223 Struggle

With the pressure from the mountain above him increasing with each second, Daneel could only scream this command at the system before collapsing on the ground.

As he did so, Faxul who had just been staring at him with an expression of rage and fury also fell down after his face became listless.

It had all happened so fast that even Luther who had been standing right beside had had no time to react. One second, the King had raised his hand to take Faxul's in his like he had with all the others before.

The next, he had fallen to the floor, as if he had been struck by some sort of attack.

As for Faxul, that moment of rage had been so sudden and momentary that no one else in the room had even noticed it.

Pain wracked Daneel, making him feel as if that mountain was actually some sort of substance which was trying to absorb him into it by applying pressure from all directions.

The system which had gone silent on hearing Daneel's command spoke again at this moment.

[Host consciousness under attack. Attack level exceeds parameters of what host can handle. It is recommended to proceed with counter-attack.]

Gathering all the energy he could while resisting the excruciating pain, Daneel squeezed out a question.

"Can a counter-attack be made without killing Faxul?"

As the one who had stuck with him the longest apart from his parents, Faxul held a special place in Daneel's heart which made him want to ensure that this wasn't the case no matter what situation he was in.

[Negative. Entity's host must be killed for the attack to stop.]

Indeed, it turned out that it was actually the worst case which Daneel had envisioned.

The "Two Minds, One Body" technique manual hadn't been present in the library that he had gone through in the headquarters of the Withering Leaf Sect, making him believe that certain core techniques might have been stored along with the Spell Technique inside the unbreachable Core Formation.

Hence, he had had very little information going into this engagement. Still, he had envisioned certain scenarios, of which he could find the correct one only when he got attacked by the entity, which would allow the system to analyze it.

Daneel had been hoping that it wouldn't be so malignant as to needing its host to be killed in order for its attacks to stop, but alas, this was the case.

Regardless, this was his closest friend whom he couldn't kill with his own hands.

"What other way do I have to stop the attack?", he asked, as he felt blood seep from the corner of his mouth due to biting down too hard because of the pain that came from his head.

[Analyzing. Single alternative found: Entity can be confined to its host's body if host can come into physical contact with its host. Host is suggested to initiate counter-attack, as probability of losing control before host regains control of host's body is over 80%].

Indeed, Daneel knew very well that he was very close to succumbing and giving up in the face of such power which seemed like it could not even be resisted against.

Right now, it was as if he was laid out spread-eagled on the ground with the mountain putting so much weight all over his body that even opening his eyes was such a chore that he couldn't even imagine himself doing it.

Thus, even the notion of moving his entire body to get to Faxul's could only be scoffed at.

"Can you signal using a spell to move my body to Faxul's?", he asked, thinking quickly and racking his brain for solutions while trying to partition the agony.

[Negative. System cannot deploy any new spells or techniques in host's current state. Only the previously conjured "Fire Bullet" spell can be used to initiate a counter-attack on the entity's host.]

Hearing this, Daneel realized that he was truly out of options.

It made sense as to why the system couldn't deploy any new spells, as the pain seemed to be majorly coming from his mageroot. As for the "Fire Bullet", it had been previously conjured by the system and hidden as a part of the automatic technique he had developed to launch a counter-attack in case he came under assault.

It seemed that this was his last option, yet Daneel did not even consider once whether he would take it.

This was mainly because no matter how desperate things seemed, he realized that there was still a chance.

Comparing the pressure he felt when the assault began to what he felt now, it was obvious that the amount had decreased.

This meant that the entity was mostly slowly burning whatever energy it had, meaning that he only had to hold on for a bit before hopefully being able to move his body again.

At this moment, he found himself searching for anything and everything around him that would help him to hang on.

This was his mind, with blankness around him except for the one thing which seem to be shining in the corner: his memory.

Grasping at this last straw, Daneel tried to remember his earliest memory of that of waking up in the orphanage back on Earth in hopes of distracting himself from the pain.

The first face he could remember was that of the kind old woman who was in charge of the orphanage.

She was the one who had invited women from the neighborhood promising them tea and biscuits before requesting them to feed him as he had still been too young to ingest any solid food.

In this moment of crisis, Daneel found that he could even remember stuff which he thought he had forgotten due to growing up.

Nights of being held on the porch of the orphanage in the old woman's hands because all the beds were too hard for him to sleep on, causing him to cry endlessly. Days when he had gone hungry because the old woman hadn't found any woman to invite over, making her sob as she wished that she had enough extra money to buy some milk for him.

Tears came into his eyes remembering both the sadness and happiness in the woman's face when she had taken care of him.

The memories then switched to him growing up and working as hard as he could so that he could give back to the orphanage which had taken care of him as well as it could when he had no one else to depend on.

After the satisfaction and happiness that came from obtaining scholarships and working side jobs to send money back, Daneel felt wrath and fury at the spoiled kid who had ruined his entire life.

What followed were memories of starving on the streets due to not wanting to sadden the old woman by going back with empty hands and a failed life.

Next came the transmigration, and everything he had done in this continent which was all the more vivid than his memories from back on Earth.

Living with his parents, training as hard as he could, planning with everything on the line, gaining and losing comrades, ascending to the throne and learning by making mistakes, seeing the vision and skewing his priorities and finally realizing that ruthlessness, proper focus and self-dependence was needed on his path if he wished to keep more of his own people safe.

Each and every moment flashed past his eyes, making him wish that he could cling on to them due to the fact that he felt as if the pressure around him didn't hurt as much when he was absorbed in those memories.

It was as if the recollection was like a rope which he caught to keep himself from falling off the ledge which he knew meant losing himself to the attack from the entity.

After the recollections ended, Daneel felt that the pressure had lessened enough, allowing him to finally move his hand by a centimeter.

The pressure was still there, but he now had enough leeway in order to crawl his way to his destination.

The others who had been watching on with panic finally relaxed a bit seeing that the King had actually moved, which meant that he was at least still alive.

Yet, seeing him doggedly crawl forward as if some sort of giant was crushing him under its foot, the maids and soldiers couldn't help but get puzzled expressions on their faces.

Kellor and Luther, who had actually been the ones who had been most worried, ran forward again but stopped while trying to figure out the King's intentions.

His crawling seemed to have a focus, because each movement seemed to have the purpose of turning his body to point his head in a specific direction: that in which Faxul was lying on the ground.

It was Luther who first caught the clue, putting two and two together from the fact that the King had been touching the hands of the people in the room before.

Hurrying forward, he quickly raised the King and carried him to Faxul before putting their hands together.

Blessing his intelligent commander with all of his being, Daneel finally felt the pain leaving his body as he felt the system going to work.

[Confinement completed. System congratulates host on breaking through his limit. Mageroot has broken through to the next level. Data insufficient, system is unable to assess and classify the level of host's Mageroot.]