I removed my hands from his head and began to take a step back while the same time, opening the connection. As that happens, more and more source energy begins to enter inside.
I could not stay here him; the pressure from the source energies had increased so much that the cracks began to form on the clay armor. Once it is destroyed, my own armor wouldn"t be going to last, so it is better for me to leave when it is time.
Not to mention, I have left a powerful seed inside him, but it won"t be much of help, as I don"t think I would be able to do anything against the problems that might appear later.
"Thank you, Grandmaster," said the old man as I appeared out of the formation. "Don"t thank me yet, Lord Norman; the difficulties have just begun," I said and looked ahead.
Earlier I had marked the chances of his succeeding as 50%, but now it is 20%. The breakthrough should be smooth as possible, especially this one, the final breakthrough; facing a problem means the end.
Though barely anyone could survive a hiccup in this breakthrough, the only reason he did was because of me. Now, everything is up to him, and I truly hope he succeeds.
Every Grand-Lord is important and holds power to change the course of the war; he will be especially useful. We have very few Grand-Lords who fight close combat, and his addition will increase our power tremendously, but before that, he will have to succeed.
I watched for a minute before closing my eyes, and a moment later, I was at my core, staring at the meta-scan of Bishop while my clone continued to work on the Inheritance.
If Bishop hadn"t been breaking through, I would be working on my Inheritance, but I am not sad. Watching the live breakthrough is helping me; I am getting an immense amount of data, and it has already started helping me with a few things.
With a shared mind, we do not need to tell each what we know; once I know it or understand it, my clone will understand it well, and it is the same wise versa.
The one clone is already turning out to be extremely useful; the second clone would help me even more, and it is just a matter of days before I get the second clone.
Another hour pa.s.sed, and the source was still releasing the energies Bishop was absorbing; the rate of his absorption was much greater than it should be, and his hurting him.
It is one of the side effects of what I did earlier; the source has gotten after I played with the connection, and now, it is spewing out more energy and forcing it into the bishop"s body.
This job usually belongs to the core, which creates suction, but the suction had been destroyed a few minutes ago, and now it is just energies entering Bishop"s body and drilling into his core.
It is a serious problem and one I could do nothing against; I could release the healing energies through my seed, but those energies would get destroyed by the torrent for source energies; it is the same if I tried to cast the web of formation.
The source energies would blast it to pieces; they had become so strong that barely anything could stop them, nor I would try to do that because.
The interference would make the source even angrier, and the energies that would come out will tear the bishop apart.
Time pa.s.sed, and the injuries on Bishop"s body got worse and worse; even those watching from a distance could tell how dangerous things had become for him.
"The injuries of the leader are getting worse; can"t you do anything, Grandmaster?" asked the old man. "I could, but it will make things even worse," I replied without opening my eyes.
The old man did not say anything and watched.
It might not look like it, but things are going very well for the bishop; aside from the injuries due to the source of energy, there is no problem. The core, despite being force-fed, looked quite good; I could not see any strain on it, even with all the energy coming at it.
I had thought, after all this time, there might be other problems, but there is none; everything is fine, other than the piling injuries.
If things continued in such a way, then Bishop might really reach the last phase of the breakthrough, despite the injuries he is suffering.
Another two hours pa.s.sed, and the source energies had only increased; the source gate had become twice bigger and now spewing out many times more energies, that is tearing Bishop apart, but he was bearing it all without making the slightest noise.
His core had taken an immense amount of energy, and I was right; then, within an hour, it would stop, and the final stage would begin; I hope no problem occurred till then.
Forty-nine minutes pa.s.sed when finally, the change in the source occurred; it started to lessen the energy it released at the same time, pouring less energy into the core.
Within six minutes, all the remaining source energy is absorbed by the core while the source gate begins to close up.
"My G.o.d!" said the old man seeing the state of Bishop; saying bad would be an endors.e.m.e.nt. There is not a single part of it that is not bleeding, but that is not worse; the worse thing is that his own source energies have poisoned him, and that sickly blue-grey skin is proof of that.
It is not just his body that got poisoned, but also his soul.
"The condition is not bad as I had thought it would be," I said, and the old man and others looked at me as if I were mad. To be honest, I thought it would end up worse than he is right now, but Bishop seemed to bear the a.s.sault much better than I had thought he would.
As the core finishes absorbing the source energies, the core begins to solidify; usually, in other breakthrough, this is considered to be the last stage.
Once one reaches it here, the breakthrough is said to be a success, but the Grand Lord cla.s.s had another stage. The hardest one; all the Grand Lords I have asked told me this is the hardest stage of their breakthrough; even the written testament old Grand Lord said the same thing.
It took a few minutes, but the core had finally solidified, and it looked amazing; it looked steel blue world and in the center of the world was a saber buried in the ground.
Even looking through my seed, I couldn"t look at the saber for more than a minute before it felt like my eyes were being cut by the thousands of blades.
"Has it begun, Grandmaster?" the old man asked to which I shook my head; it had not happened but will very soon.
A minute pa.s.sed, and two, the third minute, had begun when I felt the change through my seed.
The isolation had disappeared; this place we are is isolated from the world, which lets one do quite many things, but now, it has removed the isolation around bishop; it does that during the final stage of the breakthrough.
For a few seconds, nothing happened when finally, the will descend, the will of the world.
It is invisible and cannot be sensed with the soul sense, even by my seed, but I do not need to sense it to know it has arrived.
It is quite apparent as Bishop gathered his own will to resist the vast will of the world.
To break through the final stage, one needs to contend against the world itself; resist its well enough for the world to find you worthy of having such power.
The phase is short; it does not last more than fifty seconds, but it is the hardest one; pa.s.sing it means completing the breakthrough.
I wondered whether I would face the will; I should not be, considering I am breaking into the Grandmaster Cla.s.s and not a Grand Lord.
The will only descend when one is leveling up into the Grand Lord; for some reason, it doesn"t descend on the people who gained the power of the Grand Lord without breaking into the stage.
"Ahhhhh…."
A few seconds after the will descend, Bishop let out a scream, a scream so loud that one would not believe a person of his station could scream such away.
n.o.body is surprised, they might not feel what Bishop is feeling, but they have all heard about how difficult it is to resist the will of the world; nearly half of the people fail and die in this stage.
The will is incorporeal and does not affect body and soul, but I could still feel the struggle of Bishop, and it had brought tears to my eyes. I don"t know what he is feeling, but I know it is an immense difficulty that very few people have the ability to bear.
Seconds pa.s.sed as I and others watched in trepidation; every second felt like an hour as we watched for every little reaction from Bishop.
Thud!
Around forty seconds pa.s.sed when I felt Bishop relaxing and him falling down on the ground, while the isolation again enveloped Bishop.
"Yeahhhhh!"
Seeing his body falling, disappointment and grief filled in the atmosphere while the Grimms watching from a distance, let out huge cheers.
The grief around was so overwhelming that the humans did not have the energy to look back and glared at cheering Grimms.
"My Lord!" the old man and several others screamed in grief as they came to themselves; some even had tears streaming down their faces as they watched the fallen body of Silas Bishop.
The whole scene wanted to make me laugh, and I did, before turning to grief-stricken humans who were glaring at me in anger.
"Relax, he succeeded," I said to their shock, and the next, the fallen body of Bishop blazed in bluish-grey light, and an aura so powerful burst out of his body that made several people unconscious in an instant.
The b.a.s.t.a.r.d had become the Grand Lord.
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