Second Genesis

A thin coat of sweat already covered Elowen’s brows.

The lettering floating before her wasn’t clear in the slightest. It almost looked like tadpoles swimming through the air, twisting around one another so quickly that it was difficult to tell where one character ended and the next began.

Worse yet, their very presence burned her eyes. Just keeping her gaze on them made it feel as though something was slowly pulling strips from her psyche, and it wasn’t long before the sweat on her skin had nothing to do with nerves anymore.

Her Resonant Frame was being overloaded.

Her heart was beating faster than it should, her glands were producing too much sweat, even her stomach had begun churning wildly. Every second she maintained eye contact with the Angelic characters, her body burned through a ridiculous amount of energy just trying to keep itself functioning normally.

Elowen wiped her brow.

"Calm down," she whispered to herself. "Breathe."

Slowly... In... Out...

She could do this.

Don’t think about anything else. Don’t think about how your mother might have slaughtered your siblings like pigs. Don’t think about how you’re the last hope. Don’t think about how everyone dies if you fail.

Elowen’s fists clenched.

There was something else she hadn’t explained to Grey, another reason someone with an Imperial Bloodline had to do this.

As badly as her Resonant Frame was being overloaded right now, what she was experiencing was nothing compared to what would happen to almost anyone else.

Imperial Bloodlines were naturally resistant to outside influence, and that resistance was one of the core reasons Paladins were so different from ordinary Holy Knights. Awakening a Paladin Path wasn’t enough by itself. What truly separated them was how much Holy Energy they could control.

The problem was that very few people actually understood what Holy Energy was.

It wasn’t just light, it was Divinity. The energy of Gods themselves.

And Gods, by definition, were born at the Dominion Class. How could something call itself a God, lord over a concept, and not possess a Dominion?

That was what made Holy Energy so oppressive. It wasn’t malicious or unruly because it hated mortals. It simply wasn’t made for them.

A normal Holy Knight or Priest only wielded the smallest trace of true Holy Energy, perhaps one part in a thousand, with the other nine hundred and ninety-nine parts made up of neutral energy their bodies could actually withstand.

A Paladin with an Imperial Bloodline might bring that ratio down to one in five hundred.

A particularly powerful Imperial Bloodline could reach one in four hundred, maybe even one in three hundred for the truly monstrous talents.

Only after reaching the Dominion Class could those restrictions begin loosening enough that someone might approach one part in one hundred.

But one hundred percent? Impossible.

There was no such thing as a mortal body capable of carrying pure Holy Energy.

Not because the energy would consciously destroy you, but because it would try to make you what it believed you already were.

A God.

It would make your blood flow as fast as a God’s blood should flow, your thoughts race as quickly as a God’s mind should think, your heart beat with the force a God’s heart should possess... and your pitiful mortal flesh would rip itself apart trying to keep up.

That was also why Paladins without Imperial Bloodlines needed entirely different paths. They trained themselves to redirect Holy Energy into forms their bodies could tolerate, diluting its effects and bending it toward methods it had never originally been intended for.

If their chosen path was powerful enough, they could eventually reach Dominion and stand toe-to-toe with true Imperial Paladins.

But that was incredibly rare.

The Relentless had still been searching for a way to truly reach that level. The only one who had done it was The Immovable. And now her disciple looked like he was following right behind her.

Elowen took another slow breath. Her heartbeat was finally settling and the heat in her blood had stopped climbing.

Her body was adapting. Good.

Her pupils slowly dilated and she reached out with her Resonant Sense as carefully as she could.

There was no announced time limit, which meant she could take this slowly. She tried very hard not to think about the possibility that the halo could randomly decide they had taken too long and simply smite them all anyway.

Her mind emptied and the connection formed, and Elowen immediately felt something looking back.

Her jaw clenched.

She began shifting the balance, allowing more of the Angelic text into herself while holding tightly onto the boundaries of her own identity. Ten percent. Maybe a little more.

Her forehead veins bulged.

Just a little further—

"That’s it?"

The voice sliced straight through her concentration. Her connection to the words shattered, and all the effort she had spent over the last several minutes trying to inch her progress forward was ripped apart in an instant.

Elowen’s eyes widened and her heart fell into deep pits of darkness. A sob strangled itself in her throat, her teeth chattering as she tried to hold it back. No, no, she could do this, she had to do this.

Then she froze.

No. Something was wrong.

The connection hadn’t broken because she lost focus. The words were just... gone.

Completely.

She blinked and looked around.

Grey was standing nearby, yawning.

"That halo thing really made it sound like a big deal," he said, scratching the side of his face. "I might as well have been scratching my balls the entire time."

Elowen stared at him... then upward.

A flaming white-gold halo floated above Grey’s head. And even higher than that, blazing across the sky in white-gold-violet letters, a notification had appeared.

[Regional Territory of Melix - 100%]

"Ha..." Elowen couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Her knees trembled then caved in. She fell to the ground, her palms pressing against the stone as she began to sob.

Her tears fell in a rain. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to stop them.

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