'True Void?'
"Well, if you don't want a cool and mysterious answer, then I can tell you that I am your predecessor's partner."
'Partner?'
The furball's answer might come as another question to others, but Kyran immediately understood what he meant. In the end, he was right to call the furball an 'it.'
"Yep~. That's exactly what I am."
Ignoring the fact that the furball could read his thoughts, doubts surfaced in Kyran's mind.
If the furball was indeed what Kyran thought it was, then how did it end up getting into his Void core? Didn't the magic cores of mages who had Ancient magic only store the magic experiences of previous generations? How would the furball, which had a corporeal form, be inside his magic core?
Seemingly sensing Kyran's doubts, the furball did not wait to be asked any questions. He deliberately explained, "No need to stress about the details. But, I know it will gnaw at you if you don't get your answers, so let me give you a brief explanation."
"Before my master, your predecessor left, he absorbed my spirit into his magic core, leaving my physical form hidden in a safe place. Because if not, and somehow that conniving fox returns and found me first, my master's sacrifices will be for nothing."
Kyran felt an incoming headache. Meeting someone that, one way or another, had information of when his predecessor was still alive always gave him more questions than answers.
It was the same with Zephyr. He did tell them about the memories his ancestor passed onto him, but it was only half of the truth. In the end, there were more things that Kyran had to ponder on his own.
The furball might be able to tell him the remaining half of the truth, but who knew if his memories were still intact. There was also a possibility most of his memories were sealed or erased because technically if he had all of his memories, wouldn't Kyran be confused about whose memories or experiences were resonating with him from the Void core?
"Right, conniving fox. You mean the Soul Emperor, right? I'm not sure what you mean about her return, but so far—."
Cyneah's face suddenly flashed through his mind.
No. Cyneah was not the Soul Emperor's successor.
"—we have no news about a new Soul Emperor."
Kyran was supposed to say there had been no Soul Emperor after the first one, but just what the Regis's did with him, the Royal Family might have also hidden her successors.
"Hm. Doesn't matter. Regardless if there is a new one now or not, if that whore finds me, do you know how bad it will mean for you? Just wielding a piece of me could ruin a nation. What more if she had the whole thing?"
Kyran felt the furball shiver as he added, "Ugh! I don't want her touching me, seriously. That vile double-faced whore! No matter how innocent she appeared to be, she will never fool me!"
As the furball went into a tirade of how much he despised the Soul Emperor, Kyran, on the other hand, was more interested in what he said about a 'piece' of him.
However, before he could dwell more on this fact, he immediately shook his head and rebuked himself, 'Don't get sidetracked!'
"Okay, let's get back to the topic and forget about that whore," the furball cut his own rantings and asked, "Is my answer enough?"
Kyran did not reply at once. Instead, he pondered for a moment, trying to digest the things he learned from the furball. He also recalled the scenes he saw before appearing in his sea of consciousness and tried to sort them with the rest of what he already knew.
At this moment, he finally had a better grasp of why his family hid his magic. It was not only to protect him from the Royal Family but also to give him a choice. A choice to find his own path.
In the end, it did not happen the way they wanted, but still, they prepared so many things before the worse had happened.
After a few minutes, Kyran finally asked, "If I unseal you, how are you planning to deal with that black lightning?"
Instead of answering, the furball asked back, "Do you know what that black lightning is made of?"
Before Kyran could reply, the furball answered his own question, "Magic energy."
Immediately, Kyran's eyes widened in disbelief. He tried to grab the furball on his head to give it a better look, but he remembered he did not have a real body here since he was inside his sea of consciousness.
Wait. Where exactly was the furball sitting, if that was the case?
"You plan on eating it?"
"Yesss," then the furball chuckled in a very coarse way before adding, "Just imagining how much magic energy that one had makes me drool."
"Don't drool on my head."
"Bahahaha! Even if I did, this isn't even your real head," the furball replied.
"You'll eat it. How exactly? You only have a spirit."
The furball flew out of Kyran's head and hovered before him.
"You have those shape-shifting plates. I can use those," the furball answered with a matter-of-fact tone.
Kyran frowned slightly, "You… I wouldn't be in this situation if the plates are still intact."
The furball fell silent. He was not speechless from the shock of realizing this small detail but from Kyran's ignorance.
"You think such an attack can destroy anything made of Void? Are you looking down on your own magic?"
Kyran only replied with raised brows.
The furball sighed, seeing Kyran's confused expression.
As much as he wanted to scold this new Void Master—wait, he could not even call Kyran a master with such little understanding of the Void, but anyway—the furball understood that Kyran's family had tried to give him a new path. And his master was aware of it when he agreed to leave his legacy with the Regis. But because Kyran was given another path, which was the path of the Dragons, he had been forced to view things at face value.
The path of the Dragons was the real path of destruction, not the Void. Although the Void's destructive side was comparable to the Dragons because it could return all creations to nothingness, the absolute path of the Void was to give birth to all things. Kyran was only beginning to understand that truth, but his prejudice hindered his view.
"Anything created from Void remains in the void. If your creations are destroyed, they return to the void. When that happens, then just pull them out from the void!" The furball told Kyran. He suddenly looked at his furred fingers to count how many times he had said the word void.
Kyran looked at the furball with wide incredulous eyes. He already understood that he could create things from the Void, but it would take some time to form. However, the way the furball phrased it sounded so easy like… err…magic.
Kyran could not help but mentally scratch his head at the unintentional pun.
He focused his mind on the topic of his plates being destroyed. How could he recreate them without the blood—.
"Nothingness gave birth to all things," Kyran suddenly muttered, remembering what Zephyr had said. It was as if a small lightbulb had been lit in his mind.
The furball hopped around with gusto in an imaginary platform when he heard Kyran, and he replied, "Yes! Yes! You're finally getting it. All you need is magic energy! As long as there is magic energy, then you're practically invincible."
Kyran gave the furball a dull look, "Did you forget I'm drained of magic energy. How will I—."
Another lightbulb lit in his mind after a sudden realization hit him. His eyes widened as, one by one, the small lightbulbs lit up as ideas popped in his mind one after another.
The furball had said that he needed a lot of magic energy to stay conscious. He remained somewhat conscious when Kyran finally learned to absorb magic energies in the surroundings, but it was not enough for the furball to take on a form and interact with him.
Kyran's magic energy had been drained a moment ago, so how did the furball manage to appear before him?
It was because after getting hit by the lightning, the furball had started to absorb the magic energy from it gradually. It was also why it failed to destroy Kyran's body at once.
"Yes! Yes!" The furball hopped around once more after sensing Kyran's thoughts. "Oh, right. The fact your body is not destroyed at once after getting hit by that lightning is only partly because of me. I am still sealed, so the magic energy I can absorb is limited. If I have to make a comparison, the speed in which I absorb the lightning's energy is only around 5% of the speed in which the lightning is destroying your body."
Kyran looked at the furball, "Then how long do I have left, in real-time?"
"Hmm…" The furs in front of the furball ruffled and lifted three furred fingers.
"Three minutes? Thirty seconds?" Kyran guessed.
"Three seconds," the furball replied with a stern voice.