Chapter 128- The Power Of A Remalon (Patreon)

Niya, Cameron, and Olive stood back to back amidst a sea of writhing beasts. For each strike they threw, a dozen landed on their new armor. It was all they could do to keep claws and fangs from their faces. Their efforts were more than enough, as their new armor easily repelled even the strongest tier four blows. They were drastically slowed from the awkwardness of their aura training, but their bodies were all tier five and significantly sturdier than the beasts railing against them. What few attacks made it past their raised arms and armor, met impenetrable skin reinforced by condensed aura that writhed in knots just beneath the surface.

Mayalyn was an obscured whirlwind of death as she tore through the ranks of beasts all around them. She killed so quickly, the pawns had no chance to pile atop the party. A maniacal grin stretched her face as she cackled, reveling in the carnage wrought by her new skill. Blood-stained teeth glinted dully in the early noon light as her gore-covered form exploded through one Graymin after another. Though her laughter failed to instill fear in their foes, it certainly managed to send shivers down the spines of her friends.

“Will you please cut that out? You’re creeping me out!” Niya shouted above the banging and scratching of her armor deflecting blow after blow. “Olive, she’s not stopping, tell her to stop! She likes you, right?” Olive didn’t respond, her brows drawn as she calmly focused on her training.

Cameron wound up a heavy punch, unleashing it to hit only air as the beast he was aiming for ducked before launching itself into his stomach and nearly sending him tumbling into the group. Mayalyn was there, cutting the beast in half with a single swipe of lightning and metal-enhanced claws. For a single moment, he looked up into her slitted eyes, seeing only a reaper come to claim his soul. He knew in his bones she was realizing how easily she could cut him in two as well, and then she laughed in his face and took off again.

Cameron breathed a sigh of relief as she left before Jiran shouted from right next to him, causing him to flinch. “Cameron! Stop trying to hit them and hit them!”

"Not helping! And do something about your girlfriend, she’s freaking crazy, man."

Jiran weaved himself fully inside their formation, a goofy grin on his face, “Yeah, she’s great, isn't she?” He turned serious as he swept his gaze across the three struggling tier fives, "C’mon, you can do this. Ignore the distractions, don't think, don't even feel. And especially don’t cheat by using your skills. This is all about the body and aura."

"You’re spouting off random slop-poss, aren’t you? Leave us alone so we can concentrate." Niya grumbled, barely managing to connect with a kick that knocked a Graymin into five others, sending them all flying backward only to instantly be replaced by a dozen more.

“No, I’m serious. You’re pushing too hard and thinking way too much. You shouldn't even be able to talk. Shut down everything but movement. Your body and aura as one. While you’re doing that, I have some theories to test. I’ll stay in sight, shoot a flare if you need me.”

“Jiran, wait, please,” Olive spoke softly, seemingly on the verge of tears. “I don’t understand. I’m trying so hard but nothing works.”

He pursed his lips while thinking up another way to explain what they needed to do. “Have you ever played a physical game, like Riker’s Toss?”

She stopped moving for a second with her head tilted. “Sure, we played a lot of Rottersgail at the—ahem, I mean while growing up, why?”

“Did you ever lose yourself in the game, all worries and thoughts vanishing as you simply moved with pure focus? Like your body knew what to do before your brain did, and you simply leaped to the tune of your need?”

“Maybe? I sort of remember losing myself in the game a few times and only realizing how much fun I was having after the match ended.”

“Great! Then you’ve got this. Do that, but with your aura. Good luck!” Jiran’s aura shrank into his skin. Mana, aura, and muscle combined in perfect harmony toward a single goal: Movement. He vanished from their sight, moving so quickly the world distorted. He appeared a moment later, two hundred meters away. After a slight delay, an explosion of sound cracked the air and hundreds of Graymin along his path were blown from their feet.

