🏠 Presently, Proteus Pavilion

While Jayde was busy integrating the fire spirit, Isha was anxiously observing Jayde from his small room in the Pavilion to ensure that nothing went awry.

The white around Isha's iris showed as his eyes widened, his fists clenched and unclenched, as his face flushed red as he noticed the dangerous situation developing in the cavern,

Isha knew that he couldn't interrupt Jayde during the process to absorb the fire spirit as this would lead to a severe backlash and would indeed lead to the flames of the fire spirit turning on Jayde and incinerating her and leaving behind nothing but ash.

But neither could he allow her to carry on advancing, either she would breached twelfth level, and her dantian would explode, as she still hadn't upgraded it to bronze stage yet. At Jayde's current stage her dantian couldn't handle the amount of energy she was absorbing, the Qi energy would soon start to accumulate within her body, and she would explode, either way, the result would be the same — Jayde would die.

Isha needed to act, and he needed to move quickly, time was running out. Isha immediately sent out a 'Code Red' alert. A 'Code Red' alert would instantly summon the nine of the trainers designated to the Doha Proteus Divine Artifact, teleporting them directly to Isha position. Once all nine trainers appeared in front of him, Isha wasted no time and quickly outlined the dangerous situation their contractor was in.

Stunned that their little contractor had found herself in such a precarious situation, the trainers started squabbling about what was to be done, and who was to blame. Isha raised his hand to rub his forehead, he could feel a headache beginning, this was the reason why he despised bringing all the trainers together, they always started arguing like a group of children the moment they got together, and it would take ages for them to calm down and come up with a solution.

If he didn't need them all for the decision that he had already made, he wouldn't have summoned them. Standing up he promptly ordered them to shut up.

"Quarreling is not going to sort out the situation," he stated sternly.

"Jayde is already approaching critical, and we have to intervene," he went on to add.

"Number One, you know the penalties of intervening, we are meant to guide our contractors, not interfere with their destiny," a young woman warned.

"Do you really want to lose her?" Isha retorted. "You know how long we have waited for her, she could be the last of her kind for all we know, and as you are all well aware of — Hell's Gate is going to be unsealed soon, do you want to be responsible for what is going to happen then?"

"Number One is right — she is our only chance now — heaven forbid if she dies now what will happen to this dimension if she is not around when that blasted Hell's Gate opens again," stated White, his eyes flashing with barely concealed impatience.

"... but the penalty for interfering, who is going to pay it?" an old man asked softly.

"I will!" Isha announced.

"NO!" White interrupted, looking at the trainers around him, his gaze was firm and resolute. "If we do this, then ALL of us will pay the penalty."

Surprised that White was protecting him, Isha lips curled into a small, grateful smile.

"So are we all in agreement, we are going to summon HIM?" Isha asked all the trainers.

All of the trainers looked at each other, while some of the trainers' faces were pale with fright, they realized that they had no choice, nodding they agreed with Isha decision.

With all ten of them agreeing, the trainers and Isha had voted to summon the Overseer. It was only by combining their powers that the Oversee could be summoned. The Overseer was only to summoned under the direst of circumstances.

Isha and the trainers of the Doha Proteus Divine Artifact had only ever summoned the Overseer once before, in their hundreds of thousands of years of existence, and they still shuddered about the repercussions of that situation.

Standing in a circle, the trainers called their magic, directing their magic to Isha. As Isha body filled with their power, he weaved the energy into a powerful spell, gathering the spell together he then directed it to the furthest part of the universe, summoning the nightmare of the Proteus artifacts — the Overseer.

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🏠 Small Cave

While Isha and the rest of the trainers were combining their powers to summon the Overseer. Jayde was still busy integrating the flames into her fire magic. She had just advanced to the eleventh rank when she sensed that something was seriously wrong.

Since she couldn't stop with the integration, nor could she divert her attention away from subduing and absorbing the flames, Jayde chose to slow down her integration. Her sixth sense was screaming at her that she was in mortal danger, and it has never been wrong before. Each time this tingling feeling came over her, her life had in danger, and it was only by listening to it that she had evaded death countless times before.

