'Why do I literally believe every word he's said without any doubt?' Jason looked up and finally met Oberin gaze. He realized his eyes were pointed in his direction, but they defiantly weren't focused on him, it felt like he was looking right past him.
'I have no idea what I'm getting into here, but then again I never have. Not once have I ever known what my actions will lead me to, I tried to save a child and I bloody became him after all.'
Having found some resolve he finally spoke, "Alright, I'll do it." short and sweet, he felt no other words were needed.
"SPLENDID!" Oberin's voice echoed throughout the hall like thunder, taking note of Jason's pained facial expression as he somehow silenced the echo instantly right after. Taking a more reasonable tone for his guest, he continued.
"Let me explain the process then, I've designed a derivate sacrificial arcane array that we'll use to essentially 'burn' my very essence using the Citadel as a medium to refine on your behalf and impart into you my innate divine traits, imparting to you the divine, body, essence blood and marrow, spirit core, eyes, and soul, of a Guardian. Because I am the sacrifice, and we're letting the Citadel control the array, once we start we cannot stop, and their will most likely be some interference.
Your only job through all this is to focus and preform that 'accumulation' as you dubbed it. The faster you can absorb it the less danger we'll be in.
I cannot pass on to you my actual internal energies, your own is of a far higher grade and would reject my own in a sort of pride; however, you already possess a 100% infinity energy ratio on your own, so you'll immediately shoot to the rank of Supreme Master Guardian.
With that, it is very likely that each trait I pass on to you as it's refined by your own energy will go through metamorphoses of their own, the results are unknown and unpredictable.
When we begin, the Citadel will capture 30% of my soul core essence within itself, and all my internal energy to control the array and remain functional afterwards since you can't make use of it yourself.
A mere fragment of the soul can't remain intact indefinitely, it will slowly fade regardless of medium hence I'll be able to remain in this world for around 50 years at best to help guide you, and prevent the dimensional sphere from collapsing so it may continue to power the Citadel and thus your future endeavors until hopefully you may take over its controls."
Oberin then began to wave both his hands, circles, shapes, and what Jason assumed to be letters of an unknown language began to materialize around him. Then massive rings of burning infinity began to form around the sword in the middle of the room. The constructs of light outside the rings were of many different colours, but inside the rings radius only the light of infinity was there sometimes with a slight outer red glowing hue.
"Stand before the sword of the Citadel in that circular array on the floor and begin to accumulate energy as you would normally to let us begin the process. We'll be going in the order of body, blood, marrow, spirit core, soul, and then the eyes last, this will be when the trouble truly starts unless we're caught earlier. Whatever happens, do not stop for a moment once we begin."
"Alright, seems easy enough from my end, here it goes." Jason sat in the circle legs crossed and began to accumulate light as he normally would, immediately noticing it wasn't just the normal light he was pulling in, but an entire spectrum each gave him a different feeling. He had no chance to take note of anyone of them at the moment it was being immediately pulled in and refined into a much smaller amount of his own infinity light near instantly.
"Let it begin then." Oberin had a grin on his face as his eyes finally focused on Jason for the first time since he arrived. 'What a beautiful sight, it's as if the world around him bends to its knees already at his request.'
Oberin stood from his seat laying a hand on the sword of the Citadel, its tip raised out of the ground and with each inch it rose the air grew heavier by the second the rings then turned into a pillar of white and black marbled and mixing light.
When the sword tip reached two meters into the air it stopped, "Begin old friend, you know what to do from here." Oberin sat in a circular array symmetrical from Jason and sat legs crossed as well.
The sword turned 90 degrees facing either edge to them, then instantly pierced back down into the floor this time so that only the a from the tip of the V past its hilt still remained. Oberin's body then began to be covered with a pure flame of infinity, incasing him.
Wisps of light began to rise from his body flowing across the room and be sucked into a rainbowed whirlpool around Jason. When the white streams finally reached the center, they reacted with his skin instantly burning away Jason's skin, and muscles leaving everything else intact his heart could be seen beating.
New muscles began to form along his whole body with chains of runic letters incasing each strand. Slowly the muscles had formed completely, the skin followed quickly after appearing like a smooth white jade. His build no longer matched a 12 year old, but someone who had trained and toned their muscles for years.
Oberin appeared the same but transparent, his figure remained but his own bones and internals could be seen. Two hearts side by side beat in his chest in sync, the sound of each beat visibly shook the air in the room. A unique rune shined on either heart.
His pure white diamond bones were wrapped in countless darker infinity aspect runes and lines all across their surface.
Oberin's bones began to dissipate to wisps next, following with his organs, nervous system and brain. All remaining was his marrow, a small solid infinity marbled bead between his eyes, his entire circulatory system, and a ball of infinity light much like Jason was before he became human.
