Evelyn felt a spark of excitement for the first time in a while when the voice of the Aethersphere echoed around her.

At least until it spoke again and delivered a less than reassuring second message.

"Error! Insufficient internal stores of energy to repair damage."

"Initializing transfer from host."

"Error! Host core level inadequate to facilitate restoration within acceptable time parameters."

"Current estimated time to complete restoration. One million, five hundred eighty-three thousand, six hundred ninety years."

After that final soul crushing message, Evelyn’s head hung down and she wondered what all of the effort she had put in had been for.

Even with her extended lifespan from reaching the tyrant beast rank, there was no chance she was going to live anywhere near one and a half million years.

She had heard that those that reached the peak of the world and then transcended it became immortal, but she was very far away from such a lofty goal.

Still, waiting such a long time for the Aethersphere to fix itself was not really a feasible option.

The entire reason she wanted it to repair itself was so that it no longer gave her issues and could fix the damage to her soul that she caused by pushing the divine item beyond her current capabilities.

Perhaps it was not necessary for the magic device to be fully restored to fix all of her current problems, but there was still no telling how long it would take.

’At this point it might be easier just to try and have the others find Melisande again, or maybe collect some sort of soul healing item from the Verdant Warlord’s Domain.’ Evelyn thought, a hint of despair clouding her mind.

From her perspective, all of the toil she had just gone through was basically worthless.

So much effort on not only her part but her companions’ that basically amounted to nothing.

At least, these were the thoughts that were going through her head until the next message came through a few minutes later.

"Search for external energy source completed. One potential source identified."

"Attempting to access source."

"Source connected. Beginning energy transfer."

Evelyn’s eyes went wide as a rush of magical energy like nothing she had ever felt before entering her body.

The pressure almost overwhelmed her.

It was barely at a tolerable level that did not rip her body or soul to shreds.

At the same moment, she felt the connection that her friends had set up vanish. Whatever was happening had cut them off from her.

Unable to do anything else, Evelyn braced herself and endured the ceaseless pressure.

If she thought that things had been bad before, they had now become a lot worse.

All that she felt was unending strain on her soul and body, and it took every ounce of willpower and then some more for her to not give in.

Towards the end she was starting to waver, and thoughts of letting herself go and ending her suffering came to mind no matter how hard she tried to stay strong.

Fortunately, before she truly could not last any longer, the immense influx of magical energy suddenly cut off. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

"Access to external source has been lost."

"Attempting to reconnect."

"Error! Unable to reestablish connection."

"No further suitable energy source detected."

"Initializing restoration of priory systems with current stores."

"Estimated restoration using energy stores at three point seven one percent."

"Error! Damage to host’s soul detected."

"Recalculating optimal system restoration."

"New restoration priority established."

"Shunting host’s consciousness back to Soul Realm and beginning restoration process."

"Initialing forced sleep in host and entering low processing mode to facilitate restoration."

Before Evelyn knew what was going on, she was shot out of the Aethersphere and into what she called her inner world.

Though, judging from what the Aethersphere had just said, its proper name was likely Soul Realm.

Regrettably, she had very little time to process any of what was going on before her consciousness began to slip.

Whatever the Aethersphere was doing, she had no hope of fighting it.

For the first time since it had arrived in this world, the divine artifact finally had a proper supply of magical energy even if the item was still far from fully powered.

There was nothing that Evelyn could do but fall asleep and hope that when she woke up, everything would be alright.

...

"She’s waking up!"

"Are you sure? This isn’t the first time that she started moving and then rolled back over."

"No, I can feel it with my magic now. She’s definitely regaining consciousness."

"In that case, we should stop crowding her and give her some room to breathe."

As Evelyn was starting to come to, she heard the voices of Bylur, Aralee, and Bylur bickering with each other.

A part of her did want to shut her mind back off and slip back into full unconsciousness, but seeing as how she had no idea how long she had been asleep, she forced herself to get up.

"Could you guys be a little quieter? My head feels like its ringing." Evelyn said as she sat up and rubbed her eyes.

When she opened her eyes, she had to squint due to the light being too intense for her. Everything just felt a little off.

"Evelyn!"

Aralee was the first to react. Shouting out and running over to wrap her sister in a hug.

"I missed you too. I wasn’t really gone, but I wasn’t truly here either." Evelyn said, returning her sister’s embrace.

Once she had gotten her bearing back, the first thing that she noticed was how much stronger everyone had become.

Lucia had broken through to the next rank and was now a sovereign beast.

As for Aralee and Bylur, both of them had broken through to become high tier tyrant beasts.

This was not insignificant progress and told Evelyn that she had been out for longer than she would have hoped. Likely several years.

Yet, before she could ask for specifics, a powerful presence suddenly descended upon them.

"YOU! Did you really believe that you could get away with stealing the energy of this domain! Return it right this instance!"

Evelyn looked up to see the normally relaxed vestige of the Verdant Warlord seething with rage.

Upon hearing him, she now realized what the external source of magical energy the Aethersphere had tapped into.

And seeing how pissed off the domain’s keeper was, there was no doubt that her divine item had helped itself to a lot of power.