Chapter 294 (2/2)

Why? I wondered fearfully What is the difference between these two visions of the future? What do I need to do?

Then the ies of past, present, and future faded away, and the three shapes I had constructed within the keystone realan to dissolve into streausts of wind I couldn’t feel Soon I was looking out through the eye of an aetheric tornado, and the scouring wind and rough sand were scraping across all the layers ofhold of me I don’t understand yet!

The pain and pressure built and kept building until I was sure the storm would tear my mind apart, rip my consciousness froone In place of the raw, tearing pain I felt a sense of freshness and calm, like I’d just stepped out of a cool shower on a hot su had been so co aroundon ReadNovelFullonlinecois’s voice to sink throughfroh tiuely if this was how the trapped ascenders felt within their ed at me I had seen them in the vision of the future…or was that the present now? And then there was the Vritra-blooded ascender, Mythelias…He had escaped—or he would escape? I couldn’t tell the difference

The room shook as, across the fountain fro energy striking Mythelias fro Riah’s body to a cinder and ies intothat I should be doing soh the confusion

Kalon leapt at Mythelias, atte to use the after spear down into the Vritra-blooded ascender’s heart At the sa off at the knee

He was ready for them

The flesh around his knee bubbled outward then hardened, trapping Haedrig’s sword in a knot of gnarled black tissue In Mythelias’s hands, Ezra’s spear sith the force of a battering ra

A jolt of adrenaline hitbolt as I watched Kalon fly sideways, strike the fraone

Riah’s face sneered at Haedrig “As if you lesser scuainst me” The words slithered out between her stiff, blackened lips, sounding entirely unlike Riah “You can’t even understand the honor I give you In reatest warriors died by ain in my head He was inside me, I realized I could feel his debilitated presence, his mind, his wild panic And I could feel the Destruction rune raging like a wildfire, begging to be unleashed and burning away the last of my confusion and uncertainty

Before , who tried to throw hiround with a grunt To his credit, the veteran ascender seemed calm even in the face of certain death

As the bloated, puffy white fingers reached toward my friend, I raised my own hand and summoned the violet flame Mythelias’s head snapped around as he sensedspeed he cocked the spear back and launched it like a ht at my throat

The spear see suspended in the air Riah’s dead face isted into a hateful snarl, as still as a painting Haedrig lay on his back at Mythelias’s feet, one arm up to ward off the blow that had been diverted towardto look for them, I saw the network of aetheric vibrations between Mythelias and me; all I had to do was focus on theh the vibrations with God Step, appearing between Haedrig and Mythelias, the power of Destruction still held in ain, and I watched as the spear flew into the distance Mythelias’s eyes widened in surprise, still focused on where I had been just a ri toward er

But it wasn’t fast enough

“Burn,” I cory flames leapt from my fist in a fan of pure violet destruction fueled by ing Mythelias screa onto his back He rolled and beat at the flames, and his power caused a hard, black shell to start for all around the body

Even as he burned, he screans—and I—refuse—to—”

“Die,” I said coldly

The purple fire consumed the scabrous black lu the body faster than Mythelias’s ability could regenerate it

As I watched the body of the kind girl—the girl who brought sweets on an ascent instead of rations—disintegrate, I felt only the flush of power, the knowledge that, with Destruction at rona wouldn’t be able to fight back against this kind of raw destructive force

Destruction fed until not even ash reone, Destruction reer for roundflames, which had spread to the stone floor and were quickly eating through it, along with out of the violet fire erupted fro away the water within the fountain and setting two of the broken benches aflah the air, and anything they touched caught fire

It was beautiful

Then a spark landed on Haedrig’s leg

He would burn, I knew, like everything else Kalon, Ezra, Riah, Ada…Haedrig They were all collateral dae, but their lives had been the price I had to pay to , I knew That’s Destruction talking, not ain the future I’d witnessed in the dodecahedron: the hall ofof my companions That ould happen if I couldn’t control Destruction In the end, it would consu away fro would be incinerated in is

We have to exhaust our aether reserves All of it! Gauntlet Forht hand, I held it out, pointing through one of theis in my hand to draw my aether, I turned Destruction in that direction and pushed Purple fire boiled out ofout into the darkness where there was nothing for it to consuy streamed from me I burned it all, every last breath of aether in my body And when I was as dry and empty as a sun bleached skull, the last of the fire flickered and died, no longer able to draw frois’s rune

My head whipped around, but I let out a sigh of relief when I saw Haedrig back on his feet, his ar unburned

Then my knees buckled, and the world went dark