Chapter 12

Of the remaining books, the only one that caught his interest was titled True Adaptation. Of all the books, it was the only one that wasn't completely mundane sounding.

When Damien voiced his observation to Henry, the eldritch companion scoffed.

"Magic is mundane, boy. Ether is simply part of the natural world. However, these books are all boring sounding because they're just the foundation. The cool, fancy magic comes later. The cultivation method you choose will simply let you use my powers to connect with the Ether without runes. It'll be worthless within a year."

"So, the method I choose is just whichever seems the easiest to get started with?" Damien guessed.

"Essentially."

Damien nodded, his lips thinning as he internally debated between the two books he'd chosen. As he sat there thinking, the wooden door creaked. He glanced up as the door swung open, and Sylph stepped into the room.

"Sylph? How did you find me?" Damien asked, nearly jumping out of his chair. He felt Henry coil within his mind like a snake preparing to strike.

"I figured you'd have gone to the library, and I just asked if anyone had seen a kid in a blue jacket and white scarf walk by while talking to himself," Sylph said with a smirk.

Henry chuckled within Damien's mind. "She's got you there. You really have to work on that habit."

Shut up.

"Picking a cultivation method without an instructor?"

Sylph asked, raising an eyebrow as she closed the door behind her. "That's bold of you."

"You didn't have an instructor," Damien pointed out.

"I did," Sylph replied, approaching the table. "Just not from a mage college."

She picked the book up at the far side and scanned the cover. Her eyebrow raised and a flicker of a smirk danced across her features.

"Constant lovemaking?" she asked, straight faced.

"I…ah, my companion chose it…" Henry howled with laughter. "You're digging your hole deeper. Just stop talking."

Sylph set the book carefully on the table, wiping her hands off her shirt before sitting down in the other chair.

You'll pay for that, Henry.

"So, what did you come find me for?" Damien stammered, desperate to change the subject from the offending book.

"I was hoping you could tell me what happened after my fight with Professor Delph," Sylph said. "My memory of the whole fight is blurry, and I woke up with nearly no magical energy."

"Oh, right!" Damien said. "I was going to tell you when I woke up, but you were already gone. He used some weird magic, and you passed out. He said you'd feel weak when you woke up, and that he owed you something for forcing him to use that magic."

"I see," Sylph said with a small frown. "So I lost."

"Of course, you did," Damien said. "Did you expect to beat a professor?"

"I suppose not," Sylph said, sighing. "It means I'm going to have to train more. It's unfortunate there aren't more private areas to train. All the school sanctioned spots are packed full."

"I haven't given them a look yet," Damien admitted. He glanced between the books in his hands one more time, then set the True Adaptation one aside. He stood up and put the other books back onto the bookshelf.

"Not going to go with the constant—" "Nope!" Damien said, cutting Sylph off before she could finish the sentence. He cleared his throat. "I'm good. Chose a different one."

"Best of luck with that, then. It was not easy for me to first make contact with the Ether. I hope it goes better for you," Sylph said. "If Professor Delph is looking for me, I should probably find him. I'm going to get some breakfast first, though."

Damien adjusted his grip on the book in his hand. "I'm going to head back to the dorm. I need to get started if I want to keep up with everyone else."

Sylph nodded. The two of them left the room and headed out of the library. Damien briefly stopped by the front desk to let the librarians know which book he'd taken before they continued out.

Sylph bid Damien farewell and headed to the dining halls while he headed back to their mountain room as fast as he could without breaking into a full run.

"Excited, are we?" Henry asked.

"You already know the answer— Damn it," Damien huffed.

You already know the answer to that. I've been waiting for this moment for seventeen years.

"Another hour wouldn't have hurt. You could have gotten some food," Henry said. Damien could tell his companion grinned, even though he couldn't see him.

Damien arrived back at the plateau in record time. He sped past the Mark and the Grays' rooms and into his own.

Then he sat on his bed and flipped the book open.

"So, how do I do this?" Damien asked eagerly and somewhat out of breath.

"I'd suggest you start by reading," Henry suggested dryly.

Damien did just that. The book was written in a mix of runes and the common language, but it was written as if the author was just showing off. The words were long and often needlessly complicated, and many of the rune drawings were incredibly complicated. It went into great detail about how to mentally reach out and connect with the Ether permeating the world.

Much to Damien's annoyance, the runes weren't even required to connect with the Ether. They were simply incredibly complicated examples. Of course, he didn't figure that out until nearly two hours of studying the old paper.

