Chapter 2 - Exhaustion

 

26 left.

I could see the flock clearly shaken for some reason, i had no time to sit in the air. I had to go after them before they fire more!

 Piece of shit.. I procured my landing with the help of my wings. It seems they were keeping up on their hit and run tactic.

The soil under me fizzes out, turning the fine grains below me into molten rock, the organic compound burned at a fast rate beneath my foot.

「 Solar Winds 」

An orange light induces my entire frame, just a tinge of solar energy captivating a boost in my speed. 

I just had to be a bit faster!

I wasted no time tracking down the flock from their distance, however i wasn’t planning on chasing them from ground, i raised my knee and after correcting it from position, with a bit of exerting my legs.

I stomped into the rock, the sole of my foot deeply stuck itself into the crater, as i stood from my toes tipping up. I kicked myself up from the ground, forming a massive dent in the earth, fissures were bursting out from a large point creating what looked like a cobweb on the earth’s manifold. 

Charges of electrical affinity assaulted me from several directions that i had no issue in dodging. My wings tugged itself around,  hugging itself around my body as i twisted myself, spinning rapidly in motion into somersaulting.

I was able to make a lot of maneuvers in the air, the movement itself made familiar, i felt like i was already used to this. There was no describing it, but in a simple term, it felt like i’d been doing this for years.. Was it from one of my skills?

Generally i felt no uncertainty that these limbs were my own, but it felt weird being able to do stunts out of nowhere, there were no thoughts behind each of my move, simply guided by reflex.

The instinctual sensation dampened any line of my thoughts from procuring, which helped me relax. It felt a bit unreal to watch myself move like this, there was no distress in it. More so, it felt illusory to witness, the feeling could only be described as if i was a feather swaying in the air, my entire body was free flowing in the air.

Each limb worked in perfect coordination to the movements i made, my body itself appalled to the air currents, the stimuli resonated with my body creating impossibly refined movement that made it easier to dodge the electric currents sighting me from behind.

My entire movement revolted against my thoughts, it was keen on following my reflexes but it helped me focus on making efficient manuevers, adjusting to the bolts that behaved in a random manner fired off linearly at the spot i was in.

 I became aware of their relative position, cues showing their depth and displacement to sort out, it made me feel extremely perceptive on the space surrounding me.

 My wings felt graceful in the air as it glided with no resistance. Thanks to the stimulus, i was able to easily grasp where i would be able to avoid hits.

The gaps where i could move into made present in my own, it felt somewhat obscure but i was able to read it, my movements went entirely off reflex. I don’t wanna think more over it, readings of large amounts of energy came into my head, the location made itself distinct.

My instincts were following along the sensations, i felt there was a point extending, indicating where the attack would go, Right.

Thunder magic assaulted me from my right, i flew opposite before i went to the exact displacement it was telling me to avoid, sidetracking the attack made it go ahead of me, it went past the distance with nothing in its path. 

The spells were fired off to an arbitrary target area, which means if means if i was making a hunch i wasn’t wrong. That hawk was clearly trying to predict where i would go, something didn’t feel right about it but i chose to ignore. The sensation felt exact, it illustrated itself like an axiom, one imaginary line segmented between two points, no more. 

There was a distinct feeling of the frequency which acted as an indicator of how much energy was imminent. Spasms of electrical charges buzzed into the atmosphere, i was able to dodge the attacks moreso, i had to start pacing myself, faster.

「 Laevateinn 」, a fiercely large explosion coated itself around my feet, hastingly propelling myself in a flash, the distance was shortened between me and the hawk i was flying face-front to.

「 Kanna「 High Tension Blade 」 Kamui 」.

A deep incision directly ran along the body of the hawk, a high diagonal cut dipped itself cleanly, the slit went over the entire side dividing the bird into two perfectly lopped halves.

The angle itself was perfect, no deformities diffused from friction were presented onto the surface. The cut segmented itself, insinuating across its torso, coming off itself like a fault block converging on a slip.

25..

