Chapter 211: The Very Limit of E-Rank

(Cognosticon here. I have made edits to chapters 202, 209, and 210. In 202, while I had originally written Kai's emotions to be implicit, given criticism I agree there's some value in making them explicit. 

Regarding Orillia, I had later plans for emotional beats after her, but agreed that not including them earlier potentially makes the characters seem callous, so I've moved them to 209/210. One advantage of no chapters on weekends is that edits like these are easier.)

The worst part of being the "hero of the revolution" was that Kai saw nothing but defeats.

Intellectually he knew that wasn't true. There were more successful uprisings every day, some city states had capitulated in full cooperation, Cragrila had defeated a Ruby Crystallier in battle, Maggle had stolen half a supply line. As the war raged across Krysal, there were plenty of locations where they held their own or even advanced.

He heard about all those events, but if things were going well, he wasn't there. Instead Kai was thrown into disaster after disaster, trying to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Often there wasn't even the possibility of real victory, the most he could do was hold back the tide of others' mistakes.

Once he'd ended up near the main Yulthens army and had all five Diamond Crystalliers against him, which had felt like the most hopeless fight he'd experienced since the abyss. He could imagine growing strong enough to fight them all, but he wasn't there yet, and he couldn't even reveal his strongest abilities or he'd weaken their chances in the final battle. That battle had been brutal and it had taken Behemoth's Heart a full day to restore him.

Sometimes he was even called in to stop disasters caused by their own side. When the merchants had chosen brutality, many of the revolutionaries had done the same. In one city that had been mostly peaceful before, they'd executed all the nobles and then moved on to anyone they suspected of collaborating. He'd had to turn Void Gaze on his own side to keep them all from killing each other, and even now that part of the army was a backstabbing mess.

He had no idea what the gold to crystal ratio was anymore. It would have been nice to go back to the days when that was their primary metric of success.

How long had it been? A month of full war, always pushing himself to the limit? The days and the blood all blurred together. The death of Orillia still ached, but he realized that every death he saw around him meant just as much to someone else.

Kai fought his way down a street in a city he didn't even remember the name of. He didn't know any of these people. All he knew was that the soldiers would go house to house killing people if he didn't stop them, so he kept fighting.

When the enemy started to run out, he slowed to a halt, his hands still clenched in half-claws, looking for the next opponent. If not here, he'd be sent somewhere else. Instead he found himself facing Zae Zin Nim, which his brain struggled to comprehend at first. It wasn't normal for them to be in the same place at once, shouldn't it be a crystallier instead?

"Kai, it's time." She stepped closer and touched his arm, her expression somewhere between compassion and sorrow. "You can stop."

"But I... I..."

"Come this way. We have a path into Yulthens, so the time of crises is over." As she led him back toward their camp, she spoke of the war in broader terms he'd almost forgotten. "The enemy army has been drawn out, so we're going to strike their base."

"I thought they were too cautious for that," Kai said as his strategic brain began to move again. "We were going to have a diversionary strike on another city..."

"You've been fighting so long, you served as a diversion on your own. Suortril really wants to kill you and he's diverted a whole squad of his Rubies. Our weaker forces are going to strike one of the defensive cities, act like we're planning to punch our way through their defensive wall, while our fastest will go strike Yulthens itself."

Now the plans were coming back to him, the reasons that he tried so hard and seemed to earn so little. Just seizing Yulthens wasn't enough for victory, since Suortril and the Diamond Crystalliers could always take it back. But their second major concern was the resources of the merchants, so if they could take down or even seize the great crystals at the city wall, that could reverse their positions.

When he reached the camp he didn't see anyone he recognized until Zae Zin Nim encouraged him into a dark tent. There he saw Omilaena, sitting in a chair with wisps of smoke escaping her lips. This time it didn't look like poison, or at least a poison he knew. She stood up and regarded him coolly.

"Yes, I think this will do. You've pushed to the edge, in training and in combat." Omilaena pressed a hand to the muscles of his stomach and for once her touch didn't seem flirtatious. "I can begin the process to reach D rank, and we should start soon, because it can't be interrupted or sped up. Zin Nim?"

Zae Zin Nim nodded sourly and stepped out of the tent. Now it was just the two of them, or really, just himself and the challenge ahead of him. This was the last breakthrough within range that might make a difference in the final battle.