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🏠 Proteus Pavilion

Moments after the summons went out, the Pavilion was lit up as numerous purple lightning bolts shattered the serene sky over the trainers, the light of these thunderbolts, blinded the trainers waiting for the Overseer.

The trainers and Isha raised their hands and covered their eyes, waiting nervously for the deadly lightning to stop.

Once everything quietened down, they saw the Overseer standing in the middle of their circle. He was a strikingly handsome man, over eight feet tall, his skin tone was like warm honey, and with his long, pure silver hair that hung straight down his back, it made an arresting contrast. His most eye-catching feature was his eyes, they were a light faceted silver, giving the illusion that his eyes were made out of diamonds.

Looking at Isha "Why have you summoned me?" he asked smoothly, the baritone of his voice reverberating through the trainers. The low rumble of his voice was so comforting to listen to, it sounded as if his voice alone had the power that could fix everything wrong in the universe.

Shaking himself out of the daze, that the Overseer's voice had put him in, Isha bowed down low, greeting the Overseer. Then he swiftly explained the situation of Jayde.

"Hmm, I see," the Overseer said with graceful simplicity.

His silvery eyes gazed into the distance, looking at a scene that only he could see, he frowned, then turning to Isha he asked: "So what is your solution?"

Isha replied courteously: "I want to seal the excess Qi, until such time that she is ready to absorb it, this way she can still integrate the fire spirit."

His solemn gaze caught Isha eyes, "and the penalty, who will pay?" the Overseer asked gently.

"Umm, all of us will" White answered reverently, while most times White come off abrasively to everyone, even he couldn't help but be in awe in front of the Overseer. A person couldn't help but want to kneel down and worship the Overseer when they found themselves in his presence.

"Really?" the Overseer was surprised, he looked at each of the trainers his gaze penetrating as he confirmed that they would share the penalty. All the trainers nodded in agreement, although a couple of them did bob their heads hesitantly.

"Alright then, since you are all in agreement, you may go ahead, after you have finished, the Punisher will summon you to carry out the penalty."

And with that last statement, the Overseer disappeared.

Once the Overseer disappeared, Isha let out the breath that he had been holding, sagging down in relief he looked at the trainers around him.

Most of them were in worse state than him. Some had collapsed onto the ground; their legs had been shaking too much to hold up their weight.

Turning to look at Isha White said: "You know this is not the only problem, even if you seal the excess Qi, she has advanced to quickly, her foundation is going to be very unstable — if a solution is not found it will have a serious impact on her future growth."

Isha looked up. “You’re right, of course,” he said. “Do you have any suggestions?”

White looked back at the trainers around him. He stood silently for a moment. "Throw her to Green, after intensive training by Green, her foundation should stabilize."

Isha nodded. "Hmm — good suggestion," and with that Isha hurried back to the main room in the Pavilion to carry out his primary task to save Jayde life — the sealing the excess Qi.

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🏠 Small Cave

While Isha and the trainers were busy with the Overseer, Jayde had run into a crisis, she had broken through to the twelfth level, and was now approaching the threshold of the barrier to Knight first rank.

Since her dantian couldn't hold any more Qi, the excess energy was starting to build up, when her dantian had begun to heat up, Jayde realized the danger she was in. Desperate to save herself, she began to drain the excess energy in her dantian, but she was absorbing the vortex Qi energy in the surrounding area faster than she could discard it.

The Qi energy in her dantian started to leak, flooding her veins and meridian, even her cells. Her body began to expand from the excess energy, and her skin began to split.

With her concentration now split between trying to control the excess energy and the integration of the fire spirit, Jayde lost control of the flames from the fire spirit in her dantian, intense pain engulfed Jayde's body, she felt like she was being burnt alive.

The extreme pain drove Jayde onto her back, her very thoughts shattered, Jayde became muddled as the burning pain combined with the pain of her ever-expanding body overwhelmed her. The pain was the worst that Jayde had ever experienced in her two lifespans, she felt as though her very soul was being consumed by the flames.

Tears flowed from her eyes, as she sobbed at her own the suffering, she didn't even have the breath to scream. Right now she wanted to die, she welcomed death with open arms, all she wanted to do was to run away from this extraordinary pain.