 

My feet were feeling a bit unhinged, both of my ankles were likely busted, totally not from casting the spell point blank, luckily i was able to lower its intensity. Just my feet were looking a bit charred.

Well atleast it only looked a bit burnt, i didn’t feel any heat clinging onto it, it wasn’t heat faint traces of thunder magic were clinging itself to my badly openly exposed ankle bone. Zap.

Ugh.. piece of shit, it still managed to land one on me. I flew from the distance where a heavy thunder was about to weigh itself to me, a loud roaring sound came to my ears. I finessed myself into fitting through the gaps in the lightning making its way to me.

The bolts felt more focused compared to earlier, they were getter better at controlling the electrical charges, electrons were distributed at a fine point, there wasn’t going to be the same large scale attack this time.

「 Kanna Kamui 」

The lightning was quick, a lot faster, the bolt hoisted itself from sharply tensed spot, the spell miniaturizing eas something i didn’t expect. It spewed out like a thin thread, forked patterns of lightning came through the air heavily denser from before.. I could feel twice, no quadruple the amount of energy it had in comparison. 

The spell condensed itself to a fine point of making a thinly stringed bolt of plasma, it spewed out a singular point of lightning that formed a sine wave along its trajectory.

The ground melted from that singular point, it sinked low, possibly even going deep beneath the crust. Remnants of the rumbling continued to buzz into my ears,  several if not many came charging into my view, the vicinity was littered by a thick compounded electrical affinity, the same attack earlier. 「 Unstable Dive 」

I made quick maneuvers, the spell helped me make swift acrobatic somersaults as i went through the gaps confined within the attacks. 

Attempting to make contact them was was not the best idea. As i tried to absorb the short-lived bursts of electrical charges, the plasma recoiled within.

My fingertips swelled with a vibrant orange glow, it looked entirely like molten glass. Heat nullification was pushed in extremely conditions as it tried to resist the temperature diffracted from the course of lightning.

Kuh- , IT FUCKING BURNS! I was not enjoying things right now, this was an exact familiar feeling, a red hot liquid seeped into my nerves, my blood vessels exploded into a messy gore, internally releasing blood inside my hand. 

 

It looked severely, if not completely bruised. My forearm extending to my wrist was coated in a dark-blue purplish pigmentation. Blood gushed out of my fingertips, I had an exposed artery poking out of my wrist, my nerves were overwhelmed speaking right now as i stood fixed in the air.

Hnngh.. m-move, get out! I was able to override my senses, i pulled through my wings flapping, i was still being overstimulated by the pain pulsating in my nodes.

The plasma recoiling within my body remained remnant on its own, right now i couldn’t use energy absorption, i had to wait for the energy to disperse first.

Ontop of that it wasn’t regenerating for fucks sake. The numbness went over my limbs, all of them were stimulated to the bone. At least, my wings were still working, perfectly fine, and everything else wasn’t. My body slumped itself in mid-air, i couldn’t really see and now all i could do for now was relay on my senses, my wings for my movement. 

There was a dangerous amount of those bolts coming after me, calm down.. I had to get my shit straight if i wanted to get over this, i just wanted to lay down right now.

They bolts assaulting me were too densely compacted for me to absorb, i wouldn’t be wrong if a single touch was gonna kill me, other than that i had no issue at dodging them.

I was able to feel it before the attack was launched at me due to how finely compressed the spell was, so technically there was no issue at detecting it.

I found no ways to counterattack, as i was being pushed back by the condensed spells casted in tandem.

The hawks fiercely put themselves up against me, looking a little too vigorously, they completely gave off the looks of someone absolutely bloodthirsty to kill, and they were gawking as loud as fuck.

I don’t think they liked me.  「 High Tension Blade 」.. ! It didn’t work. I knew i couldn’t just keep evading but, my spells were being cancelled out by the bolts, i couldn’t concentrate. Death was imminent from a single point of contact, almost no resistance came off what i cast was made as dense beams of lightning showered me from the distance. I’ll just have to close in once!

