Chapter 583: But This Alone Isn't Enough to Fully Restore My Human Body
Irene abruptly halted her magical escalation.
She stared at Noah, her mind racing. A mage with his level of terrifying power—a mage who had effortlessly stalemated her in physical combat and casually deflected her catastrophic spells—wouldn't just track her down to spout nonsensical lies.
If he was confident enough to seek out the Scarlet Despair and declare he could cure the incurable... perhaps he actually had a method.
The desperate, burning desire to reclaim her humanity overpowered her rage.
"You claim you can restore my human body?" Irene asked, her voice dropping to a dangerous, demanding whisper as she descended toward the earth. "On what grounds do you make such a ridiculous claim?"
Seeing her finally willing to talk, Noah allowed his own massive aura to dissipate. He floated down, landing smoothly on the shattered bedrock a few dozen yards away from her.
Fighting her had yielded the exact result he wanted. By proving his strength, he had forced her to respect him. She was no longer dismissing him as an arrogant brat; she was actually listening.
"I have substantial evidence to back up my claim," Noah replied calmly.
Irene kept her eyes locked on him. Her grip on her staff remained tight, her body coiled like a spring. She silently conveyed that if his 'evidence' was a joke, she would instantly resume her apocalyptic assault.
"Before I show it to you, I need to make a few preparations. The residual magical signature of this item absolutely cannot be allowed to leak into the atmosphere," Noah explained.
He raised his hands, forming a complex sword seal, and began rapidly tracing runic sequences in the air.
VMMM. VMMM. VMMM.
Dozens of intricate, overlapping runic arrays materialized around them, instantly expanding into a massive, multi-layered, hyper-dense containment ward.
Initially startled by the sudden magical deployment, Irene's tension eased when she recognized the foundational structure of the spells. They were purely defensive, designed specifically for absolute sensory deprivation and magical isolation.
However, the sheer complexity and density of the wards surprised her. Even with her draconic senses, if she had been standing outside this containment field, she wouldn't have been able to detect anything happening inside.
The extreme caution he was exercising genuinely piqued her curiosity. Whatever he was about to show her was clearly incredibly dangerous.
"Alright, that should do it," Noah smiled, clapping his hands together once the final ward stabilized. "Not a single trace of magical energy will leak past this barrier. I can finally show you the core material I intend to use for your cure."
"Show me," Irene demanded, her eyes narrowing in anticipation.
Noah channeled a dense layer of golden Ethernano over his hands, explicitly creating a physical buffer between his skin and the object he was about to retrieve.
He reached into his spatial pocket and pulled out a small, heavy box.
The box was forged from a specialized, magically inert alloy, completely covered in dozens of intricate sealing runes that glowed with a faint, suppressive light.
Irene recognized the alloy immediately. It was the highest grade of magical containment material available. Her curiosity spiked even further.
Noah stomped his foot lightly, raising a smooth stone pedestal from the shattered earth. He placed the sealed box on the pedestal.
With a few quick gestures, he erected a secondary, localized vacuum ward directly around the box, completely isolating it from the ambient Ethernano in the air. Finally, he carefully deactivated the sealing runes on the box itself.
Even before the lid was fully open, Irene's face violently paled.
A suffocating, overwhelmingly dark, and terrifyingly evil magical presence seeped from the crack in the box.
"That presence...!" Irene gasped, instinctively raising her staff and taking a step back.
The sheer malice radiating from the box triggered a primal, instinctual terror deep within her draconic soul. It was a terrifyingly familiar scent, but her mind struggled to place it.
Noah completely ignored her reaction. He casually flipped the lid open.
Inside the box lay a small, jagged chunk of pale, scaled flesh, continuously emitting faint tendrils of pitch-black miasma.
The moment the flesh was fully exposed, the familiar, apocalyptic scent hit Irene like a physical blow. Her draconic pupils shrank to pinpricks.
"That is... Acnologia's flesh?!" Irene shrieked, completely losing her composure.
The terrifying memories of the Dragon King Festival violently resurfaced. Four hundred years ago, she had watched from a distance as the Black Dragon descended upon the battlefield, indiscriminately slaughtering every single dragon with horrifying ease. The apocalyptic, suffocating despair of that dark magic was forever burned into her soul.
"Is this truly Acnologia's flesh?! How do you possess this?!" Irene demanded, staring at Noah with wide, incredulous eyes.
She knew for an absolute fact that Acnologia was still alive and roaming the continent. Zeref's entire purpose for building the Alvarez Empire was to amass an army large enough to theoretically stand a chance against the Dragon King.
Even with four hundred years of accumulated power, Irene knew she couldn't defeat Acnologia. The Black Dragon had bathed in the blood of the Dragon Kings; his magic resistance was absolute, and his physical durability was impenetrable.
Since Acnologia didn't just shed his flesh naturally, this chunk had to have been violently severed from his body in combat.
Irene stared at Noah. She had just personally experienced his monstrous physical strength. But he didn't possess Dragon Slayer Magic. How on earth did a normal human manage to physically damage the Black Dragon and carve a chunk of flesh from his body?!
