On the Path of Eternal Strength.-Chapter 81 - 79 Where the Soul Learns to Resist

Sebastián did not withdraw his hand from the pillar, and with the passing of heartbeats the pain ceased to be a spike and became a constant line that ran through his consciousness like an incandescent thread that neither breaks nor goes out. The skin of his palm carbonized on the surface, the flesh opened into reddish cracks that revealed exposed tissue and, before the wound could stabilize, regeneration attempted to rebuild it with automatic discipline; however, the same spiritual current that rose through the pillar burned it again in the next instant, imposing an endless cycle of combustion and reconstruction that found no rest. There was no explosion or roar: the process was slow, methodical, impersonal, and precisely because of that it was more unbearable. Over his back, the first two manifestations of the Void, without end rotated with visible tension, their seven reddish points outlined with forced precision while the dark vortices at their centers absorbed the environmental pressure of the Veil; but the amount of energy flowing from the pillar clearly exceeded the natural processing rhythm of the Core of the Inverted Origin, so that, although all the energy was absorbed without rejection or waste, not all could be refined at the same instant it passed through his human structure. That difference in rhythm was the true enemy: the core functioned, but the body and the soul were the bottleneck.

Sebastián felt the accumulation as a compressed tide within his chest, a density that scraped the surface of his soul without fracturing it, eroding it layer after layer with a microscopic friction that was not visible to the surroundings but undeniable to him. The Crimson Baptism responded to that pressure not with mutation, but with deepening; the spiritual mark on his chest pulsed with a heavier beat, absorbing the violence that could not be immediately converted into void Qi and distributing it through his system as raw fuel that had to be refined under storm. The veins in his arms darkened, not because of blood, but because of the transit of spiritual energy that passed through his flesh before being devoured by the core; the dark red tornado in his irises spun faster, and his jaw tightened as he forced his breathing to remain steady. The first star showed deeper cracks in two of its vertices, not as sudden rupture but as a sign of structural wear; Sebastián did not dissolve it, he reinforced it from within with already transformed Qi, and in that same act he forced the creation of a third manifestation of the Void, without end, anchoring it behind his right shoulder, shifting the structure so that his back became a broader plane of absorption. The new vortex began to suck in not only the frontal pressure of the pillar, but the saturated energy that permeated the environment, and the ground beneath his feet gave way barely one additional centimeter, marking time without the need to name it.

Narka remained at his side in his complete form, black and gray mineral plates vibrating under a tension that admitted no dramatism. The incandescent red veins between the cracks of his shell shone with irregular intensity, and a fine fissure appeared at the base of one of the frontal plates, extending with almost imperceptible slowness while he kept his Qi deployed like a membrane adhered to Sebastián’s skin, reinforcing the human surface that would otherwise disintegrate under the constant abrasion. The pressure was not physical in the ordinary sense; it was hierarchical, a silent assertion of primordial superiority that attempted to push Narka’s essence backward along the ontological scale. His soul did not fracture, but it did resent the friction: superficial tears opened and closed like invisible scrapes upon his ancient spirit, and although he did not express it in complaint, his breathing grew deeper, heavier, marking a temporal advance that could only be read in the accumulation of cracks and in the growing density of his aura. A mineral fragment detached from his shell and fell to the ground with a dry sound that resonated in the circle of already shattered tiles, tangible sign that the process was not instantaneous, but prolonged.

Sebastián created the fourth star. It did not arise as an act of triumph, but as a calculated necessity in the face of the growing volume of energy entering through his arm and rushing toward the core. He anchored it to the left of his back, forming an almost symmetrical structure of four dark vortices rotating with imperfect synchrony, tearing apart the spiritual flow and redirecting it toward the Core of the Inverted Origin. With four Voids, without end active, the suction increased proportionally, and the core absorbed everything that entered without leaving residue outside; but the internal transit became more violent, and the concentrated spiritual energy passed through his shoulder, his clavicle, and his chest before stabilizing as void Qi, burning every stretch of the path. The skin around his wrist began to crack not only because of the external combustion of the pillar, but because of the internal tension seeking an outlet; a dark thread, condensed by spiritual overload, appeared at the corner of his lips and fell to the ground as incompletely refined residue, not ordinary blood but compressed excess that his body expelled to avoid collapse.