「 Laevateinn 」「 High Tension Blade 」, i made my way to one of the hawks as i was ready to cut it in half, the potential energy surrounding my blade was knocked away by its attack.

What.. The hell? No matter how much i swung my blade it was deflected into an alternative trajectory into cutting nothing, move! More of the charges assaulted me as i went up, rows of dangerously amped up thunder magic were launched at my disposition.

They were smarter than they seemed, no matter how you see it this wasn’t something normal. The timing was made perfect for deflecting my swings into being led to a misdirection, magic beasts weren't known to be practically intelligent, they also weren’t capable of something like this earlier.

Something wasn’t feeling right here. I shot out a beam of concentrated solar energy to a different hawk. It was able to dodge it flawlessly, delivering a counter-attack attuned from its mouth. 「 Ekato Keraunos 」, it took a hinge of effort to dodge it, still something was telling me, these weren’t just normal magical beasts!

I used my appraisal..

… 

I don’t know how i didn’t notice earlier but, each one of them were named magical beasts, just like the steel bear from earlier, no wonder why they were so tough.

「 Storm Hawk, Fierce Thunder Biri 」「 Thunder Bird, Roaring Thunder Raijin Naru 」「 Storm Hawk, Fleeting Thunder Nari 」… The list went on.

The whole flock was consistent of named beasts, they were capable, varying from their titles, they had something specializing themselves in.

Oi.. ! This was unreal, weren’t named beasts supposed to be rare.. Well explain this?! The flock had a large number of named ones in it, to say the least, All of them were named magical beasts.

The group of avians deviated from their previous attempt at attacking me, they were enthralled to get my ass. What were they so infatuated anyway to begin with?

I never really attacked them on my own, more like they came after where i was at, the flock didn’t seem like they were running away from anything, instead completely ravaging the entire environment, the trees were charred from a point beyond recognition, their stems remained stagnant as the heat of the burns sunk deep into trunk.

Any of the lightning i dodged went astray, hitting either a tree in the line or the ground. They were ferociously damaging the surrounding area, almost as if they were berserk. If i were to guess, from a lead.

I noticed earlier, a large buildup of mana was present in the region i was in, it only gradually increased as i went deeper into it. Although it was practically dense, it built up around me as if i was in the eye of a hurricane.

Maybe they noticed me from my mana signature? I had a frick ton of mana after all. Concealing it should be a nice thing to practice later.

Right now i was pretty fucked. Prithee, a whole flock of 25. Storm hawks, Thunder birds were encircling me from above, named too. I didn’t know that was a thunder bird. Unless i figure out a way to disrupt the spells, i had no chance of going on the attack. Each spell i launched was easily intercepted, i don’t know maybe fire was weak against Lightning?  

I had a few ideas in mind, i was eager to try them earlier on but it proved too risky since it wasn’t perfectly content as efficient, but i had to try now.

What if i do this? 「 Creeping Sun 」i charged up one of my solar magic spells in a blind spot from one of the hawks, no chance. They immediately eliminated it before the spell had the chance of being fully cast.

I kept trying out a variety of my ideas, none of them worked. 「 High Tension Blade 」「 Energy Absorption 」an eerie feeling came to my senses.

The spells were resonating with each other! The glow around my sword hyperheated itself to a degree where it shone as bright as a star.

「 Kanna Kamui  」.  Another condensed spell of Thunder Magic rushed at me, i moved to my sides, the attack touched a slight bit of my edge, i felt some of the energy being transmitted into my body .. ?

Another spell came at me. I confidently stood my position, the electrical currents were absorbed into the light of the blade, none of the traces remained present. My blade was capable of absorbing it!

A few more of the attacks adjacent to eachother came rushing at me, i went on a frenzy of cutting the fervid bolts of plasma as i closed in.

「 Energy Release 」

A pulse of highly condensed mana came in the form of slice through the air, a large horizontal flying slice striker at the wyverns, sadly missing.

That.. that’s nice. Wish i found out earlier, I was able to mix energy absorption into my spells! It didn’t end there, i was aware it wasn’t just the energy coming off Thunder magic i was absorbing. Simply put, i could absorb anything, i just always put the skill into a focused degree of absorbing specifically, what i wanted to take in. 

