Damon gritted his teeth as blood seeped out of his mouth, dribbling down his chin in thick crimson trails. His body trembled uncontrollably. Bones fractured and healed, only to break again. Every cell in his being felt like it was being unmade and rewoven by a force far beyond him. But even in the middle of this crucible of agony, his mind clawed toward clarity.

He tried to focus despite all of the pain. He paid attention to the bursts of energy. This was the exact step when he had failed last time around, and if Blood Reign says there was a way for him to understand the whole thing deeper and push himself even to control it, then he wanted to do it.

He focused as much as he could as the energy ravaged across his body. Soon, the wave of energy met something like a wall. Damon could not pinpoint where exactly this wall was in his body, but he could feel it somewhat.

The wave of energy slammed against this wall repeatedly. It had the ability to break it. He could somehow tell that, but it felt as if it needed some help.

Damon grunted, then clenched his fists, forcing himself to remain grounded in that flickering space between agony and awareness. His blood felt like fire, his bones like cracked glass ready to shatter at the lightest push. But he latched onto that sensation, the wall.

The next time the wave of energy slammed against this wall, using the very little control he had and all of his willpower, he too slammed against the thing, or at least imagined doing it. It did not work, but he was not done yet.

Some part of him, some force deep within his body, rose up within him, and he immediately sensed it. Damon's body trembled in shock. This was none other than his soul energy. He could feel it. He had tried so hard before to grab onto it, and this time he was able to get a hold of it a lot faster.

But he was not confident enough to think that this was going to last. He was yet to train in this aspect, and this was only a temporary, fickle feeling. He held onto it for his dear life and once again slammed into the wall, this time using the soul energy to do it.

The wall shuddered. It no longer showed any resistance and finally shattered. Immediately, an immense amount of energy gushed into his body. However, it was not enough. Damon took a few more evolution stones, twenty this time, and crushed them. It was still not enough.

He took another twenty and then another. Finally, only when he had used 90 of these evolution stones, his body felt somewhat satiated, and the real process started.

Damon buckled over in pain, and Blood Reign moved closer to him within the blood dome. She gently kneeled and then hugged his body, enveloping herself around him, cradling him. She knew the kind of torture he was going through, and her heart ached for him.

"Your path is one of loneliness and pain, my liege. But I will be there for all of it. I will be there with you for all eternity. In this new birth of mine, you are my lord, and I will endure every hardship with you. Take me and use me to sail to the other side. Your pain is my pain, my king."

Damon couldn't respond. His jaw was locked, eyes wide, pupils shaking. The pain no longer came in waves. It was a constant storm. Every inch of him was changing. His bloodline was running wild within his body, and there was chaos everywhere.

He was hanging between utter annihilation and supreme power. He felt as if his body could explode any second now. There was no more of him left to think about anything, let alone speed up the process or even attempt to teleport away in case of danger.

He had severely overestimated his abilities. There was only madness and pain everywhere. But Blood Reign's warmth seeped through all of that. Her presence offered an anchor in the middle of his chaos. Her embrace did not lessen the torment, but it gave him a sense of being.

Damon clutched onto this small feeling and his small strand of soul energy and tried to remain afloat somehow and not drown in the big, ugly mess that was his evolution. With everything clashing with each other and all parts of him inadequate and overpowered at the same time, it was simply a lost cause. But Damon held on somehow.

Meanwhile, the battlefield outside finally realized that something was off. Many paladins rushed towards the blood sphere that had suddenly popped up in the middle of the battlefield. At first, they thought that it was some sort of an attack forming and tried to break it up, but all of their efforts were useless.

In fact, their attacks were being absorbed by the blood sphere. This shocked all the players and NPCs, and even more people tried to attack it, afraid that it was going to blow up and kill them all at once.

The first 60 seconds passed by in a jiffy. By now, an entire segment of the army was attacking the blood sphere, but it was completely useless. The other side only became confused. Seeing that Aurora and Erin did not even pay attention to it, they even considered giving up and focusing on other things. However, Michael did not allow it and ordered them to continue.

Aurora bit her lips in frustration. Soon, the one minute mark arrived and everything changed at the one-minute mark. The attacks were no longer being absorbed.

Many of the attacks started detonating on the blood sphere, splattering blood everywhere. It was thick, venous blood that killed anyone who stepped near it without preparation, but still, the sphere was becoming weaker and weaker. Everyone could sense it.

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