An hour passed.
For that entire hour, I continued moving through the Soul Sea, repeatedly using Echo Reversion to leap from one previously visited location to another. Each jump carried me enormous distances, but every transition consumed a tremendous amount of Soul Force. I compensated for the expenditure almost immediately by continuing to refine the black ocean within the Dawn Core.
By the time the hour had passed, nearly five percent of the ocean had been processed.
The countless souls contained within that portion had already been completely refined, their remaining Soul Force separated from the black substance and gathered within my Dawn Core. I deliberately kept that energy there rather than allowing it to enter my Soul Sea, leaving it suspended around me as a vast white mist that grew denser with every cycle of teleportation and consumption.
Yet as the distance between me and the Prime Territory continued shrinking, another problem began occupying my thoughts.
