A blinding white light expanded from the shredded core. Bits and pieces flew in every direction, their red hue glimmering like a sky full of stars. Feeling an immense pressure on his mind, Mark retracted, coming to his senses in front of Noah.
The boy sweated profusely, beads flowing down from his temples, tunic and pants drenched. Swaying lightly, he collapsed: falling to the floor as if he was nothing but skin and flesh. Staggering backwards, Mark looked out into nothingness, pain in his eyes. Tripping over his own feet, he fell to the ground. The Deer stood in silence, observing whatever was going on.
"I..." Mark began but stopped as a cough erupted, making his sitting body bend forwards. Covering his mouth with a hand, he waited for the cough to subside before trying to speak again. However, when he lowered his hand, he could not fail to notice the lumps of blood resting in the palm of his glove-clad hand. 'What...' He thought, 'why am I coughing blood?'
Taking a deep breath, he looked at The Deer, whom in turn had been staring at Noah's motionless body. "I tried to assist his root," Mark said slowly, pain from his lungs making him cough again, more blood coming up. "It grew together," he continued despite the coughs. Feeling his mind blurring, Mark started speaking faster, "I had condensed an orb of energy and ought to feed the root, but it popped the Core like a balloon." The Deer descended to the ground, its large body coming to a rest on the bent in legs.
"Can you interfere?" Mark said angrily. The blurriness draping over his mind like a mortician draping a corpse. Weaving an icicle in his left hand he stabbed it in his thigh, letting the biting cold shoot through his body, clarity ripping the blurriness apart.
"I can not."
"Why?" Mark seethed, pain surfacing from the stab-wound. He suffered inside, his mind blaming himself for the situation. Had he not compressed the energy, would the Core have survived for longer?
"It is not a matter of a mind-related collapse, rather an energetical collapse of the Core due to the excessive strain from the unripe Spirit Root." The Deer answered, sadness pervading its voice as it looked at the lifeless body before them. Its brown irises glowed dimly, the golden specks like dancing flames in a thick forest.
Rising to his feet, Mark swayed slightly, the stabbed leg unable to support his weight. Weaving another icicle, this one substantially longer and wider, he held it like a crutch and limped towards Noah.
Bending down, he placed two fingers on the child's throat. Feeling a heartbeat, he let out a breath of relief, taking a step back.
"He's breathing." He said snarly.
"I know." Came a response.
"How come you know so much and yet unable to intervene?" Mark said. Displeasure evident.
"We have been through this once before, young one, I highly doubt a disciple of mine would suffer from the severe memory loss needed to forget it." The Deer stated, its voice as soothing as ever.
Mark scoffed, but he backed down. He was still unable to contest with his master in arguments. It was too wise.
"Then what am I supposed to do?" He said in quiet defeat.
"Wait. We will wait." The Deer answered. It also quiet, but from sadness instead of defeat; guilt even. Closing its eyes, the voice drifted through space once more: "Show me how far you have come, young one."
'How can I show you if you don't look?' Mark scoffed in his mind, though he quickly complied, sitting down and making sure he held a safe distance to Noah. He knew that this master of his had its own way of seeing the world.
Soon, beautiful, blue specks of light manifested over his leather-clad fingers. Stretching them, he began to weave, twisting and turning to influence the light. Slowly but surely, the energy came into a bigger being, an oblong stick of blue.
Sweat pearled across Mark's face. Multiple droplets running down over his cheeks and chin.
"Very good!" The Deer exclaimed, "now move it."
Mark tensed. Even more sweat ran down his head as he focused, eyes beginning to squint. Before him, the blue oblong thing vibrated, as if in a dance. Sparks of rampaging energy jumped and streaked through the air, causing empty pockets of void to expand and then collapse in a crash.
It created sound, like shattering glass, only that no glass was present. Looking closely enough, though you would most likely get hurt, you could possibly see the shattering of reality, breaking apart just like glass, reflecting pure darkness, because after reality comes the Eternal Void.
Struggling, Mark tried to make it move. Closing his eyes, he spread out his senses, allowing his Spirit Root to extend and scan the assimilation of energy. The problem with the manifestation was that it was actively being rejected by reality. Both trying to act against reality by making it stay, and to have it move really was the pinnacle of energetical control.
With slow, erratic movements the oblong began to shift. Instead of smoothly drifting, it sort of jumped. Hopping between space, it picked up pace, racing around Mark and The Deer, no special directions its aim.
"Maintain control," his master said, eyes opened again, leisurely tracking the flying danger. Focus was too evident on Mark's face to not notice, muscles twitching around his mouth and eyes. A pool of sweat would have formed under him was it not for the instant incineration it went through upon contact with the path, the starlight merciless against the fluid.
Visually slowing down, Mark gained more and more control over his creation, the blue, surging energy coming to a stop again before him.
"Grab it," The Deer ordered.
Relaxing a little, the toll on his mind noticeably lesser, Mark opened his eyes and met the gaze of his master. "How?" He struggled to get out, his mouth dry from the lack of salivation: a consequence of overbearing use of energy.
"That is up for you to figure out," The Deer answered with what felt like a smile lighting the golden specks of her eyes.
Sighing, Mark rose to his feet, albeit a little uncoordinated, like if he was drunk. With the icicle still lodged in his thigh, the clarity of his mind still dependent on it, he leaned on his ice-woven crutch and staggered forwards, towards the energy.
Facing it eye to eye, Mark lifted his hand. Letting it hover just outside the ring of breaking reality, he waited and watched. Moving his hand in around the obule, Mark noted what happened to his glove. When he moved it closer, it started to curl, the seems rupturing and turning on itself.
Removing his hand from the aura, Mark slightly waved it and the glove wove together seamlessly. Closing his eyes, a glimmering shield of blue energy manifested around his hand. This time when he put the hand close, the shield clashed with the aura of the obule. Both things existed in another plain of reality, their existence breaking the rules of the universe.
When they struck together, the breaking of reality grew intense and uncontrollable, the shattering reality visible with the naked eye. Pushing through, nothing on Mark's face showing the amount of control needed to perform this feat, he touched the obule, closing his fingers around the shape.
With a visible boom, the two connected, reality collapsing around them. Shredding Mark's glove apart, the collapse completely ripped his skin open, exposing the bones. Snapping his eyes open, he pulled out, limping backwards with a ragged breathing. It hurt, a lot.
"How did you do that?" A weak voice drifted through the air, tiredness seeping through every word.
Turning around in such a fast movement that he fell to the floor after stumbling due to his leg, Mark looked at Noah in shock.
Before The Deer and his master, the boy laid in tiredness, a hand covering his eyes.