Cracked Core

"Annoying."

Looking from afar she watched the darkness swirl around Xilo's core as if it was protecting it. "Hmmmmm." Slipping a bit of her Astral Energy forward again she waited to see what it would do and her guess was correct. Once her energy entered it instantly lashed out at her forcing her back as it dove for her small piece of soul that she tried to hide within the flames. Trying a few different ways she repeated that back and forth a couple more times until eventually giving up after getting nowhere. "It's quite perceptive." She didn't know Astral Energy could do things like this but with the ice never doing something similar she was beginning to think it was something special about the black mist.

"But I should have enough information for now to try again."

If it wanted to try and attack her soul relentlessly, all she had to do was make it stronger then before while also detaching it and latching it onto Xilo. If it worked the only downside from then on would be their souls connecting to a certain extent permanently but it was going to happen sooner or later regardless so she was just speeding up the process a little bit. "Shouldn't change much." Thinking that she strengthened her soul and fire as she prepared for one big rush towards the center. As long as she could endure the pain that darkness caused then she should be able to be done however Xilo may experience otherwise.

He was about to experience a mini explosion in his chest that would probably knock him unconscious for the rest of the night when she finally let him sleep. "Just got to hang in there a little longer boy." With that she pushed forward and dashed straight for the core while doing her best to defend herself. Watching it latch onto her and start making its way towards her soul she didn't panic this time as she inched toward the ball of ice further as a raging headache attacked her the second the darkness found her. "Don't panic." Feeling her head begin to vibrate in shock she ignored it the best as she could well she pushed forward before eventually latching onto the ball of ice.

"Nice!"

Seeing her plan working some excitement went through her as she buried her fire deep into it as the darkness got even more violent than before. "Smart bugger." Feeling her pain increased she looked up to see how Xilo was doing still before switching her focus back to the ball of ice as she dug deeper into it. "he's fine." Unfortunately though that wasn't the case. He could feel his insides turning as the feeling of wanting to vomit plagued his stomach as everything hurt. "Finally." Feeling some new pain that was different before Xilo found a release that broke him out of his memories while he tried his best to endure whatever was happening.

It had been almost five or six hours of this already and Xilo was growing tired of being awake but there was nothing he could do still. At this rate he wouldn't be surprised if he slept for the next whole week with how tired he felt but for now he still needed to endure. "How much of this pain will I have to endure in the future..." He remembered Althea mentioning something about feeling constant pain as he shuddered at the thought. If he was already cracking with just this, then he didn't want to think about how it would be for the next weeks, months or even years.

"I guess I deserve it." Telling that to himself he tried to convince himself that this was just natural for someone like him as he laid there but even he found that hard to believe at the moment. Soon he heard large cracks coming from his chest that echoed across the entire room.

*Creeeeeek*

*Slak*

Not understanding why he heard those sounds he looked at Althea as her face flushed entirely red as she concentrated on whatever she was doing to him and soon he felt his strength leaving him and felt weak for the third time in his life so far. "I see....so that was my core then." Barely registering that thought not much emotions came to him as he thought about what was about to happen to him, In fact he even found himself slightly smiling as he got weaker but maybe that was just everything getting to him as his mind broke down, he didn't quite know himself but it was too late to stop anything now. His core had cracked and there was nothing he could do to stop it even if he had the will to.

"Haaa..."

Releasing a long drawn out sigh, Althea heaved herself backwards as she broke her connection with Xilo and started to breathe heavily as she finally decided to breathe after a minute or two of straight concentration. "Its....haaa....done....haa" Staring at Xilo she slowly regained her breath as she watched him slowly lose strength until he eventually became even weaker then a typical person and smiled in relief that nothing seemed to have gone wrong. "Now We need to make sure he heals properly again." For that she would need Curels blood but for now she would use some more tame things to keep his body in the best condition she could. Getting up she took something out of her pocket and tossed it around before looking at the passed out Xilo.

"Get used to it....We'll be together for a while."

Walking up to him she shoved a pill into his mouth as she watched over his face for a little bit longer to make sure everything was alright before backing off herself. "I'm tired..." Holding her head she barely made it the bars of the room before a wave of exhaustion overcame her. "Just a small nap." Thinking that she sat down and leaned against a wall as she felt herself drifting off to sleep for the first time in a while.