Chapter 1220 – A Gambit For Recovery

It had been well over a month since the beginning. The Viper’s avatar and Artemis found themselves observing the meditating Jake once more, having both spent a lot of time there recently, especially in the last few days. Throughout this time, Artemis had grown increasingly nervous, and while Vilas maintained his calm demeanor, he admitted to also beginning to feel a tinge of worry.

He’d felt the emergency repairs he’d done to Jake’s soul become unwound, which in itself was alarming enough if it hadn’t come in concert with his soul in general experiencing extreme damage and decay. If the First Sage wasn’t involved in this matter, he would have tried to do something, even if he knew he likely couldn’t.

Trying to wake up Jake right now wasn’t an option. Even if they somehow managed to trigger his survival instinct, neither of the two gods were sure Jake could return with his mind intact if they stepped in. No, the only one who could wake up Jake right now was Jake himself.

“This level of soul damage…” Artemis muttered as yet another day had passed with Jake seemingly only growing weaker.

“Is still recoverable if he succeeds,” the Viper continued her sentence. “The amount of Records that will flood his beings should allow him to recover, and surely the system will be interested in not leaving him with any permanent damage.”

“We both know the system doesn’t care either way,” Artemis said curtly. “Even if he succeeds, it won’t automatically heal his soul and return him to peak condition.”

“Not directly, no,” Vilas shook his head. “But if he can capitalize and make use of his success, he can speed up his recovery to a degree where the damage is almost considered insignificant.”

Artemis remained quiet and didn’t counter despite clearly not being in full agreement. Not that the Viper could blame her. Again, the only reason he had trust was due to the combination of the First Sage and Jake’s Bloodline.

Hours passed with Jake only growing worse at an increasingly rapid rate. At this point, even the Viper was beginning to show signs of genuine worry, but that’s when there was a change… in that the changes stopped.

The deterioration paused in an instant as if Jake’s soul had frozen. Artemis and Vilas both instantly noticed, with the hunter goddess looking to the Primordial for insight.

“I reckon it’s a good thing,” the Viper shrugged, not able to provide her with the knowledge she sought. Usually, when people went through something similar to what Jake was going through right now, they were far more powerful and capable of handling it. They didn’t face the extra challenge of also having their souls slowly break down throughout the process.

“It shouldn’t be bad…” Artemis muttered, her voice full of concern as she returned to observing Jake closely.

The Viper didn’t say anything and simply joined her as they both waited silently. As a side note, Artemis had been slowly growing even bolder as the last month progressed, with nearly all traces of reverence she usually held for someone like the Viper gone. It had all been overshadowed by concern, and Vilas guessed she would be horrified looking back on her behavior once things had calmed down.

Not that he blamed her… in fact, it only made the Viper think of the woman Jake had chosen more highly. She seemed to genuinely care, something that was a rarity in the multiverse, where individualism and ego were seen as prerequisites to attain true power.

A couple of hours passed with Jake in a state of stasis. His soul was neither improving nor deteriorating further, and as more time passed, this could become an issue.

While Jake’s soul was in flux, the damage it had sustained had yet to be cemented. If he stayed in a state where he was heavily injured for too long, he risked the damage actually becoming permanent or at least far harder to heal in the future. That’s why, even if his condition not deteriorating further was a good sign, this still wasn’t a significant improvement.

It was entirely possible that even if the First Sage and Jake were able to pull it off, Jake would simply be too slow to do it in time. Risk and reward had to go hand in hand, so it was natural that even the First Sage was willing to incorporate some level of risk in his lessons to ensure there would be a proper reward towards the end. Also, his Master hadn’t known Jake for that long and perhaps didn’t have time to fully understand Jake and his Bloodline.

The more the Viper thought about it, the more he considered this a possibility. Jake’s Bloodline was chaos incarnate to those who relied on prediction, as his instincts were of a transcendent nature, making them completely unpredictable. That’s how he’d managed to screw up the machinations of some of the most competent gods in the multiverse… but perhaps it had also caused the First Sage to make a minor miscalculation.

This line of thought made the Viper feel some actual concern, but just as they started to truly dominate his mind… There was another change.

In an instant, the stasis was gone, and Jake’s soul began to rapidly decay once more. The Viper saw Artemis’ eyes open in distress, with the Viper also having to hold back a frown as he feared for the worst. However, just before the two could fully conclude something had gone wrong, a pulse of power erupted from Jake’s body.

The Bloodline that had appeared dormant for over a month roared to life as the sound of a heartbeat echoed throughout the room. It gave Jake a second wind of power, and just as the deterioration was about to begin again, a second heartbeat echoed.

Neither of them knew why this was happening, as no one could see what was truly happening to Jake. This could be the moment Jake turned the tide and succeeded, or a final scream for survival from his Bloodline desperately trying to save itself.

Once more, the answer to this question came swiftly and decisively as a new aura erupted.

With a final heartbeat, the potent presence of his Bloodline was joined by another type of power that both gods recognized. This power seeped out from Jake’s body, overflowing his vessel and soul as they both felt something even more familiar from the power Jake had uncovered:

The faint trace of divinity.

However… despite this development, the Viper knew that the danger was from done as Jake had just unlocked something no mortal mind was capable of handling, and as counterintuitive as it seemed, all they could hope was that Jake hadn’t found too much success.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Jake watched silently as the cracks spread out from the golden arrow’s point of impact. As they spread, something exited from behind the gate, releasing a wave that washed over Jake mere seconds later.

Standing firm, Jake resisted the wave as he felt like he was standing in a running river. At the same time, countless visions and ideas flooded his mind, all of them nonsensical as far too much information was forced into his head at once.

However, before Jake’s mind had time to succumb to the stress, the current subsided, and the golden gate was revealed once more. There, in the middle of the gate, the golden arrow still sat half-penetrated with cracks spreading out from it, with the current having come from these cracks continuing to expand.

Luckily, the destruction of the gate had stopped rather quickly, leaving only a small section of it slightly damaged with the arrow sticking out and a few cracks leaking out what Jake had indeed confirmed to be what he’d suspected.

Flying closer to the place on the gate where the cracks were, Jake realized the oppressiveness from the realm he found himself in was entirely gone. The wave of concepts had washed everything away, and the continued leakage created what was effectively a defensive field close to the gate.

Reaching the gate, Jake began to feel countless insights worming their way into his brain once more. Odd images flashed in his mind, wayward thoughts drifted through, and odd sensations he couldn’t at all comprehend dominated his body, but Jake tried to filter all of these out and focus.