Chapter 1200 - 1200

Quillon felt his body melding into his sword.

One with the Blade was a very literal Supreme Skill.

At first his senses were overwhelmed with pain, but it was not long before a euphoric power started coursing through him.

He had always had a strong connection to the sword, and he had devoted much of his life to training with the weapon.

However, as he was now, everything else he had done felt hollow.

It was only when he merged with his blade that he truly understood what it meant to be a sword.

Truthfully, Quillon had no idea if he was just hallucinating all of this, as the couple of times he had tested his second Supreme Skill became hazy memories once he had finished using it.

Once his mind became wholly human again, it was as if it could not process what being a sword was truly like.

Except, while he reveled in the power and understanding One with the Blade gave him, the rational part of his mind kept him from delaying. The longer he stayed this way the worse the backlash from using the skill would end up being.

In the form of what appeared to be just a floating sword, Quillon positioned himself above the center of the barrier that Marcus had created.

He believed Lyra when she said that it was nearly indestructible and that among them, only he had the ability to break through it. Because right now, there was nothing that he could not cut.

'Severance.'

There was a bright flash as Quillon appeared to almost teleport as he swung himself.

For a second, the barrier around Marcus held, and it seemed like it might hold out.

Then, the first cracks began to form like spiderwebs.

One moment the powerful barrier was still holding strong, and the next it shattered into millions of pieces.

That was not the end though, Quillon's slash continued on, once again slicing Marcus' current body in half.

This was still not enough to get the job done, and Quillon, still merged with his sword, rose up and swiped through the air two more times.

Each one of his attacks cut along the entire length of Marcus' form in both directions.

Leaving the two halves Quillon had had already created each cut in half again.

Even for Marcus as he currently was, this was major damage that would take him at least a little bit of time to heal.

Which would hopefully be enough for Aerial and Roxene to reach him and drag his consciousness back.

'Quillon! That's enough! You need to stop now!'

Lyra's voice in his head snapped Quillon out of his thoughts and slowly dwindling identity.

While the initial transformation was uncomfortable, being a sword just felt right.

Yet, he knew what the consequences would be if he stayed like this for too long. In the worst-case scenario, his own identity would cease to exist, and he would fully embrace One with the Blade and never go back to being human.

Quillon ended the Supreme Skill, and his merger with his sword came to an end.

Unfortunately, he was not in the best shape.

His internal organs flet like they had been mashed together and then shaken up, and he now had three deep gashes that went down the entire length of his body.

This was the price that had to be paid to briefly touch upon transcendent ability with the sword.

For each strike he made, he suffered a wound himself, and the process of becoming a sword wreaked havoc on his insides.

With this damage being recoil for using a Supreme Skill, healing could not be accelerated by basically any means outside of Quillon's own natural recovery.

Even when they tested it with Marcus' Ultimate Refresh, he was only able to fix the internal injuries, not the blade wounds that Quillon had suffered for each attack he made.

One with the Blade was truly a dangerous skill that should only ever be used as a last resort. As it could just as easily kill the wielder as any target Quillon used it against.

'I think that I'm going to need to take a nap now. Make sure you get him back.' Quillon said over telepathy before passing out.

…

Lyra wanted nothing more than to rush to Quillon's side, but that would ruin the future that she had seen.

Already they were a little off due to small variances, but she was able to correct their course so long as she took small peeks into the future.

She was already nearly drained, but after coming this far and grasping onto the smallest thread of hope, she was not going to stop until they saw this through.

"Roxene, Aerial, you two need to go now. I'll handle things here."

The two of them nodded and then set off to reach Marcus' core. Quillon had carved a path for the two of them, but it would not stay open for long.

Lyra wished that she could go with them to snap Marcus back to his senses, but she lacked the connection necessary to do so.

No, she had her own role to play here.

The monster that Marcus had been fighting was still alive, and now that he was in no shape to fight back, it was tearing into him.

Lyra hated that this was necessary, but she let it continue to shred Marcus' form apart for a little over a minute. This slowed his regeneration down as he had to constantly drain his energy to fix the incoming damage along with the massive wounds Quillon had inflicted.

Without letting this happen, Marcus would have recovered too quickly. Which was why they had left the multi-headed reptilian monstrosity alive for so long.

Still, it did need to die for Roxene and Aerial to reach Marcus. Otherwise, his survival instincts would repel any attempt to connect.

When the time was right, Lyra decided upon the monster, gradually turning herself into a giant fox covered in flames.

She rarely used this racial ability as it left her vulnerable, but in this instance, what she needed above all else was immense offensive power.

The already injured monster roared as it was bathed in flames, and an enormous fox started ripping out chucks of its body with teeth made of fire.

Lyra allowed her more bestial instincts to take over as she savaged the titanic creature.

She was still small compared to it, but the damage she was doing was still too much for it to ignore.

And that proved to be a fatal mistake.

In his form resembling the Dread Burrower, Marcus regenerated his head first, and once he was capable of moving again, he lunged forward and latched his razor-sharp teeth into the reptilian monster.

It was already weakened, so it was hardly able to fight back as it was torn to pieces.

Lyra did not slow down either, helping to hasten the creature's demise.

Naturally, once it died, Marcus turned his attention to the next greatest source of energy he could sense. With that being Lyra in the form of a blazing fox.

Quickly she returned to her normal body, though she nearly fell over from exhaustion.

'Just a little more. His mind has been separated from his body, but the connection is still partially there from what is saw in my vision. I need to continue distracting him and reach to the core of who he is.' Lyra thought summoning up every last drop of mana she had inside of her.

With an illusion on a scale she had never conjured before, she changed the entire area around her.

Soon the bleak chamber of the Darklands was replaced by a sunny afternoon day.

There were a few fluffy clouds in the sky, and the temperature was just perfect with a slight breeze.

Rows upon rows of houses stood on either side of a concrete street. Each one had a bit of uniqueness and charm to them. Though it was clear that most of the buildings were at least a few decades old.

This illusion represented no place on Mirrion.

It was a memory that Lyra had brought back to life. From a time long ago when she still lived on Earth.

Things were not exactly the same as she had bene forced to upscale the size of everything to match Marcus' new perception, but otherwise her illusion was a near perfect recreation of the street that the two of them grew up on.

Marcus did not really react to any of this, but it was just the set dressing. What was really going to get to him were the people.

'I suppose that I need to get into character myself.'

Lyra cast an illusion over her own body, taking on her appearance from her first life.

She then upscaled the size of the image to several kilometers tall to match the surroundings.

'Time for the finishing touches. I hope that I remember what everyone looked like well enough.'