By the time Irwyn awoke, the dragon was dead. Elizabeth had dragged both the corpse and his limp body over to one of the larger islands of half molten metal at some point. It gave him a brief scare to see the maw as soon as he had glanced around, though lifelessness became quickly apparent given the sheer damage that had been inflicted upon the monster.

  Irwyn was rather sure it had not been his spell that sawed off the monster’s head, then seemingly extracted its spine with an arduous number of rough hacks. Not content with just three pieces, Elizabeth had then proceeded to carve her way into its torso in a much more surgical way, creating holes that she had then resealed with her magic for whatever reason.

  “So, it fell unconscious?” Irwyn called out his guess.

  “Comatose, but yes,” she shouted back from the other side of the carcass. “A moment.”

  So Irwyn used that time to evaluate the state of his body. Which was rather rough. He was successfully ignoring the headache for the most part, but there were many physical signs of wear. Like the thin trails of blood that had surged out of his nose and eyes. He was briefly confused why they didn’t seem to stretch all the way down his face, before he realized Elizabeth must have wiped some of the crimson away before he had awoken.

  More concerning was the within. Irwyn had, seemingly, finally found the limit of his mana when letting several sparks of a Domain freely tap into his magic, far exceeding any draw he could cause himself. Not because he had actually run out - his Reservoir felt as full as ever - but rather because his Vessel had buckled under the strain. Practically every fiber of his physical being was strained or bruised. And abused in different ways. Almost every spell except Constellation of Will had lost form, unable to hold onto the body anchoring it - and even that one was barely functional at the lowest sustainable level.

  Experimentally channelling just the tiniest trickle of magic almost made Irwyn scream. The rejection was agonizing in a way that almost transcended pain. Like his body was both being tormented while simultaneously begging him to stop exposing it to the torture. Hopefully, there would be no more fighting in the immediate future, because Irwyn was not sure whether pushing through the damage might kill him, not to mentione if he even could. His musings were interrupted by Elizabeth stepping around the large body.

  “Are you alright?” he gasped as soon as she appeared, his own pain basically forgotten.

  He had not seen Elizabeth during or after the fighting, and with the dragon thoroughly disposed of, it had not occurred to him she might have been likewise injured. So it was quite the shock to see that she looked like someone had rescued her midway through a pyre execution. Massive boils spread through a significant portion of her skin, covering most of her torso and legs. Irwyn could only see all that because she had let her clothes fade away lest they aggravate the damage with any touch.…

  Which was nothing compared to the charcoal black incineration spread across her limp right arm and the right side of the face. There were several spots where Irwyn beheld her skin and hair had melted off, revealing bits of a lightly scorched skull. Crippling wounds that a normal person would have succumbed to - even just from the agony of infliction. The only mostly intact limb seemed to be the left arm, though it was suspiciously hidden behind her back.

  “Not dying,” she simply shrugged. At least the gesture was without a wince, a small good sign.

  “Are you sure?” Irwyn still insisted. Because she looked closer to a corpse than most actual dead men.

  “The golem will heal me once it considers this part over,” she seemed disturbingly uncaring about the grievous wounds. “I am stable enough to function and not agitate anything unless there is another serious fight.”

  “But you can understand how that is not easy to believe, yes?”

  “If I was on the verge of succumbing, I would be more panicked. A bit of trust rather than blind fear, please.”

  “Yes, you are right… sorry. Still, that presumes our guide even will undo this much damage,” Irwyn pointed out, after managing to mostly calm down. There had been times the golem had assisted with the magical recovery they lacked, yet never to even a fraction of that scale.

  “Worst case, I think my body should eventually recover by itself. That would take at least months, though. Temzdaflame is not exactly focused on regeneration, but my baseline flesh is far from normal at this point. The hardest and longest part of the process would be slowly expunging the remnant powers of a Domain insisting I had been burned and thus cannot undo said damage.”

  “Best case, we will not have to find out,” Irwyn sighed. It was a sight that made his heart ache, but he slowly managed to force himself into mostly ignoring it.

  “Well, before then, here, our spoils,” she finally revealed her remaining arm, showing that she had been holding. A strange, malformed sculpture, carved out of living Flame. As big as a head and adjacent in shape, yet covered in little details. Such as many tiny eyes layered over armor-like scales. And it was still rippling, as if trying to reshape itself.

  “What is this?” Irwyn questioned.

  “A dragon’s heart,” she grinned wide.

  “That does not look like a heart of any sort.”

  “Greater monsters don’t exactly obey biology,” she chuckled. “Call it the core then, but that loses much of the flair. Even if it’s referring to the same thing, a heart just fits in a story better.”

  “Then what are we going to do with this?” They had not bothered to collect parts before… but a Domain creature and a dragon to boot? That had to be invaluable.