Time continued advancing without announcement. The cracks in the ground widened in radial patterns, the plates of Narka’s shell showed new lines of tension extending toward his left flank, and his aura grew denser to compensate for the superficial erosion of his soul. The manifestation of the Elazria remained behind the pillar with wings extended and white mask without expression, indifferent, and the cocoon that contained Valentina showed no immediate visible reaction; the dark energy streaked with bright veins pulsed with a slow rhythm, as if ignoring the progressive drainage that Sebastián imposed upon the pillar. “Your soul is being eroded,” Narka said in a deep voice that carried no fear, only acknowledgment, and Sebastián replied without withdrawing his hand or closing his eyes: “I know.” There was no defiance in his tone; there was calculation. He knew they could not destroy the cocoon, but they could alter the rhythm of what sustained it.

The four stars vibrated with greater intensity, two of them showing cracks that deepened with each absorbed surge; Sebastián redirected part of the already refined Qi to reinforce them from within, maintaining the unstable balance while the Core of the Inverted Origin pulsed with a more demanding cadence, transforming spiritual energy into void Qi at a sustained maximum rate. The Crimson Baptism did not mutate nor change in nature, but it deepened, as if the constant friction with primordial energy left a silent mark upon its inner layers. The environmental pressure decreased barely one degree, enough for Sebastián to remain upright without his knees giving way, but the price was clear: his soul felt thinner, more scraped, and the pain ceased to be a point and became a horizon. Narka took a step back to redistribute his weight, sinking one additional centimeter into the fractured ground, and although his golden eyes regained brightness after a dull heartbeat, the fissures in his shell did not close; they were marks of a slow process that would continue as long as Sebastián kept devouring the energy of the pillar. And thus, beneath the absolute indifference of the manifestation of the Elazria, with four Voids, without end anchored to his back and his hand burning against the primordial source, Sebastián persisted in the absorption, not as a heroic gesture, but as a rational decision to accelerate a destiny they otherwise could not touch.

Time ceased to be measured in seconds and began to be felt in wear. Sebastián still kept his hand adhered to the pillar, but it was no longer the same upright firmness from the beginning; his spine began to tilt slightly, a minimal deviation that revealed what his will concealed. Spiritual energy continued flowing toward him without pause, passing through his burned palm, ascending along his arm, traveling across his torso before plunging toward the Core of the Inverted Origin, which throbbed with sustained intensity at the limit of its refining capacity. The four stars of the Void, without end anchored to his back rotated with growing tension, their reddish vertices vibrating under the pressure of the constant flow, and although none disintegrated, all showed deep cracks that were reinforced again and again with already transformed Qi. The internal accumulation did not stop; the core absorbed everything, but the rate of conversion was lower than the incoming volume, and that difference scraped his soul with a friction that was no longer mild but evident, a continuous erosion that thinned his inner layers without yet breaking them.

The first thread of ordinary blood appeared from his nose, descending slowly to his upper lip, mixing with the dark spiritual residue he had already expelled before. Then another, from his left ear, fine, constant, as if the internal pressure sought an outlet through any vulnerable point. His eyes did not close, but the dark red tornado in his irises lost stability for an instant before spinning again with controlled violence. His skin, already pale from overload, acquired a duller hue; the indomitable body at S Plus level offered him resistance and regeneration, but that regeneration began to show microscopic delay, as if each cell required an additional pulse to fulfill its function. The difference between his physical power —capable of sustaining confrontations that placed him in the range of a Spirit Walker at peak stage— and the true strength of his soul became evident in that silent dissonance: the body endured, the core worked, but the soul was the true battlefield.

His knees finally gave way not out of defeat, but calculation. He let himself fall into a meditation position with his hand still adhered to the pillar, reorganizing his structure to minimize unnecessary energy loss. Seated, with his back straight forced by discipline, he increased the suction. The fifth star of the Void, without end emerged behind him, anchoring itself among the other four, and then, after a more demanding beat of the core, he forced the creation of the sixth. The six manifestations formed a compact structure on his back, a dark constellation that tore through the spiritual environment and channeled it toward his center. The increase was immediate: the amount of energy absorbed doubled in proportion to the opening of the vortices, and the flow that passed through his body became more violent, burning not only the skin but also the internal tissue with an intensity that forced his breathing to grow deeper and heavier. The blood was now not an isolated thread; it descended from his nose, stained his chin, emerged in small drops from the corners of his eyes and ears, marking the passage of time with a constant rhythm.

Narka remained standing at his side, but the wear in his structure was visible. The mineral plates of his shell showed wider fissures, some extending in irregular lines toward the center of his torso, and the incandescent red veins shone with an unstable intensity that did not correspond to his usual balance. The presence of the manifestation of the Elazria, absolute and indifferent behind the pillar, imposed a hierarchical pressure that eroded Narka’s essence with relentless slowness; there was no fracture, but there were superficial tears in his soul, wounds that could not be seen on the physical plane but vibrated beneath the surface of his ancient existence. Even being a level 20 cultivator at peak stage, with combat power comparable to that of an initial level 22, he barely sustained resistance against that primordial energy; and that silent acknowledgment turned Sebastián’s situation into something close to the lethal limit.

