As the white light began to expand, I began to get an idea.
'...is this a fucking portal? Can you RIP space?!'
Uh... I kinda don't wanna know what kinda being can use this sort of magic. In complexity alone, I'm fucked.
But how do I mess with this portal to shut it down?
Breaking the arch clearly doesn't do anything, the magic is already under their will...
It's basically impossible to fail unless a change in the make-up of the elements destabilized it.
As the white point expanded, I slither-crawled away a bit, giving myself some space while waiting.
The white began to recede as... I don't know how to describe it exactly?
It was like a sphere of mercury floating there, but instead of reflecting the environment, it was reflecting another place entirely.
And then I saw a figure of red and black that was warped along the curvature of the sphere, making it impossible to make out right, but every instinct in my draconian body suddenly screamed!
'Fuck!'
Run! Can I even run? Shit!
Slow it, interrupt it, anything!
I just mindlessly threw extra magic into it to disturb the balance as more water and light energy was added to the mix, and the special gate trembled before clearing back up as it adjusted its ratios under the complex spells creating it.
Then the sphere suddenly stopped growing... and small ripples began to form from a specific point closest to me, as it began to shake.
I felt the change and looked over my "shoulder"(more like wing, but whatever), and froze in surprise.
The entire spatial gate swiftly collapsed in a mere manner of seconds, leaving me and the one who opened it... both very confused.
'...no that... was my interference really that strong? No, the spell should be capable of handling a sudden influx of energy no matter how much there is.'
So what the hell?
I stood there, looking at the magic in the area as it spread back out, no longer drawn in.
As it was all being released, I noted some bits of ragged white energy being released and quickly put my will into pulling them within myself.
'That's a bit of Bast's father, that's a bit of an orc, that's a bit of some other human...'
I mentally catalogued it and put the bits that matched one another together as best I could before putting them with the rest of my strange collection of souls.
'...Oi! You're not supposed to be there!'
That's a bit of wood energy! Did it escape when I panicked and threw magic energy at the portal?
'Get back here!'
I haven't absorbed it yet, but I still wanna hold onto it!
I'm just being cautious!
This magic is trying to accomplish something the equivalent of some mad scientist on earth trying to create a miniature black hole to time travel!
It's madness, most likely won't work, and if it fails, you make a FUCKING BLACKHOLE.
That's what trying to create a life element seems like here.
So forgive me if I don't wanna paint a target on my back for the will and laws of this world to notice I don't belong, or potentially SMITE ME.
I'm sorta just waiting for the world to bitch-slap this would-be deity honestly.
In the meantime I can study an unstable form of magic particle, and also observe the changes when the elves get slaughtered for daring to defy the world's will.
That's my explanation of why I wouldn't just take on every power-source available: I'm a dragon, and as a predator, I have enough sense to not eat potentially poisonous food.
Gah this isn't important! I'm just getting distracted!
Now how the actual hell did the gate collapse? Maybe the user just... messed up?
I imagine that seeing as spatial magic seems to be the manipulation of space by interactions of all the elements, it would be hard to maintain.
You gotta keep track of like 6 different energies and how they interact while fusing them and wielding them individually and fused from what I saw.
Just even ATTEMPTING to figure out all that sounds like it would take decades to create a single portal spell.
Should I even be putting effort into figuring this out, or should I wait until one of my followers ends up interacting with mages at a high enough level to learn some of the theory for me?
If I wait for them to do it, I have more time to mess with other things...
But again; SPATIAL MAGIC!
Fuck, this is cool and all, but I can't lose track of why I'm even here!
I got most of what's left of his soul, the gathering of energy guaranteed that essentially.
So now... I need to figure out how to bring them to a place of judgement that doesn't actually exist.
'Fuck me. Why did I have to go and fucking SHOOT MYSELF IN THE FOOT-I MEAN TAIL?!'
I mean I could just focus on refining my body with the light, dark, and water elements.
Seriously I will die if I take on another element at this point. Dragon body or not, already adapting to high stress or not, I am NOT going to survive 4 elements right now!
I had fused with light quite a bit. Then I took on darkness, which is mutually beneficially and synergizes with light, as well as being vulnerable to it.
Think whole elemental vulnerability think sounds like a video game sometimes honestly.
"Oh water is weak to air magic."
Sure. But if I have purified water, it's not conductive?
"True, but that just limits the effectiveness. The weakness is still there."
Yeah. Yeah okay.
Magic particles, which I can see and sense in their "colors", red for fire, orange for earth, etc, don't exist in the physical realm.
They're... metaphysical in existence?
They can exert influence on the physical world as "magic", and what that influence IS is what decides what sort of "magic" that particle is.
But the point is that they aren't physical... so certain factors that shouldn't make sense on this side, do make sense on that side.
Water magic CAN block air magic. Ice could block wind, purified water can block lightning, etc.
But the water MAGIC, the particles of the element, actually have their effects weakened by air magic particles!
Meaning that while the effects on the physical world, the manifestations of water magic, can block the manifestations of air magic, the amount of energy you have to put in to maintain that water magic increases because the air magic weakens the water's effects!
Now what the fuck does that have to do with me being unable to handle a 4th element?
Well it means the impact a magic has on a body is reduced if that body already had an element which weakens that magic... and the opposite is also true.
So people like Kire are probably the norm, as his air magic makes water magic easier on his body. People like Bast just have two elements that aren't connected.
Meanwhile if Kire had water THEN air... it would have sucked the first time.
Then it would have stabilized to the first example where afterwards, the air helps with the water.
So getting darkness means the light limits it while also being limited BY it.
So both light and dark are easier on my body to absorb and fuse with than water cause they mutually interact with one another.
Water? None of that shit.
If I wanna get another element, I'd be FUCKED.
If I got fire next, then yeah, the water would help me deal with it and make chances of survival higher... and air would practically insta-kill me right now.
But in the end, the answer is a lot simpler, and I sorta just wasted time explaining all this, like its to fill up some sorta word count or (cough) something.
'Y'know, if my life were a TV show or a novel, I'd probably say the author is trying to world-build, and being shit at it.'
Simple answer: I'm a fucking baby dragon and have not grown strong enough to handle more unless I get older or fuse with much more of the Elemental energy I have within, since that would make me stronger over time.