  “Eat it,” she said without a moment of hesitation. “More precisely, you will.”

  “What? Why?” Irwyn stared at her, baffled.

  “That’s what dragons are best for, after all. Consumption. The greatest challenge the Implacable had created for mortals, and with it, equal rewards. My father had attained his first Truth after implanting the eyes of the one you have seen fashioned into a throne. Contrary to popular belief, said reward tends to be concentrated in just a few organs. Like this one.”

  “What about you then? You had certainly contributed.”

  “So far, I have been slurping on the spinal fluid,” she grinned even wider, though it was barely visible past the burn scars. Ignore them. “It is a bit strange, but I can sort of shape the change it brings. I have focused on further sharpening my reflexes and reaction time, since that will bring a great benefit. If my understanding is right, then it should be best to match the improvements you want with the organs fueling them to maximize the benefits. So a heart to improve a heart. Sounds enticing?”

  “About that… My body seems to be actively rejecting mana in backlash,” Irwyn said, briefly explaining his situation. “It might just kill me to do this right now,”

  “I am sure a certain guide would warn us,” Elizabeth shrugged, then called out. “After all, it would be absolutely ludicrous to let us die to food poisoning after killing a dragon! Letting these bits spoil would also be sacrilege against the Aspects. It will be fine. Think about what pieces you want next, dibs on the tendons!”

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  She then forced the heart/core into Irwyn’s hands and left to continue in her own dissection. Irwyn briefly stared at it, then eventually decided that Elizabeth was probably right. There was still some small risk - like if the golem had lost contact closer to reality and couldn’t even warn him… but it was weighed against incredible benefits. Irwyn did not have the knowledge that Elizabeth did, but any treasure that could get the heiress of House Blackburg so excited ought to be a match for its legend.

  Gathering his determination, Irwyn thus bit down. In an instant, the core shattered into burning mist and flowed down his throat without obstruction. Within moments, he immediately found that his worries had been unfounded. The heart’s power mended rather than aggravated what it touched. Perhaps the spent state of his body was even beneficial - something damaged could be more malleable to reforging. He didn’t have any other example to compare to, though, so Irwyn just focused on making the most of the opportunity.

  The aim was naturally to enhance his own heart. Since it was the anchor point for his Empyrean blood spell as well as one of the best places to channel mana from, that was exactly what he focused on. Making it more metaphysically durable, so that it could pump every iota of magic he would demand of it without hesitation. That was, after all, still the biggest limiting factor for his bottomless well of power.

  The sensation of it was strange. Not painful nor exhilarating. It was a numb shifting of his nature in a permanent yet subtle way. He tried to simultaneously feel what was actually happening, but it was simply beyond his senses. The act was also strangely straightforward, requiring just mild intent from him and then doing exactly as he wished. Accompanied with a vague but instinctual understanding of the whole process that aligned with Elizabeth’s earlier explanation. But then, the challenge had been the dragon slaying, so it made sense in a way.

  He was done with the core in just a few minutes. Even halfway through the process, he could feel his heart beating with almost echoing strength and speed, and that had only multiplied by the end. He wasn’t well-versed in biology, but it had clearly reached a rate that would be lethal for a normal person. Yet to himself, it was simply invigorating. Not to mention the tangible benefits. Already, he could feel his heart had become a nexus of connection to his Reservoir. A quick estimation told him that the organ could draw perhaps a hundred times as much magic as before, which could improve his overall throughput by maybe as much as 10%? Not the greatest increase, but still a noticable one.

  He could do a more thorough test, but that would be of limited usefulness. After all, there was plenty left to eat.

  By the end of their feast, Irwyn was downright fascinated by their achievement of devouring basically the entire corpse. It had been by no means massive compared to other dragons, but still many times their combined body size. He wasn’t sure it was just because their physiology had reached truly inhuman levels even in that regard, or because dragons as a species were meant to be consumed once defeated. The parts had certainly grown far more tender post mortem. And while Irwyn had some qualms about uncooked food, Elizabeth had just snorted and pointed out the carcass was mostly living flame anyhow and thus not even food at all.

  Irwyn eventually ended up consuming the cartilage, most of the blood, the eyes, and the gland-like organ in its throat. Not actually a gland, since that presumed processes more chemical than magical, but that was beside the point. He attained a massive increase in his ability to draw and use more magic from his bottomless reserves from most of those. The eyes mainly increased the potency of his two already quite powerful ocular spells. The gland he ended up mangling towards an overall increase to the heat of all his magic - that stretched the effect towards being relatively weak, but Irwyn couldn’t see himself focusing on 'falling stars' if he had to also shoot them out of his own throat.

