ONLINE: Blades of Eternity-Chapter 321: OUTBURST OF QIS AND MANAS

The mouth of the Nullcarver's cave roared open before them, a void breathing death. Kaelen stood at the front,his Blade of Eternity already parted ways with its sheathe, its obsidian edge lined with streaks of shimmering sapphire energy pulsing from the core. Behind him, Kelvin spun his Scythe of the Abyss once, its blade trailing wisps of dense black Qi like spilled ink devouring light. Eirana, three-foot-long silver sword resting against her shoulder, exhaled once. Her expression was steel—no fear, only the sharpness of intent.

From within, the Mist Creatures poured forth.

Half-solid, half-vapor, the beasts were twisted abominations—spine-limbed, chitin-jawed, eye-glowing wraiths formed from raw chaos. Their forms shivered with a primal hunger, fixated on the presence of Pandora within Kaelen.

"Here they come," Kelvin said calmly, even as one beast leapt into the air.

Kaelen surged forward, his Qi blazing to life beneath his skin, golden veins webbing through his arms. He vanished—a streak of light—and reappeared above the creature in mid-air.

SLASH!

The Blade of Eternity howled as it split the creature diagonally in half, the remains evaporating into wisps of fading mist.

Another beast lunged for Eirana from the side. She stepped low, dragged her blade in a flat arc, and carved through its midsection in one motion—precise, surgical, merciless.

Behind her, Kelvin spun his scythe once, then leapt high and slammed it down with a massive arc, generating a shockwave of pure Qi. The ground cracked beneath the force, five creatures crushed and evaporated at once.

The cave pulsed.

Still more monsters surged from the shadows. They screeched and bellowed as they lunged toward Kaelen. He moved like a phantom—sidestepping, ducking, twisting—each movement channeling Qi through his muscles. He struck at impossible angles, his blade forming trails of molten sapphire light.

Kelvin was a storm—his movements wide, devastating, feral. He began using his legs more, planting Qi into the soles of his feet to cause ripples across the cave floor that upended beasts in waves.

Eirana kept behind them, her footwork tight and her strikes efficient. Her Qi crackled faintly with silver sparks as she flowed from stance to stance. She lacked their explosive power—but her lethal elegance made up for it.

But the beasts were endless. With every corridor they passed, more surged from the stonework like infected shadows.

Then—Kaelen stumbled slightly. His heart raced. His senses flared.

"…My mana," he whispered.

Inside his core, a deep rumble echoed. The sealed force of Pandora stirred—and with it, his liquid blue mana of eternity surged through his veins like cold fire. It didn't burn—it flooded him, drowning his muscles in divine power.

Just meters away, Kelvin gasped as black tendrils coiled up his arms and around his shoulders. His abyssal liquid mana returned—cold, unfeeling, hungry—but utterly loyal to its master.

"Kaelen," Kelvin said, grinning. "Let's end this."

They moved.

No longer bound by Qi alone, the two unleashed mana-enhanced Qi strikes—Kaelen's blade now radiated a tidal glow with each swing, causing wide arcs of pressurized mana to slice down entire waves of enemies. With one hand, he summoned Eternal Pillars—towers of freezing blue mana erupting from the cave floor, skewering anything in their way.

Kelvin? He became a void storm. Every swing of his scythe ripped through dozens, black mana spiraling in vortexes that imploded the air itself. He summoned shadows from the abyss that latched onto the beasts, tearing them apart mid-air.

They moved faster than Eirana could see—dashing up walls, flipping through the air, warping short distances with bursts of mana-enhanced speed.

She tried to keep up, but—

They were twice her pace now. No—thrice. The mist couldn't even touch them anymore. They carved through it like twin gods of war made flesh.

She halted at a high ridge inside the widening corridor of the cave, panting. Her silver blade was still soaked in steaming mist blood. And yet, she couldn't take her eyes off them.

"…Monsters," she whispered. Not in fear. In awe.

"Those aren't boys anymore. They're becoming something else entirely…"

And deep within the cave, as Kaelen and Kelvin sliced through the last of the horde in their path, the mist began to grow thicker, darker, and a deep, guttural breath echoed from the chamber ahead.

Something ancient… was waiting.

The air deep inside the cavern was suffocating.

Thicker. Colder. Hungrier.

After an untrackable number of minutes that went by.....

Kaelen, Kelvin, and Eirana stepped cautiously into the widening tunnel that arched into a vast chasm, the gateway to the Nullcarvers' sacred settlement. But what greeted them wasn't salvation. It was an army.

