Re: Timeless Apocalypse-Chapter 145: Four is Skill
The thought echoed in his mind for a long while, banging and rippling against the fabric of his psyche, pushing his Will to the brink of collapse with every passing moment.
He basked in the silent darkness of the shelter, faint pulses of pain ringing across his body from time to time.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Uriel groaned and stirred from his thoughts.
He looked up.
’Ah.’
He’d survived the first wave by gambling.
So, he’d gamble again.
WHOOSH!
The vines around him stirred, sand skittering across their surfaces as the entire shelter trembled.
...
Wave after wave fell, chaos reigning amidst the ivory expanse of sand.
Booms rang alongside the incessant quaking of the earth and rupturing flows of the world and its essence.
Then, just as the last wave thundered down, everything quieted, flattening into a seamless plane of white.
From unending chaos to absolute order, in a mere blink.
PSH!
In a corner of the quiet expanse, the sand suddenly shook. A hole formed as it collapsed inward and from it, a figure surged out, entirely veiled by robes and vines.
Uriel landed with deft agility, the sand mending where he had just burst free.
’All or nothing.’
His core trembled.
WHOOOOOSH!
Every single bit of stable aether he had accumulated flooded outward, silver radiance blooming around him in a violent surge.
The chaotic aether in the atmosphere reacted instantly, rushing to clash with his natal aether and tear it apart, but Uriel moved before it could.
His Resonant Dominance ignited. The fabric of his will and soul fused into his natal aether, tempering it until it became as unyielding as his resolve, empowered by his runic scar.
With a flicker of thought, he forced the chaotic aether back, carving out a void that his natal aether immediately filled.
TAH! TAH!
Multicolored lightning erupted around him, sparks snapping through the air as his mind and will strained against the fabric of the world itself. His heart pounded as if it were battling space.
But he wasn’t finished.
His jaw tightened. He pushed his runic scar further, his consciousness climbing into another strata as his uniqueness activated, not to slow perception, but to amplify it a thousandfold.
Timeless resonance shimmered in the depths of his pupils. He felt his mind press against a boundary, strain against it, and then surge far beyond.
PAH!
In an instant, Uriel revised everything he understood about atmospheric aether and natal aether, and the dividing threshold that elemental aether represented.
Body, mind, and core resonance activated simultaneously.
Runes flared around him, dozens of formations cast within a heartbeat as the rushing tide of his blood became unstoppable, like rivers in flood.
"AH!"
Uriel roared, slamming his palms together.
"SHIFT!"
His natal aether, locked in combat with the world itself, shuddered and then...changed.
It became atmospheric aether.
He transmuted the natal into the atmospheric.
BOOOOOOM!
A thunderous boom echoed outward as the small domain he had carved stabilized, becoming unbreakable even under the desert’s chaotic assault.
He dropped to one knee, exhausted, face pale and slick with sweat, yet his grin told a different story.
"Hahaha!"
Unbeknownst to him, in the desperation of his gamble, Uriel had brushed against a threshold of aether mastery he should not have perceived until far later.
Unbeknownst to him, he had created a Simple Domain.
...
Uriel quickly regained his strength, the small domain surrounding him feeding him in return.
RUMBLE!
The ground trembled, no, the entire desert shuddered, as chaos began to stir once more.
Noticing this, Uriel sprang to his feet, spitting a mouthful of blood to the side before launching forward, running with everything he had toward where he had first glimpsed the statue.
Now that his gamble had succeeded and his domain resisted the chaos, allowing him to wield atmospheric aether freely, the immense pressure weighing on him had eased.
And that allowed him to test another theory.
SHAH!
Uriel surged forward, each step precisely placed. The formations etched across his body still burned bright, pushing him to his absolute limits.
As he ran, he focused on the sliver of natal aether remaining within him, a warm current permeating every inch of his body. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶
At the same time, he concentrated on the domain moving with him, a cold flow brushing against his skin, slipping in and out of his body seamlessly, like an extension of himself.
Warm and cold.
Internal and external.
The two currents harmonized and—
WHOOSH!
—his speed skyrocketed.
Just as during the cloud trial, when he first discovered natal and atmospheric aether, the strange harmony between the two propelled him faster than any spell ever could.
He became a blur.
His steps left echoing craters that formed dozens of seconds after he had already passed, faint afterimages lingering in his wake.
A silver streak carved with runes tore across the desert.
RUMBLE!
The desert remained indifferent.
Wave after wave began to rise.
Each collapse echoed like thunder, the ground shaking so violently that Uriel was thrown off balance despite his speed.
The shifting sand disrupted and derailed him more than once, but he did not stop.
This time, at least, he did not materialize directly beneath a falling wave. They crashed around him instead, leaving his path relatively clear.
Compressed air buffeted him from every side, but his momentum was enough to endure it.
He ran.
...
"DAMN IT!"
Uriel halted abruptly, sliding several meters before his momentum finally dissipated.
Unmoved, he stood amidst the chaos, staring into the distance.
’Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!’
No matter how far he ran, the world felt endless and the statue remained beyond his grasp. By now, he was certain he had reclaimed the distance he’d lost while fleeing the earlier wave.
Yet he still could not see it.
But he knew it was there, far beyond the haze of sandstorms and collapsing waves.
He knew it.
’Once is luck. Twice is coincidence. Thrice is a pattern. Four times is skill.’
He lowered into a squat, palms pressing firmly into the sand.
’Let’s see how skilled I am.’