That was way faster than before. With mana spread evenly through my body, basically turning every motion into Forcing, and my stronger aura, it makes sense my Oneness would improve. That tier seven would have a hard time keeping up with me now.

Anyway, this should be enough distance. First, I’ll figure out if my mana is any stronger. My concentration is the same, so I doubt it. With triple the mana, one percent is my old three percent. I’ll start there.

Jiran’s aura kept the nearby Graymin at bay as he pulled one percent of his mana outside his body. He took a brief moment to appreciate that he could easily manipulate and control his mana even while it was outside his body. Before, it needed to be attached to his manapool with a coating. The freedom of movement with his mana opened up many possibilities for new ways to create his spells and he couldn’t wait to get started.

He converted that one percent of his mana to fire with Elemental Castigation, an image of molecules vibrating at incredible speeds fueling the transformation. A raging bonfire the size of a large manor exploded away from him, its heat not reaching his skin through the natural layer of mana that always infused it. The beasts around him did not fare nearly so well. Like smith-sticks in a kiln, their bodies spontaneously ignited from the fierce heat. Even the beasts far away from his flame suffered a similar fate, dying in fire without ever having a chance to defend themselves or escape.

Seems about equivalent. No need to be wasteful.

Enthralling Touch converted the last of the elemental fire back into unaspected mana and then reclaimed it, restoring two thirds of what was spent.

I seriously love that skill. Okay, second test. I don’t have channels anymore but that shouldn’t stop this from working. It’s always been about control and speed. I just need to do what I did before, minus the channels.

A little over one and a half percent of his mana began circling inside his chest. The mana ignored his corporeal form, swimming through organs, muscles, and bones with equal ease. Faster and faster the mana spun until the vibrations within him rumbled with a heavy buzz. Once more, he converted the mana to fire before compacting the swiftly-flowing element until it was nearly unstable. His palm extended and a raging river of heat leaped down his arm to blast from his skin. A three-meter-thick beam of incinerating particles tore through any Graymin lucky enough to be in their path; while those unlucky enough to be at its sides experienced a slower death.

Good to know I never have to make those channels again. Power seems exactly the same for the mana spent. But I can do more, so much more, and there’s no reason to constrain myself like that.

The same amount of mana was pulled from his body with Mana Confluence to form another circle of spinning energy. Elemental Castigation turned the mana into a whizzing chakram of deadly fire that blazed near his left shoulder. A second later, another circle of purest ice was formed on his right. Lightning and metal joined the mix, one before each outstretched hand. Almost instantly, the elements within reached their maximum speed and compression. Any more, and he would lose control of the energy as its rotational force pulled it apart.

Each lobe of his brain was dedicated to a single element, leaving the final fifth of his brain's functions to direct his attacks. A beam of ice lanced across the battlefield. All along its length, frozen spears jutted into nearby Graymin, ending them as surely as those trapped within the central tube of frost. A second later, lightning arced through the horde in a different direction. The energy spent itself in crackling lines that jumped through beasts one after another, leaving behind blackened and cooked corpses.

His third and fourth fully-charged attacks spun around him in a five-meter-wide-circle—the furthest distance from his body he could control his mana. Both chakrams were an instant death sentence for any pawn within their reach, slicing through their bodies with laughable ease. He loosened his aura, letting the beasts flood into range and clinically observed his creations mutilate their forms.

Satisfied with the close range test, he released the elemental metal, launching trillions of metallic particles two kilometers before their momentum was spent. Jiran’s focus had moved on before the attack was completed as he charged two new chakrams of lightning, each forming and ready to release within a single second. He dragged his arm to the side, unleashing beam after beam upon the horde as quickly as he could form them. Each one arced away from him less than a second after the previous in a constant cycle of creation and release that ate through his mana.

Excellent, but I'm still missing something. Ahh, yes. Of course. I can only spin them so fast while compressed. Further condensing of the element beyond twenty percent always caused them to become unstable at such high speed. I never wanted to risk seeing what would happen if I squeezed an element as hard as I could while it was inside my channels, but now I don’t have to!

