Abyssal Awakening

Chapter 291: Results Of Nalem's Experiment

Sitting down, Nalem brought out several vials with samples contained within.

"Last time I left, I had two goals I wanted to fulfil. First was to figure out the origins of your blood and the powers it holds. The second was to answer your question of whether or not you could neutralise the abilities of the Abyss.

"For the origins, after cross referencing countless samples, I couldn't find a single perfect match." Nalem shook his head as Alice didn't blame him.

"I didn't find a single match because all of them matched to a certain extent. No matter what blood I tested, a match could be made. In a sense, you can call your blood the MOST potent Abyss Blood there is. A sample that contains the makeup of all the Abyss Blood that I've tested." Nalem narrowed his eyes.

"Your blood acts as the literal building blocks for every sample of Abyss Blood that I've tested. No matter what, through certain combinations in your blood, it will be able to replicate the effects."

Hearing this, Alice paused in deep thought.

Her Core was able to tap into the power of the different connections formed with her Spiritual Heart. Through this, she modified Alice's contract with the Abyss in the form of Sigils.

But if what Nalem said was true, then it wasn't just her Spiritual Heart that could do this. Her blood could achieve the same thing!

"So… Alice can mimic any beast? Not just through blood but through her Sigils too now?" Allura raised an eyebrow.

"Yes- no wait. What do you mean by Sigil?" Nalem nodded before realising what Allura had said.

Explaining the situation where Alice's core could modify the contract, Nalem became silent.

A light of raw unfiltered confusion could be seen on his face as he looked at Alice who simply nodded her head.

"Can you show me?" He asked as Alice nodded.

She wasn't sure how long the effect would last but right now, she still had access to Tiamat's power.

Raising her left hand, red lightning and flames manifested as Nalem paced back and forth while the frown on his face continued to grow deeper.

"Well there goes 70% of my theories." He sighed in annoyance while scratching his hair.

"I originally thought that Alice's blood was a result of a mutation in the contract with the Abyss, making it so that it could become anything since her soul doesn't have a secure outline. But clearly, that's not the case.

"If her 'Core' was able to modify the contract between Alice and the Abyss then that means it's not a one sided affair where the changes in the body affected the soul. Instead, it seems like the changes in the soul are what reflect upon the body.

"Wait no… That doesn't make sense either. If so, why is her blood able to become the building blocks for every Abyss Blood combination?"

Pacing back and forth, Alice wanted to say something but Allura shook her head.

"Let him figure it out. He gets like this when he wants to put his all into solving an issue. Last time one of my subordinates interrupted him, my subordinate got sent through a wall." Allura warned as Alice blinked her eyes in confusion.

"Alright, scratch that. I only have one result I want to tell you today. I'll redo my experiments later but this result has something to do with the question you asked.

"In regards to the possibility of neutralising the effects of the Abyss, it's very possible and I have some samples here to show. You see, the way your blood breaks down the permanent changes brought forth by the Abyss is actually a lot simpler than you'd expect.

"Here is a sample from an affected human. If the human blood acts as a white canvas, the Abyss Blood is paint, any changes they apply will be permanent and hard to get rid of unless you paint over it or neutralise the paint." Nalem explained.

"Is that like when you have heat based side effects but drink cold based Abyss Blood to cancel it out?" Alice interjected as Nalem nodded his head.

"It's exactly like that. Through this, you can say the neutralisation applies a new 'blank' layer to the canvas, allowing them to apply more paint. Naturally, this isn't a permanent solution since over time, the underlying layers will begin to show.

"But your blood is not a canvas. It's a bucket of black paint. You drink some Abyss Blood and throw some new colours into that bucket but once you begin to mix, it returns to black once more. Once again, I must reiterate the fact that your blood is, without doubt, the most potent Abyss Blood in this realm.

"I hope this doesn't offend you but rather than 'returning to human', what your blood does is that it stabilizes the changes occurring within your body, transforming it into a dormant state. It breaks down all of the changes into building blocks, ready to be used at any moment.

