The warm glow slid over Rhys' body in a constant wash, making the rest of the room seem dim by comparison. Little by little, the remaining dark spots on his skin faded until the last one finally disappeared.

His skin returned to a healthy, unbroken state, smooth and clean, better than before.

Grace's light began to dim, the glow thinning as it drew back into Adyr. He pulled his hand away and loosened his fingers with a slow movement, like he had been holding tension there for days.

"You old man made me waste my precious time," he muttered, a low chuckle slipping out. The humor was still there, but it sounded worn, like it had to push through exhaustion to surface.

His crimson eyes looked strained. Sweat clung to his messy red hair, and slow drops kept sliding from his forehead.

It had been a little less than 1 week since he started healing Rhys's body. To make him endure it and fully recover, he had pushed his bloodline talent, Grace, to its absolute limit. Day after day, he gave more of himself than he liked to admit.

"Mr. Adyr, you should rest now." Dr. Mara approached with quiet steps. Worry softened her voice, and she kept it low, careful not to disturb the fragile calm in the room, as though one wrong sound might crack it.

The other researchers watched from where they stood, keeping their distance around the equipment.

Adyr looked drained in a way that was difficult to ignore, and the faint tremor in his arms and legs carried the clear mark of someone who had pushed past his limit.

They knew what he was: a body strong enough to smash buildings into rubble and durable enough to endure nuclear explosions.

That was exactly why seeing him like this unsettled them. It felt wrong, as though something had finally forced even him to bend.

Dr. Mara held a silver tray with colorful capsules arranged in silver containers. She offered it and spoke gently. "Take these pills. They'll help you recover your energy."

Adyr didn't refuse. He took the containers, poured the capsules into his mouth, and swallowed them without chewing, not bothering with water.

They weren't as satisfying as a proper meal, but they carried the nutrition he needed, dense and efficient in the way only lab-made supplements could be, built to replenish without delay.

If he had to eat normal meals to replace what he had spent, he feared it would take another week to get the same amount back. He didn't have the patience or time for that.

"Thank you," he said, offering a small smile as he set the empty container back on the tray.

Dr. Mara returned a polite smile. Then her attention shifted to the screens showing Rhys's vital signs, steady lines and numbers that still felt incomplete, refusing to tell them what was happening inside his head.

"Do you think he will succeed?" she asked.

Rhys looked normal now. His vitals were stable, and his body was healed, yet he remained in a deep sleep like a coma, motionless on the table. That alone made them wonder if he had failed the awakening and gotten stuck somewhere they couldn't reach.

Adyr gave a slow shrug, calm on the surface. "I don't know what he's going through in his head." For once, uncertainty edged into his voice.

He could still see the red aura condensing over Rhys's unconscious body. Thin strands gathered and curled in the air like mist, clinging close to the skin and drifting upward in slow spirals. Beyond that, there was no movement, no clear sign of progress, and no sign of completion.

Lying there like that, Rhys strongly resembled the Lunari Ancestors. The same stillness. The same unreachable sleep. It made Adyr wonder if he had truly failed. If he had fallen into a coma, he would never wake from it.

Adyr had tried to heal his mind too, using Grace, and realized its effect couldn't reach beyond the physical body. It only healed the physical body and could not address the internal struggles occurring within.

So the only thing he could do now was wait. Rhys had to regain his awareness through his own efforts, whether it took minutes or days.

What Adyr didn't realize was this. While he was healing him, it wasn't only Grace at work.

His other bloodline talent, Nihil, had been working too, quiet and invisible.

Because of it, Rhys's mind had been able to slip away and hide from the Scarlet Sea before it lost itself completely, like a hidden hand pulling him back from the brink.

"I'm taking my leave now. If he awakens, inform me, please," Adyr said, seeing nothing more he could help with. His gaze lingered once more on Rhys's face before he turned.

He had barely taken a step when a small change caught his attention.

It was a feeling at first. When he turned to look, he saw a slight ripple run across the red aura covering Rhys's body. The surface shivered for a heartbeat, then smoothed out again. It didn't look like something that demanded much attention.

"Is something wrong?" Dr. Mara asked, watching him fix on the body.

Adyr waited a few seconds more. When nothing followed, he turned as if to say "no," but the word caught in his throat and changed on instinct.

"Evacuate the room… Now."

The ripple from a moment ago had suddenly grown into something larger. It repeated in quick waves as the aura that had been steadily condensing on Rhys's body suddenly started to expand, swelling outward instead of tightening down.

The researchers had spent their lives working around danger. They stayed alert for any mishap. So without asking a question, they left the devices behind and rushed out of the room immediately.

"Seal the door," Adyr ordered again, sensing the aura was about to slip out of control.

The laboratory room's door slammed shut with force. The glass observation panel on the wall was instantly covered as a metal plate slid down with a mechanical sound, sealing the entire room completely. The corridor's light vanished in one clean motion.

It was a room meant to inspect and host monsters they were trying to create. It had been built for that purpose, with safety and durability as its first priorities. Reinforced materials were layered under every surface, making it shift from a normal operating room into something designed to contain and seal against radioactive leaks and explosions.

Adyr didn't have time to appreciate the researchers' foresight or the room's technological safeguards. His eyes stayed locked on the red aura as it kept strengthening and spreading, pressing against the air like a growing pressure.

It wasn't something only visible to his eyes anymore. It had become physical as well, thick enough to feel.

Rhys's body still looked perfectly fine, with no visible changes. But the table beneath him started to creak as if it were bearing an enormous weight, metal joints groaning.

Then, under the aura's influence, it began to rust rapidly, orange-brown corrosion crawling over its surface.

It didn't end with the table. The devices around it were affected too, failing one after another.

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