"How do you feel?"

Adyr's question made all the researchers think it was a joke.

Rhys's body already told them everything. Without even asking, he looked beyond repair. His skin and posture carried the verdict, like another piece of his life force was draining away with every passing second.

Yet to their surprise, he answered seriously. "There's a sound in my ears…" He spoke slowly and let his eyes fall shut. His breath came unevenly. "No, it's more like an echo inside my mind."

The way he spoke made it clear the pain wrapping around his body and the damage on the surface mattered less than what was unfolding inside his head.

The researchers immediately grabbed their notebooks and tablets. Their hands moved on instinct as they wrote down the unexpected symptoms, while Adyr waited calmly, sinking into deep thought.

He couldn't remember every detail. Still, fragments from his evolution a while ago resurfaced. He remembered the voice he had heard in his mind back then, and he couldn't help wondering if it was the same.

"What is the voice saying?"

Rhys's eyelids fluttered, and the strain showed in his brow as he fought to stay awake.

"I can't understand the language, but I understand the feeling." His eyes shifted, the gray completely gone, replaced by solid red, unfocused for a heartbeat before they snapped back. "It wants me to obey something… lower my head… accept it…"

With every word, his voice grew thinner. The pauses between syllables stretched longer. Then he spoke the last line slowly, closing his eyes as if giving in. "I think I'll listen to it… It's very convincing."

The machines connected to his body suddenly started beeping in rapid, sharp rhythms.

"We're losing him," Dr. Mara said anxiously. She stepped in, reaching for Rhys on reflex, trying to intervene before he slipped away.

Adyr stopped her. "Don't touch his body."

The researchers couldn't see it, but to Adyr it was unmistakable. A thick aura coated Rhys's entire body, hanging around him like poisonous air, the kind that warned what it could do to anyone who tried to touch him.

It was not spreading outward anymore. It was compressing into a dense layer, hugging his outline. With every second it tightened, it also looked more dangerous.

Dr. Mara studied Adyr's face. She followed the line of his attention, the way his eyes tracked things the rest of them could not. "Do you know what's happening to him? Is there no way to save him?"

Adyr held the same calm and let a question take the place of an answer. "Do you know how practitioners appear in this world?"

The question made all the researchers pause. It wasn't silence because they didn't know the answer. It was because the answer sat far outside their logic, belonging to belief, not science.

Still, Dr. Mara answered with displeasure on her face. "They are chosen by gods. No free will, no choice."

That was what they'd learned from the locals so far about how practitioners came to be.

One night, they slept in their beds as usual. The next day, when they woke up, they opened their eyes to a system message. New powers, granted by the God who chose them.

To the researchers, it looked like a child choosing toys to play with that day. No logic behind it. The child's choice was solely motivated by their desire.

It was something they refused to accept. If it were true that only those chosen by the Gods themselves could awaken as practitioners, then what was the purpose of their efforts here?

Without God's permission, no matter how hard they tried, their serum would never be able to turn someone into a practitioner. That was the conclusion waiting at the end of every argument.

The thought that they were helpless in front of a God shook their pride as researchers. So they stubbornly rejected the notion. They clung to the idea that there had to be a mechanism they could measure.

They rejected the very idea of the term God. They refused to accept that there could be someone almighty, powerful enough to shape life to this degree.

If they had to believe anything, they preferred to believe those beings were simply manifestations of extreme power. Not creators and rulers of everything. Not unreachable and untouchable.

But Adyr nodded, confirming it was true. "That's right." Then he added, a faint smile touching his lips. "Looks like Commander Rhys is currently meeting his god to become one of those chosen ones."

"What does that mean?" Dr. Mara asked, not ready to accept this was truly how a practitioner came to be, while her eyes darted back to Rhys's failing readings.

Adyr turned toward them. He saw the confusion on their faces and explained. "I'm not completely sure how it works, either, but apparently the voice Rhys is hearing in his mind is the voice of a god speaking to him."

That was the conclusion Adyr had reached after meeting the Lunari ancestors and going through his evolution to Rank 4.

This is particularly relevant because the Lunari ancestors lost their sense of self due to the whispers in their minds.

Speaking. Bewitching. Pressing them to change their path from Ignis to Blood. They were unable to endure it. In the end, they lost consciousness and fell into some kind of coma.

"He's being chosen to follow the Blood Path, and from what it looks like, he's currently under the influence of the god of that path. The Blood God, if we need to give it a name."

Adyr's tone was calm and certain. He was so convincing that the researchers believed him without questioning. Of course, his new stat, [Vigor], played its role too, smoothing doubt before it could take shape.

Dr. Mara's expression shifted as she finally accepted that Gods truly existed. Then she asked with a grim face, "But why does he look like he's dying? We've never heard of anyone dying during their awakening procedure, or even feeling pain or taking damage."

Adyr wasn't sure either. "Maybe this is just the way the Blood God chooses its people," he guessed, watching the aura tighten further.

What the Blood God was doing looked far less peaceful and merciful compared to the ways Astrael, Aetheris, Ignivar, and Nethera chose and awakened their people.

Dr. Mara offered another opinion. "Or maybe the god is too weak to share its path with others correctly?"

Even her suggestion showed she was still searching for a way to see the Gods as not almighty but fragile. Capable of mistakes, like mortals. Something that could be placed into a category of understandable, readable species.

"Hm… that's possible." Adyr found it acceptable. More believable than his guess.

To his current knowledge, there were only 4 main Paths in the world. So if the Blood Path was more like a side Path, then the idea that its God was lesser, not as strong as the others, was a very believable theory.

With that thought lingering, Adyr turned his focus back to Rhys's body.

It was still crumbling with every passing second. Small tremors ran through him, like he would die before he could accept the new powers and awaken his path.

"I think you need some assistance there." Adyr laughed. He raised his hand, and a blinding light spilled from it, flooding the sterile room for a moment. It washed over Rhys's body with a warm healing effect, like divine judgment.

Under the effect of Grace, Rhys's body twitched slightly. All the corruption and destruction that had been consuming him so far suddenly stopped, like something invisible had seized it and forced it to halt.

Soon after, his body began to heal, visibly and in real time, right in front of their eyes, tissue knitting back together where it had been failing.

"It's fascinating." Dr. Mara and the others became mesmerized. Pure fixation briefly replaced their earlier panic.

The way the light healed the body looked like a miracle, clean and immediate, leaving no obvious trace of the process.

But of course, they were researchers. They didn't believe in miracles, only science. They wanted to believe everything could be explained. So Dr. Mara asked with excitement.

"Mr. Adyr, can you allow us to collect data?"

Adyr didn't know what they could gain from it, but he was curious, so he nodded. "Sure. Go on."

With his permission, the researchers moved in hurried steps. They left the room and then returned with new instruments. White coats poured in like a hurricane, shoes tapping and equipment rattling. Within seconds, the room was filled with unfamiliar devices.

One instrument to capture and quantify the light's spectrum and intensity, including photon flux.

Another to monitor how the exposure changed living tissue in real time, tracking chemical markers and cellular breakdown or repair. Another to scan for radiation signatures and any abnormal emissions. Another to measure the surrounding electromagnetic field for spikes, interference, or patterned signals.

Everything was meant to help them understand how this light worked and how they might duplicate it later using the data they collected.

The space filled with humming and beeping machines. Screens flickered with readings. Researchers traded heated whispers over numbers and graphs.

Adyr watched them briefly, chuckled, then returned his focus to Rhys.

His only curiosity now was the outcome of his awakening. Whether he would truly become a Blood Path Practitioner or fall into a coma like those Lunari Ancestors.

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