Boundless Evolution: The Summoning Beast
Chapter 70: Synergy Veil?

Chapter 70: Synergy Veil?

Seraphina’s expression froze. Her eyes flicked toward the edge of the arena where a group of terrified civilians huddled beneath a fractured archway.

Her voice came out quiet, but resolute, "Then we can’t let them get close."

Ash gave a slow nod, his ears twitching to the chaotic rhythm of detonations echoing farther down the field. But before could speak, another cultist burst forward in a sprint, runes already beginning to glow beneath his skin—but Ash wasn’t looking at his limbs or core.

Seraphina didn’t hesitate.

"Radiant Lock!" she shouted, thrusting her palm forward. A silver coil of light shot out, wrapping around the charging man’s torso and locking him in midair. The silver bindings shimmered with divine rigidity, the cultist’s body tensing under its weight.

At the same time, one of Ash’s clones burst out, wisps of shadow energy trailing behind him as he executed Shadow Sprint and crashed directly into the cultist.

The cultist was hit with the full momentum of Ash’s clone while not being able to set his feet ready and as a result was hurled backward.

Watching from afar, Ash’s gaze sharpened. This time, he didn’t just sense the aether—he tracked it. The energy inside the cultist didn’t simply surge—it moved. It flowed like ink through parchment veins, purposeful and guided. It funneled toward one specific point.

The collarbone.

Ash’s breath caught.

The cultist choked out a phrase, a single syllable that rang with ritual weight. His head tilted back, eyes rolled into his skull.

Light—no, pure aether—flared violently from the rune etched deep into the skin just above his heart, but slightly toward the collarbone.

Ash watched the ripple. Watched it inject. Watched it ignite.

The rune flared.

And then he exploded.

A brilliant violet-white bloom of fire and energy erupted outward. The blast rocked the field, sending up a plume of dust and shredded robes. Fortunately, the nearby people remained largely uninjured.

"Fall back!" Seraphina shouted to them without skipping a beat, conjuring a protective dome around them as her serpent circled above like a divine warden. Her expression was calm, but her eyes burned, prompting all the civilians to hurriedly run out of the arena.

Ash blinked slowly, the pressure of the aether explosion still humming in his bones. He didn’t speak right away.

His eyes remained locked on the scorched crater, jaw tight, thoughts turning like grinding gears. The arcane trails still danced faintly across the ground—remnants of a pattern, a pulse, a hidden ritual in plain sight.

Ash’s gaze dropped further. He was lost in it now, in the echo of aether and the realization of how deeply the corruption ran.

’It wasn’t the death,’ he murmured, more to himself than to anyone else.

He turned his head slightly toward Seraphina, golden eyes narrowed with grim understanding, ’It was the command. And the trigger—was pure aether. Injected. Channeled. Intentionally.’

But before the last word could leave his lips—movement.

The air snapped.

A blur of cloth. A whisper of steel.

From the haze, a cultist lunged—low, fast, and silent. His blade already mid-swing.

He was right behind Seraphina.

But before the blade could reach her—wind.

A sudden gust tore through the air, slamming into the cultist from the side—sharp and fast, carrying the edge of a focused strike.

The feline streaked through the haze, wind claw extended, a shimmering arc of green slicing through the air as she struck. The gust had unbalanced him—the claw made it count.

The cultist reeled, thrown backward with his blade spinning from his hand.

Seraphina turned, stunned. Her eyes darted between the sprawled cultist and the wind-marked ground.

Lucas slid to a halt beside her, chest heaving.

The feline stood between them, low to the ground, ears back and wind curling around her like a living shield.

Seraphina looked at her. Then at Lucas—then looked again, a realization dawning like thunder behind her eyes. Her brow furrowed not just in awe but in shock.

He wasn’t mounted. He wasn’t riding the summon when it acted.

And yet, the summon had moved. No command. No contact. No hesitation.

"Lucas," Seraphina breathed, her voice low, still locked in awe, "You weren’t even riding her."

Her eyes searched his face, trying to reconcile what she’d witnessed, "At your age..."

"... that shouldn’t be possible."

He was still staring at the feline, but his eyes weren’t wide with shock anymore—they were distant, like he was seeing it all over again.

"I saw him," Lucas murmured, his voice barely above a whisper, "The cultist. He was behind her. And I just—felt it."

His breath hitched.

"I didn’t shout. I didn’t think. I just... needed her to move."

He placed a hand over his chest.

"And she did."

Lucas’s voice caught, his gaze distant.

"It wasn’t even me. I just... felt it. The fear—the need—and suddenly she moved."