  Elizabeth, on the other hand, had taken bone, marrow, muscle, tendons, and a few smaller organs they hadn’t been sure about the purpose off. She focused on fortifying her body, as would be expected. Since the dragon did not have clear biology, she ended up wasting much potency of the other organs, though still saw some benefits. One improved her instincts for aerial maneuvers and awareness by a fair bit. Another made her more resistant to her own magic - which had likely grown after Irwyn’s breathtaking riposte. Some she couldn’t figure out at all and thus directed them towards a generic boost to her Vessel with limited potency.

  The scales, teeth, and claws were left uneaten, given they had retained their insurmountable hardness. The monster had shed quite a few to its own reflected magic, and those had been swallowed by the lake of lava, but there was still plenty to gather. Maybe too much, depending on if the Trial continued. The main reason they had not looted any of the monsters in the past was the logistic disaster problem of not having access to their spatial storage. For the moment, Irwyn carried the remaining spoils in a big magical box made of manifested Flame.

  “So, what now?” Irwyn questioned when they were finally done.

  “See anything?” Elizabeth suggested.

  That was probably the best direction they would get anyway. Reactivating All is seen, Irwyn instantly realized the difference. The spell’s effect was not particularly stronger than before the fight, but that had never been its issue. The problem had always been the incomprehensible mess of it showing everything that he didn’t explicitly filter out. Suddenly, he found himself able to distinguish the individual streams of information much more easily. Not quite to the point that he could leave everything in his sight, but getting almost close.

  It actually took him a good while to find the next clue because he was experimenting with the new improvement to his spell. But when he eventually did have a look around, Irwyn immediately spotted where they had to go. Their guiding golem was floating at a seemingly random spot far in the distance. Far enough to be right next to one of the distant walls, though Irwyn noted nothing else strange about the area.

  So they quickly approached. After her reforging, Elizabeth no longer looked to be on the brink of death, just injured, but as soon as they were within normal line of sight of the golem that damage vanished in between instants. The same went for the little remnant aches in Irwyn’s body that had hidden in tiny corners that his altered blood and cartilage had not reached. It also revealed that Irwyn’s empowered sight had been deceived.

  What looked to his magic like a mundane metallic wall turned out to actually be an arch and a stairway beyond it. The very same arch they had walked through countless times before, though it had previously always led into obscured darkness throughout the Trial. Further down, the very walls seemed to turn to raw magic and complex spells potent enough to gain physical texture, all the way to a floor that gave Irwyn immediate deja vu. He recognized that room at a glance. It made his heart beat all the faster.

  “So, was this part supposed to be impossible?” Elizabeth asked as soon as they arrived next to the golem.

  || Were it beyond chance, I would not have allowed you to lay a claim on the true core of this Trial. I would have armed such contenders with great weapons and greater knowledge, then sent them back out into the world. Enough to give their Realm a hope of survival. ||

  “Surely more could be done than merely a chance, for an entire Realm at stake?” Irwyn asked. He did not have understanding of the cosmic scale, but the perhaps billions of people were not something that could be easily sacrificed for no good reason. Though he received no response to his question.

  || You know what lies down there. You found this place when it should have been beyond reach before a crisis. And you easily do the unachievable with mere Concepts. ||

  “Yes,” Irwyn hesitantly nodded, unsure of what else to say.

  || Good. We need the beyond-exceptional. The Only War is, after all, impossible to win. Though your prevailing against the hatchling was arduous, it is nothing compared to facing the Rot. To truly defeat it means to accomplish that which cannot be done, inheriting whole eternities of failed attempts. ||

  And what could they even respond to that? There was a short lull before Elizabeth spoke again. “What now?”

  || Now you descend and claim the mantle of champions. You already understand what you seek to claim, so I will not explain overmuch. Just know that you have already made a choice. The burden of the mighty is impossible to discard. ||

  “Can I have my pouches back?” Elizabeth then asked. “I had brought items that should help me in the process.”

  || A foolish notion. The power of the Aspects exists outside the cage of possibility. You reach for tools from within. Not even Edicts could alter the outcome of what is to come. Banish the remnant of fear, child. You are ready. And if not, you never could have been. ||

  “What will happen to you then?” Irwyn asked. Though the golem had been detached… it was hard not to form some kind of attachment to the one who had watched over them for years. Though its hand was harsh and unbending, it had done what it could to help them grow and overcome their inadequacies.

  || I return to slumber until I am again needed to teach. Or until the last bastions fall and there is no longer any point in raising the next generations of soldiers. When that day comes, perhaps you may witness me again. ||

  Then it simply… vanished. Gone in between instants. Leaving just the two of them as well as the stairwell. And at the bottom, something that surpassed even the very notion of ‘destiny’.

  “Together?”

  “Together.”

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