The Villain's Story

Chapter 858: Black Sea(6)

Nothing would have happened if Alan had stayed within the confines of the boat. Had he not expanded his mana sense beyond it, it would have all been alright. But alas, he did it.

The one thing he shouldn’t have. After he had finished examining the boat, Alan had naturally expanded his mana sense beyond the boat, towards the Black Sea.

He had done so without thinking; it was just natural to him. The moment he had used Mana Sense, it was always going to go this way, because he did not know what would happen.

Nothing seemed out of the usual at first. The Black Sea was calm, and its surface was smooth. There was a cold breeze flowing about, and a blanket of dark clouds covered the skies.

There was nothing out of the ordinary. Alan was still moving through the Sea, his vessel was still operating with no fault. His mana was recovering at a faster pace than his usage. Everything was all right.

However, his most fatal mistake was not controlling his mana sense. His mana had one goal, and it was to scan everything in the surroundings and report back to Alan, and so it did.

The mana plunged into the Black Sea, breaking the barrier of calm water and entering the sea. What had happened next was the complete opposite of what Alan had suffered recently.

A dragon’s sense of mana is the most advanced out of any other being in the universe; it is at such a point that they depend on it for literally everything. They are alert to the most insignificant change, the slightest fluctuation. Everything that is mana, they are alert to it.

The moment Alan Peccator’s mana pierced through the smooth layer and went under, he was exposed to the truth.

The Black Sea that never seemed to move, that remained still and calm, was but a farce. The true danger was under the still layer. Darkness mana in its most pure form. Alan’s mana sense expanded, trying to combat it and assert authority.

But it could never fight back against this mana. This environment wasn’t made to be suppressed by the mana of another. It originated from Valus, the Supreme being of Darkness himself.

The quantity and quality of Alan’s mana was simply outmatched, it was leagues lower than the mana of the Black Sea, and thus.

He didn’t even know what he had done; he didn’t know what had happened until it all came at him at once.

His mana challenged the mana of the world, and it merely responded back. His mana sense was destroyed before Alan even realized it.

Pure Sensory Overload. Darkness mana flooded his mind, and it happened in an instant.

His brain exploded, and Alan’s corpse fell lifelessly to the floor. Eyes wide open, not a single emotion behind them, they fell out of their sockets as the flesh of the brain rushed out from everywhere hole in his head, and where there were none, the pressure made them.

But he was still there, even if in such a state. Alan hadn’t failed the trial, precisely because the Black Sea had deemed he could still go on, even in this state. After all, he was alive.

A dragon doesn’t die if its heart still exists, and therefore, he was still alive, even if he was missing a brain, and then.

A new one began to form; his hyper regeneration kicked in, fueled by his aura, along with a new set of eyes. Unlike the rest of his body, which could be regenerated almost instantly with aura, his brain and eyes took a while.

Furthermore, they also consumed a lot of aura to regenerate. More than half of his reserves were exhausted. But even then.

Alan didn’t get up. His brain had regenerated, his eyes were back, but his body was still ’dead’. After all, how would Alan realize he had come back?

His senses were gone, and for the moment, even his sense of mana was crippled. There were swathes of darkness mana within his body, simply existing, but it was enough to deter him.

It would take days for his body to purify the mana and turn it into his own. Until then, Alan Peccator was no different from a living corpse, existing but not living. Cut off from everything that proved he existed, cut off from everything that gave him some semblance of reality.

Lying in his own mutilated flesh and brain matter, he felt nothing as his body simply worked to purify the mana. Alan Peccator was dead, for the moment.

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Alexander silently coursed through the Black Sea; he had long forgotten how much time had passed. His senses were dwindling one by one.

He hadn’t realized how much he depended on them, especially his sense of smell. He had already changed races to a God Beast, courtesy of Festul bestowing him his bloodline, but he never realized how much his nose meant to him.

It felt like his balance was off, like everything was moving around in circles, as if he was nauseated. Simply losing his sense of smell was driving him crazy.

It was the same with his hearing, back in the town, he had lost it, but not in the way the Black Sea took it. In the town, it felt as if his sense of hearing still existed, but was merely blocked by a magic of some sort.

But in the midst of the black sea, it was taken. He was robbed of his sense and he had no way of getting them back within the Black Sea. It didn’t exist anymore. It was driving him insane.

As someone with the bloodline of a Storm Wolf, he depended on his sense of smell and hearing the most, which is why losing them took such a toll on him. His only solace was moving his mana to move the boat forward.

’As long as I’m going forward...’

That thought kept him alive; it kept him in the trial. But he was so preoccupied with his missing sense of smell and hearing that he failed to realize it.

The numbness gnawing at his fingertips, the slight electric feeling coursing through his body. His only focus was moving his mana until he couldn’t feel the boat at all.

And then, it all came crashing down.