Particles in the air were absorbed along the spells coming at me vigorously, i was capable of absorbing anything as long as it came into touch with the spell overlaying the edge of my blade.

Sadly, there’s still a technical limit to how much i could store, which makes sense to why my forefingers were immediately pelted into dust fragments, it would end up just as bad but that was as long as i didn’t abuse the limit itself.

 There was a lot of potential use for Energy Absorption, and right now i was definitely just scratching the surface of how what else? There was clearly more it could provide, aside from its absorption ability, as long as said object contained energy in it, i was capable of absorbing it.

When the limit reached up to a tensile point in its storage capacity, i would effectively release it, all i needed was a medium, several would work also.

This was ridiculously op. Technically mana itself could be considered a form of energy on its own, i’ll need to learn more later. I’ll figure that out later. I flew higher into altitude, all the nearby electrical charges dissolved into the atmosphere, into me. 

「 Creeping Sun 」「 Energy Absorption 」

Everything within the vicinity propagated gravitationally into the miniature star. 

The first time i used this skill, it leaked more mana than it did to absorb, during the fight i learned that. But what i didn’t know, was that i wasn’t using it properly.

「 Energy Release 」

A burst of kinetic energy knocked away everything from an area of effect, the hawks were ended up flying 50 meters displaced from their positions across the air.

Wasn’t this too overpowered for an ability? I knew divine swords were powerful but, ‘every power had a great cost to it.’ Atleast from what i heard! I couldn’t confirm what was deducted out of me, there were almost no downsides to using the sword itself.

I technically was infinitely cycling through energy sources, allowing me to refuel my mana at any moment given, all i had to do was take it from the overwhelming density of it surrounding the atmosphere. 「 Nuclear Visor 」¹ 「 Energy Absorption 」

A familiar blue pulsating barrier was emitted into the air, a shield of highly condensed plasma and neutrons, burning everything that came into contact from a single touch. Or not? Using energy absorption along with the spell changed that, the shield was constantly absorbing everything within the environment.

The hawks attacks were seen hopelessly bouncing off, the crackling lightning came to an end, fizzing out from contact with the barrier. I was making a constant use of energy absorption, my mana was being reduced in ginormous amounts. The buzzing sounds faded to thin air, before they could reach my hearing.

Sound mediums were absorbed into the shield, transmission waves condensate into a pure form of energy encasing around the barrier around me.

My over-conduction of mana was beginning to peel layers of my skin off, shallow traces of mana went leaking out of my open wounds, every cell housing my body was being disoriented by uncontrollable dangerous foreign energies, annoying. I was much making too much use of the skill, the mana i absorbed technically wasn’t mine so there wasn’t really a way to manage it in any other way.

The energy was kept still by faint layer of my own mana, likely keeping it from causing any other arm, but it didn’t keep bound. Small bits of the mana went exiting out of my skin like a photon shooting into the distance, blue light was luminescent like a ray coming out of my skin.

Foreign energy deteriorating my innards, crippling me from below my skin, my muscles were tensing up from the interaction. It was a bit insuperable to do anything, oh there.

I gathered enough of it for one more use, the foreign energy i tracked was starting to seep out of my body, it began oscillating uncontrollably as i went to direct it. The skill i was managing began to supercharge itself with the foreign mana, mixed in with mine as well.

 A field of sharply tuned energy swelled itself around me. All the mana in the air was being distributed and brought together to its developing growth, the vicinity was clear of everything as it was absorbed for fuel. Energies, small particles contained were spinning in a free axis, and there was a sudden stop.

Kinetic energy came to a halt, there was no light, frequencies of wavelengths were being dissolved as everything came colliding with the thick aura developing me. My mp was getting reaa.. lly low..

「 Energy Release」

A piercing wave of photons tears through the air, everything. Forming a pit. The pit grew gradually in size, engulfing everything within to be crushed, deformed to shape, caved in to the pit itself. 

