A decision to kill

*Clank*

The door of the stasis pod opened, exposing bare-chested Aiden inside. According to the system, it had already healed the wounds in his body, but after staying within the stasis pod for over four hours, it was not very easy for him to move again.

"It can recover exhaustion, but it can't undo the pain." Aiden sighed as he slowly sat back up on the edge of the stasis pod. Gritting his teeth, he can move again, but he felt that thousands of ants were still chewing his bones.

"You might not be inside the domain, however, your essence mana is still enhancing your heart and bones."

Even without Mraz's explanation, Aiden could feel the itching sensation inside his body. It was not that painful, just plain irritating. He knew where it was itching, but he had no way to scratch it.

"Unless you complete the entire process, this feeling won't stop. So, you should hurry." Mraz reminded him of the traumatic experience that awaits him.

"Do I have to spend four hours in the stasis pod, just after 2 hours inside its domain? This method is nowhere near effective enough." Even though the stasis pod he had used was older than the version he used on the spaceship, Aiden was sure it was not the problem.

"Don't rush." To Aiden's surprise, Mraz was rather supportive, "Repeated deconstruction and reconstruction is a very strenuous process. A slight error can destroy your body. It's better to be cautious than to be sorry."

"If you had the 'Amrit Elixir', I wouldn't let you choose this path." Mraz sighed. "Even drinking golden blood would have been less risky than this process."

"What happened to you?" Aiden smirked as he stretched his legs, "Are you not the one who forced me to do this?"

"You're going to die," Mraz's voice returned to its former arrogance, "There are beasts powerful enough to capture that 'Nekra' alive. Do you think you will be able to survive if you face those beasts or those elves?"

Aiden had no words to refute, even though he wanted to. After all, it was true. He wasn't sure he could survive if he had encountered a group of three-circle ice-trolls.

Feeling the mood, Mraz added, "Don't worry about it. Right now, your essence mana couldn't repair your body faster than the rate of deconstruction inside its Domain. So you can expect this kind of result.."

"However, the more your body strengthens, and the more you comprehend your first innate mana circle, the more efficient your control over your essence mana will become. And you will last longer inside the domain. So don't rush."

"But you should be grateful that you have these types of things." The stasis pod closed on its own as Aiden moved away from it. "Even if it's a primitive technology, it is quite effective. Without it, you'd have to stay in bed for two days before you could move again."

Listening to Mraz's critique, a smile on Aiden's face. However, before he could step out of the lab, Robin appeared in front of him.

"Are you telling the truth?" Robin's face was stern, but looking at him, Aiden couldn't conceal his smile. "Believe whatever you want to believe in. It's not like what you believe will change the facts."

Robin stood there, glaring at Aiden. Aiden, too, was to leave but stopped, 'is there a limit how many I can bestow on my totem?'

"You want to give your totem to this man? After all, giving your species a totem would be a waste." Mraz thought for a moment, adding, "then again, it is not like your species can use much mana. Give him, if you want to, but why do you want to waste your mana on him?"

Aiden smiled as he looked at Robin but didn't explain. Finding Aiden was walking towards him all of a sudden, by instinct Robin took a step back. Yet Aiden didn't stop and touched his forehead.

As soon as he did, Robin felt Aiden had poured molten lava through his body. His breath got stuck in his throat, everything turned white in front of his eyes, and his leg softened. However, he didn't fall. As Aiden was holding onto his forehead, there was nothing much he could do.

"What?" he didn't have the strength to finish the sentence. He didn't believe that Aiden wanted to kill him, but he had no other explanation for Aiden's action.

As he was trying to explain Aiden's behavior, the pain decreased. After overcoming the initial painful sensation, Robin realized that it was mana that Aiden was pouring into his body and that it wasn't hot.

Rather, it was so cold that it was giving off the burning sensations in his mana channel. Before he could understand what Aiden was trying to do, he felt the wind mana inside his body was depleting at a rapid rate, and there was nothing he could do about it.

The chilling cold mana soon devoured the small amount of wind mana he had inside of him. In a matter of seconds, his dantian was void of any wind mana. Yet Aiden didn't stop.

Soon his dantian filled up with the Icy mana. When the mana hit his dantian for the first time, he felt like the cold mana was tearing his dantian from the inside out.

"Ahhhhh!" Robin could no longer keep it in. However, it was just beginning, and soon the pain spared all over the body. If it were any other time, then he would have fainted, but Robin felt that something inside the body was stopping him from losing consciousness.

