Chapter 07 (part 2/2) - Blood Transfusion

  “What are you doing here? You… you’re a Void! How are you even talking?”

  Charly demanded, torn between anger and confusion, still clutching his aching arm.

  “That doesn’t matter. I came because it seemed like you were up to something suspicious… and I got c-curious.”

  “What? You didn’t see anything! Ben, quick, grab him now.”

  The big man clumsily got back on his feet and reached out to grab him, but Vincent stopped him with a simple gesture. It wasn’t magic, nor strength…. it was pure presence. The makeshift authority Charly had held over the group crumbled instantly before the natural dominance of someone who had once been used to command.

  “No, no… there’s no need for violence.”

  Vincent said calmly, pulling one of Lily’s tonics from his pocket.

  “It’s not my intention to report you. I’d never do that to my fellow colleagues… we’re in this together, aren’t we? That’s why I brought this. It’s what you needed, right?”

  The small green vial was half empty. Lily had told him to drink all the potions, but Vincent hadn’t known what could happen if he consumed three different compounds at once. It had seemed wiser to space out the doses, and now, he was glad he had. He finally had something to bargain with. One of the first things he had done when studying the basic language book was translate the labels, and this one read “Meridional Restorative Potion.”

  “W-where did you get that? Did Magister Lily give it to you?”

  “The source isn’t important. What matters is that you need it, right?”

  Vincent held out the bottle toward Charly, who was too hurt to refuse the offer. He reached for it, but before his fingers could grasp the vial, Vincent pulled it back.

  “Ah… ah… ah… I can give it to you if you leave the belts where they are… and the lamp too.”

  “The belts? Don’t tell me you’re planning to tap the arteries yourself, are you?”

  Tapping the arteries? So that's what it's called.

  “You were spying, weren’t you? Don’t you see it’s impossible? How could a Void do something even I couldn’t?”

  “I don’t think he’s a Void, Charly…”

  Tammy intervened, her gaze fixed on Vincent. She could tell just by looking at him that he wasn’t the same anymore. There was something in his stance, an unshakable authority that commanded respect. Charly was in too much pain to argue, so Tammy continued the negotiation.

  “We’ll leave everything as it is, but you have to remove them afterward… and if anyone asks, you didn’t see us.”

  “Of course. I did all this myself… and besides, I can’t talk anyway, can I?”

  That sharp wit sent a chill down Tammy’s spine. She couldn’t tell who was deceiving whom, but Charly needed that potion, so she simply took it. Before leaving, Ben stopped them by the sleeves, full of remorse and concern, yet in the end they decided to go anyway. They knew that contact with the arteries could kill Vincent, but in that place, everyone had to look out for themselves.

  None of it escaped Vincent’s notice. He understood, at least in part, the danger, but he had already touched a much larger root and survived. This one was smaller, with a much slower flow than any other he could find.

  As a person, one of his greatest flaws had always been his own ego. But a lifetime of achievements, fierce competition, and constant recognition had forged that arrogance. He had no reason to believe he would fail. After all, his only defeat had come when the entire global elite turned against him.

  To Vincent, it was clear that Charly hadn’t failed due to physical weakness, but out of ignorance, his inability to conceptualize the path of energy through the body, to sustain the meridional mapping in his mind. It was also likely he lacked modern anatomical knowledge among his memories; three-dimensional images of the human body were invaluable for precisely locating the meridians. Vincent, on the other hand, retained most of his scientific knowledge from his previous life. And now, he also carried the experience and memories of Lily, a Magister of the Tower.

  How hard could it be?

  Vincent thought as he prepared. In addition to the restorative potion, he had two more: one anesthetic for the pain and another to soften the meridians. He drank the latter and set up the burner. He didn’t have magic to light it, but fortunately Lily had left him a flint.

  Lily was exhausted after our session, but that’s because controlling the flow in another person’s body is draining. She never let me take control myself… If I use this artery, I’ll be able to cleanse my meridians today… as long as I can endure the flow of energy.

  His plan rested entirely on assumptions. It was reckless, and he knew it. A single careless mistake had cost him his life before… maybe if he had been more cowardly, he wouldn’t have stood against the most powerful. But that had never been his nature. He had always taken risks, and today would be no different.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Backing down won’t help me. All I’ll do is lose more memories… I’ll lose my capacity to make decisions, to take risks. If I’m going to do this, it has to be today.

  Before attempting it, he let the magic incense soften his meridians as much as possible. He meditated for about fifteen minutes, reviewing every bend and curve of his fragile channels. He regretted not asking for more explanations along with the belt and the lamp, but in the end, Charly had failed. There wasn’t much left to ask. He followed what he had observed, placing his fingers in a V-shape and pressing them against the bulge.

  The phenomenon revealed its power immediately. It wasn’t water, nor electricity, nor air, but something between all three, an impossible force to contain. In such quantities, and with only a theoretical understanding, the nature of the energy became clear… and violent. That spiritual energy, life itself, forced its way through Vincent’s meridians. Unlike before, when it had flooded directly into his soul and dragged him into the void, this time it tried to flow through the spiral conduits of his fingers.

  It was fast. Too fast. It pierced through his meridians several times along the spiral of his index finger before he could contain it. Then it climbed to his ring finger, tracing another spiral before finally returning to the artery.