Without a word, Omilaena guided him to a seated position, withdrew a syringe of blood from his neck, then began working a technique over it. He saw her chakra swirling around the blood, more emotional and chaotic than mana, and it turned bright red. She then injected it back into him, straight into his chest, and heat began to spread throughout his body.

"That's just to prepare your Physique, to put you into a heightened state so you draw the maximum benefit from the transition." Omilaena stepped in front of him and placed her hands on his shoulders. "When you're ready, I'm going to inject you with a certain sort of poison, mixed with an even balance of qi, mana, and chakra. Your body will react to overcome them, and if you don't die, in the process your Physique will reach D-0."

"I'm ready," Kai said. His blood burned like he had a dragon inside him, but he felt good.

"Not so fast." Omilaena raised a syringe and began filling it with blue liquid. "The exact quantity is important. An untrained person would be killed by a single drop. A crystallier would probably be brought to their limit by less than a finger's height of poison. For you, I'm going to fill at least one full syringe, but it needs to be precisely calibrated."

"Based on what?" The heat was growing even further now and Behemoth's Heart was roaring.

"Everything. I've measured every aspect of your soul, of course. Your weight is relevant, even the length of your hair. You want to take the absolute limit your body can handle and not a drop less." Her unnatural blue eyes met his. "Now, knowing that, is there anything else you want to tell me?"

Kai took a deep breath, then he actually told her. Everything from being coated in monster blood to awakening his powers to his newest developments. Omilaena's eyebrows rose throughout, but she didn't say a word until he finished. When he let her see the monstrous side of his soul, she shook her head slowly.

"Damn, I had it wrong. This is insane, Kai. You recall the advanced theory about all the different forms of human power? This isn't any of them: they treated monstrous power as completely antithetical to humanity. I don't know how you've managed this balance, but it's the first thing I've seen that wasn't encompassed by that system."

"What does that mean?" he asked, wondering if fate was about to ruin him again. "Will it work?"

"If you hadn't told me the truth, this could have gone wrong. I'll be in new territory here, but fortunately for you, I'm a genius. Now, I want you to focus on this monster heart of yours, because I need a sample."

So he tried to draw on the full power of Behemoth's Heart while Omilaena plunged a second syringe into his chest. He felt something leave him and almost snarled, his instincts screaming to attack her before she could steal his power. Somehow he managed to rein them in and waited while Omilaena worked. She injected him with a second syringe of his own blood and the heat within him ramped higher.

"This will work." Abruptly she spun back to him, holding a syringe in both hands. "One for each side. In theory your body will manage to survive both and fuse the halves together, but that part is on you, your will to live, and your ability to master your new power. Even if we had a year, there would always be a risk, because we have no one else to run a dry test. Are you ready?"

Kai stared into her eyes, knowing that he was making himself vulnerable to a very dangerous woman. Finally he nodded. "Do it."

Both syringes plunged into his neck and Kai screamed.

.

..

.

Zae Zin Nim had disliked everything about this plan, but she had no choice except to acknowledge that they needed the edge. She couldn't face Ren Ziq Quen, and for Kai to face him alongside Ruby Crystalliers, he needed more strength. Advancing his Physique was the only logical path.

After fighting alongside Omilaena throughout the revolution, Zae Zin Nim couldn't say that she exactly trusted the other woman. To fight at her back, certainly. But the greatest tests were often not in battle, and Zae Zin Nim wasn't certain what would happen if Omilaena had her own interests tested.

Now their army raced across Krysal, ready for the final strike. Kai lay on a crystal litter, still writhing and groaning. He'd bitten through several different mouth guards with teeth that were much sharper than she remembered. His body was twisting and she could feel his Physique changing, but it was impossible to tell if he was reaching the next stage or dying.

"He'll be fine," Omilaena said. The other woman had a strange little smile on her face. "With most you have to worry about them losing the will to live or faltering, but with him, it was just a matter of science."

"You're absolutely sure?" Zae Zin Nim asked.

"Nothing this experimental is completely certain, but the rest is up to him."

In any case, there was nothing else to say. There was nothing else to do. Zae Zin Nim had played every card she had been dealt, Krainuun had put all the revolution's assets into play, and Kai was locked in a battle with himself. Everything that had led them up to this point would bring them to revenge or to defeat.

Ahead, the bloody walls of Yulthens loomed.