Luckily, it didn't appear that the actual concept was particularly difficult. In order to connect with the Ether, one had to essentially train their body into recognizing its presence. Since humans aren't naturally capable of doing such a feat, a companion would essentially guide their partner to it.

Once contact had been established, the cultivation method trained a human's body and mind into recognizing it on their own, so their companion didn't have to find it each time. Then, when the connection was complete, the cultivation method was tossed away, and the human's core would be ready for evolution.

Companions, who were inherently magical creatures, could access only the Ether in a specific way. According to the book, that was what determined types of magic.

Therefore, since the companion was the one who guided the human to the Ether, humans could only learn the same magic as their companion.

Damien closed the book and let out an exasperated sigh.

"That's a whole lot of theory and not very much useful information!" he exclaimed. "The book just says my companion will guide me. It's got instructions for using the Ether to teach my body how to adapt, but that comes after connecting with the Ether, so it's not useful yet. All I've really learned is that you need to do all the work!"

"Hardly," Henry said. "It's important to know your end goal before you attempt anything, or you'll never get the results you want. Now, you know more about the Ether and what you'll be cultivating to make your control over it stronger."

"I suppose," Damien agreed, shrugging one shoulder.

"You can guide me to the Ether, then?"

"I can," Henry said. There was a long pause. "In a way.

It won't be me that guides you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Humans have absolutely no sense of the Ether. You need it to be lit up like the sun for you to first notice it. I, unfortunately, do not have the intricacies to do such a feat.

It will not be Henry that shows you how to access the Ether. It will be all of me. Do you understand?"

It was Damien's turn to pause. Finally, he nodded. "I do."

"Good," Henry said. "Sit down on your bed. This is a process that can take up to several weeks. I do not know how much your mind will be able to handle, but expect to be at it for an hour at the least."

Damien followed Henry's instructions, ignoring the worried voice in the back of his mind that warned him of what could happen if his companion betrayed him. The contract wouldn't let Henry harm him. In fact, he realized he was actually starting to almost like the eldritch creature.

That was a sobering thought.

"Ready?" Henry asked. "Close your eyes and enter the mental space where I reside within your mind."

Damien drew a deep breath. His hands trembled with a mixture of fear and excitement, and his stomach flipflopped. He pressed his lips together and gathered his focus as he shut his eyes.

He sent the probe of mental energy out toward Henry. A shiver ran down his spine as it touched something incomprehensibly cold, which shouldn't have been possible.

The probe was energy. It couldn't feel things.

His logic was nothing in the face of It Who Heralds the End of All Light. Damien couldn't see it, but his breath came out in puffs of white air, and his lips turned blue while his teeth chattered.

"Relax," Henry ordered as fear billowed up within him.

"You must be in control of your emotions."

Damien tried to swallow, but his mouth was utterly dry.

He pressed his lips thin, ignoring the pain as they turned stiff and cracked, and gave a jerky nod.

Something brushed across Damien's back. Dozens of miniscule pinpricks spread across his body emanating from the base of his spine. A dot of light blinked into existence.

Another followed it. It started slowly, but they appeared faster and faster. Within minutes, the darkness had been replaced by a sky of dim stars.

Damien went to open his eyes, but they were already open. He looked down at himself. His body was gone, replaced by a vaguely humanoid blob of glowing yellowish orange. His arms and legs ended in curved nubs instead of hands or feet, and his entire body felt lighter than normal.

"Where am I?" Damien asked. The voice didn't come from his mouth but instead echoed out from his entire body.

The glowing lines he was now composed of wiggled and rippled at the noise.

The sky above him contorted. The stars shifted through the darkness, forming lines and shapes until an enormous inhuman face appeared. It wasn't just part of the horizon, it was all of it. Thousands of eyes made of twinkling stars stared down at him.

Only now did Damien truly realize what Henry had meant. This was It Who Heralds the End of All Light. The eyes watched Damien, utterly alien and incomprehensible.

It gave no sarcastic comments, nor did it even speak. There could be no communication between a mortal and this creature.

It was at that moment Damien understood the magnitude of the monster he held within him. As he stared up disbelievingly at the planet-sized entity above him, he knew it held nothing but contempt for him. He knew that, one day, it would be the inevitable end of humanity, and he was nothing before it.

Damien's meager form flickered, as if merely being in the presence of this creature was enough to snuff him out like a candle. It looked down at him wordlessly. Damien couldn't tell if it was amused by his fear, or if it could even be amused.

