Ascension

Ray had thought that he will meet the Dragon again, but it seems that was not the case.

He was floating in a seemingly unending and chaotic void.

Ray saw wisps of purplish-black mana collided with each other, creating shockwaves that supposed to push him back.

It was as if those shockwaves passed through him like he was never there in the first place.

He then checked to see if he has a body. Ray can touch it, but his body was transparent.

Nothing but a dot of light can be seen inside his body with 10 rune-like stripes all over it.

The rune-like stripes were moving around like electrons orbiting a nucleus.

Immediately after he saw that, another shockwave past through him. But, it was absorbed by the dot of light that now he called simply as 'core'.

Ray was not far-fetched from what he thought it was. The dot of light with rune-like stripes all over it is his sealed core.

Like a black hole, it sucks not only the shockwaves, but the purplish-black mana was also being absorbed if it got close enough to Ray.

Ray felt as if he has a lightweight body. The more of those mana got absorbed, the more prominent the feeling was.

It got to a point where the feeling that he got whenever he was protected by Avalon's bounded field was not as amazing as what he feels right now.

*Clang*

A sound similar to a broken glass was heard and it came from his core. One of the stripes was destroyed, making the core suck the mana more intensely.

Ray wondered what was happening. Although the feeling became that much more relaxing, his guard was up.

His [Instinct] did not flare up, but that does not mean that everything will be safe.

But after a while, nothing happened. As the relaxing feeling got stronger, his guard went down. Ray decided to enjoy the feeling even though he knew the mana was probably poisoning him.

*Clang*

Another glass-breaking sound was heard, a second stripe was destroyed leaving only 8 more to go.

*In [Training Ground]*

Artoria was standing not that far from Ray. She saw Ray's body sucking something purple. She can feel that it was chaotic and if even a little bit of that touches her, Artoria felt that it can throw her into madness.

This made alarms on her head. She was hoped that those wisp of purple 'wind' did not harm her beloved student.

Artoria already deployed Avalon but, the purple 'wind' can pass through like the bounded field was not even there.

She knew that for an object or an attack to pass through the bounded field it needed to affect both Heaven, which was inside the bounded field, and Earth.

For a simple yet chaotic purple wind to pass through, she knew that was not ordinary.

"It is quite peculiar," God said.

As if she was expecting him, Artoria asked, "What is this?"

She tried to ask the Goddess inside her but even she did not know what it is. It was something foreign but familiar to her at the same time, which confuses the Goddess.

"It is something that birthed me. It is a power source from which I take to power the foundation of worlds. I already knew it has its own consciousness, but never have I imagined for Ray to be chosen." God said as he rubbed his long beard.

"What do you mean?" Artoria, or both Artoria and the Goddess asked.

"Those purple 'wind' that you see currently is a type of mana that only certain worlds have. Even then, those worlds only have a sliver of that mana. What both of you currently see is Ray, or Ray's core, absorbing the purple wind, is enough to power more than 10 worlds." God answered.

'So my assumptions were correct all along.' God added in his mind.

"Is it dangerous?" Artoria did not care if it can power 100 or 1.000.000 worlds. She was worried about Ray.

"Depends on how Ray will use it. Although I bet he cannot use that mana for now but, at least his power is stronger now." God walked towards Ray and touched his chest.

A light appeared from God's hand. Then, the sound of glasses cracking was heard.

"I wonder why you did this," God said to no one in particular, at least not inside the [Training Ground].

"Now he's ready. I don't even need to force his ascent..." God trailed off as he looked towards Artoria.

Artoria was confused so she asked, "What is it?"

"...Twin dragons huh."

"Twin dragons?" Artoria asked.

The Goddess inside her knew what God meant. Artoria did receive the factor of the dragon by Merlin by the order of her father, Uther Pendragon.

Sooner or later, she will have a second ascension as what Ray will experience later.

A second ascension can only be done if a being has more than one kind of blood in his/her veins. For example, Artoria has dragon blood in her veins due to the factor of the dragon while Ray is already half-dragon.

Both of them have a magic core that they can use. Although in Artoria's case, she needed something like a starting key to use the mana created by the magic core whilst Ray can already use it. But, he can only use it when the seal, the rune-like stripes, on his core was destroyed which God 'conveniently' did just now.

Now, Ray has an overabundance of mana that he can use. The only problem was, using just a sliver of the said mana incorrectly will destroy him.

Mana that can essentially power infinite worlds is not to be underestimated.

*Back to Ray*

Ray was floating in the void with his eyes closed for no one knows how long. But it did not matter for him.

He felt like he can live here for the rest of his life.

Ray never felt hungry or thirsty. He only feels... satisfaction.

But there was something that bugs him for quite a while. It was like an itch that he cannot scratch.

He tried to remember what was plaguing him. After a while of concentrated thinking, he remembered that someone was waiting for him.

Ray opened his eyes and said, "I need to get out of here!"

He began to look around for any kind of clue to escape. He did not realize that those 10 rune-like stripes were destroyed.

Ray was fighting the feeling of satisfaction that suddenly came. As much as he wanted to be in the void for the rest of his life, Artoria is waiting for him.

He wanted to ask for a date. If he got stuck, then his relationship with Artoria will not develop.