When the wisps reached Jason this time, wherever they made contact as they flowed through and around his body, his bones instantly disintegrated being replaced with a shiny gem-like surface with an incredibly dark gray interior; however, if light shined directly on them they would appear blindingly white in reflection.
(A/N: Picture a thick slab of perfect ice like that you would use for an ice sculpture, then imagine that ice dyed black inside, imagine the internal textures like that of a glass marble, not consistent with rhythmic streams to distort the light that enters. You have to picture it 4th dimensionally so I struggle to describe it without breaking the immersion. picture much of the concept of infinity like this in its various states, both white and black at the same time but ever changing between the two at any point ranging from one extreme to the other. It's supposed to be near incomprehensible, the picture in your brain is right, don't worry.)
His organs followed suit, but the only visual change that could be seen was infinity attributed runes coating their surface, unlike Oberin's.
The big change occurred when his brain started to change piece by piece, his own was already made of what appeared to be strands of interwoven infinity and the rest of his nervous system was the same already, but they now appeared crystalline, yet they were fluid and soft making his brain look like a 4 dimensionally cracked mirror realm of a semi-solid neutronium crystal. While completely solid, their surface appeared to flow like water.
As the new structure took root, the light of his thoughts and reactions once flowed in a sort of on-off state, between each node. Now the light flowed continuously stopping at some point, or spreading out and traveling in non-linear patterns, even sometimes changing in rhythm and tempo whimsically. It all appeared very much how the core of the Citadel's light appeared to flow through and within.
Next burned away Oberin's entire circulatory system along with his marrow. The hallowed visage of Oberin dimmed greatly this time.
When wisps made contact with his body, this time everything inside began to shift around to accommodate for an entirely different structure than either had before. In Oberin, both hearts worked together in the same cycle as his own, each handling both return and delivery in unison.
The new structure involved two completely separate circulatory systems that ran through his body in parallels. Uniquely they both flowed in the reverse of the other. On each heart, a combination of the the two runes on either heart of Oberin's had formed. One beat the then the other beat like it was a cascading drum.
As the runes on the hearts continued to form brighter and brighter, the heartbeats picked up faster and faster until they peaked at 440bpm each, the room shaking. They then began to rapidly calm down until they were both only at a rate of 30bpm each.
His marrow was a different story, the wisps basically washed away his old marrow replacing it with a long twisting fluid vortex from end to end inside his bones. They hungrily absorbed infinity from his body and began to refine new blood as fast as his body could remove it. The new blood cells were split into two types, one black as the void with flickers of a white aura, and the other white as a pure white dwarf star with a flickering black aura, both began to flow through his veins and arteries crashing through like a tsunami.
The left heart system beating with the white blood, and the right heart the black, completely separate from one another until they reached their destination, where when they collided they would mix together for a brief moment and release an explosive amount of energy and oxygen before separating and returning back to their respective systems once that oxygen was finished releasing.
His heart rate further dropped to 10bpm, notably though with a pressure that would easily rupture through a regular human in an instant. Blood continued to swell in too, the pressure increased but not a single vein swelled a millimeter wider.
Back on Oberin's side, the crystal bead or his spirit core ignited, along with the ball of light where his brain was, or his soul essence. Both breaking apart into wisps much slower than the rest before them.
As the first of these wisps entered Jason's pull suddenly the Citadel began to shake violently. Keeping their focus, neither reacted. The Citadel, however, was springing to life. All four gates at the end of each platform came to life with three massive arcane arrays coming together within the center of each stacked up horizontally.
Space appeared to fracture in the shape of a cosmically large unrounded glass egg shape, at least 200km away from the closest physical point of the Citadel surrounding it. A beam of light shot from the point of the Citadel to the top feeding energy to this construct.
Just as it did, a massive golden hole in space tore open hundreds of kilometers wide and appeared in space directly above the Citadel.
A hallowed iridescent rainbow aura around a golden beam showered the citadel, it continued far past in into the void. Golden lighting with a 7 coloured aura draped across the surface of the egg shaped barrier violently twisting around it as if trying to squeeze till it popped.
The Citadel shook violently inside as well, yet they continued on.
Truth be Jason had lost consciousness and was in hibernation like when his light evolved in the past before he came to possess his body. His body was running on instinct alone, letting whatever changes take place without interference.
Oberin was much the same, his touch with reality was long fading, he could not see or hear through himself but was able to from the soul fragment slowly forming within the Citadel. A few wisps of light entered the sword's hilt rather than Jason's whirlpool and with each one his fragmented souls mind grew a little clearer.
He saw the changes in wonder, excited to see the result of one of his last parting gifts to the world. Once his soul fragment had gained enough strength to begin to assist the Citadel, he made sure he kept a bit of his attention on the transfer and continued with his duties.
