THE GENERAL'S DISGRACED HEIR-Chapter 348: PARTAL AWAKENING

The luminous figure hovered at the heart of the dimensional tear, her presence transforming the laboratory's mundane air into something charged with cosmic significance. With graceful, deliberate movements, she turned her attention from David to the unstable reality fractures that still radiated outward from the breached containment field. Her featureless face tilted slightly, as if studying a puzzle of particular interest.

Then she raised her hands—fingers elongating into impossible geometry, stretching beyond normal proportions as they reached toward the dimensional leaks. Reality bent around her touch, the principles of space-time manipulated with the casual ease of a master artisan handling their most familiar medium. Where David's experimental approach had been built on calculated theories and desperate need, her methods displayed the confident precision of innate understanding.

The tears in reality began to close—not healing in the conventional sense, but rewinding, as if time itself were flowing backward around the damage. Fractured dimensional boundaries re-knit themselves, ethereal energies withdrew into their proper domains, and the very fabric of existence responded to her silent commands like an obedient instrument. What had taken David and Yue hours of preparation to accidentally damage, she repaired in moments with nothing more than intention and will.

As the final seal closed, returning the laboratory to normal space-time parameters, the entity turned once more toward David's unconscious form. Her featureless face somehow conveyed a complex emotion—hope mingled with concern, expectation shadowed by uncertainty. The message in her posture was clear even without words: What becomes of you now rests on your shoulders alone.

Then, between one heartbeat and the next, she vanished. No dramatic exit, no fading away—simply there one moment and gone the next, leaving no trace of her otherworldly presence except what she had placed within David himself.

With her departure, time snapped back into normal flow like a stretched rubber band released. Elara's fireball surged forward with explosive force, its trajectory intersecting perfectly with Luna's shadow tendrils. The combined attack struck the containment array with devastating precision, obliterating the apparatus in a controlled detonation of elemental and void energies.

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Smoke billowed through the laboratory, stirred by the sudden release of magical pressure. Glass containers rattled on nearby shelves, and delicate alchemical instruments vibrated in sympathetic resonance with the fading spell-shockwave.

"Target neutralized," Luna announced with cool efficiency, her shadows retreating to their normal proportions as she surveyed the destroyed array.

Litty coughed, waving smoke away from her face. "Perhaps with more enthusiasm than strictly necessary? We've just obliterated a month's worth of rare components."

"Better than the alternative," Elara countered, extinguishing lingering flames with a dismissive gesture. Her tactical mind had already cataloged the successful elimination of the immediate threat.

But something was wrong. The tension in the room hadn't dissipated with the destruction of the array. Instead, it had shifted focus, centering on the motionless figure near the room's center.

"David?" Elara called, her voice carrying an unusual note of uncertainty.

He didn't respond. David lay sprawled across the laboratory floor where he had been standing moments before, his limbs splayed at awkward angles as if he'd dropped without any attempt to break his fall. More alarming than his collapse was the strange luminescence now emanating from his skin—pulses of golden-white light that shone through his flesh in rhythmic waves, as if something within him struggled to escape.

"DAVID!" Elara's composure shattered as she rushed to his side, dropping to her knees beside him. Her hands hovered uncertainly over his convulsing form, combat instincts useless against this unknown threat.

Litty was beside her an instant later, her alchemical training overriding curiosity. "He's burning up," she reported, one hand pressed to David's forehead. "Temperature far beyond human survival range, yet he's not showing tissue damage."

"Yue!" Elara shouted, panic bleeding into her voice. "Do something!"

The diminutive alchemist was already moving, pushing past her frozen shock into rapid analysis mode. Her childlike form belied the centuries of experience she brought to bear as she knelt opposite Elara, placing both hands directly on David's chest despite the painful light radiating from him.

"I need to understand what's happening before I attempt intervention," she said, clinical detachment masking the concern in her ancient eyes. Closing them in concentration, Yue pushed her mana outward and into David's body—a dangerous maneuver with her condition, but necessity overrode caution.

The moment her mana made contact with David's system, Yue jerked backward as if physically struck, a cry of pain escaping her lips. She blinked rapidly, afterimages of impossible brightness dancing across her vision. Her small body swayed precariously, nearly collapsing from the sudden feedback.

"Mother!" Litty exclaimed, immediately at her side, steadying her with gentle hands. "Are you alright? Your mana channels—they're fluctuating dangerously!"

Yue waved away her daughter's concern with a trembling hand, though she didn't refuse the physical support. "I'm fine," she insisted, the lie evident in her labored breathing and the faint glow of destabilized mana visible beneath her skin—a warning sign of her condition worsening.

"I can't—" She shook her head, frustration evident in every line of her small body. "Whatever's happening inside him is too intense for direct observation. It's like trying to stare into the sun."

"Try again," Elara commanded, her fingers now gripping David's shoulder with desperate intensity. "There must be something you can see!"

Yue pressed her lips together, determination overriding self-preservation. Once more she extended her mana, this time approaching more cautiously, creating layers of protective filters between her consciousness and the overwhelming light within David.

"Something... entered him," she managed through gritted teeth, sweat beading on her forehead from the strain. "When the dimensional seals were breached... an entity or force passed through... it's trying to... to integrate with his essence."

"What does that mean?" Litty demanded, steadying her mother with one hand while checking David's pulse with the other. "Is it killing him?"

"Not killing," Yue corrected, her voice strained. "Transforming. Rewriting. The light is attempting to dominate his natural essence, forcing a fundamental change at his core." She winced, regret flashing across her ancient eyes. "I should have been more cautious in our approach to sealing his dimensional fractures. The temporal-spatial tears in his being were clearly more complex than I understood."

Elara's head snapped up, her gaze sharpening with sudden intensity. "What 'fractures'? What's happening to him?"

The abrupt question caught Yue off-guard. She withdrew her mana, blinking in confusion as she processed Elara's words. "How did you—?" Understanding dawned on her face. "You heard that!"

"Explain. Now." Elara's tone left no room for evasion, the authority of the Archon of Lysora evident despite her current disheveled state.

Yue hesitated, conflict evident in her expression—the clash between respecting David's privacy and addressing the immediate crisis. "It's not my place to—"