"Hahaha, what a peculiar reason!" a deep male voice was heard.

The voice was like it came from all direction and it made Ray nervous.

"Do not worry, boy. I'm here to help you to get out of this place. But it is quite a surprise for your soul to found its way here." said the unknown voice.

"Who are you?" Ray said as he was in his stance and drew Excalibur unconsciously.

There was only silence for some seconds and it was followed by a peal of laughter. Although it was a laugh from a deep male voice, it sounded like a loving father that has pranked his son.

It felt very familiar. Even with his [Eidetic Memory], he cannot recall ever heard that voice. And Ray was sure that his father did not have that kind of voice.

"I'm someone and no one at the same time. Although you may forget about me, I still remember you like it was yesterday." said the voice with a somewhat melancholic voice.

Ray imagined the person that is currently speaking had a sad face.

"Well anyway. I guess you want to get out from here. So, let me help you with that." said the voice.

All of a sudden, the dark void became so bright that even closing his eyes did not have any effect.

"I hope we can meet face-to-face again like in the past. But remember this, all of them are your brothers and sisters. They may cause destruction, but I do not want to see my children killing each other." The voice became smaller as the surroundings became brighter. But Ray managed to hear until all of it.

Ray confused why the voice said that. He was going to make sure to ask God the next time Ray saw him.

Then, Ray was back to the [Training Ground].

When Ray opened his eyes, he saw Artoria and God looking at him. While he did not expect anything from Artoria, the fact that his head was on the ground kind of disappointed him a little bit.

Like Artoria knew what he was thinking about, she said, "I'm sorry. I cannot help but get out of the way of that."

"That?" Ray said and he looked to his body, specifically his stomach.

There, he saw the purplish-black mana being absorbed by him.

Ray was shocked. He thought that it was only a dream but, it happened in real life as well.

But instead of the feeling of satisfaction, he can feel that he was getting stronger.

Then the mana stopped getting absorbed. God then suddenly said, "Ray, get ready!"

"Ready for what?" Ray said as he looked towards God.

Ray was suddenly being enveloped by a black sphere. There were purple runes that ran across the sphere.

"Ray!" Artoria screamed.

She then summoned Excalibur and attempted to destroy the black sphere with her signature move. Artoria then put both of her hands on the handle and point the tip of the sword towards the sky.

Using everything that she has, even using all of the mana in her magic core, she conjured a sphere of light on the tip of her Excalibur. That sphere of light was also boosted by Excalibur's power.

It was too bright but if a person can look properly, it was as if the light on the tip of the blade was heating the very fabric of space.

The space around it was distorted while pressure was building up to a point where cracks started to show around the attack.

"EX...CALIBUR!" Artoria screamed as she blasted the attack towards the black sphere.

The small light turned into something similar to a huge energy laser. Although many people can be fooled and thought that it was a big energy beam, it was not that.

The central attack was a small point in the middle of the beam. Because it was so hot, it looked like Artoria was blasting a big energy beam.

Contrary to her and God's expectation, Artoria's attack was being absorbed by the black sphere.

"What?!" Both of them exclaimed.

There was no explosion whatsoever. The attack did absolutely no effect on the black sphere.

This made Artoria and God nervous. While they did not have any malicious feeling from the black sphere, the fact that it enveloped Ray instantly while having the ability to absorbed the attack was beyond their imagination.

If that attack was going towards God, he needed to conjure a shield strong enough to stand from a Type II Supernova. Those types of explosions occur when a star has at least 8 times, but no more than 40 or 50 times, the mass of the sun.

Even then, he would need to instantly conjure the said shield because Artoria only less than half of a millisecond to conjure and blast the attack.

Originally, the attack was supposed to only capable of destroying ~1000 men instantly. But after her first ascension and her body already accustomed to the sudden increase of the power due to the Goddess using her body for more than 5 days, she is capable of getting out those types of attack if she used all of her power.

But due to the attack exhausted all of her power, she instantly went to the ground panting.

She needed to rely on Excalibur to even 'stand' on one of her knees.

"*pant* Ray... *pant*," Artoria said as she was getting more worried over Ray's well-being.

The said person was unconscious inside the black sphere.

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Hello readers,

I hope you enjoy my novel so far. Many thanks for people who has been enjoying it because, it is my pleasure to please you.

I'm not a perfect person.

I do feel that this chapter has something wrong in it. But I don't know why.

Well, I guess I wanted to say more about Artoria's attack just now.

It was similar to Type II Supernovas. But if she has one slight error controlling the massive energy, it can implode and create a tear in the fabric of space. Since [Training Ground] is kind of built around an unstable dimension, you can kiss your life and possible future reincarnation a goodbye.

She basically did a Type II Supernova and direct it towards 1 direction. I don't know if any of this makes sense, but I hope it is.

I'm quite pumped to write right now. I hope I can write another chapter and publish it right away.

By the way, I wrote another novel. But I did not published it anywhere.

It's about a person reincarnated as a devil in DxD and create a harem for him to enjoy while at the same time, getting stronger.

It's the same type of stuff that you can see in this platform. I don't think I will publish it though despite I read it for quite a lot of times already.

Anyway, thanks for reading :D.