Zion sat for hours meditating, absorbing the negative mana into his body and purifying it into mana that he could use.
It was a painful and stressful task. The negative mana clashed with his own, causing internal injuries that almost resulted in mana backlash.
The negative mana didn't want to be purified; it wanted to run wild, corrupt, and destroy anything that wasn't like it, and it caused Zion a lot of pain.
Aryah wasn't having a better time either. As a being of mana, doing something reckless, such as absorbing negative mana, was like a death sentence to them if they weren't able to get the power under control.
Thankfully, for both of them, the holy power that resided in their bodies allowed them to handle the negative mana a lot better than normal, but that wasn't saying much considering it was still a type of energy that shouldn't exist simultaneously with regular mana.
