Calculated Risk

*This chapter is rather detailed and it can be a bit gross for some of you, I apologize in advance. Also, consult Translation of Unknown languages. *

After a few moments to regulate his breathing, Iono pulled out of the pouch strapped on his waist enough food to feed an elephant.

He then started chewing down, like his life depended on it, which it was. With the assistance of the regeneration and time energy rings, Iono's new legs where back to solid bones in a few hours.

"Phew... That was f*cking painful. Although it was worth the risk."

Seeing as Iono was much smaller than that big-ass skeleton, the molecules had to be much closer to one another in order to fit in his body.

"To think I'd have to account for that too, I'm mentally exhausted."

Therefore the bones are even more condensed, which means they are even harder than before. His leg bones are now much tougher than tungsten.

"I'll rest for half a day and then get to the spine. Right now I can barely feel the bottom part of my body, because the bones are different, therefore the integration isn't smooth. When I'm done with the spine, the rest is going to come easy.

The sun outside should rise in about three hours. That gives me a little more than six days to completely integrate with everything. Now that I did it once, it's going to get easier. Let's hope I can get everything done by then."

After resting, Iono started once again the grinding process on the giant skeleton's spine.

Given it's size, this would certainly pose as a huge challenge. Therefore Iono returned to the center of the skeleton and submerged in the spinal fluid.

"I should absorb the cerebrospinal fluid at the same time, so the transmutation is even more perfect. But that means I will have to first empty mine, which would... kill me. Unless..."

One would say that at this point, Iono had one of the craziest plans he had ever come up with.

He was planning on completely emptying his thecal sac and then refilling it with the cerebrospinal fluid around him, in the time it took for his heart to stop beating.

There's also the fact that losing his cerebrospinal fluid, would lead to extremely painful headaches, nausea and brain shutdown by the end, by either a bacteria or his own body.

And while going through all that, Iono had to be perfectly focused on changing every single molecule of both the skeleton and the cerebrospinal fluid.

Simply impossible

It wasn't a matter of wits, or willpower, or strength. It was biologically impossible for this to happen.

Therefore Iono could turn to the only partner he had to help him with this.

"Kyomu, I need help."

At first, there was no answer. Iono called again and again, but the black fang remained in slumber.

"Fine! If you're going to be a b*tch about it, I'm going to do it alone!"

And with the attitude of a six year-old, Iono took a deep breath, and submerged in the spinal fluid.

He had just finished grinding the bones into dust, when he started the process of grinding his own spine.

Obviously the pain was unimaginably worse than grinding his legs, and he knew that one small misconception would kill him, given that he was now holding his body together by using prana to hold the nerves and blood vessels.

The spine is like a pillar holding the nervous system and the brain together.

And like any pillar, its collapse would mean the collapse of the building.

That means that one small mistake, and his whole nervous system goes haywire, shutting down his brain and killing him.

He was literally hanging by a thread, but he wasn't going to stop.

While his spine was turned into dust, the veins on his head were bulging, he was holding his body together by controlling energy, to act as a temporary spine.

This was utterly insane, but what he did next was even more so.

He was unable to move any part of his body, and so he called upon his imprinted partner. Kyomu came out of his chest, vibrating. Iono controlled the dagger so that it would lightly pierce the place on his neck where the thecal sac was now hanging.

The spinal fluid oozed out of his neck and down his back as Iono's head started to feel like a raging volcano.

Before he lost his senses he used his prana to gather the bone dust and make it enter inside his flesh.

The CSF loss made him nauseous and made it almost impossible to concentrate, but he gritted his teeth and activated all the energy circles around him to the maximum, other than the healing one because it would have an opposite effect.

After a gruesome couple of minutes, the bone dust replaced his old spine, and the thecal sac was almost empty.

Iono was in a daze, not really aware of his surroundings. His vision was blurred and he was unable to think.

When finally his eyes closed and he was left barely conscious on the floor, dying. The thecal sac was empty and he had no senses to guide Ophiucus's CSF inside him.

At his final moments before falling unconscious, he thought,

"Is this really the way I die? Chasing after power? Ha-haha-HAHAHAHA... Such Irony, such hubris."

And so Iono lost his senses.

*Sigh*

Next to his head the black fang sighed, seemingly tired.

"Mokare, roht karne tortuga eso*"

A beautiful voice of a woman echoed all over the cavern.

And so the dagger trembled and guided all the cerebrospinal fluid around them inside Iono's thecal sac. It also changed its constitution so it matched Iono's and then fell on the ground, resembling a normal dagger.