He brought his hands close together, fingers splayed out as Elemental Castigation formed a ball of gravity. The inky black energy wanted to suck in everything around it but Jiran held it back with pure intent, not allowing it to spend an ounce of its power before he unleashed it. His ability to compress elements with Elemental Castigation was put to the test, forty three levels in the skill shrinking it the size of his fist, but he knew he could do more.

He pushed on the outside of the ball with a thick layer of Mana Confluence. Veins popped from his arms and neck as a bellow laced with mana poured from his mouth. The ball compressed further and further as he strained against it with all his will.  At once, the tension vanished as the ball of gravity shrunk to the size of a marble and stabilized.

Jiran stumbled forward from the sudden change in pressure and weight, catching himself before accidentally dropping it. Mana Omnis revealed the mesmerizing details of his newest creation; a swirling cosmos of gravitic forces trapped by a hard, smooth layer of ultra-compacted mana. Jiran strained his muscles to bring the beautiful bead closer to his eyes and foresight blared a warning of impending doom. He released a dry chuckle as sweat instantly soaked his forehead.

“Don’t blow up until I throw you, kay?” Not waiting for a response, Jiran hucked the heavy marble as hard as he could. As it flew far over the heads of the unwitting beasts, Jiran turned and fled back toward his friends. The moment he landed between them and whatever was about to happen, his aura firmed and Elemental Castigation created multiple thick walls of frozen rock that sprang from the ground.

“Jiran, what’s—” Mayalyn never finished her question as catatonic forces erupted in the distance. The others couldn’t see through his layers of protection. But they did experience the wind whipping into a frenzy as atmosphere was sucked into the gaping hole created in the battlefield. Mana Omnis revealed the truth to his eyes alone. An orb of inky blackness, a hundred meters in diameter, flashed into existence before vanishing a moment later. Nothing remained within that space: Air, soil, plants, and Graymin, all gone in a fraction of a second.

Jiran whistled, impressed by his new toy, “Not bad for five perce—” Jiran’s aplomb-filled statement was cut short as a horrendous detonation of compacted matter shattered five of his seven walls. After the blast wave knocked them all to the ground, torrential winds tore up the ground and crashed against the city's wards. The displaced pressure popped eardrums, so fierce it dazed them momentarily. Jiran raised his head with wide eyes to see the crater was now nearly five hundred meters wide and most of the horde on the west side of the wall had been killed from the blast.

Snakes of mana leaped from his skin to latch onto his friends, a round of regenerative energy flowing through them. They stood as one, blinking away the dirt in their eyes. Realizing that metric tons of matter was about to start raining from the sky, Jiran formed a dome of metal around them, trapping them in darkness.

“Jiran,” Niya growled, her eyes narrowed in annoyance as she spoke slowly, “What did you do?”

“Me? Nothing? I just threw a little mana at them,” Mayalyn leaned into his side, giving him a quick, bloody hug followed by a knowing chuckle.

“Please, tell us. That last explosion was amazing! And we all saw those lances of light, too! They were so much stronger and faster than what you used in the Outlands. How did you do that? I have to know, Pleeeease?” Olive’s hands clasped in front of her chin as her eyes turned to pools of cerulean crystal that matched her pleading pout.

Niya stepped forward with squinted eyes, standing between him and Olive, “Don’t listen to her. I know you were doing something reckless again! You could have killed us, or yourself! Why do you always have to push things so far?”

Jiran could barely keep the grin from his face as he held two fingers close together, “It was just a bit of mana, it was only this big! I swear.” Cameron’s hand came out of nowhere, smacking Jiran on the back of the head before he could even perceive the movement, let alone dodge it.

Cameron looked down at his palm in disbelief for a second before his aura blasted out of his body to rage around them with newfound strength. “Oh, that’s what you meant by moving without thinking. Neat.”