Crunch.
Her powerful jaw cracked and crushed the crystal to dust with little difficulty in a few bites. It tasted both sour and sweet.
Gulp.
Then, she swallowed the dust.
Her eyes widened as she felt a significant influx of heavenly essence enter her body, nourishing it and nearly healing all her remaining wounds almost instantly.
The energy traveled through her pathways, fixing the damage.
Finally, it reached her core and began forming a round object there.
"Shit!"
Lilith cursed as she felt a searing pain from within her core, she quickly controlled the energy with her will and repelled it outside of her body.
A large quantity of heavenly essence was released into the area, elevating its quantity.
Lilith sighed in disappointment.
"Did the energy try to form into a Heavenly Core?"
Her brother asked, already suspecting the reason for the failure.
His sister nodded in frustration.
"Un, looks like this is normally how I would ascend as a Calamity. But because I don't have a Calamity Core, I think that my body responded this negatively to the heavenly essence because there's nowhere to store it safely..."
That put her mood down, she won't be able to ascend without attaining a Calamity Core...
Nevertheless, she put her worries aside and stood up.
"Anyways, it's time to take a bath. I feel like killing myself if I don't."
Her wounds were pretty much healed, and her pathways only need more time to rest to become stable.
However, she looked like shit.
Her hair was ruffled, and she was soaked in blood from head to toe. The tattered tunic that barely covered her was torn and drenched, its stench close to rotting.
It looked more like a towel that was used to clean vomit and intestines than clothes.
Feeling hurried to take care of her problem, she went deeper into the cave.
It wasn't that long anyway, and the tunnel opened into a large area that had a relatively high ceiling.
The ground was about two meters lower as well, so it was good for what she wanted to do.
She lifted her hand and pointed her palm to face the ground.
Lilith channeld her heavenly essence through her pathways—they resembled countless branches of a tree that blossomed inside her being—and commanded it to follow a certain pattern.
Soon, a navy blue energy covered her outstretched hand like ghostly tendrils. Like the time that she imitated the commander's heavenly essence, the energy started to change as well.
The color remained the same, but the characteristics and aura of the energy were different.
At first, it was versatile and formless, then, it turned versatile and formless again.
But it wasn't the same, it was more material.
Because now, it had the characteristics of water.
Drip.
A single drop of water formed on her palm and then, dropped on the ground.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Following it, more and more drops formed and fell in rapid succession. Then, the drops turned into a steady stream. And then more, the stream turned into a gushing pillar of water.
The area started filling up with water, but it would take a little while for it to reach around two meters.
Lilith had learned that her new pathways didn't reject any type of affinities, which was great news to her.
Normally, Heavenly Ascenders can't use heavenly essence with an affinity to another Pathway. So, when she was a Heavenly Ascender of the Water Pathway, she was practically unable to refine the heavenly essence of the Fire Pathway.
Sure, Heavenly Ascenders weren't completely crippled and they can refine some heavenly essence of another Pathway that they don't have, but it would be completely inefficient and useless in battle.
However, Lilith, as the Soul Calamity, discovered that there was no such thing as that.
From deep within her core, the Soul Pathway heavenly essence transformed and turned into Water Pathway heavenly essence with an almost perfect conversion rate. It flowed through her pathways like they were made for it, completely unobstructed and without problems.
But, as always, it wasn't perfect. She was able to easily do that because she had been a Heavenly Ascender of the Water Pathway, and she had a good experience with it.
So, it was easy for her to do it.
Theoretically, she could now create the heavenly essence of the Fire Pathway, but it wouldn't be as easily as she did with the Water Pathway heavenly essence. Insight and understanding were still needed.
However, that wasn't a problem for her now.
Because she couldn't create Fire Pathway heavenly essence and heat the water easily, she simply used her brain cells and manipulated the kinetic energy of the heavenly essence, creating friction, heating the water up without using fire.
The steam as well as the temperature of the cold cave room rose, and the water level reached about two meters after multiple minutes.
The navy blue energy covering her hand dispersed, and the water flow was cut.
Now, a large pond ten meters in diameter and about two meters deep covered the floor of the cave room.
Lilith put her bag on the floor unceremoniously, and then, she ripped off her disgusting tunic and threw it to the side.
Splash!
She immediately jumped into the water like a cannonball without any grace, not wanting to waste any more time.
She sank inside, and the water turned dark from where she jumped in.
She remained like that for a minute or two, and when the patch of dark water faded, she broke the surface with her head.
"Hah!"
She took a deep breath, feeling like a big weight was taken off her shoulders.
Her porcelain pale skin was flushed slightly, and her shoulder-length raven-black hair clung to her skin.
Her wounds were now completely healed, not a phantom of a scar remaining on her skin.
Her long ears twitched in satisfaction, relieved to finally become clean.
"Phew! Your ability to create the heavenly essence of other Pathways is quite handy, isn't it, Lily?"
Lilith parted her eyelashes, and her ghostly-blue eyes met the deep red ones of her brother.
Noah was on the other side of the pond, leaning back on the edge with his elbows on it.
The lower half of his torso was submerged in the water, while the upper half was left naked to the eye, revealing a lean muscular body that was like that of a sculpted statue.
His long white hair was let loose, with multiple strands messily falling in front of his face.
A single mole under his deep red right eye added more to his demonic charm, which was accentuated by his prominent Adam's apple and sharp jawline.
His face held a tantalizing mix of feminine and masculine features, and the cherry on top was his carefree smile that always hung on his face.
All in all, he looked like a man who would make women line up and kill each other for a chance to talk to him.
Nevertheless, Lilith couldn't give a less of a fuck about his looks. In fact, she was somewhat concerned for him as she looked at him weirdly. The hell is he doing in the pond? He only exists in my mind, so he isn't really in the material world. Is this some type of coping mechanism?
However, she chose to be a good little sister and didn't bully her older brother because of his unique quirks.
Sensing something from his sister's gaze, his lip twitched in annoyance as he guessed what she was thinking about.
"Un, it's at least some good news. I should be able to easily control the heavenly essence of the Emotion Pathway as well."
Noah let go of her silent judgment and nodded.
"Good. Since you can't ascend because of the lack of Calamity Core, knowing that you can touch upon other Pathways is great news."
He paused, then continued:
"So, since you can't ascend, the obvious way to grow stronger is to create spells. Lily, what type of spells do you want to create first?"