Re: Timeless Apocalypse-Chapter 132: Elements(II)
His gaze lost focus, and his mind wandered through the sea of aether of the world.
It had been a long time since Uriel had allowed his senses to flourish and connect with aether.
The moment he opened himself to it, its endless love and affection for him came flooding in, thick clouds of milky white energy reaching out to tightly hug his body.
His body shuddered.
’...’
After undergoing his hell of memory, his perception of time had become twisted in a sense. He felt older, but he also felt incredibly young, like a fetus only just beginning to experience the world.
This was all to say that as he felt the love of the world, its warm hands wrapping around him and rocking him within its arms, the fabric of space singing a calming lullaby into his ears... he felt his heart stir.
It’d been eons since he felt such love.
’Focus.’
He pushed down the complex emotions which had risen deep into his heart and focused.
Just like during the cloud trial, when he first sensed aether, he felt the cold flows of the world’s energy, vast and endless, featureless and docile.
Full of life and energy.
’Beautiful.’
And in contrast, he sensed the warmth deep within him, flowing through his veins, along his blood, between the fibres of his flesh and across his bones.
The warm flow was all he was; his worries, his joys, his fears, his hate, his goals, his mistakes, his past, all of it. It was all of him.
And it, too, was full of life and energy.
’...’
The warmth and cold danced around one another, finally reunited as an unbreakable bond of resonance reformed between them.
WHOOOSH!
The aether in the air thickened so much that it became visible, a swirling sea of silver and ivory mist, Uriel standing in the center, his empty gaze staring into the distance, their ivory depths reflecting the world.
The elemental aether used to reform his body during his evolution stirred, and it was as if his very flesh and its layers had an awakening, a soft radiance rising from him.
A soft pop! echoed and Uriel felt like his mind had shed a seal placed on it, shattered a set of chains and removed the veil blinding him.
He gasped for air, and the sea around shook, rapidly swirling and shifting by the second. From a sea of silver and white, it rapidly gained shades of gold, then dark purple and then swirling accents of emerald and sunset orange.
Elemental aether flourished.
And then finally, Uriel’s core, which he’d been disconnected from for what felt like a lifetime, showed signs of life.
It finally awoke, its radiance returning, akin to a blinding star of colour.
SHAH!
It was all calm and soft.
There wasn’t any grand explosion or loud impact as he regained control of his core and thus gained access to his elements.
Uriel rapidly gained clarity and returned from his state of enlightenment, his mind still heavily attuned to the warm and cold flows, yet clear nonetheless.
’...’
He raised a hand to his face. With a thought, he pulled on his core and natal aether and upon his palm, a point of radiant light, a wisp of shadowy darkness, a small cloud of sand and a floating vine appeared.
Alongside the small elemental manifestations upon his palm, thick gusts of elemental aether rose from his core, colourful and vivid.
Just like atmospheric aether, the elemental aether seemed in love with him, at his beck and call, but even more so, truly like a part and extension of his being.
Uriel softly smiled. ’It feels good.’
Finally having access to his elements made him feel whole in a way hard to describe, like he’d finally gotten a part of himself back.
’Light, darkness, wood and sand.’
The elements on his palm faded to silver radiance, gathering to form a mass of amorphous essence that danced between his fingers.
’Hm. It’s much easier to convert elements back to their lesser energetic form than expected. But since when was my natal aether silver?’
He hummed in thought.
’Originally, it was red, then it became a mix of red and white, then it was multicoloured, and now it’s silver. Hm, do the colours have any special meaning?’
He thought about it for a few moments, but as he didn’t find any logical answer, he didn’t push. He’d have time to ask Ophanis, no, his mage tool, later.
He stood to his feet.
"Let’s see what I can do."
His core shook and resonated with the ocean of elemental aether around him, resonant dominance blooming to hand him its reins.
"Oh my god, oh my Lord!" Uriel burst out laughing. "Oh how I’ve missed you my dear, truly, what am I without you?"
His core shook as if to reciprocate his feelings, but he didn’t seem to notice, his palm streaking across the air.
Following his hand, the sea of elemental aether rapidly turned to a dark mass of amorphous tendrils that shrouded the entire cave in unending darkness in nothing but a blink.
As if a void had been summoned to swallow everything, even sound itself seemed to have become an impossibility.
Uriel stood at the center of it all, tentacles of darkness reaching out to wrap around his body, like a corrupting void, fueling him with a type of strength he didn’t understand.
In a very literal sense.
’Huh. So elements all have different characteristics and attributes I can tap into and manipulate as long as I properly understand them.’
’But...’
Just for the element of darkness, the sheer amount of characteristics and attributes, and their subsequent branches was absolutely ridiculous.
No, it was endless, truly.
Like a tree with a never-ending amount of branches, leaves and roots.
Not only was it endless, but every single branch was complex beyond measure, layered and ancient. To master even a single branch would take a lifetime of dedicated effort.
Rather than discouraging Uriel, it only excited him more.
’Let’s see...’
He closed his palm into a fist and suddenly, all the darkness that’d consumed the cave peeled off and gathered into a singular ball, hovering above his fist.
It was so dark that it looked like a torn hole in the fabric of reality.
Uriel’s jaw clenched and he focused, his core churning to transmute all the aether within it into dark aether, then moving to funnel it all into the orb of darkness.
The orb didn’t grow, but became heavier, the aether pressure it exuded growing by the second.
He stopped after a tenth of his aether had been consumed, or in other words, he stopped after pumping as much aether as an S-Ranker had into the orb.
Then he opened his fist back into a palm. The darkness surged, wrapping around his hand like a gauntlet.
Uriel eyed his palm and nodded to himself. "Huh. Not bad. That should be enough."
And then...