“If you continue this way,” Narka said in a deep voice that resonated across the cracked ground, “your soul will be destroyed.” It was neither threat nor dramatization; it was diagnosis. Sebastián’s presence trembled slightly, a subtle vibration that revealed spiritual microfractures spreading like invisible cracks in glass subjected to constant pressure. The Crimson Baptism pulsed in his chest with an irregular cadence, as if the concentration of billions of sufferings and deaths that composed it responded to the primordial environment with a dangerous resonance. Sebastián barely lifted his gaze, his eyelids heavy, his consciousness brushing the edge of unconsciousness from constant blood loss and internal wear. “Then... what do you propose?” he murmured in a hoarse voice, without withdrawing his hand from the pillar.

Narka inclined his head slightly, and part of the surrounding spiritual energy began to flow toward him in controlled quantities, not to compete with Sebastián’s absorption, but to repair the superficial wounds of his own soul and stabilize his fractured shell. “We will use the Crimson Baptism,” he said at last. “Not as a desire to kill. Not as an offensive presence. As structure.” The explanation was direct: the Baptism was not only accumulated violence; it was compression of pain, anger, and despair of countless beings, an emotional density capable of enduring extreme spiritual friction. If Sebastián released it not outward, but inward, he could turn it into a compression chamber that would absorb part of the erosion now wearing down his soul.

“It is lethal at your level,” Narka added without softening the truth. “If you fail in control, your soul will collapse.” The manifestation of the Elazria did not react. Its wings remained extended, its white mask without expression, its presence immutable. The cocoon that contained Valentina continued pulsing with a slow rhythm, indifferent to the sacrifice forming beneath it. Sebastián closed his eyes for an instant, feeling how the six stars of the Void, without end vibrated with dangerous intensity on his back, how the Core of the Inverted Origin throbbed at the limit of its refinement, how the internal erosion advanced without pause. Releasing the Crimson Baptism meant opening a wound within his soul and using it as a shield, turning the accumulation of suffering into a primordial buffer.

“Do it,” he said at last, his voice barely audible but firm in intention.

Narka extended his Qi with absolute precision, directing it toward Sebastián’s chest, where the Baptism pulsed. It was not an invasion, but a guide, a channel that would allow the dark energy contained in that mark to emerge inward instead of outward. The immediate surroundings darkened slightly, not from lack of light, but from growing density. Sebastián’s presence began to change, not in visible strength, but in depth; the accumulated pain in his soul concentrated at an internal point, as if a door were about to open from within. And while the pillar continued rising toward the undefined, indifferent to his effort, the Crimson Baptism began to unfold in silence, announcing the beginning of a process that admitted no error.

The outer world did not disappear; it simply lost priority. While the spiritual energy of the pillar continued searing Sebastián’s palm and the six stars of the Void, without end vibrated on his back under dangerous tension, Narka’s Qi infiltrated his chest with surgical precision, not to impose will but to guide his inward. The hierarchical pressure of the manifestation of the Elazria remained intact, absolute and indifferent, yet at the center of that storm Sebastián’s consciousness was led toward the root of his own wear. It was not an abrupt descent; it was a gradual displacement, as if he passed through invisible layers until reaching the space where his soul stood eroded and vibrating.

There was no defined ground or sky there, only a dark expanse crossed by reddish pulsations marking the beat of the Crimson Baptism. His internal representation had no legs; it was an incomplete, ghostly form emerging from the waist upward as if the rest of his being were still anchored to the physical plane. He did not feel the weight of a body, but he did feel the friction scraping his essence from within. Before him, a red and black whirlpool rotated with deceptive slowness, and on its surface countless faces could be distinguished, emerging and sinking into the current like memories of suffering that had never faded: eyes open in agony, mouths screaming without sound, expressions frozen at the exact instant of death. They were not external illusions; they were the condensation of billions of truncated lives, pain accumulated until it became structure. Sebastián understood without explanation that this was the Crimson Baptism, but he only saw the upper layer of the tornado; when he tried to direct his perception beyond, toward the depth where the whirlpool seemed to lose itself into endless profundity, an invisible barrier blocked his sight, and when he forced it he felt his consciousness begin to unravel, as if attempting to comprehend the end of that abyss meant falling into it.

