Chương 26: Magical Energy Crippled

Kai tried to channel his ME to his eyes and much to his dismay and panic he discovered that had no magic energy whatsoever left in his body!

In the beginning, his thoughts were 'let's wait until some of the energy is generated after all that weird dragon absorbed all of the magical energy that I had in my body. Now I just need to wait for my body to replenish its reserve. It should take 1 minute for ME to start to return to my body.'

Kai waited for a minute and nothing happened apart from his growing loss of self-confidence and fear of ME loss. The one minute turned into 5 and Kai broke down on anger and loss.

'So, I've been learning magic for 4 years nonstop without any break and the moment I leave the country I get my years of effort destroyed!' Kai thought angrily to himself.

Kai started to rage over the fact that he had such terrible luck and was about to destroy the surroundings when he realised that his body had been immobilised.

Kai tried to fight the restraints but much to his resistance and fear he discovered that he couldn't move any part of his body.

Kai tried to calm down and assess the situation, after a few moments of breathing slowly and taking deep breaths, he calmed down to a moderate level. He was still mad, but he could control himself, without letting his emotions take control.

Kai shouted out to his surroundings "who's there?" Instead of getting a reply from his surroundings he heard a familiar voice coming from inside his body. "It's sad that you don't take my warnings seriously Kai." The voice was the manifestation of his subconsciousness, the being that created the blood orb.

"Why have you only shown up now, I could have used your assistance earlier," Kai said immaturely. "First let's talk inside the blood orb's inner world, then I will answer your questions."

Kai was sucked into the blood orb and was instantly shown the world that he had visited 4 years ago. The blood-red skies, crimson earth and endless red clouds spanning further than the eye can see.

In front of Kai was an exact copy of himself only completely coloured in red.

"Now you're complaining that I didn't‎ show up earlier when you disturbed the dragon. But I don't think that I have to intervene every time you do something foolish. Listen up you fool you are a vampire progenitor yes, but as I told you before you aren't invincible. There are many more powerful beings than you in this world. One example would have been that dragon.

You could have easily avoided it, but no, you had to break through the many seals that were restricting it and release that dragon from its cage. Now the result is that you can no longer use magic energy. Now try and think of the reason why?"

Kai tried to think of the reason that he didn't have any ME left. Logically the only reason for his magic energy crippling was due to the dragon infiltrating the blood orb. It must have absorbed a crucial element in ME absorption, that stunted his use of ME.

Kai explained his hypothesis to his copy. "So, you do understand why you won't be able to use any magic energy anymore. It's because its related to the soul. The soul controls the ME and creates a vessel for the ME to gather.

The dragon managed to infiltrate your soul that was residing inside the blood orb, while it was only for a brief moment it tore out the vessel from your soul. That is the reason why I've awoken." The copy looked bitter and annoyed.

Kai looked at his copy and said "sorry" in a dejected tone. "Do you know of a way, where I can still use magic?" The copy looked at Kai with an intense gaze to see how he was holding up and told him you do realise that magic was the only way you could heal and strengthen your soul right. Now you're asking me to give you a miracle that will allow you to instantly use magic.

Kai looked at the copy with hopeful eyes and asked him "Do you?" The copy looked at Kai with an exasperated look and said "yes. Now first do you still have blood strands?" "Yes, why," asked Kai in a puzzled tone. "Good, that means you still aren't hopeless. You can substitute the ME with blood strands. But it will require practice and patience."

Kai looked at the copy in disbelief and asked him in a doubtful tone " you can use blood strands as ME, I thought that it could only substitute physical abilities such as strength and agility not magic as well."

"Well during the various hunts that you went on during your thirst you gained many different Magical Beasts' blood. The blood orb has been storing them and recently has absorbed all of them. I have been suppressing the evolution since you weren't ready for it. But now…"

The copy paused for a few moments and then continued " I believe that now that you have understood the severity of your actions and the experience that you have just gone through has allowed me to understand that you don't underestimate your opponents anymore."

Kai nodded in understanding and then proceeded to ask the copy to stop restricting the evolution. Kai looked at the copy but he said that he wouldn't be able to do that himself, instead, Kai had to do it by himself.

The copy beckoned for Kai to follow him and then he stepped in the air without looking back. Kai tried to do the same but realised that he couldn't, instead, he simply tried to manipulate the blood orb so that it would allow him to change the rules in the red world. Kai tried his best to connect to the orb but only managed to get a rudimentary connection.

The connection allowed Kai to condense the wind under his feet to let him have "steps" in the air and thus gain a pseudo flight. (Imagine Sanji's Geppo or skywalk). After he managed to get to his copy he was taken to a new section of the red world.

In it, Kai could see a humongous cage that seemed to reach the sky with thousands of magical beasts all locked inside it, all which he had killed and consumed their blood. Although he had to admit that most of the beasts in the cage had come from the war that was waged on the Court.

He asked his copy what he had to do, and the copy told him that if he wanted to unlock the next stage of evolution he would need to merge with each beast, and the only way to merge with a beast was to kill it and the magical beast's corpse would enter the blood orb and further the evolution.

"So, in other words, I have to defeat every single one of these magical beasts, right?" Kai asked his copy. "Yes, however before you get all cocky each of these beasts will have the same strength as you."

"What!" Kai shouted out in disbelief and anger. "Well, no point in pondering you better get ready Kai." The copy then teleported Kai into a large arena spanning a Kilometre in diameter. Kai the looked at the opposing side and saw a…