"It is indeed a piece of Acnologia. I acquired it recently during a rather... intense encounter," Noah replied vaguely, completely dodging her question regarding how he got it.
"Let's put the method of acquisition aside for a moment and focus on the material itself. You are aware that Acnologia was originally a human, correct?" Noah asked.
Irene nodded slowly. She knew exactly who Acnologia was. He was one of the original humans to receive Dragon Slayer Magic—the very magic she had invented.
"Excellent," Noah smiled. "Since Acnologia was originally human, doesn't his biological state perfectly mirror yours?
"Both of you were humans who mutated into Dragons due to the Dragon Seed. He simply mutated further, absorbing the ambient magic of the dragons he slaughtered to become the Black Dragon.
"Since you share the exact same biological origin and the exact same mutative catalyst, analyzing his flesh provides an unparalleled, flawless genetic blueprint. By studying how his human DNA mutated into draconic tissue, we can reverse-engineer the biological sequence to cure your condition."
Irene's eyes widened.
He was absolutely right. Acnologia was the ultimate, perfect specimen of human-to-dragon mutation. Studying his flesh would provide invaluable, completely unprecedented data on the mechanics of dragonification.
Centuries ago, Irene had briefly entertained the idea of capturing Acnologia to study him. But she had immediately abandoned the thought, knowing that approaching the Black Dragon was tantamount to suicide.
Now, this young man had casually dropped a chunk of Acnologia's flesh directly onto a pedestal in front of her. The sheer scientific value of the sample was incalculable.
"Acnologia's flesh is indeed a miraculous catalyst. The data we could extract from it is invaluable," Irene admitted, her voice trembling slightly with suppressed excitement.
"But..." Her expression darkened slightly, returning to a cold, analytical neutrality. "This alone isn't enough to fully restore my human body. It provides the mutative blueprint, yes, but it does not provide the methodology for safe reversion."
While she was thrilled by the sample, she knew it wasn't a magic bullet. Analyzing the flesh would take years, and even then, applying the cure to her own body without catastrophic side effects would be incredibly dangerous.
"I am perfectly aware that this flesh alone cannot solve the problem," Noah nodded, entirely unbothered by her skepticism. "This is merely the foundational comparative sample. I possess several other critical resources specifically dedicated to curing you."
"Oh? What else could you possibly possess that rivals the value of the Dragon King's flesh?" Irene asked, her curiosity now fully engaged.
"I have located and mapped a massive, ancient Dragon Graveyard," Noah revealed casually. "It contains thousands of perfectly preserved draconic skeletons, providing an infinite supply of pure, uncorrupted Dragon DNA for baseline comparative analysis."
Irene fell silent.
"A Dragon Graveyard..." Irene murmured, her tone turning somber. "It must be one of the battlefields where Acnologia slaughtered my brethren."
"Likely," Noah nodded gently, recognizing the grief in her voice. "The vast majority of the skeletons bear the distinct structural damage of being violently crushed or obliterated by a singular, overwhelming force. Acnologia is the only logical culprit."
"Thousands of pure Dragon skeletons would indeed be incredibly useful," Irene admitted, shaking off her melancholy. "We could cross-reference the pure draconic DNA with Acnologia's mutated DNA to isolate the specific genetic markers of the Dragon Seed."
"But that's not all," Noah smiled, preparing to drop his final bombshell. "I also discovered a significantly more important ruin. A massive, perfectly preserved battlefield littered with the skeletons of first-generation Dragon Slayers."
"What?!" Irene gasped, her composure shattering completely.
"You mean... the Slayers who lost their minds during the war?" Irene asked, her voice tight.
"Exactly," Noah nodded. "The ruin is filled with human skeletons in various stages of partial dragonification, alongside the skeletons of the dragons they managed to kill before dying themselves. It was the site of a massive, apocalyptic battle where the corrupted Slayers slaughtered their enemies and each other before finally succumbing to the mutation."
Irene closed her eyes, letting out a long, heavy sigh.
She knew exactly what he was talking about. During the war, when the Dragon Seed first began driving the Slayers insane, they had turned into violent, bloodthirsty berserkers. They had thrown themselves at the enemy dragons in suicidal waves, dying in agonizing, half-mutated states.
To think that one of those tragic battlefields had been perfectly preserved for four hundred years...
"Do you understand the significance of these materials?" Noah asked, his tone radiating absolute confidence.
"With Acnologia's flesh, we have the blueprint of a perfect, complete mutation.
"With the Dragon Graveyard, we have the pure, uncorrupted baseline of Dragon DNA.
"And with the Slayer ruins, we have the complete, step-by-step biological timeline of the human-to-dragon mutation process, perfectly preserved in the partially mutated skeletons.
"I have spent the last several years meticulously analyzing these exact materials. I have already formulated several highly viable theoretical pathways for reversing the Dragon Seed mutation.
"If you combine my biological research with your unparalleled mastery of High Enchantment... I guarantee we can completely cure your dragonification and restore your true human body."
~~~
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