"I'm here to sense the Ether," Damien called out. If he'd had a throat, Damien was confident his words would have come out squeaky and trembling. Instead, they rippled through the silent world surrounding him like a blade.

It Who Heralds the End of All Light continued to stare down at him. Then, slowly, it opened its mouth. The ground trembled and heaved as the mouth continued to open, blanketing the world in complete darkness.

One by one, the stars blinked out. The energy that made up Damien's new form sputtered and faded as an incredible chill wrapped its bony fingers around Damien. His words caught in his throat as pain tore through every part of his body at once.

It felt like thousands of jagged knives were being slowly drawn across every part of his body. He let out a silent scream as his spectral body went rigid. His world was agony.

"Ignore it!" Henry's voice pierced the darkness. "Fight through the pain, boy. True power is not gained easily!"

Damien couldn't respond. Luckily, he didn't need to.

Henry knew his thoughts.

"Look around you!" Henry ordered. "The ether is everywhere, even in the Void. It is like strands of light that connect every single bit of existence together."

Damien could barely hear Henry's voice through the pain ravishing his body, but the key word was 'barely.' He gritted his metaphorical teeth and let out a scream of defiance and pain. He looked up. There was only darkness.

"Look harder!" Henry insisted. "You must search, no matter the pain."

And that was what Damien did. His gaze scanned the shadows enveloping him, flicking back and forth in search of the smallest iota of light. All the while, the light making up his glowing body dimmed further and further.

"There's nothing!" Damien wheezed.

"There is. Look!"

Coherent thought faded. Dissonant whispers of words Damien didn't understand and languages he'd never heard echoed through his mind. He searched the sky desperately for any signs of the lines Henry had spoken of, but all that met him was the fathomless black of the Void.

His screams intensified, and the whispers grew louder.

Henry said something, but Damien barely recognized it.

Thousands of voices yelled within his mind at once. Each word ripped through his soul, bringing on flashes of pain at a level he had never thought possible.

"It's too much," Henry said. "We need to stop and try again later. If the boy dies—" "No!" Damien snarled. "I'm not done!"

He'd faded to a such a pale yellow he was nearly white.

His body pulsated in and out of existence like a sputtering candle. Damien was no longer aware of the difference between his voice and those crying out within his mind.

As his soul was stripped and torn away, the vestiges of human emotion he felt were peeled back, piece by piece.

The pain, of course, did not lessen in the slightest. The parts of Damien that made him mortal flickered and winked out.

First went his memories. Seventeen miniscule and worthless years of life, gone in the blink of an eye. Next went his thoughts and voice, followed by his feelings. As the parts that made Damien's soul his own were sent tumbling into the Void, the very core of his being was revealed.

A single spark. The flickering candle that rested at the center of his being that encompassed his greatest desires and goals, condensed into a mote of light. The one light Henry could never have for himself.

It was creativity. It was human longing, one of the greatest forces in existence, and one that It Who Heralds the End of All Light could never have.

"Enough!" Henry yelled. "He cannot handle this!"

There was no response. Henry watched helplessly as the mote of light that was Damien flickered and faded, the darkness encircling it like a school of starving sharks.

It grew smaller and smaller until nothing but a pinprick of light remained within the shadows. The very last bit of Damien's existence in the universe, alone and surrounded by the Void.

The spark flickered. Then it blinked. And then it flared.

Light erupted within the heart of the Void. Beams of energy carved through the sky, splitting the darkness and slamming into the spark.

Bit by bit, a torso formed around the spark. It was followed by arms and legs, and then by a head. Each beam of light that slammed into Damien reformed his spectral body by a small amount. In moments, he was whole once more.

However, the light didn't stop. It continued as dozens of golden lines formed all over him, and his light grew brighter. Damien let out a scream. It was not of pain, but of resolve. All over his body, the glowing lines split open to reveal golden glowing eyes.

The arcs of light stopped flying into Damien, but the Void was no longer dark to Damien's new eyes. An immeasurable number of thin threads crisscrossed throughout the Void. The majority of them rose into the sky, where the outline of the face appeared once again.

However, several of the threads also connected to Damien.

Henry's power enveloped Damien. The boy was powerless to resist as a layer of fog fell over his mind.

Memories of pain like this could never be removed, but they could be dulled.

"Is this magic?" Damien asked, the eyes covering his body flicking about erratically.

"No," Henry said. "This is the Ether. And you are an insane idiot."

"I know," Damien said, his voice full of pride and pain.

And then, despite not being in a human body, he fainted.