He clenched his fist.

"She saw it before I could scream."

And then something shifted.

A tether. A pulse.

Lucas had felt it like a tug on his soul, a spark of panic that surged into the bond he shared with his feline. His fear, his urgency—it leapt across the link between them like lightning. No command had left his lips. He hadn’t needed to speak.

The feline remained still, alert, her body angled protectively between them and the motionless threat. The wind around her didn’t fade—it shimmered with a green pulse, as if the bond itself left behind an echo.

A sigil flickered faintly beneath her paws—twin marks, one hers, one his—brief and gone, but unmistakable.

Even the air seemed to hold its breath.

Seraphina’s eyes narrowed sharply, watching the wind still whispering around the feline’s limbs, she murmured, "Synergy Veil."

Lucas tilted his head, breath still shallow, "Synergy what?"

"A defensive response born from near-perfect synchronicity," she said. Her voice had lowered, as if reluctant to speak the truth too loudly.

"Most summoners train for decades and still never reach the compatibility needed to trigger it."

She looked at him now—not just with surprise, but disbelief and a quiet reverence, "You shouldn’t be able to trigger something like that—not this young. Not this soon. You’ve only just awakened your summon."

Lucas glanced at the feline, whose tail flicked with casual precision, wind still curling around her paws like sentient mist.

"She moved for me," he said, voice softer now, "Before I even knew what to do."

Seraphina nodded slowly, her brows furrowed, "You didn’t unlock a skill, Lucas."

She looked again at the feline, who met her gaze unflinchingly.

"You awakened something buried in the link between summoner and summon... and she answered not by command, but by choice."

She looked once more at the feline, who met her gaze unflinchingly.

"She responded with will. With clarity. With intent."

Seraphina’s next words came with weight, like the closing of a Chapter in an ancient tome:

"That level of unity... it isn’t just talent."

She stepped back slightly, her voice almost reverent.

"It’s legacy."

High above the ruined arena, from the shattered balconies cloaked in shadow and smoke, the Valtairs stood frozen.

"Synergy Veil?!" the silver-haired man breathed, as though the words themselves defied reason. His voice cracked around the edges of disbelief, "Impossible. "That boy—he hasn’t even formed a stable link. He’s barely past invocation. And yet... he triggered Synergy Veil?"

He leaned forward slightly, as if proximity might clarify what he’d just witnessed, "His potential is fearsome. The Valen are truly a threat to our hegemony plans."

Beside him, the woman’s fingers clenched around her chalice with such force the crystal stem cracked, she whispered, "The bond shouldn’t be deep enough. Not for a child."

But her voice faltered.

"It has begun, then," she said, more to herself than to the others, "Old man’s fire rekindles."

Just as she said this, a dry rasp echoed behind them, interrupting the moment like a blade sliding from an old scabbard.

"Not rekindles," said a voice weathered by time.

From the shadows behind them stepped a figure older than either of them remembered—his robes faded, his frame bent, but his presence unshakable.

The Valtair Grand Elder.

His eyes were dull with age, but the weight in them was as heavy as stone.

"That flame never died," he said, "It simply smoldered. Waiting for breath. Waiting for the right heir to reignite it."

He stepped beside them, gaze locked on the boy and the summon below.

"He’ll surpass Daryl," the Elder said, "Not even Daryl displayed such fearsome potential at the start of his journey."

"He will outgrow every leash. If we are to remain sovereign... he must not live long enough to understand what he is.""

Below, the remaining cultists stopped mid-movement. Their heads slowly turned—toward the boy, toward the beast at his side.

They had been fighting but this scene had caught them all off-guard.

The gust.

The claw.

The silent obedience that wasn’t obedience at all.

One of them whispered, horrified, "He didn’t command it."

Another took a step back, "That’s Synergy Veil."

The murmurs spread like cracks across ice. Then—stillness.

Not the calm before the storm.

The kind of silence that hangs over graves. The kind that follows truth too big to deny.

One cultist dropped his blade.

And amidst them all—

A presence.

The cultist leader, across the battlefield, locked eyes on Lucas.

Her breath hitched.

Her gaze flicked to the feline, to the trail of dissipating wind, to the boy’s steady stance.

"No," she whispered, her voice brittle as cracking glass.

She took one step forward, staring at Lucas as though he were a dream warping into a nightmare.

Then another step.

"That’s not... That wasn’t in the vision. That wasn’t supposed to be possible."

Her eyes burned as she shouted to her kin, voice laced with hysteria, "He’s not ready! He can’t be ready! Zisha!"