God Of Crafting

"The afterburner is live."

This was the very moment we've all been waiting for.

A moment only a selected few in the crowd could have any chance of ever noticing. Me, Claire… and likely the foreman with two or three of his men.

When I first noticed it, however, the sensation was too infinitesimal for anyone else, Claire included, to pay heed.

'Shit!'

For the very first time in quite a long while, my constitution took over.

The spiritual energy that I've been slowly getting myself used to now rushed forth taking over the reins of my body.

I moved at a speed no human should ever be able to reach, yet, by the time I've merely reached forth for the literal red button, the extremely faint premonition had already grown into a raging ball of overloaded, unstable Qi.

My fingers pressed down on the button while the threat was still manageable. At this point, Claire's eyes started to widen.

Yet, by the time her body moved, by the time I managed to break the circuit in an emergency stop procedure, the threat grew beyond what any of us present could handle.

I wanted to curse.

But I had no time for doing so.

My spirituality phased for a bit, filling my mind with the weirdness of my soul's boundaries fading.

It felt as if… a part of myself was melting away into the void, only to be replaced by something else.

Something foreign, but familiar.

This unpleasant sensation lasted only a single instant. Yet as Claire's face struck my back and her hands wrapped around my chest, all the fussiness receded in favor of a sudden sense of clarity.

Prompted by the support of Claire's spirituality, I've managed to overcome the mind-numbing radiance of the unstable ball of pure, spiritual energy.

Using all the energy I could muster at will, I've enclosed this ball with an additional layer of energy, aiming at nothing but stabilizing it.

"Tsk…"

The time flow returned to its usual rate as heavy drops of sweat started to slide down my face.

"Call Chihiro," I've managed to utter, holding onto this chaotic ball of spiritual energy that could very well match the sum total of Chihiro's power!

It wasn't something even me and Claire together could hope to dispel. Even controlling it for a long time wasn't an option, as just by trying to keep this ball of pure, raw force at bay we were both rapidly burning through our reserves of spiritual energy.

"What?" the foreman finally reacted, connecting the dots between my slam on the emergency shut-down, the pained look on my face, and the desperate tone I spoke with.

"Call him, emergency, urgent," Claire squeezed out through her lips, taking over the burden of vocalizing the urgent request.

The foreman threw one glance toward the core of the factory.

For now, the disaster was still contained within. The thick walls of the factory's core along with the soothing barrier I've raised with Claire kept the things on hold.

But this could change at any given moment.

Finally, the foreman moved, plucking his phone out of his pocket as he pulled it out to call…

Only for the sparks of electricity to start appearing all over our barrier, soon spreading to the whole of our cultivation.

'Shit!'

The foreman dialed the call before his arm could even reach his ear.

The call connected, and one ring went through.

Beads of sweat now oozed out of every pore of my body.

The second ring sounded, filling my ears with a stinging pain from the pressure I now had to endure.

Half of our spirituality burned away in our attempt to hold this raging ball of raw spirituality at bay.

"Ye…"

"HE…"

The foreman's voice cut into Chihiro's…

Only for the sparks of electricity to return, now discharging all over the factory and instantly destroying the semblance of order in the control room.

And what was even worse, before either the foreman or chihiro could speak, one of the sparks instantaneously burned the foreman's phone, leaving us all alone to deal with the issue.

The reserves of our spiritual energy dropped down to dangerous levels.

Unless Chihiro somehow understood the urgency behind this failed to call and somehow teleported over, this disaster in the making would soon burn through the chains we've placed on it and…

'Claire!'

Too busy to even open my mouth, I could only try to tug on the part of her soul that fused with mine.

And for a single instant, Claire, without even an instant of hesitation, took over the full burden of upholding the barrier.

Her energy seared through whatever spirituality she had left, burning and outright eroding the very fabric from which her spiritual core was made.

Deprived of its borders, the endless chaotic reactions unleashed upon this eroding power of this burning bundle of raw spirituality, just for a single moment, holding them at bay…

'Stop.'

The world turned blank.

I've…

I've deconstructed the very concept of time, pulling this whole disaster out of the equation of the timeline.

My brain burned under the immense force of rapid calculations it had to make.

Dropping all of the spiritual energy I had left into my constitution was the only method I had left.

Only by going nuclear on myself could I hold back a spiritual equivalent of a nuclear discharge.

And so, relying on nothing but the warmth of Clarie hugging me from behind, I've managed to reach the state of mind I've never achieved before.

It felt like…

It felt like waking up back when this constitution activated in me for the very first time. This time, however, I could observe its works rather than merely the results of it.

Arranging the elements of reality in a proper sequence, I've reconstructed the flow of time, while keeping the disaster separate.

Feeling how my personality melted away under the searing absolute of my constitution, I've…

I've dropped my guard.

And for but a moment, I've relaxed the rate, at which I've processed the reality, giving my soul some room to regenerate from this great exertion.

A moment to dedicate a part of my spiritual energy to gently nurture the shell of Claire's core.

"Haaaa…" I breathed out an extremely tired sigh, only by some miracle keeping up on my feet. A feet I could only achieve in my simple, desperate wish to be the one holding Claire up.

After what she just went through, I wouldn't allow even the slightest burden upon her weary, delicate shoulders.

"It worked…?" I raised my eyes to where the core of the factory somewhat existed outside of the standard flow of time, locked in the eternal state of outburst.

Even the sparks this disaster caused started to die off, indicating the threat was finally, actually gone.

Only for one of them to flicker out of existence right across the shut-down button, for but a single instant, closing the circuit again.

Most of the machinery failed to even boot up, with the pulse of the current too short to give them the time to overcome the natural resistances of the matter and dead inertia of the mass.

My devices, however, didn't need to bottom up.

A single spark of electricity was enough to infuse the air with just a little bit more of the spiritual energy, that my other devices then quickly condensed.

This new thicket of spiritual energy was perfectly within manageable levels…

But we had absolutely nothing left in us to keep it at bay. And just like in our very own spiritual cores, it somehow acted as a short-circuit anchor for the raging mass of spiritual energy banished outside the confines of time itself.

In a single instant, the chaotic mass of spiritual energy discharged through this anchor, returning right back to where it came from.

Freed from both of its containments, the sphere of the overflowing spiritual energy expanded rapidly, soon filling most of the factory's floor.

To the back, the wall of the room exploded as Chihiro ran in straight through it, only to stop and raise his head towards the disaster ahead.

As it turned out, he had nowhere the reflexes to react when the spiritual energy reached its critical point.

Thanks to the last sparks of my spirituality now burning away in my brain, I was fully aware of just how massive of a disaster this was going to be.

Only for all of this energy to just… Vanish.