The wave was chipping off the entire environment around me, even at the epicenter i could feel layers of my skin peeling at the intensity. Muscle fibres were being torn apart into shreds internally. It was hurting me, but i didn't care, work.. 

The wave of energy made a complete stop the movements of the hawks, their body was being ripped apart by the potent release of energy, their beaks were fragmented into shards, pieces flew around everywhere, bones were grinded into fine particles. The entire area was whirling with a terrifying magnitude to it. The hawks began to flee, but it was futile. 

The fast-approaching burst of energy soon caught up, turning into a mound of gore, blood was splattered to the air, no not liquid, red mist scattered into the vicinity it was largely visible around the perimeter, it reached to the other side of the flock, more than half of them were wiped out in totality.

Before i knew it, the sword returned to its original form as the rod cannon.

Apparently, it was already empty..? 13000 points of mana were ejected out of the blade just like that. It wasn't one of my attacks earlier against the hawks, probably that city sized sun i produced earlier. I needed to be more careful with how much mp i use up, for god's sake i almost got killed.

I let out a sigh, uu.. Yeah i used up way too much mana. I'll note that for sure, i wasn't ready if my everyday situation was gonna be like this. I had to be more efficient with how it should be used.

I looked over my stats again, it seems i gained lightning resistance from getting struck that many times, i’m not surprised, the skill rose up atleast 6 times.

Thunder magic hurt like a b i t c h. I was lucky enough to absorb most of the lightning coming in contact with me before it could start procuring its effects.

Getting struck by it felt like i was helpless, if it weren’t for energy absorption i don’t know what else i could’ve done. Not to mention, my reserves were a little smaller in comparison from a week ago, significantly smaller. The mana circulating in me was dense, as thing as a pole but formless in length, i could tell there was a difference.

a huge chunk of my hp was gone, i was left in the two digits, same for my mana reserves.

I was feeling kind of tired.. ?

 

.. 

 

 

 

…

 

 

 

 

It was unbearable.. Overwhelming sensation.. All at once, a flock of birds were chewing on my guts, my regeneration healed all the minor wounds, tissues began rebuilding themselves, my organs were once again there. I didn’t know how to disable it.. just let me die. Please!

The whole sensation distilled itself, i felt like time was being dilated, my body remained in a constant, what felt like an eternity of torture, i couldn’t imagine an eternity, i wasn’t exact, i didn’t wanna know. How much time has passed?

I was pecked on, my flesh was being chewed into, my stomach acids were openly being pucked, leaking in the wrong directions. My mindscape riveted into my consciousness, i was barely keeping myself awake at this, i just wanna rest.. tired. 

 

…

Nn.. !

“UaAahHh.. !!” I looked around me in a panic, i was breathing as heavily as i could. My heart was palpitating, in a constant, i was worried over nothing.  J.. just a dream.. 

I felt like shit, A numbing sensation littered over my entirety, what i disgustingly felt in the dream felt almost real, too real. It didn’t take long before i was able to calm myself down. I was gonna get through all of this… Yes..

I clearly wasn’t safe here, but i had no chance of knowing where else to go. Where the hell was i supposed to head to anyway? I wasn’t so constantly always worrying about where i was, plagued by an intense thought. I probably wasn’t wrong, i’m definitely inside raydoss, one of its territories? I wasn’t safe.

 I’d be fucked over if i just stay here. Assuming they don’t discover someone like me, casually wandering around here, even districtly, couldn’t i just fly over to another continent? Not possible, assuming my stamina would hold up for that long. I technically had my own means of restoring it.  By somewhat convenient means.

Energy absorption wasn’t only specialized in absorbing things, but to also add up to its broken degree, it could infuse said energy, convert it into something else like mana, making it possible to restore even stamina.

The ambient mana here was extremely dense, absorbing a small portion was able to restore one tenths of my total mana from earlier.

I was able to make a quick recovery in only one day, already in perfect condition so i don’t see any issue in doing that, assuming i dont get lost in the middle of the ocean? I couldn’t even see the edge of this region yet.

