Chapter 122: Work of Art
The moment the contract was completely sealed, Priam could perfectly feel that partner of his inside the egg. She was completely unconscious, as if sleeping deeply.
’Should I just leave her here?’
He thought about it, but soon shook his head.
’No. She trusted me, and I’ll fully take responsibility for that. I won’t leave her surrounded by these people alone. She’s coming with me, no matter how.’
He clenched his fists, determined.
His mind worked quickly, thinking through every possibility.
He could create a small space in his soul in minutes, and she could enter and stay there until she was truly ready to live. Even without his concealment power, no one would know she was inside there with him.
The only problem was the incubation inscription.
He turned his eyes to the nearby red veins, focusing on sensing them.
That was pure soul power, accumulated somewhere else, slowly nourishing the egg.
He turned to the egg, evaluating the inscription’s connection with it.
At the exact tip where the veins touched the egg... Priam noticed a subtle bloodline energy from the Aether-Wood Deer.
That was connected to the little girl inside the egg. The connection was through bloodline.
But it wasn’t sucking or sending anymore. It seemed to be only like a physical connection, existing solely to transfer the external nutrients.
He reflected seriously. If he maintained that connection with the bloodline...
’If I use that Elder’s bloodline? No... her bloodline aura and power are much, much denser and superior. It’s possible that, with such a large discrepancy, the inscription will send an alert to the race for verification. They definitely come to this place often to check if everything is fine with her. Any change that’s too abrupt should already trigger the alarm.’
He thought and rethought all his possibilities to the maximum for several minutes.
Finding nothing, he began reviewing everything he had studied and heard from the Aether-Wood Deer so far. There had to be something...
Suddenly, Priam’s eyes shone.
He turned inward.
In his soul...
A black rune was calmly there.
It was the contract mark he had been forced to sign when he discovered his clan’s greatest secret. From the beginning, he had realized that it had been created with the purest bloodline of the Aether-Wood Deer.
Obviously, it wasn’t even close to the power of the bloodline he had stolen from that Elder. But...
[Dominate?] [Yes / No]
Priam smiled, completely dominating that black rune.
Then, he moved the Elder’s bloodline into it, testing it...
’That’s it!’
He became excited.
’These bastards really are sinister. This contract isn’t just something that stops the clans from saying anything. If necessary, they can use their bloodlines to nourish the rune and, like that, completely dominate the person’s body, as if they were a slave.’
Priam didn’t hesitate and moved 95% of the Elder’s bloodline that he had stolen earlier. He kept a little, because he would need it to leave that place with the emblem.
After that, Priam focused on that partner of his inside the egg.
’I need a little of your bloodline. That way, I promise I’ll get you out of here.’ He sent the message through the contract. Now, he could communicate mentally with her. Of course, she couldn’t answer or even hear him.
But...
He felt a subtle change in her fluctuations.
With an Anima as terrifying as hers, even while almost completely unconscious, her instincts could still react to stimuli from the environment.
That was a genuine reaction of confirmation. The bloodline runes at the center of the small flame began to stir and move, as if they were being pushed outward.
’Okay, I only want a little, not everything.’
Priam extended his hand, almost touching the egg again.
He concentrated on the connection between them, and a white line flowed from his palm to the egg. It was like a small channel.
Priam received it slowly, attentive to even the slightest change in the inscription. When he began to feel an instinctive danger, he stopped.
Less than 10% of her bloodline moved to him.
It wasn’t much, because the inscription would sense that change as something far too anomalous.
Years after awakening with his memories and living his life training and studying nonstop, Priam knew that, thanks to his Transcendent Anima, he had very abnormal and almost premonitory instincts.
Now, he put that into practice. And like that, he began to get an idea of the limits of this inscription.
He interrupted the connection and moved everything he had received into that black rune.
A single black rune now accumulated a lot of an Elder’s bloodline and a little of the original bloodline from his terrifying partner. It was like condensing electrical energy into a single point, making its power much greater.
