The wind whistling by, the blood burning in his arms, his whole body shaking from that one point which was stopping him from falling freely in the sky, this was life! To live was to hold on and endure, to die was to let go and plummet to his death. Lineir smiled and held on.

"Hold on tight kiddo, not that I'd let you go, this pillars breaking up faster that we can fall! Eventually it will overtake us! We can only hope that we get close enough to the ground before it does!" Mei warned, as if Lineir had any intention of letting go. Lineir looked up, the cracks were rapidly approaching, the pillar, once massive, had crumbled and exploded into an uncountable barrage of stones and boulders. It was almost upon him! The area he had just sliced through to slow himself down would break a few moments later as the Pillar self destructed! Lineir cried,

"Mei, go faster, we're going to be overtaken!" However, Mei could only say helplessly,

"If we went any faster, you would be going too fast and you'd die hitting the ground anyway. This is as fast as we go!" The crackling noise of millions of stones shattering began to whisper in Lineir's ears, even through the sound of the wind. He looked up and paled, the area he was grinding through was already riven with cracks.

"Not good!" Lineir braced himself, and sighed a little. They definitely were not going to make it, it seemed. A moment later, he was free falling, his blade stopped grinding against anything as the solid pillar fractured and crumbled. The rocks blasted by, and he saw one huge rock heading towards him. He slashed out with the black sword, slicing it in two, but still the two halves came at him. Curling up, he prepared to be smacked, sucking in his breath.

"OOOMPHF"

Lineir's breath washed out as something solid slammed into him from an unexpected direction. He had been braced to receive the impact with his arms and legs, but he was seemingly pushed in the back rapidly, towards the incoming boulder. In an instant however, right before he was going to hit, a line of pain hit his neck and he was pulled away. He twisted his head back and saw a pair of crimson red wings, pulling him into the sky. He began shivering.

"Ohhhhh.... she's awake. Maybe she'll have some ounce of common sense this time and realize I'm not her enemy. Else I fear my death will be more painful than if I'd simply fallen out of the sky." Slowly, he looked back with a timid expression at the girl who's wings seemed to sprout from her back. He said calmly as she flapped away from the explosion,

"Big sister dragon, your junior would really appreciate it if you would just fly a little lower now that you've cleared the pillar, and let him off. Anywhere is fine, remember that you definitely would have died if your junior had not given you face and let you ride his back down the pillar." Lineir's voice quavered a little. What he was saying could be classified as a half truth. It was true that she almost certainly would have died if she had fallen full speed down the pillar while unconscious. As for the bit about giving her face, Lineir simply hadn't been able to dislodge her death grip on his neck...

The girl didn't reply, but instead squeezed on his neck even harder, cutting off his air, while flapping faster. Lineir, unable to reply even if he wanted to, could only hang there helplessly as she soared away.

A few hours later, Lineir was unceremoniously dumped on a cave floor. He was high above the land, but thankfully could still make out little features in the ground with his excellent eyesight. The dragon girl, turned and looked at him for a moment, staring into his wide eyes with slitted eyes,

"Stay here!" Then she turned and jumped out the entrance, flying away.

"Phew," She at least, doesn't plan on killing me immediately. Looking around, he saw that this cliff was extremely high up. With his level of cultivation, he could certainly make it down, but he didn't dare try to leave for fear she would come back midway down. He sat, and began to cultivate instead, pulling out a massive core.

"257 cores. Whatever, this is actually an excellent safe spot for cultivating, it's time to break through some levels!" So saying, he absorbed the essence inside.

"Mei, how many of these cores do you think I can handle right now?" Lineir asked after he was done. While his Second Heart felt a bit full, it definitely was not in any danger, the spin was still very strong.

"Well disciple, it looks like you've managed to raise your technical proficiency a lot by practicing that technique so much. I'd say you can take 10-15 of those cores in one go, but you'd better hold off after that. Go absorb them and let me see how it goes, remember I can observe your internals." Lineir quickly began to cultivate and see how it went. Soon, ten of the large cores disappeared just like that, and Lineir said,

"Hmmm, Mei, how does it look? To be honest, I feel fine." Mei took a look and was astonished,

"Kiddo, are you sure you absorbed them properly, you should be incredibly full of energy right now, yet your Second Heart is only partially full. Even if the hydra spirit inside you is absorbing a little, you should still be packed to the brim. Where is the energy going?"

Lineir examined himself internally, but could only verify what Mei had said, his Second Heart was definitely not full. Lineir was about to absorb another core, just to see what would happen, when he felt a terrifying glare at his back. He looked over as the dragon girl, wings gone now, stepped over from the cave entrance,

"What's that you got there... it looks tasty!"