The Duke immediately stretch out his hands and body to reach for me from where he sat but he was a second late as the golden liquid that had broken out of the glass hugged my chest and began to spread around my body, sinking into my cloth.
"Oh, my... are you okay?"
'Fuxk Anastasia, what did you do?'
She grinned, "You think you can get all smart with me. We are supposed to be buddies how dare you try to hide it from me. You knew didn't you, from the first moment you knew the thing was going to do anything to get to you. That was why you were kinda sure you are the right host. Gosbujin sama Baka..."
I couldn't believe my plan got discovered before I even deployed it. From the first time I saw the golden armour or should I say Ardor, I observed the Blacksmith's face when it kept banging the glass, for some reason it seemed like it was desperate to come to me. Desperate to escape the glass, but the fact that the hardest armour in the world cannot break out of glass meant that it was not ordinary glass. Which made me rule out the idea of breaking it. Maybe even if I had reached there that night, I wouldn't have been able to break it, I feared for that happening even while I made my way to the smithy. Hence I decided to go smart about it.
I was sure that thing was not permanently sealed, which means either the Duke or Blacksmith Orel had the way to opening it. Seeing as it went to the Duke it meant two things: The Duke had higher authority over the golden armour than even the blacksmith which meant he is probably the one with the key. These were all guesses I was trying to work my way around after this talk.
But the glass suddenly broke, I had forgotten about the desperate bitxh I have next to me.
"I used a sub-skill of independent manifestation; Reconstruction. Removed the magical properties and made it an ordinary glass."
'Damn! Justhow many sub-skill does independent manifestation have?'
At this point it was straining to even maintain a calm thought, I suddenly stood up and held tightly my chest as I felt it squeezing. I could feel my head burning unpleasantly, I began to gasp for air, the tightening was reaching my lungs and the suffocating feel made me feel restless that I didn't know how I tumbled away from the chair was sitting.
"Gilland!!"
"Gilland!!"
"Gilland!!"
Slowly, the Duke's thick voice that would vibrate anyway faded farther away even though he was right in front of me. Upon falling, everything began to spin.
'Is this going to be the end...?'
'Everything I got, will just end here...?'
My desperation to survive awakened my will to suppress whatever pain this was but just when I was about to start fighting I suddenly gasped open to a white field.
"What is this?" I wondered aloud.
"Goshujin..." I heard a familiar voice, and the first thing that aroused in me was unsuppressed anger.
"Calm down, let's survive first. I underestimated it. The pain you are feeling now is dragon mana, that bastard wants to steal your body."
"What do you mean?"
"I told you right mana is second to ether, dragons are the peak existence of mana, they are beast that command mana, hence they don't work with ether, but your body is filled with ether, that bastard dragon is converting all the ether in your body to mana."
"Energy conversion, is that supposed to be possible?"
"Yes, but only the best of the best can do it, archmages, dragons and other primordial beasts."
"Then what happens now?"
"You will enter a tug of war with the dragon. We must convert its Mana to ether, that way it will lose its strong Willpower and will succumb to yours."
"Flip the coin... I can't keep this state for longer because you are falling unconscious, you must not fall unconscious and remember the feeling of flipping a coin."
I awoke to the excruciating, harrowing and torturesome pain. As I faintly gazed around, noticing my location had changed, cries began to echo into my ear, and then I saw her, she was weeping. I've never really enjoyed the warmth of a family, my birth mother has been sick for as long as I can remember, she wasn't in the position to cry for and my father was a complete jerk that wanted to run away from the mess he created (my mother and I).
'Is it because I'm too realistic?' I felt her cares were a little exaggerated. While Avery stood next to her, head bowed and shoulder shivering, she looked like someone that was blaming herself for everything.
"At this point, we have to just wait, his body is in an unreasonable state. There's nothing we can do medically." The doctor's voice echoed in my head. My vision became blurry again and it was as though I could feel myself drowning while every part of my body was boiling.
"Flip..."
"Flip the coin..." Anastasia's voice rang in my head again and jolted up my consciousness.
Fuxking shit, the only issue was, I had... never flipped a coin. Who knew things I didn't put my mind to would come to haunt me.
'Darn, it let's just fight every bit of this thing.' I slammed my hand on the bed.
Everyone must have been startled, but it was meant to joggle my consciousness which seemed to be enjoying getting drowned.
I slowly stood up while staggering, mother hurried to me, and as she tried to touch me her hand burnt and she was quickly dragged away from me by the knights around.
With my dead eyes, I looked at the Duke who stood opposite me, I slowly looked towards the left, fortunately there happened to be a mirror there.
'What is this?' I thought as I saw my reflection in the mirror, my entire body had been overtaken by gold-coloured veins. My skin had turned pale and even my face was looking lifeless. I can't believe my vibrant colour could turn into something so lifeless by just messing with some liquid.
'Fantasy worlds are not to be underestimated.'