As her thoughts became incoherent, Jayde felt as though the pain was eating away at her sanity. She could feel darkness slowly overcoming her mind, and with it came some clarity she knew if she succumbed to the darkness, she would die. While a large part of her wanted to die to escape the tremendous pain she was in, Jayde was a born fighter, and she refused to allow this pain to defeat her.

Summoning every scrap of willpower she had she fought against the pain, she had too much to do, she had a blood debt to pay for the previous Jayde. She wouldn't rest until the Freehold paid for the suffering they had put the previous Jayde through, then there was that unknown bastard who had created the whole fucking mess, to begin with, who had set both her and the previous Jayde on this torturous path.

Jayde started to list all the reason why she couldn't die, each time she repeated the list over and over in her head, it helped her steel her willpower, to clear her mind.

No she WILL not die, she wanted to live, Jayde desperately wanted to find out if her people in the Federation were happy, she wanted to know what it was to be happy. She wanted a family, this was her darkest, most profound and most hidden desire, but more than ever she wanted to stand on top of this world, and never to be ruled by someone else's power again.

Reaching deep inside her, she grabbed the runaway flames and wrapped it in her magical power, then forcing her will upon it, she made it submit to her. Her mind running on pure instinct to survive, she pushed the azure fame into every organ, every cell, her veins, and meridians.

A bright azure flame with specks of tawny surrounded Jayde body, and at the same time, her body started to go through significant changes.

The fire spirit flame started to reshape Jayde body, making her bones, muscles, skin, and veins stronger, her meridians expanded and became stronger and more flexible, it burned away all the toxins and impurities in Jayde's body.

From the smallest cell to the hair on her head, every part of Jayde's body was remade, stronger, better, and more agile.

But even with her using so much of the fire spirit's energy to reshape her body, it still wasn't enough.

Jayde knew that she was going to fail, there was just too much energy, despair started to creep into her heart, the taste of bitter defeat filled her mouth.

She was ready to give up and let go.

"Jayde, quickly direct the energy to the seal I have placed within your dantian," Isha voice sounded in her mind.

Grasping onto this lifeline, Jayde quickly gathered all the energy she could, and started to direct it to a small sealed off space within her dantian. She wasn't sure what or how Isha had done it, but this sealed off area took all the excess energy that Jayde directed into it.

Finally, the profound pain that Jayde was in dissipated, and the vortex of Qi energy slowly dispersed. Lying on the hard stone floor, Jayde stared unseeing up at the cavern ceiling above her. Her mind shocked that she had survived this disaster.

Lying there, she just breathed in deeply, happy to be alive. Her mind was blank as she just relished the feeling of her lungs filling up with air, then breathing out.

For the first time in her two lifespans, Jayde was grateful to be alive. In those final moments, she had come to the powerful realization the death was not an answer, it was the last curtain call, the end. There were no do-overs, she had been incredibly lucky to be given a chance to resurrect in her body.

Up until now, she had been so focused on how shitty her life was, that she had missed the bigger picture that life was meant to be lived, and lived to the fullest — and she had squandered it away just focusing on surviving.

For the first time in her life, she felt genuinely grateful to someone, and her heart grieved for a small, lonely, unloved thirteen-year-old girl, who had died so unjustly, but by giving up her life, had allowed Jayde to be reborn.

Her heart aching, she started to weep, her tears falling silently, and the more she remembered the previous young girl, the more her heart ached, until finally, she was bawling like a baby, Jayde wept for the unloved girl, and she cried for herself.

After a while Jayde calmed down, she felt light and free, as though she had lanced the poison in her heart.

"Little Jayde, I never met you, but I pray for your soul, I wish with all my heart that in your next life that you will only know happiness and love, know that no matter what you are my sister," Jayde whispered, her voice hoarse from all her crying.

And with that, she started to sing the song of mourning. To grieve to the little sister that she never met, but who gave up her life so that she could live again.

After she finished, Jayde vowed that she would live a life as bright as a shining star, she would live for both her and the thirteen-years-old little girl that never got the chance to grow up.

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