Scientifically speaking, if you take the same amount of energy and force it to pass through a much smaller area, you increase its density, making the impact at that point infinitely greater.
Upon feeling that black rune now...
’Shit... something is still missing.’
Priam murmured mentally and turned back to his partner inside there, trying to discern what was missing to make it more similar.
But fortunately, it didn’t even take a minute.
What was missing was exactly what he had noticed as soon as he felt her, when he arrived.
’An aura close to a Pristine Wild-Spirit.’
Priam had the Pristine Primordial Core, which generated only the power of nature. Not their bloodline.
Then, he remembered something.
Inside the Nexus Seed, he moved a small amount of green energy.
Priam could store some pure energies inside the Nexus Seed, so he could use them when necessary.
When he was still in the clan’s building, he had properly prepared for his dangerous mission, imagining the worst-case scenario. Because of that, he had stored the most important things for emergencies inside the Nexus Seed. One of them was the Essence of the Wood Spirit.
He had received that from Murima after being named Missionary of the Goddess by them. According to what she had told him, it was created with a bloodline technique of their race and had the power to heal someone’s deepest wounds. (Chapter 75)
Besides that, obviously, it possessed a very distinct aura of the Pristine Wild-Spirits.
’I’ll have to waste this resource, but it’ll be worth it.’
He didn’t hesitate and moved all of it toward the black rune. With his control over energies, Priam created a layer with it around the rune, with small gaps through which the Aether-Wood Deer bloodline could flow.
It was as if the aura of both was flowing together through it, if someone could feel it from the outside.
He focused again on his ’work of art’...
’Hmm... I’d say... It’s 90% identical?’
Since the little girl still hadn’t been born, her bloodline runes and aura were almost frozen. So, the flow coming from what he had created was very similar in every sense.
’It won’t truly fool anyone who comes in here. The moment someone steps inside, they’ll notice the difference in the same second. But... for an inscription without real intelligence, which is like a program that "analyzes" data coldly... maybe this small change won’t alert it.’
Priam said this to himself, trying to convince himself that it could really work.
After taking several deep breaths, he couldn’t think of anything that could solidly guarantee success.
His instincts weren’t warning him about anything.
’Fuck it.’
He closed his eyes.
His soul energy and bloodline moved again, this time toward his chest. There, exactly where his heart was, a white mark appeared. It was like a circular tattoo, with a strange symbol in the center.
Inside, a small spiritual space was created. It was only one and a half square meters, but it could be expanded in the future.
With everything ready, he extended his hand forward.
The white channel appeared again, opening an entrance to that egg of energy.
He slowly sent his work of art into the egg.
Then...
’Come... I don’t know when you’ll truly wake up, but I’ll be waiting eagerly.’
As he sent the message, that flame began to tremble subtly. Then...
It leaned toward the channel and finally began to move out...
...
...
Priam began to sweat coldly, taken by nervousness.
...
...
In five seconds, she was no longer inside the egg...
Priam held his breath, waiting for the worst.
His heart beat like a drum.
...
...
...
Nothing happened.
Even after almost two minutes.
Priam let out a deep breath.
He had never felt so anxious in his life.
’I can’t waste time...’
He turned around, hoping that would last at least a few hours.
When he reached the barrier, he used the emblem again.
The opening appeared, and he immediately left, looking around and activating his senses to the maximum, searching for anyone nearby.
Nothing.
He took a deep breath. His focus was at its peak.
He had spent less than half an hour inside there. Before that, he had spent a few hours "exploring the medicinal field."
Priam moved forward, but didn’t activate the wind element or anything that could draw attention.
First, he went to check on the poisoned Elder.
When he looked...
He was in the same position.
His skin looked very dry, as if his muscles had disappeared. But he was temporarily alive. That tree was really enjoying the meal, little by little.
Priam hurriedly turned around, walking on his own legs toward the exit.