Shadow Slave

Chapter 1829: A New Way Chapter 1829: A New Way

Before the sun set, the minions of the dead Tyrant accepted the death of their ruler. Rain watched with a dark expression as the countless hands stopped moving for a while, and then started to claw at the flesh of the dead abomination.

The corpse was going to come undone much sooner than she had expected, allowing the monstrous hands to prowl freely. She wanted to be as far away from the swarm of them as possible when that happened. Soon, she was pulling Tamar's stretcher through the mud once again. It had been torturously hard and exhausting before... but now, Rain did not feel any strain at all. It was so easy that the bitterness of her past efforts seemed like a joke.

She was slowly coming to terms with the fact that she had become an Awakened, smiling brightly from time to time.

Tamar was slowly coming to terms with it, too. The young Legacy spoke from the stretcher:

"But... how, exactly, did you do it?"

Rain considered if she should break into a sprint, but then decided against it.

"Well. It is hard to explain with words... the first thing you should know is that natural Awakening works in reversed order from the one induced by the Spell. You must learn how to sense and control your essence first, and form the soul core later." She remembered her early days in Ravenheart. Back then, she had barely known her teacher...

"Your essence has to Awaken first. There are a few ways to make that happen, but the only one I know of is to absorb the essence of Awakened creatures."

Tamar shifted quictly on the stretcher.

"Soul shards used to be extremely precious in the waking world, so very few mundanes ever had a chance to acquire many of them before. The situation is even more dire now... with how many new Awakened and Masters are out there, everyone is striving to saturate their cores."

She paused for a moment, and then added scornfully:

"You must be very rich, Rani, to have acquired so many. For a simple porter."

Rain grinned.

buy a soul shard. I just went out

young Legacy let out

"You crazy mundane girl..."

Rain chuckled.

and control your essence. That part is the hardest. I don't really know how to describe it, since there are no words in human language to do something like that. Plus... it's a bit of an impossible task, to begin with. How

paused for a few moments, then continued

You just need to control your essence and make it flow in a circle, like a whirlpool. If you do it long enough and well enough, your essence will start to solidify. And then, at some point, a chain reaction will start, birthing the core. That is how you become Awakened,

remained silent for a

Eventually, she asked:

You couldn't have learned all of this on your own... someone extraordinary must have guided you. But that is not even the issue. Alright, I'll accept that you are a mundane girl who habitually hunts down Nightmare Creatures. That much is theoretically possible, at least. But it would also mean that you should have stayed comfortably in a well-defended city during the last and most sensitive part of your Awakening. There was no reason for you to work as a laborer in a road construction crew... even without taking into account that such

had decided to share the truth with Tamar...

couldn't reveal the identity of her teacher, because that was not her secret

hesitated for

the truth, I got myself into some trouble in Ravenheart. So, I was advised

scoffed. "I'm not

while, then asked

why you have decided to share

stopped and turned around, looking at the young Legacy with a hint of dark

killed that Tyrant. So, I had two choices... either tell you the truth or toss you over the edge of the waterfall. Although...

for a moment,