Ignite the Sun
Chapter 99: Purification (2)

Chapter 99: Purification (2)

"Woah..." Calen’s eyes widened at what the ability revealed to him.

The corruption created a whole additional circulatory system in the bodies of Serakhiin, and thanks to True Sight he could see the vast network with naked eye, making his job a whole lot easier.

Just like with the animals, the epicenter of corruption was near Kaerith’s heart, but unfortunately this time it wasn’t the only affected organ.

Lungs, liver and stomach were the most heavily corrupted, but what’s even worse the brain seemed to be under a partial influence of the Blight.

"I think we’ll need to change our strategy." Sylara commented, clearly also scanning the ’patient’ in her own way.

"I assume you want to start with the organs rather than at the end of the roots."

"We should prioritise cleansing them, but I don’t think we can work with them directly - if the growth on the brain starts fighting back it might cause permanent damage."

"What do you suggest then?"

"Let’s try cutting them off from the rest of the system first - we should start with an organ when damage won’t kill him immediately."

"So... liver?" Calen looked at her for confirmation. "I’m a mage not a doctor, it’s a guess."

"Liver is fine." She chuckled. "Probably the best choice actually, as it can regenerte on it’s own - even if you screw up monumentally I should be able to reverse the damage."

"Um, not to interrupt." Elira interjected. "But why are we assuming Blightborn organs work the same as human ones?"

"Excellent question." Sylara smiled. "I’m inclined to believe so because of two facts - the Fool’s research indicates it, and well... their innards look almost identical to human ones."

"Oh, okay."

Calen put his hand on the Serakhiin, noting that his skin was substantialy colder than what should be possible for a living creature.

"I’m going to start." He announced, and pushed the flame inside.

It was a strange feeling, controlling two flames simultaneously - the one he used for the ability came from outside, but he was still using it. He wouldn’t have been capable of this before the ritual, not in a million years, but now? It was almost easy.

What wasn’t easy was destroying the roots of Blight, they were much smaller and complex than those be was used to, and somehow they were even more resilient.

It took him a minute to disconnect just one root - one of several dozen linking the organ with the rest of the system - but thankfully it didn’t actually take much power to do so, if nothing goes wrong he should have enough energy to do the whole thing in one go.

Surprisingly it proved to be an excellent training of his newly gained ability to control the flame subconsciously; at first it was slightly awkward, like there was a slight delay between his thought and its execution.

He couldn’t experiment too much, as it could cause unnecessary damage, but through little changes and tweaks he could slowly get better.

***

Half an hour later he was almost done with separating the liver, and was glad to see that his control has improved greatly.

It was just like Sylara said after the ritual - the flame was essentially like an additional limb, thinking about moving it wouldn’t be very effective, he had to just... move it.

Naturally, the better his control got, the faster the work went - now he could destroy a root in less than ten seconds, and that time would only get shorter.

"Aaaand done." He exhaled.

Now they had to see if there was any reaction from the growth - so far it hadn’t attempted to reattach itself to the system, so that was a plus, but everything could change at any moment.

They waited.

And waited.

Until something happened:

The area near liver highlighted by his true sight started slowly getting dimmer and smaller - it was barely visible when it stopped.

"It shriveled up without direct connection to the rest of the network." Sylara explained. "We can try removing it now."

The growth offered no resistance, in fact it was easier to remove than a single active root.

"Can we do that with the main roots and just weaken the entire system right away?"

"You can try, but I don’t think it’ll work - the smaller roots make the bigger ones stronger, that’s why we always started at the end."

Calen did try, only to miserably fail - despite putting all he had on a one of the main roots for five minutes, he barely scratched the thing.

"Back to the old method I suppose."

Stomach and lungs went relatively smoothly, as there was no possibility of any damage thanks to the separation.

The brain turned out to be a bit trickier - rather than being connected via a subnet of small roots, it was as sustained by a single fairly thick thread.

It wasn’t as resilient as the main ones, nowhere near that, but it took all his focus and almost forty minutes to destroy it. Once it was removed the growth didn’t pose any challenge, but he had to be extra careful with his flames, as not damaging the brain was their primary goal - outside of keeping Kaerith alive that is.

Despite the fact that he couldn’t cut off the entire system, he could try to destroy larger parts at once by cutting them off - through careful trial and error he found a level of roots where the destruction wouldn’t take too long, but had enough branches that it made sense.

What he was doing would be pretty much impossible without his current level of control, power or True Sight.

"Do you his body will really transform once all of the Blight is gone?" Calen asked.

He already destroyed three quarters of the corruption, and the remaining core part of the network was quite tough - possible to remove, but it would take a while.

"Probably." Sylara nodded. "The corrupted creatures you purified look like regular cows now, so he should also return to his original form - unless something is different about the Serakhiin."

Calen looked at the Blightborn’s face; it was calmer than before, a s maybe he was imagining it but his skin looked slightly less gray.

With the question out of the way, he focused on the roots once more.

***

Two hours - that’s how long it took to strip the roots away and leave only the core, and unfortunately the core itself would likely take longer.

It likely won’t fight back, but it is the source of corruption, and since the Serakhiin lived for so long it could be engrained very deeply.

He carefully wrapped the core in flames and waited...

But nothing happened.

Not in a good sense that it didn’t resist, but literally nothing - the core wasn’t being damaged by the flame.

He put in more power - still nothing.

"What’s going on?" Sylara frowned.

"The core seems to be immune to the flame."

"That’s not possible, all corruption is susceptible to the flame. Maybe the flame is too weak to damage the core..."

"So it all has been for nothing?"

"No, not necessarily." She walked closer to the table. "While the projection of your flame inside another sapient being might be too weak, the real thing wouldn’t be."

"Okay, but how do we put actual fire inside a guy without making it an actual operation?"

"We can make it into an operation though, I can cut him open and keep him alive while you insert the flame."

"Yeah, no." He wasn’t going to play a surgeon, but maybe there was something else he could do. "What about using ’Martyr’?"

"...It would be very risky."

"But possible?"

"Yes, at least in theory. The core itself would most likely be destroyed inside of your body, as it hosts a piece of the Sun domain."

"What’s the risk then?"

"On the off chance your flame isn’t enough, the core would embed itself into your heart instead - your life would become a race of gaining power quicker than the core can grow."

"I would become permanently corrupted? Not even gaining power would fix this?"

"The Blight is parasitic, it would keep up with your power by using your own life force ,unles you’d somehow receive a huge power boost in one go."

"Really? No other way around it?"

"You could also become an elemental, at this point your life force would be bound to your source element, which means that the Blight could only kill itself by staying inside of you or kill itself quicker by trying to take your energy." She looked him in the eye. "Knowing all that, do you still wish to use the ability?"

To tell the truth, he was torn - getting stuck with a ticking time bomb in his chest wasn’t great, but neither was wasting all of his effort.

The biggest problem was that he could fail even if they try with the surgical option - after all his flame was either strong enough to do both or neither.

He had to choose between keeping himself safe and risking Kaerith, or ensuring Kaerith’s purification but potentially putting himself in danger.

When he considered his tenets, it wasn’t really a choice, was it?

Everyone deserves absolution.

"I will use Martyr."