Silva felt his dantian reach its full potential, saturated with Qi and no longer able to contain the flood pouring into it. With a violent expulsion, Silva's dantian cracked, spilling its potent contents throughout spirit and body, causing both to resonate and synchronize until they became one note.
A sense of elation ran through Silva as he felt himself ascend, but he couldn't afford to fully bask in the sensation. With his ascension, several things had been set into motion all at once. Silva could feel another baptism beginning with the familiar burn that this time seemed to spread through Silva's various connective tissues, the ligaments, tendons, along with an intense growing pain that ripped through his body.
At the same time, Silva began to cultivate, moving Qi through his tainted pathways and allowing it to seep into his still-recovering dantian.
The corrupted Qi flowed like tar, thick and foul, carrying the remnants of the poison that had crippled his mortal body and nearly claimed his life. However, this time around Silva was no mortal.
As the Qi poured into his dantian Silva could feel an distant echo from the tainted energy, one that was all too familiar since his rebirth. It was the cry of death, a terminus seeking to prove that immortality and was nothing but a fools dream.
Anyone else facing such an aura most likely would have succumbed to the seemingly universal truth, however Silva had experienced it first hand and managed to emerge as something new. Death had brought about life, becoming a means of transformation rather than termination.
Holding on to that mantra Silva resisted the poison as it settled along the bottom of his dantian like a quagmire. Normally Silva should have been able to expel the Qi from his meridians but the tainted energy possessed an immense weight proving that it was far beyond his means of controlling.
With no way to remove it the deathly Qi would fester quickly, poisoning Silva's spirit from the inside out, smothering it like a flame. But Silva's plan had never been to remove the taint, no, he needed it to remain for what was to come next.
Asserting his will, Silva focused on his spiritual roots and began to flood his dantian with untainted Qi, pouring in as countless cyan rivulets. However as the Qi made contact with the festering quagmire it found itself consumed.
The taint came alive, swelling as it feasted on the new source of energy and expanded its reach, slowly turning the rivulets pitch black like oil spilled across a river. The deathly affinity rose to match, its cries growing louder as it screamed at Silva to give in and let go, that there was nothing he could do to resist.
But Silva's spirit remained firm even as he felt a sickening weakness spread throughout his being, making every thought come slower than the one before. Still, Silva continued to feed the taint, watching as it quickly climbed up the streams of Qi, 'Almost…'
The cries reached a deafening volume as the corruption finished spreading and found the source of Qi, Silva's spiritual roots. The countless pathways throughout Silva' spirit promised an unending source of substance for the corruption to consume and spread. But as the corruption surged forth with a bottomless hunger, Silva felt his spiritual roots come alive and respond with righteous anger.
For the first time, the corruption was pushed back as a powerful life affinity in the form of sap poured from the spiritual roots, refusing to succumb to death. A small surge of relief eased some of Silva's worry as he watched the two affinities clash. Silva had known from the very beginning that the corruption was beyond his control; he knew its nature and thus understood how to manipulate it to create a more desirable outcome.
Having experienced the intense affinity for life his spiritual roots possessed, Silva had wagered that when encountering such a toxic death affinity, they wouldn't stand idly by. Of course, there was no way to confirm this was the case, meaning that if Silva was wrong, he would have sealed his fate. But as Silva watched the two affinities clash, he knew that his wager had paid off.
At first, life and death appeared to be at a standstill, but that was quickly proven false as life began to push death back, refusing to give ground in its domain. Finding itself on the back foot, the corruption displayed surprising foresight and, instead of fighting to hold its territory, fully withdrew.
Returning to a quagmire at the bottom of Silva's dantian death consolidated its strength, having expended a good amount of energy from the initial exchange. But eager to wholly assert itself and expunge any outsiders, life gave chase, using the rivulets the corruption had so eagerly consumed as pathways.
Seeing the sudden switch Silva stopped drawing in Qi from his spiritual roots and gave himself a breif moment to rest as the battle continued.
Now, life was the one attempting to intrude on death's domain, expending its energy to attack with the goal of extinguishing anything that even resembled the opposing affinity.
But death was not something so easily overcome, and, having withdrawn its strength, it was now concentrated, allowing it to raise a seemingly impervious defense against the hostile life.
The conflict was one as old as time itself, repeated across an endless number of battlefields, a primordial struggle that would never see a victor.
Silva watched as the conflict between death and life intensified, with each side expressing their affinities with a potency that rivaled any natural treasure. However, Silva paid these valuable insights no mind; he could not be distracted for a moment as the fight quickly approached its zenith.
In the beginning, it had seemed unclear what affinity would win, Silva knew the truth: there would be no victor. From the very beginning, Silva had manipulated the circumstances of the encounter in such a way that neither affinity could survive.
Silva had fed the corruption just enough to encourage its expansion while briefly stimulating the growth of his spiritual roots with Qi from the cultivation ritual.
But once the affinities clashed, Silva had cut them off from limiting the fuel they had to burn in their desperate clash. Soon the reality of the situation became apparent, as the affinities felt their strength waned and weakened.
This did not lessen the ferocity of their struggle however, as death and life continued to be at odds, incapable of forfeiting even if it brought about their end. Which is exactly what Silva wanted. As the affinities had weakened Silva's spirit had recovered from its brush with the corruption and was almost back to its peak strength.
But even with such a disparity Silva did not act hastily unwilling to underestimate the strength of the two affinities. Instead he continued to be nothing more han an observer, watching as Death and Life wasted away until nothing more than a mere embers remained.
And it was then, at the last possible moment that Silva intervened, approaching Life and Death with his hands outstretched and an offer for another way. Though rather than speaking with words, Silva communicated with a memory, one where he closed his eyes and entered death's embrace, only to open once more to find his fate rewritten.
A feat that was only possible due to Life and Death working in tandem, not as opposing forces, but those belong to different sides of the same coin.
For a moment Silva felt an immense pressure bearing down on him from either side. It was as if his spirit had become a scale, while death and life acted as weights. In that moment, Silva understood that he was being tested, life and death sought out Silva's spirit, looking to find if there was even the slightest degree of imbalance in their favor. If such an imbalance existed the favor affinity would have dominated the other and reduced all of Silva's efforts to nothing.
But the scale of Silva's spirit remained firmly aligned representing that he resonated with Death and Life at the same frequency. Once the affinities realized that there was truely no way for them to seize victory the pressure vanished leaving Silva's spirit shaken but whole.
However before Silva could completely relax a ripple of immense power tore through his dantian as the opposing affinities suddenly switched their polarity. In an instant an irresistible attraction formed between the two Silva couldn't fight even if he had wanted to.
Death and Life converged, amplifying each other through synergistic collaboration, creating something Silva could never have anticipated. Within his dantian, affinity became physical, forming an apparition.
Black stilt-like roots embedded themselves in the corruption as if it were soil, intertwining to form a winding trunk that eventually expanded into a wide canopy of branches sprouting golden tear-shaped leaves.
When the tree finished coalescing, it was only the size of a small bonsai, almost completely transparent, and Silva felt its existence more than he could see it. Still, there was no questioning that the tree was nothing but a boon. What exactly that boon was, however, Silva did not know, but with his path stabilized and stronger than ever, Silva was more than satisfied with the outcome.
Opening his eyes, Silva blinked as his awareness returned to his body that had undergone yet another baptism in addition to fusing with his spirit, which Silva could also tell had been imbued with the concepts of death after surviving the corruption now contained within his dantian.
However, before Silva could sort through the various changes in depth, Fal's voice reached his ears, "Good, you're awake."