Descent of a God

Trial

Cordelia POV:

I teleported myself inside the cave with Jude hunched over my shoulders. Then, I laid him down on the bedroll while activating a healing artifact, but his health wasn't getting any better.

'What's happening?' I thought as I looked at Jude's pale complexion and his hard breathing. 

'His body isn't recovering, in fact, it's starting to fade!'

Jude's breathing stopped, causing my heart to drop as I rushed towards him. I check his heart beat and breathed out in relief after seeing that he was still alive.  However, he still wasn't waking up.

I decided to rest first and see if he woke up in the meantime.

_________________________________________________

Cordelia POV:

My eyes sprang open as I gathered mana around me, ready to fight.

'Someone teleported us!' I thought as I looked at Jude who lay unconscious next to me. His body was peaceful, as if he was simply sleeping, but I could tell that he was slowly dying.

I gritted my teeth as I scanned the surroundings before shouting, "Who's there?"

A person materialised next to Jude while I almost attacked him with my spells. However, I stopped myself when I noticed that he was being projected from a crystal. 

'Is this a hologram?' I cautiously closed the distance between us while occasionally glancing at Jude in worry.

He seemed to be scanning Jude as his eyes were fixed, only moving up and down. He let out a sigh, "This kid overused destruction, causing his body to start to erase. If not for his integration stage core, he would have died already."

'Integration stage core? Body starting to erase?' I looked at the hologram with an inquiring gaze.

He turned to me and introduced himself, "I am Uriel, the remnant looking over this dungeon. I usually wouldn't even have such a form but I gained this due to the rush of aether you two provided when you entered."

'The rush of aether must be the reason behind the difficulty change in relictombs,' I thought as I nodded my head.

"This man wielded the power of destruction his power wasn't capable of carrying, and will die soon. There are two ways to save him. One way is to have high enough mastery of aevum to reverse time," he stared at me before continuing, "which you don't have. The second way is to force a creation Godrune into his body, causing it to balance the power of destruction."

"What about vivum?"

He shook his head, "Vivum can only stall his death, not prevent it."

"Then how do I get the creation Godrune? And how do I force it onto him?"

"It won't be too hard to force the Godrune onto his body since he has an integration stage core, but the main problem is for you to qualify for the Godrune. For that, you must find the artifact of this dungeon."

My frustration rose as I stomped my feet. 'We managed to cross the first trial but I have to complete the entire dungeon myself?'

"Usually, you would have been forced to complete the entire dungeon by yourself, " the entity spoke as if he read my mind, "but I'll waive that because of the status of this man. However, you will still need to go through trials. These trials will be designed in such a way that it's possible to solo them, but they will still be very difficult."

"Everything's fine, as long as I can save him."

"It's been a long time since I have seen such pure love," the entity said with a smirk, causing my cheeks to redden before continuing, "however, you will also need to protect and carry him so that you can transfer the creation Godrune to him as soon as you get it."

"That's fine. Explain me what you meant by integration core stage."

"Core stages can be divided into three broad stages: Acquire, Integrate and Fusion. These stages are the same ones as for beast wills. Acquire stage is where most mages will stay in for there entire lives. This stage is the biggest and is decided into six more stages with each being names according to the purity of the mana core. Acquire stage mages mostly rely on mana instead of aether. Integration stage mages like this boy can use both aether and mana with a high level of mastery," he paused as if waiting for me to understand.

He then continued, "The final stage, fusion, is only a theoretical stage since no one ever reached it. But that stage should give access to all of the ambient mana and aether in the entire world, as well as access to all Godrunes of aether and all discovered and undiscovered elements of mana. Simply put, the mage becomes something similar to God." 

My breathing hitched as I gulped. 'If Jude reached the Fusion stage, this bloody war could truly be over.'

"However, even the most powerful Djinn King who fought against Kezess Indrath on equal footing was never able to reach the Fusion stage because he wasn't able to grasp the last barrier, the edict of Fate."

I titled my head in confusion before asking him, "Shouldn't reaching the Fusion stage give access to the edict of Fate."

He sighed before replying, "That is what's baffling about the Fusion stage. It seems that the only requirement to reach it is the true understanding of Fate, something no one has every achieved. We spent centuries researching but only reached a very shallow understanding of it. The true power of Fate is far beyond what the relic from the Last Tomb will ever give you."

'What did he say? His voice cut out after he said that no one achieved the Godrune of Fate.'

"Well, anyway, you should do and complete the Trial of the Tower to achieve the Godrune," he said as he pointed towards a portal and blinked into existence.

[A/N: Short chapter to introduce the next mini arc. I was planning on writing more but I am going on a short vacation, so this chapter got cut short. It was also a bit of an info dump so cutting it short may actually be helping it. See you guys on 13th!]