Narka’s voice reached his ear without physical vibration, clear and deep in the midst of the inner darkness. “That is the Crimson Baptism. Do not attempt to dominate it.” Sebastián stepped back slightly, stabilized by the guidance of the Qi sustaining him. “To use it,” Narka continued, “you must release it as if it were your Qi. Do not force it. Recognize it.” Sebastián’s incomplete representation nodded without words and raised his hands toward the whirlpool, attempting to replicate the gesture with which he channeled his Qi in the physical world. Reddish threads emerged from his fingers, stretching like extensions of his will, seeking to grasp the surface of the tornado. The contact was immediate and brutal: the whirlpool did not open or yield, but devoured the threads with indifferent voracity, shredding them until they became scattered fragments that reintegrated into the rotating mass. The force of the rejection pushed him back violently, and his ghostly form was thrown as if an internal current expelled him for having tried to impose himself without understanding.

Narka’s Qi caught him before the disintegration reached his conscious core. The stabilization was not gentle; it was firm, restoring the cohesion of his incomplete representation and keeping it anchored in that inner space. “Do not force it,” Narka repeated with contained severity. “Connect through your nature. Not through the power you wish to control.” Sebastián then understood that the mistake had not been trying to take the Baptism, but treating it as if it were foreign energy, when in truth it was the extreme concentration of something he already knew: the desire to kill, the presence that emerged every time he released his lethal intent in combat. He closed his eyes in his internal form and breathed, though there was no air in that space. From his chest a reddish cloud began to rise, dense and violent, expanding around him like a natural emanation. It was not the whirlpool of the Baptism; it was his own essence of killing, the raw will that had always been within him, now manifesting without restraint on the plane of his soul.

The red cloud advanced slowly toward the whirlpool, not as an attack, but as a recognition. The Crimson Baptism reacted immediately: the upper layer of the tornado tilted slightly toward that emanation, and the red and black currents began to intertwine with Sebastián’s purely red cloud, integrating naturally instead of devouring it. Violence ceased to be collision and became resonance. Sebastián felt how the accumulated pain of countless deaths found an echo in his own nature, not because he shared each memory, but because he shared the essence of the intention that had generated them. Narka spoke again, his voice steady amid the convergence. “Now. Extract the spiritual energy.”

Sebastián’s internal representation raised his hands once more, but this time he did not extend threads nor attempt to penetrate the whirlpool. He opened his palms and allowed the energy that had already integrated to begin concentrating within them. At the center of his right hand, a small foaming vortex of intense red formed, mixed with black and violet streaks, a condensation of spiritual energy that did not come from the outside nor from the pillar, but from the Crimson Baptism itself harmonized with his nature. For the first time, Sebastián felt his spiritual energy as something usable, malleable, distinct from the Qi refined by the Core of the Inverted Origin. It was not pure violence; it was spiritual density stabilized by Narka’s guidance. The vortex in his palm vibrated with contained power, and although its intensity was high, it did not tear at his soul as before; it was sustained in precarious balance. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

“It is perfect,” Narka said, and his approval was not exaggerated but precise. “Use it as you use your Qi. Without hesitation.” Sebastián nodded, and the small whirlpool rose from his internal hand upward, marking the transition of his consciousness back to the physical plane. The return was not abrupt; the foaming whirlpool became a flow that crossed the boundary between his soul and his body, and outside, before the pillar, spiritual energy began to manifest through his hands. From his burned palm emerged a reddish current with black and violet hues that wrapped around his arm and descended along his torso like a second layer, integrating with the void Qi that already flowed through his system. The portion of the pillar he touched did not react with violence, but the spiritual energy extracted through the Baptism began to mix with the incoming current, creating a circuit: what entered was absorbed by the Core of the Inverted Origin, refined into void Qi, and part of that flow was stabilized by the spiritual energy of his own that he now mastered.

The six stars of the Void, without end vibrated with new stability, their cracks ceasing to expand as they received the indirect reinforcement of that regulated spiritual energy. The blood descending along Sebastián’s face did not stop immediately, but his breathing grew less erratic. The erosion of his soul did not disappear, but it ceased to deepen at the same rate. Narka, standing beside him with his shell still cracked and red veins shining under tension, maintained his Qi as guide and containment, ensuring that the integration did not turn into collapse. The manifestation of the Elazria remained immutable behind the pillar, without acknowledging the process unfolding before it. And amid that primordial indifference, Sebastián sustained the dual flow —his own spiritual energy harmonized with the Baptism and void Qi refined by the core— understanding that survival no longer depended only on enduring, but on learning to convert accumulated pain into usable structure without being devoured by it.

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END OF Chapter 79

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