Suddenly, without any transition, the scene of the gloomy bus, the gray sky, and the old man's tattooed face began to fade from Dex's sight like smoke scattered by fierce winds.
The coldness of the iron shackles wringing his wrists faded, and the taste of rust and rain disappeared from his mouth. In their place came a familiar heat, an overwhelming and life-giving warmth at the same time. It was the heat of the "Phoenix Core," beginning to awaken from its temporary slumber, pulsing weakly but persistently to pump drops of pure mana back into the pathways of his shattered and torn body. His human heart gave a strong, violent beat that shook his broken ribcage, causing him to gasp sharply like a drowning man who had just breached the water's surface.
Dex opened his real eyes, finding himself lying in the heart of the "Hidden Sanctuary." The contrast between the nightmare he was living seconds ago and the current reality was so stark it hurt the eyes.
Lumia's face was very close to his. The celestial girl who had always been so calm and cold was now panting, her clear, sky-silver eyes red and brimming with real tears streaming down her pale cheeks. The air around him wasn't heavy with the smell of sweat, tobacco, or gloomy rain; it was indescribably pure, perfumed with the concentrated scent of life radiating from the roots of the towering white Tree shading them, covered in golden leaves that sparkled like thousands of tiny suns.
"Dex! Oh, by the gods, you're awake!" Lumia cried out in a trembling voice the moment she saw his eyelashes flutter, grabbing his burned hand with both of her slender ones.
Her hands glowed with a faint silver and blue magical aura. She was frantically and desperately pumping her pure celestial energy, the energy of the void and the sky, into his body, trying to repair the scorched tissues and mana pathways torn apart by the exhaustion of overusing the Phoenix's power to escape the Eclipse Minotaur. The contrast between her cold, soothing energy and the remnants of the Phoenix fire in his veins created a delicious tingling sensation that was bringing the feeling back to his limbs.
Dex closed his eyes for a second, processing his surroundings. He wasn't in "Black Rock." He is free, and he is alive.
He sat up incredibly slowly and carefully, ignoring the sharp waves of pain tearing at his muscles and stabbing his broken ribs with every movement. He looked at his hands; there were no iron shackles cutting his flesh. Instead, beneath the deep cuts and burns, thin threads of golden and orange mana were slowly flowing between his fingers to seal the gaping wounds. He remembered the bus, he remembered the injustice, and he remembered the vow he made to himself in the rain. He smiled a faint smile, but it was full of a terrifying resolve, the resolve of a man who refused to die twice.
"I'm back, Lumia," he said in a hoarse, dry voice, but it was steady, unwavering. "Thank you... I visited my old cell for a moment while I was unconscious... I visited the hell that made me. And I remembered exactly... I remembered why I fight so ruthlessly, and why I refuse to fall before any monster, no matter its size."
He felt the warmth of her tears falling onto the back of his hand. For the first time, he was seeing this cosmic entity display such deep human emotion. He gently stroked her head with his uninjured hand, trying to reassure her.
He made a Herculean effort to stand on his feet. His legs shook violently, but he leaned his broad back, covered in scars old and new, against the pure white trunk of the Tree, drawing some strength from its calm, magical pulse. He was panting, cold sweat covering his forehead, but the look in his eyes was not that of the trembling boy on the bus; it was the look of an eagle watching its prey from the summit.
He was now "Dex Williams," the man who survived the dark human prison, and who had just survived the claws of the "Eclipse Minotaur," the worst disaster of the Falus Forest. He had proven to himself that he could break the laws of nature to survive. With his own hands, and with his will forged in the fire of prisons, he would change his fate, his father's fate, and perhaps the fate of this entire magical world.
But willpower alone does not mend broken bones or fill empty mana reserves. His body was in a pitiful state, and his mana pathways were as dry as barren land after years of drought. He knew that if even a mid-tier monster appeared right now, he would die without a fight. He desperately needed energy.
With a trembling hand, Dex reached into a small, enchanted leather pouch tied to his belt, which had miraculously survived being torn during their escape and violent fall.
He began to pull out the contents slowly. He extracted all the "Magical Cores" he had brutally harvested and ripped from the chests of the monsters he had previously killed in the forest, as well as the cores that belonged to the mercenaries of the "Black Claw" guild whom he had crushed in the prior battle.
He scattered the cores before him on the glowing moss carpet. It was a true treasure trove of condensed energy. There were glowing green cores pulsing with wind energy, dark red cores resembling burning embers containing fire energy, and solid blue cores like sapphires holding water energy. These cores, which represented the lives and power of his dead enemies, were now his only ticket to recovery, to regaining his lost mana, and even surpassing his previous limits.
Dex painfully sat cross-legged, ignoring the ache in his ribs. He looked at Lumia, who was watching him in anxious silence, and gave her a reassuring nod.
"Time to harvest," Dex muttered, his eyes gleaming with bloody anticipation.
He picked up the largest red core from the pile; a core that had previously belonged to the mercenary leader. He closed his eyes, focusing what was left of his willpower to activate the "Absorption" ability granted to him by the Phoenix's nature. The solid core between his palms began to glow with intense heat, and threads of pure red mana started to leak from it, piercing his skin and flowing directly toward his chest to feed the hungry mythical core, announcing the beginning of a brutal restoration process that would rebuild his body to be stronger and deadlier than ever before.