The fact that you have a human form is a miracle honestly since you are probably the furthest thing from a human aside from Gods." Nalem explained with a serious expression as Alice revealed a slightly bitter smile.

While she never came to this conclusion, she knew that she wasn't a normal human. Her soul, her blood and the way her body reacts. No normal human would be like this.

But guessing the truth and hearing it from someone were two different things. With Nalem solidifying this thought, Alice couldn't help but let out a sigh.

"It's to be expected. I'm guessing my current state is simply a side effect of my blood then. While others may get horns, scales or the whatnot, my side effect is to look human and gain no physical boosts from Abyss Blood since it's all broken down."

"You're half right. If that was the side effect, the Abyss would've claimed you by now. Rather than a side effect think of it more like a catalogue of parts that you can use. Completely independent from the Abyss. To put it in layman's terms… Would be that you're a second Abyss in the making." Nalem shrugged.

"And this is where a potential solution reveals itself. There are three possible ways of neutralising the side effects of Abyss Blood using your own blood. First is to create neutralising samples of your blood.

"Since it contains the building blocks of countless Abyss Bloods, if you know what's affecting someone, you can forcefully counter the 'paint' used to paint their canvas and apply a new layer. But this requires in depth knowledge of beasts and not only that, but it still has the same issue mentioned before. You can only do so much before they cannot apply new layers and effects will bleed through."

Placing two samples on the table, one being the sample of someone affected by side effects that had crystallized their blood to a certain extent and the other being Alice's blood, Nalem grabbed a pipette and extracted a few drops of Alice's blood.

"I've already modified this blood to contain the building blocks needed to counter the side effects." Dropping the blood onto the sample, they watched as the crystallisation began to disappear and the blood returned to normal.

"Naturally, I can only assume that applying this to someone is extremely painful since the blood is forcing the neutralisation. There's no guarantee that it can even work on someone if their body can't handle it." Nalem shrugged but there was hope in Alice's eyes.

"What are the other two methods?" Alice asked curiously, wanting to know what else Nalem had discovered.

"The second one is for your blood to act as a shield. This one is highly theoretical but if you are able to create a protective layer that 'clings' itself to the Abyss Blood that the hosts drinks, then there's a chance that you can remove new blood with your blood acting as a bag."

Getting Kaden's help to make an example, Nalem demonstrated his theory by having 'Alice's blood' act as a separating layer between two blood samples.

"This one will give you a cleaner removal of the side effects but there are two issues with this. First of all, you need to create a barrier between the new blood and their current blood. Secondly, there's a chance that your blood might stain theirs and if you remember what I said earlier, your blood is the MOST potent Abyss Blood.

So I'm sure I don't need to explain the dangers of your blood leaving stains." Nalem narrowed his eyes as Alice swallowed her saliva nervously.

She knew that the Zenia's were never successful in implementing her blood into their formulas. This was probably why as everyone that took it would've died a horrible death.

"Now the third one is probably the easiest for you to accomplish.

"The concept of this method is simple. You simply let your blood invade their body and target anything and everything that's Abyss Blood related." Nalem shrugged as Alice couldn't help but tilt her head in confusion.

"You might think that it's not so simple since you might target the effects of her Sigil or leave a stain like in method two. But that's not the case. How to put it… If done correctly, your blood should fully extract all of the 'Abyss Blood' from the body and return it to how it was before consuming the blood.

"A forceful reset to default." Nalem smiled as Alice widened her eyes.

If his words were true and she could accomplish this, Alice could rid people of all the effects caused by Abyss Blood.

The bonuses, the side effects, everything.

"There's an issue with this isn't there?" Alice calmed down as Nalem wouldn't leave this till last unless there was a major drawback.

"You're right. While this is the easiest method… It's the most dangerous. Since after a certain point, due to the contracts you have with the Abyss, your blood becomes similar to Abyss Blood. So...

"How would you differentiate between the two?"