Chapter 53: Ten Minutes Till Possible Doom

The entity licked its lips with a devilish expression.

“Your brain is still too fragile to understand it’s true meaning, but I’ll give you an extremely crude explanation.”

The entity dissapeared from Aden’s side and teleported back to his reassembled throne.

The Entity reclined on the jagged, rusted metal, looking down at Aden like a scientist observing a particularly interesting insect.

“Think of your body as a cup,” the Entity began, his voice echoing from every direction at once. “Essence is water. The Princess, the Saintesses—they all fill their cups until they’re full. But you? You’re a cup with a hole in the bottom. No matter how much you eat, it all leaks out into the Void.”

He leaned forward, resting his chin on a silver palm.

“The metal, the Stellar Marrow—isn’t just a physical change. It’s a seal. It turns your skin into a refinery and your bones into a battery. It allows the Resonance to stop being a reaction and start being a Law. Right now, you adapt because you’re being hurt. With the metal, you adapt because you exist.”

Aden looked down at his translucent chest. The thrumming of the twenty Vassals felt like a heavy, synchronized engine. “And the price? You said nothing is free here.”

The Entity’s grin widened, revealing that same unsettling row of needle-sharp teeth. “The price is your humanity, Aden. Not in the ’I’m a monster’ way, you’re already halfway there.”

“What I mean is the biological limits. You won’t feel the warmth of the sun, you won’t taste the wine, you won’t feel the softness of that toxic girl’s skin when she clings to you.”

The Entity stood up, the silver sand around his feet beginning to swirl into a localized cyclone.

“But in exchange, you will become something that can walk through a Solar Flare and complain about the breeze. You will be able to Sync not just with twenty people, but with the very world around you. You’ll be able to hear the frequency of the Princess’s heartbeat from three districts away… and you’ll be able to stop it by simply hummimg the right note.”

He stepped off the throne, the gravity in the Silver Land shifting as he approached Aden.

The Entity stopped and loomed over him. The black sun above them pulsed, casting a long, distorted shadow.

“So, choose. Be a man who dies in a cave, or be the God who turns the cave into a throne. The Saintesses are already pouring the Holy concrete into the sewer lines, Aden. They’re going to bury your followers alive in ten minutes.”

Aden looked at his hands. His hearts were slamming loudly against his chest not only at the sheer possibilities but at the terrifying cost that accompanied it.

The silver was spreading, creeping up his forearms like a slow, mercury-colored frost. He could feel Lorelei’s fading heartbeat through the Sync. She was exhausted, terrified, and still dragging his dead weight through the dark.

“Ten minutes,” Aden rasped.

“Tick-tock,” the Entity mocked. “Do we have a deal, or should I start picking out which of your Vassals I’m going to eat first when they arrive in the Void?”

Aden looked at his hands, the mercury-like frost now reaching his elbows. He could feel the connection to the world, the smell of the air, the warmth of blood all flickering like a candle in the wind.

“You’re offering me a cage and calling it a throne,” Aden muttered.

“I’m offering you the only thing that keeps you from being a memory,” the Entity replied. “Choose, Aden. The concrete is getting closer. I can hear the girl’s heart skipping beats. It’s melodic, really.”

Aden looked at the black sun, then back at the Entity. His eyes narrowed. He didn’t respond, instead, a cold, mocking smile spread across his flickering face.

“You’re so eager for me to take this Stellar Marrow,” Aden said, his voice dripping with skepticism. “If it’s so powerful, why do you need me to accept it? Why not just force it on me while I’m unconscious?”

The Entity’s grin faltered, just for a fraction of a second.

“It’s a seal, isn’t it?” Aden continued, stepping closer despite the spikes in gravity.

“It doesn’t just protect me from the Saintesses. It protects you from me. You want to wrap me in this metal so I can’t touch the Void. So I can’t touch you.”

The Entity let out a low growl, the silver sand beginning to churn violently. “You are overthinking your own survival, mortal.”

“No,” Aden hissed, his fingers twitching. “I’m realizing that you’re scared. You’re trapped in this ring, and you need me to be a Tuning Fork because you can’t play the music yourself. You want me to give up my senses because they’re the only thing that keeps me anchored to this world. Without them, I’m just a hollow shell for you to pilot.”

Aden looked at his silver-frosted arms. He felt the Sync with Lorelei, her pain, her frantic breathing, her warmth. It was messy, it was agonizing, and it was exactly what the Entity couldn’t understand.

“I’m not taking your deal,” Aden said.

The Entity lunged forward, his face twisting into a mask of mercury-fury. “Then die in the dark! Watch them burn!”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to use it,” Aden countered.

He didn’t try to shatter the Marrow. Instead, he reached out and grabbed a handful of the silver frost already on his arm and tore it away from the main flow.

[Adaptive Resonance: Partial Synchronization]

“I’m not taking the deal,” Aden hissed, his face contorting as he forced his Resonance to mismatch with the metal. “But I’ll take a piece of it.”

The Entity’s eyes widened. “You fool! You can’t just take the Marrow without the channel! Your body will—”

“My body is already broken,” Aden interrupted.

Using the Sync with the twenty Vassals, Aden channeled the pain through the Vassals.

Twenty miles away, Zero and the others screamed as a fraction of the silver heat scorched through their veins, diluting the burden on Aden’s own heart.

The silver on his skin didn’t become a smooth, protective shell. It became jagged, broken shards that embedded themselves into his flesh like shrapnel. It was an incomplete, agonizing transformation, an Unstable Marrow.

The Silver Land began to shudder. Aden had taken just enough to wake up, but not enough to be saved.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep