Chapter 497: To Be Ready (1/2)

Chapter 497: To Be Ready

ARTHUR LEYWIN

I left town before the Epheotan sun had even risen over Ecclesia the rona’s husk Alone, I circled around Veruhn’s home to the World Serpent’s tail, which seemed to take me directly out of the city and into a wilderness of rocky beaches, overgrown forests that reles, and a sky half consumed by the purple-black of the aetheric realm

The atmosphere was thick with aether, which blew off the waves like seafoale Sea birds crowed and unseen creatures answered frole with powerful roars

Each breath was full of cool, salty sea air and warer aether I wondered if this place had always been so rich with aether or if, over thepressure of the void had forcedocean border and into Epheotus

My h With is and Sylvie, I channeled King’s Gaes, each one shi+ning a spotlight on a specific thought

I directed several of these lights at the probleered on the purple-black horizon I had been under the effects of King’s Gambit when I discovered the solution, and it was difficult to hold it all together in my mind without the Godrune Other portions of my mind focused on Fate itself, while still others considered the tension between Dicathen and Alacrya, the fate of Epheotus, and my own place as the needle and thread required to stitch it all together

Despite all these siht, I kept a careful watch on the sea and jungle I didn’t have to walk far before I reached a rocky cove that suited my purpose There, I found a wide, flat stone that jutted up froed on top of it

The atmospheric aether answered readily With my eyes closed, I felt—rather than watched—the aether At first, there was no intention to the action; I si the aether, forh torus encirclingpatterns in the sand

Fate’s overriding desire was to release the pressure building in the aetheric real the natural process of entropy to continue Although it had proven heedless of the consequences for our world, its pri a resolution appeared to be avoiding a reater disaster, one that may have no safe distance in all the known universe

Only by co’s Gaether had I been able to see a solution, but reaching that potential future wasn’t without its own set of barriers

Fore the what I’d set out to do Fear that Kezess would destroy the people of Alacrya and Dicathen before my efforts came to fruition was a close second

I had explained part ofaether drawn from the void was only one piece of a complex puzzle

My eyes opened, and I dropped back down to the stone roughly; I had been hovering several inches above it without realizing I stood atop the rock for several minutes, motionless Restless tension built in me until it was like a ripple across the surface of every thought at once I took in a deep breath and let it out as a sigh I needed to an conjuring swords of pure aether First two, then four, then six I stopped at eight as the bright violet blades floated around me

With the conjured weapons in place, I activated Real the thick haze of reens, blues, reds, and yellows painted the beach like the brush strokes of some clumsy artist I felt my hair rise from my scalp as the hidden runes across ht

Next, I pushed aether into God Step, bringing the connections between every point clearly into vieell

Aroa’s Requieainst my back with the other Godrunes Its purpose in this exercise was pri the use of the other Godrunes more difficult

Additional partitions of uide each blade, to calculate each trajectory, and to control each Godrune

Using the ability to see the interplay of ht aetheric bubbles, which dipped into the ocean and filled ater before floating back into the air These targets spread out in front ofwith only one at a time, I launched an orb away from myself, then thrust a sword into the aetheric pathways The blade appeared fro the water within to splash back down into the sea Two more flew in different directions, and I repeated the exercise Within a couple of rounds, all eight were being launched like sling bullets with one part of my mind, while another part attempted to strike them all simultaneously Each time, I reconjured and filled the orbs

The Relictoe of aether and how to utilize it on a large scale ritten into the bones of the structure E our world would be ie

My conjurations faded away, but I kept channeling aether into all ofin the air like a an absorbing , I captured a cluster of mana particles within some of that aether

The an made no effort to purify it Instead, the ly dense aether, just like the Relicto will the Relicto pressure force it to collapse entirely? I wondered

My aether core was surrounded by organic gates that opened out to channels I had forged myself As I floated there and watched, the mana was slowly pushed, bit by bit, until it was expelled through one of those gates Froered, but the rest slowly escaped hts churned, I continued through a series of exercises,aether in a variety of ways to enhance y It wasI did ethe beach to strikeout into the jungle and battle the beasts I’d heard there Glancing behind me to look into the shadows beneath the thick canopy, I was surprised to see Zelyna leaning against the base of a tree, watching htfully I let my concentration fall away and settled back onto the flat rock “I didn’t sense your approach”

“I didn’t wish to be sensed,” she said with a shrug of the leather pauldrons that lay over her shoulders Bands of leather crossed over her chest and revealed the pearlescent scales of soaps between The leather was densely staes and runic symbols She looked like she was dressed for battle “Not until I had gauged what you were up to”

“And?” I asked, holding out my arms

A frown pinched her brows and turned down her lips “I’ve trained dozens of young warriors, all of them powerful, talented, and motivated And yet, any one of theht, and a day of training lost You turn on this”—she drew a circle around her floating hair with her finger—“and you unleash a hundred different cohts into your squishy lesser brain”

Her lips quivered as she suppressed a smile, and she pushed away from the tree to walk confidently toward me “My father tells me you trained your body with Kordri of the Thyestes when you were only a boy Did he teach you to fracture your ht?”

I stepped down off the stone The sand gave just a little, letting the soles of , not training”

“And how far have your thoughts co ten feet in front ofher eyes She waited for me to continue I hesitated, then eventually said, “I feel…rudderless I knohat I have to do, but all I see are ioal itself seeht now”

She crossed her ar, you are doing so for one reason: to be ready A wise asura prepares to face the unknown Even in victory, we may face uncertainty Do not focus on the cole task”

I blinked at her, surprised The words were very si Grey in another life

Zelyna’s expression hardened into one of intense focus, and she drew a short blade froht you Perhaps that would provide the challenge and focus you are seeking”

I shi+fted ht hand The blade was a few inches shorter than usual, to better match Zelyna’s weapon “I suppose a spar wouldn’t hurt—”

She lunged forward in a sea-green and dark brown blur I blinked aith God Step, appearing behind her, and thrust the point of h Her body rotated into defy physics, and her knee struck my wrist Bone cracked, and the aetheric swordon top of the flat rock holding my broken wrist

Slowly, she turned her head around to look at me, her body turned sideways in profile froainst a dragon One strong enough in the aether arts ainst you” Her brows crept up as I shook out my wrist, already fully healed

“You should practice strengthening your muscles and boneswith aether at all ti your body should be as natural as breathing or the beating of your heart”

I held ht out in front of me and conjured another weapon intoone foot on the edge of the rock and burst stepping toward her An eager grin flashed across her face, and the sand beneath me burst with several jets of superheated water The world twisted as Iabove her A second weapon shi+ inflare hawk (tuah?)

Zelyna dove forward into a roll, and I struck nothing but a thick soup of sand and water that ireen and brown blur in front ofsome distance

Thirty feet away, Zelyna’s blade swept through the air above the quicksand she’d conjured Her arm carried on farther than was natural for the strike, and then her blade was flying like an arrow Aether exploded along the ers, which closed around the weapon’s hilt Wind blew through my hair, conjured by the arrested force of the throord

I flipped the weapon in the air, caught it by the tip of the blade, and held it out Zelyna wore her lopsided smile as she approached to take it back “Not bad, archon You are quick andyou to run Train yourself to fight”

Her aquaan to expand outward, her features stretching and distorting The leather armor melted away as dark plates and thick scales forsthick and rew from her three-clawed hands

In an instant, she was towering over ated head, split by wide jaws that showed rows of teeth like daggers, turned to look down atblue eyes, two on each side In her leviathan form, Zelyna’s head was covered in toothed plates as if she earing a heled pauldrons, then further along her spine The bare scales of her piscine underbelly were the same aquamarine color as her humanoid form

I rolledan aetheric sword, which burned and winked with violet light A second appeared innear ht hip “I guess I’ll stop holding back then”

Zelyna slithered forward, using several tentacle-like appendages to drag herself across the sand Each tentacle ended in a broad, leaf-shaped paddle When she spoke, her voice boomed across the beach, rich and vicious “I hope you will I would hate foryou didn’t give , tentacle-like appendages whipped toward ed back as an aether blade moved to deflect the blow In the fraction of a second it took for the blow to fall, the fleshy paddle hardened into a ridge of bone My blade was flung aside by the force of the blow, and sand sprayed into the air The bone blade carved a furrow through the sand where I’d been standing

I pulled the flying blade back towardinto the ground just behindat Zelyna’s exposed underbelly, but a third limb smashed it aside

Despite her size in this for limbs struck like whips and came from several directions at once I had to turnconsciousmy blades; without my full power behind them, the blades couldn’t withstand the force of her strikes

Attee of her proportions, I God Stepped to her back and struck a probing blow against the protective plating My blade left a faint scratch on its surface, but I barely had tiister it before a clublike tentacle swept past

Flying up, I narrowly avoided that strike before another cale

I flew beneath it just as Zelyna’s huge head snapped around, jaide