Robin did not remember how long the torment continued, but when Aiden released his body, he had no energy to control his body and plopped on the hard floor. With his diluted consciousness, he didn't realize that even the icy floor felt warm to him.

'Why does it look so painful? Is he even okay?' Looking at the vegetative Robin, Aiden could help but enquire.

"Isn't that natural? His fragile body is just too weak for your mana, but don't worry. The mana will reconstruct his body to contain your mana."

As soon as Aiden heard the word 'reconstruction', a shiver ran down his spine. He quickly put a few healing potions in the stasis pod and tossed Robin inside before closing it.

Aiden didn't wait for Robin to wake up and moved towards the fifth door. Nothing much had changed. It was the same as the first time he had seen it half a day before.

A few of the stain-glass windows of the labs had already shattered. Nobody had cleaned the dried blood and scattered bullet shells were still across the ground. Aiden took another look before he stepped through the fifth door.

Nothing had changed inside too. With the first few steps, all the eyes turned to him. The weak and lifeless eyes had already given up their hope. Instinct controlled all of their movements.

'Can my totem cure them?' Aiden couldn't help but feel a little sorry for them.

"Huh! What do you think a totem is?" Mraz snorted, "Is totem the solution for every problem? Their body is dying. Unless your mana has the property of regeneration, it can't save them."

'Regeneration?' Aiden was almost sure that his mana didn't have that property. Still, he asked. 'How can it save them?'

"Look at the little one. If you had regenerative mana, then you had to give your totem. After that, you just cut off that leg that had turned into a block of ice, and it would have regenerated on its own, but..."

'But...?'

"But even with the mana, growing limbs would have required an enormous amount of life-energy. Life-energy is something a red-blooded species lacked. Not just them, even you would have had less than 10% of the chance of successfully regenerating a limb."

'Is there no other way?'

"Kill them." There wasn't an ounce of hesitation in his voice, "Killing is the only way to save them. Without regenerating mana, even though you cut off your limb, mana poisoning would continue to spread."

"At the top, they've never cultivated mana before. So they lacked any core or source of mana inside their body. So, the poisonous mana will continue to spread through their body, turning the entire body into a block of ice from inside out. Killing them is the only simple way out."

"You want me to kill them? All of them?" Mraz's words made perfect sense to him, yet it was hard for him to accept.

"Then don't kill them." Mraz didn't care about their future, "eventually they're going to die. You should just let them get out of their misery faster. But it is up to you to decide."

As Aiden looked around, his eyes stopped on the child inside a cell. The child with one ice limb had no intention to look at the conflicting Aiden who was standing outside. He continued to mumble, "Mommy, mommy," while looking at the shattered block of ice in front of him.

"Why are you wasting time here? Go and train yourself. You're not strong enough to worry about them."

Aiden ignored his words and went towards the prison cage that was holding the child in. The door posed no challenge to Aiden. As soon as he entered all the five pairs of eyes turned to Aiden, including the two who had no abnormalities on their body.

As Aiden walked towards the child, Mraz understood what he was trying to do. He said, "All you need to do is pour a bit of essence mana in their heart. In a matter of seconds, their heart and other organs will freeze. They will die before they can feel anything."

When Aiden was just a few steps away, the child turned to look at Aiden, and it was as Aiden had guessed. There was no pain or resentment in those eyes, only longings. Like a child waiting for his parents to come.

Perhaps he knew his mother was dead, but he wasn't able to embrace the fact. As the child turned his head to look at the remnant of his mother, Aiden sighed in his heart.

'Maybe it will be better to die.' Aiden moved closer to the child and hugged him. Even that could not induce any reaction in the child.

"Don't worry, it will be over in a blink. Aim right for the heart." Mraz gave the direction as Aiden touched the chest of the child. A wisp of mana came out of his mana space to his fingertip. But as it was about to escape his body, he moved his finger away.

Mraz was about to say something, yet stopped when Aiden put his hand beneath him. He carried the disabled body of the child and stood up.

'Mommy, Mommy.' But the child continued to mumble, as though nothing had changed for him. Aiden, too, looked at the others inside the cell and said, "If you want to go, follow me," and walked out of the cell.

"Sometimes, an act of kindness could be crueler than death," Mraz said nothing after that, and let Aiden do whatever he wanted.