  So much damage… and that’s only in my fingers. It doesn’t hurt much, but the others seemed terrified of meridional trauma. I need to be more careful.

  Controlling the energy was like performing a piece by Beethoven: frantic, yet precisely logical. Missing a single note, one misplaced beat, tore at the meridians, causing leaks that made control even harder. Vincent had underestimated the flow; his withered, narrow conduits couldn’t handle the pressure.

  This pain… it’s not physical.

  Examining his hand, he finally understood what was truly at risk. Damaging a meridian didn’t cause physical pain, it was conceptual, an alien sensation impossible to locate within the body. It was like synesthesia, where a color could taste bitter or a sound could smell of metal. Each leak in his channels was a wound in the integrity of his soul. And somehow, that fracture filled his heart with an inexplicable sadness… a kind of mourning, but for his own finger.

  I can still move it… I can still feel it… but it doesn’t feel entirely mine.

  And in that moment, he understood the true gravity of the situation and Lily’s caution. For an instant, he considered giving up, leaving everything in her hands. But the dark fog clouding his mind whenever he tried to recall his parents’ faces erased any doubt. If the memory of them vanished, if his mind died along with what made him who he was, would he still be himself? To forget himself would be the same as dying. He couldn’t endure another night at the edge of the void; he had to overcome it now.

  Resolved to all or nothing, Vincent pressed his entire palm against the artery. More points of contact helped distribute the incoming flow, though they also added more meridians to control. Each fingertip was made of a spiral meridional membrane, more permeable than the rest; the same applied to the palm. Following the path Lily had already opened, the journey wasn’t as difficult this time. With measured attempts every five seconds, Vincent finally managed to stabilize the flow in his hand without errors, at least up to the forearm.

  The simple act of absorbing energy and releasing it through such short channels created turbulence. If he didn’t release it in time, the pressure would build and cause micro-perforations in the membrane of the conduits. He needed to close the circuit. The particles escaping from the controlled flow helped clear the path for the rest of the current, like a violent cleaning from within. Slowly, Vincent guided more and more energy through his body, fighting for every inch of progress, avoiding the route that passed through the heart and redirecting it toward the diaphragm and the opposite arm.

  When he finally reached the other limb, he faced a new problem: he didn’t know how to release the energy. It required intention, a command, a form. But Vincent knew no spells or techniques. His only option was to return it to the system it came from.

  When he placed his hand on the other end of the arterial bulge, the circuit closed. The energy began to flow through his left hand, overwhelming Vincent and tearing the meridians in his forearm and little finger. The new pulse struck him suddenly, violent and uncontrollable, breaking his focus and twisting the entire direction of the flow. The current surged up his left arm, searching for an exit through the right.

  His careful attempt to cleanse the channels little by little fell apart, the energy wanted to flow. It was too much, and it had a will of its own. Forced to keep it moving, Vincent had no choice but to redirect it through his heart. The fear that the torrent might cause cardiac arrest distracted him for a moment… and in that instant, he lost sensation in his right shoulder.

  The energy had rhythm, pulse, and intention. A living will that synchronized with his own, adapting to his limits, as if the giant heart of the tower recognized him as part of itself. He knew that if he gave up now, he might never reach this point of connection again, so he endured, even as the conceptual pain, wounds to his soul, began to erode his resolve.

  Still too much flow… I have to distribute it, make it manageable.

  Still focused on maintaining the bridge he had created, he began redirecting part of the flow to other areas of his body: first the torso and hips, then the legs. He had to be aware of every conduit and its shape, forcing the meridians little by little to loosen. Softening the channels was like working flesh and fiber, they had to tear in order to become flexible. The pain, once nonphysical, began to manifest in his body. It was a deep burn, like nerve damage; his skin turned hypersensitive, and he could feel his organs shifting inside him, his ribs pressing outward, scraping him from within.

  He wanted to finish. The incense had burned out, and the channels were beginning to clog again, but he had to make the energy travel through his entire body. His level of focus was so intense that he began to notice new branches, microscopic ones, that didn’t appear in any of the books he had read. The meridians expanded and intertwined within all his tissues and, if he concentrated hard enough, reached down to the cellular level.

  He couldn’t go on. The damage was so severe that half of his body no longer felt like his own, and the other half was writhing in pain. When he released the artery, he quickly clasped his hands together to trap the flow still running through his meridians. He closed the circuit and made it spin, generating its own motion, its own flow.

  Even so, it demanded absolute focus; losing concentration meant losing everything. But Vincent felt that was enough. As long as the energy kept moving, the void couldn’t reach him… so long as he didn’t stop.

  There was no room left in his mind for any other thought. He knew he had to return to Lily, but lifting one foot and placing it before the other required a will he no longer had. Any distraction, any thought not tied to maintaining the flow, caused leaks through the damaged meridians.

  “I-I have to get back… but first… the belts.”

  As he struggled to loosen the tightened artery, a heavy drowsiness wrapped around him. His soul, fragile and exhausted, threatened to slip away through the cracks of his wounded body. The pain grew distant, almost foreign, and before he could untie the last knots, he collapsed.

  His head hit the ground, breaking the circuit he had fought so hard to sustain…