The first hour was the hardest, and then every hour after it was the hardest, because the star kept giving him more to survive.
Damian moved toward it in increments. He would push forward until his body could take no more, until his skin had burned away and his muscles had cooked and his bones had begun to glow with the heat pressing into them, and then he would speak.
"Persevere."
The Letter answered, and his ruined body knit itself back together, and in the instant of healing, dense pure mana and rivers of THE Primordial Source poured into him to fill what had been destroyed. He came back not as he had been but as something slightly more than he had been, the healing always overshooting, always rebuilding him with a little more than the damage had taken.
"Exelissomai."
The second Letter answered, and his existence shifted, evolving against the thing that was trying to unmake it.
Then he pushed forward again, into worse heat, and the cycle repeated!