The transfer of the spirit core was far different than Oberin ever expected, as it formed in the lower front of the brain back and bit below the eyes, a rune he recognized to mean 'infinity' formed. Oberin knew this as the sign of a divine spark that would form in gods when they materialized their corporal body from that spark which would later evolve to a divine core instead of a brain like mortals like him had.
Then as his worries mounted, he noticed a hard, transparent layer form, casing around it like a spirit core. Following that ten runes formed spaced evenly in a ring around the core he did not recognize any of them at all.
Suddenly the outer layer of the core that formed split apart into even slices that cascaded and formed a lotus pattern below the Infinity rune. A new layer translucent layer appeared around the rune and process repeated forming above the infinity rune this time. This continued four more times until the rune was boxed in on 6 sides by 60 unique runic petals total.
Each petal eventually began to close in on the infinity rune, soon not approaching any closer than one or two millimeters when they started wrapping around it and forming a ball of 60 revolving runic petals.
It finally stopped changing there and Oberin was both amazed and confused, 'It has all the markings and spatial pressure of a divine spark or core but it's a sealed space like a spirit core. He really is a cross between man and god. I have no idea what he's become now.'
In Jason's mind the wisps of soul began to collect and they started to form a spinning disk, when all the wisps were collected the disk started to shrink. As the disk shrank it became more of a spiral whirlpool with 10 arms stretching out, pulling in true infinity aspect rapidly.
Once the center could physically shrink no more, as if it were to shrink out of existence itself, it split open wide again, this time as a ring, the center hallow but not see through. On the other side dim dots of light could be seen sparkled through out as if stars in the night sky.
Even using the Citadel's power to look inside Jason's head, Oberin felt very small before this similarly very tiny gateway that had appeared in the center of his brain and dared not send any energy into it to look around.
Next the pathways in Jason's brain began to grow towards the outside of the ring as if being pulled in. As they reached close to its edges, a crystalline ring began to form around the better-named gateway in Oberin's view.
Once it had finished, six runes appeared evenly spaced around it and those same runes lit up around his 'spirit core' in a band reaching around horizontally, centered facing forward. Oberin noticed these two rings were in line but was completely lost at this point as to what they did.
The 'soul gateway' that formed and 'divine spirit core' as Oberin best named in his mind, began to stabilize seemingly off of one another.
With no more changes taking place, it was time for Oberin's eyes. When they started burning to wisps the golden gateway above the Citadel grew many times its size as if ready to swallow it. Golden chains the width of the Citadel itself formed in space in straight lines, starting and ending out of what appeared to be the void randomly.
Inside these same chains appeared randomly as well, locking around and wrapping the eyes tightly.
Oberin and the Citadel began deploying all counter measures they had, holding no energy in reserve. The infinity aspect flame around the eyes started to glow through the chains like they were holding back a star.
The egg around the citadel began to crack and for each bit the cracks grew space began to twist and turn more inside.
The crack spread to every corner, quicker every second, until it tore and just as it popped wide open, a projection of the Sword of the Citadel exploded out from the citadel's peak. Light warped around its tip as everything went dark in the area for a moment except its tip, when it returned the giant sword projection was piecing the giant golden rift it appeared to be cracked like a glass surface.
The golden rift didn't break, however all the chains had cracks across their surface and that included those inside holding tightly around Oberin's eyes as well.
The whirlpool around Jason had grown to encompass the entire room. It was now pulling on the chains as parts broke off and were absorbed by it too along with the wisps, it was pulling more through the cracks every, moment this wrestling match went on for what felt like eternity to Oberin and the Citadel but actually only three minutes.
Finally the chains gave way, breaking apart and being instantly absorbed as well, releasing all the wisps left, the visage of Oberin disappearing with them.
Oberin's eyes were very similar to Jason's, the light of infinity flickered in their irises. The difference was that inside Oberin's pupils, a small white infinity symbol (∞) rested. As Jason's eyes absorbed the wisps, his eyes began to change rather than reform entirely.
The colour changes in his eyes became more vibrant as streams of light were shot around. His pupils began to change shape as well, shifting to actual infinity symbols themselves with a sharp line cutting through the center.
Oberin suddenly felt a chill despite not having a body, he felt like Jason could see right through him completely just through the aura he was using to observe the process. Those same six strange runes appeared in band around his eye that would never be visible unless he turned them 90 degrees any which way.
Once they settled in they seemed to form a resonance again with the divine spirit core and the soul gateway immediately. Energy seemed to flow both ways, through his eyes to the divine spirit core, into the soul gateway and vice versa.
As the array faded, the gaping golden gateway receded, slowly too, seeming very defeated. The pressure and shaking of space left with in. A now odd silence spread to every corner, partially because the Citadel had expanded nearly every reserve it had and needed to recover, reducing to minimum functionality for the time being.
Oberin's mind went blank with full attention on Jason who the whirlpool of energy around him dissipated. Oberin could only think of one thing taking in the sight before him.
'The chains of our fate have finally been broken...'