, throbbing ache, replaced by a strange, humming sensitivity along the newly forged path. It worked.
A manic grin spread across my face, fueled by pain, triumph, and the sheer audacity of it. I shifted the talon slightly, aiming for the path of the radial nerve.
"Channel number two," I announced, my voice tight but unwavering. Sylvia was silent now. Not protesting.
Just watching, her spectral form radiating waves of profound distress, a silent storm of fear and sorrow.
I saw the shimmer of unshed tears in her luminous lavender eyes, the ultimate expression of a goddess witnessing a beloved child walk willingly into a forge of self-inflicted torment. But I was committed. The talon bit into my flesh again. The white agony flared.
The aether flooded in. And the gruesome, necessary work of art—the sculpting of an aetheric vascular system within my own new flesh—began in earnest.