Not to mention, my clothes were left in tatters. I’m a bit surprised it managed to withstood the explosion, The long-sleeved shirt i had was reduced to a short sleeved garment that had holes poking out of the shirt, with a burn mark edged around it.

My shorts remained untouched, just a little bit of fire caught on it. I couldn’t say the same about the cloak though.

My cloak was severely damaged. The loose garment itself was left with the hem hanging at my neck, only the hood practically remained intact.

I had nothing proper to cover myself up with as of right now. Screw those birds!

The materials i procured were nowhere, since i didn’t even bother marking the pathway i went, it should help to tell. I wasn’t sure or not if i was going in a loop eitherway, i was contemplating it.

I leaked small traces of mana into the air that anchored itself to a fixed position, it was in small amounts but i should be able to recognize it from my signature.

Using energy absorption, i was able to extensively able to manipulate the mana littering the air, it greatly helped in replenishing my energy.

Although i mentioned earlier, while i had limits to how much i could store, there was nothing conditional to it that backfired! Infusion, Converting the energy allowed for a release, without any recoil i was able to safely gather up the energy for use.

Who needs a ride when you can just fly yourself to the air? Easily enough, i should be able maintain flight for possibly even an eternity if give the energy necessary.

Plus, i wouldn’t be far-fetched from thinking i could possibly be immortal, why eat when you can just absorb the energy around you! I was also immune to the decay of materials. This gave me no need for eating food, i had no issue with restoring my energy, what surrounded me was naturally sustaining me. The air, sunlight, even the ground was a source on its own.

I was wondering why i wasn’t any heat at all, i thought i pretty much had no temperature, but i was wrong. Sensing the heat in my body, i didn’t just have heat in my system, it was insanely hot.

I don’t know how my body is able to keep functioning, but it seems like the heat is being tolerated as normal.

It took me a while, but after a few days of flying i was finally able to see something new, else. A port, it was completely empty, but the docks were surrounded by boats, some of them looked kind of weird, that had cylinders installed at the back.

The bay was completely dry of life, i noticed it was damaged by something, remnants of Thunder magic was present on those parts.

Im guessing everyone went to flee the area due to that flock from back then. 

I scavenged the area a bit, a map! There were a bunch of navigational tools i could bring with me here. There was also a clothes rack for some convenient reason that nothing was hanging on it.

I guess even in emergency situations you had to bring some wear.. ? Not that it matters either way. I found my map, my current destination is.. Alessa

Its the nearest one from the bay’s location, going east should get me there in.. 1 week if i fly at full speed.. ? Its not like i know how to use a boat anyway! These weren’t row boats, they had a control panel an everything else you wouldn’t expect on a boat of all things.

Too many buttons.. hurting my head. The manual i picked up detailed way too much stuff, no way i was gonna if somehow, drive this thing. I liked flying anyways.

I had little discussions with myself while i was on my way to Alessa. Just little topics that sparked my interest, i wasn’t particularly doing much other than fly straight. A few thoughts about magic couldn’t hurt, i wanted to keep myself actively thinking.

Fire was weaker against Lightning?  Somewhat true, given the raw energy contained in lightning which had bolts of plasma, plasma being the highest energy state of matter. But fire itself was also plasma, in a somewhat transient state. ²How she knows? I have no idea.

So generally meaning that was a yes, lightning itself is entirely on phenomenal occurrence, fire itself was the effect produced by said phenomena from.

I knew for a fact somehow, magic was the use of natural phenomenas, produced by using mana as a medium. Spells were initially used as an effective way of handling magic in itself. The weakness in each elements were still present, when faced against a neutral faction, if the spells were equal in power it would just cancel each other out.

Striking a spell from a tense, weakest point would dissipate it into nothingness. Although there are some special cases to it, like from earlier.

I wonder how they’ll react to my random appearance at the border. It was all water still, i’m sure i was going the right way, the map would never lie to me right?!  Don’t jinx yourself.

I’ve been flying for atleast 3 days straight, I’m only curious on how this would end up.

…