Chapter 429: Aki loves new books

Belladonna's mental 'butterknife' slammed down onto the singular moonlight particle, striking it right where it mixed with the inexplicable power of Will.

She didn't separate them, she didn't come even close. It was far too advanced for her and a power that was far beyond her league. All she managed to do was chip it ever so slightly, dislodging the tiniest speck of pure, untainted Will. But just that small speck was more power than Belladonna had at her disposal at the current moment.

The moment the speck was chipped off, her Enlightenment ended and her consciousness was ripped back to reality where she woke up with a gulping gasp. Her senses completely lost track of the speck of Will, as it floated through her system and disappeared deep within her, drawn to a particular part of her constitution within her, where it instantly turned dormant.

The pain of the moonlight immediately came back, nipping and stabbing at Belladonna's body from the inside.

She had failed in her initial goal, to diminish the Goddess' effect on her body, which was a result of the Goddess' final dying will. But whilst she had failed to adapt herself, Belladonna was not disappointed, for the small speck of knowledge she had gathered was worth infinitely more than a basic adaptation, even if she did not yet know how to properly control it.

Within her mental library, Aki the Librarian was eagerly transporting the mound of tomes that the Enlightenment had created. Not just of Belladonna's thought process, but of all the subconcious thoughts and calculations she had been making in the process of chipping the mana particle.

It was all incredibly fascinating and incredibly detailed, even if it was also incredibly disjointed and difficult to read. But the Akashic Scribe feared not the opportunity to read and understand.

However as she was walking her foot connected with something that shouldn't have been there, sending it skidding across the floor.

Aki raised her eyebrows, peaking around the stack of tomes, she struggled to see what she had kicked until she finally spotted it.

A thin journal with a pure white cover, which was difficult to see as she had kicked it into the blanket of wispy smoke that poured off of the white door in Belladonna's mind, allowing it to blend in perfectly.

If she had not kicked it, it could have gone unnoticed for a gods knows how long.

With a mental command, the journal hovered in front of Aki, however her curiousity quickly turned to disappointment as she opened the journal to find that it had just a singular piece of blank paper within it.

Undoubtedly some junk book that Belladonna had once seen and never got to see the insides of, yet she remembered it anyways.

Aki sighed, placing the book on the nearest shelf, before carrying on with her duties with a gleeful skip in her step, putting the thoughts of that little journal to the back of her mind, which was technically the back of Belladonna's mind.

It was a little confusing if you thought about it.

A few minutes after Aki had left, a tendril of white smoke flowed out from underneath the white door. The smoke swirled and danced elegantly through the air, before touching gently against the book that sat on the shelf, and was seemingly absorbed into it.

The tendril was absorbed alone, with no immediate fallout or visible difference to the door. The only difference at all, was a second page that had been added to the irrelevant and unassuming white journal.

In the real world, that was the real world of Dawd, Belladonna focused on the mana attacking her from within. She focused for a few moments, trying to see if she could seperate more Will from it and stop the pain that way, but her current technique was far too clumsy and inefficient.

Chipping away at a single particle could take days until it was substantially decimated of Will to stop the pain, but in that time hundreds of thousands more would have replaced their fallen brother.

Beside the pathetic levels of returns, she still didn't know what she could do with it or how, or if she even could in the first place without it being tied to a special technique, such as the Paladin's vow.

It was too much to study and she didn't have nearly enough time.

At this point, she just wanted this stuff out of her. So she forced it all out of her with one big push, creating a cloud of steam that burst from her skin like overheated sweat.

The hissing of the steam drew Figgs attention, as he had become distracted by analysing the grass and studying the creatures that filled the jungle, to progress his own natural based system.

"Hey, you're finally awake!" He said with a smile as he jogged over.

Belladonna immediately let out a groan and cringed at his wording.

"Ugh, did you really have to phrase it like that? You should know those are cursed words..."

"Sorry, my bad. It just kind of slipped out. It's good that you are awake though, I was getting ready to log off and give the others the bad news."

"Really? Huh... How long was I out exactly, it couldn't have been that long." Belladonna said as she stood up and stretched, although the immediate stiffness in her joints told her that it had been at least half an hour of no movement, but that wouldn't be too bad.

"12 hours."

"What?! 12? No way..."

"Yup. 12 hours and 24 minutes, to be precise about it." Figg shrugged before stifling a yawn.

"It barely felt like five minutes..." Belladonna muttered.

"Enlightenment will do that to you spooky dude." Raev chuckled from behind her, where he laid spread eagle in the grass and was simply basking in the moonlight that seemingly did not want to leave despite the fact that it should have been dawn by now.

Typical for a Moon Goddess' domain. Even deceased she was screwing with the world in her own special ways.

"There was this one time that I drank a brew a buddy cooked up, I lost an entire year and woke up with a wife, who thought my name was Barry. Fun times... Fun times..."

Belladonna elected to ignore him, sparing him just a roll of her eyes, before she focused on Figg again.

"You must be exhausted, why didn't you log off to get some sleep at least?"

"I didn't want to leave you all alone." He shrugged, "Besides, it gives me an excuse to stay away from that Dryad lady. I have a feeling my next visit is going to be frisky and I'm still not ready for that."

Belladonna let out a soft giggle, "Well, let's get somewhere we can actually sleep, even if we need to do it in Dawd. The others won't miss us too much, and it's not the first time we've pulled all nighters.

Usually I would let Sebbie protect us, but I don't trust that that Elarian won't come back at some point. I'm surprised we survived this long, I don't want to push my luck any further and I doubt Sebbie could protect us against that.

Thankfully for you, I studied some maps from the Tower, which is how I know that there is an Elven Settlement a days travel away, or a few seconds with another teleportation scroll. If we can get there then maybe we can get a room in an Inn and then-" Belladonna explained wtih a smug smirk, before the care-free, and slightly dull voice of the Avatar sounded again.

"Oh... You're gonna be real disappointed when you get there Spooky dude. They're all gone. Loooong gone."