Dozens—no—hundreds of mist creatures prowled and hissed at the threshold of the Nullcarvers' dwellings. But these were not the twisted, half-formed beasts they'd faced before.

These were colossal, mutated monstrosities. Some bore three heads, others had limbs like coiled steel cables. Their forms shimmered with deep purple veins, their bodies entirely made from solidified mist and bone-like armor. Razor tails, massive claws, glowing maws—they were war beasts born from ancient nightmares.

They all turned when Kaelen and the others stepped into the threshold.

And then—the entire horde charged. Since they could all feel the presence of the Pandora in Kaelen.

The roar of the beasts was deafening, shaking dust and stone from the cavern ceiling.

But Kaelen didn't even blink.

He stepped forward, lowered his center of gravity, and snapped his wrist, summoning the Blade of Eternity into his grip. The weapon flared with blue fire, the ambient mana around him pulled into the blade like water to a storm.

Beside him, Kelvin dragged his Scythe of the Abyss across the stone floor, releasing a rumble like distant thunder. Black fog seeped out of the scythe's edges, wrapping around his arms, whispering hunger.

And Eirana, now coated in a second skin of Qi, raised her silver sword and assumed a low, stable stance with the help of her mastery of the first Qi Juggernaut, 'The Root of the Earth'. Her heart pounded, but her eyes were calm.

The clash began.

Kaelen moved first.

He vanished into a sapphire blur, launching himself straight into the chest of the first massive beast. His blade met flesh—and tore straight through the thing's armor like parchment, his momentum carrying him through and behind the creature before it even realized it was dead.

BOOM! Its body exploded into misty shrapnel.

Behind him, Kelvin was dancing with the void. His scythe spun around him in wide, merciless arcs—each strike devoured chunks of the incoming beasts, turning them to black dust. He unleashed phantom tendrils that launched out from the abyss itself, skewering a hulking creature to the cavern wall with a wet crunch.

Eirana held her own. Though the monsters towered over her, she moved like a wraith with the help of the help of the second Juggernaut—sliding between massive claws and jaws, her silver sword cutting along vital points, disabling, crippling, then finishing the job with clean thrusts to the core. Her Qi crackled brighter, and the precision of her strikes made even the larger creatures stumble.

But there were too many.

Seeing this, Kaelen let loose.

He drew mana from deep within his core, and the blue liquid eternity responded with a sonic howl. He raised his blade high, and slammed it down with a burst of Eternal Force—a tidal wave of condensed mana that rolled across the battlefield like a crashing tsunami.

Seven beasts were flattened, their bodies torn apart mid-lunge.

Kelvin followed with his own answer. He raised his free hand and conjured an Abyssal Maw—a massive shadowy mouth opened behind him, howling as it swallowed three of the larger mist creatures whole, compressing them into dust inside its jaws.

Eirana whirled through another strike, but paused—her eyes catching something beyond the carnage.

Two shadows.

At a high, crumbling ridge far above the battlefield, partially concealed by mist and cavern shadows, Aron and Selene stood like carved statues. They hadn't moved once since the battle started, their eyes fixed on the battlefield below.

Selene's normally confident expression was furrowed, her brows drawn tight in something dangerously close to worry.

"…That's Kaelen?" she muttered. "He wasn't even a full fledged gasified mana user when we last saw him."

Aron's jaw flexed. "He's different. More than just power. He's… untamed. Fluid. Like a storm that learned to think."

Below them, Kaelen carved through three more beasts in a single spinning strike, his body radiating both Qi and mana in harmony. Kelvin followed behind, demolishing the flank with whirlwinds of dark force. Eirana's silver Qi danced like lightning at their core.

Selene tightened her fingers into fists.

"Attacking him now would be suicide," Aron muttered. "Not even together… not in this space."

"…So what do we do?" Selene asked, her voice low.

Aron's gaze hardened as he stared down at the trio, who were now pushing through the final ranks of creatures and clearing the path into the Nullcarvers' settlement.

"We wait. We watch. And we pray…" he said quietly, "that he doesn't remember what we did."

The cliff cracked slightly beneath them—but the chaos twins remained motionless, cloaked in mist and indecision.

Below, Kaelen raised his blade one last time, driving it into the chest of the final monstrosity. As it fell apart into glowing mist, the pathway forward finally opened.

And beyond that—awaited whatever truth the Nullcarvers still held.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