The Transcendent Godslayer
Chapter 81: Tempest... Gale

Chapter 81: Tempest... Gale

Boom!

Another explosion rocked the inside of the bubble. Lyra staggered backward, huffing, panting, barely clinging to consciousness.

If anyone who had known her before should see her now... It was certain a chill would crawl up their balls, and their heart would twist with horror.

She looked wrinkled, pale, and frail. The once-rich brown of her skin although with a pale pallor, now resembled a withered leaf scorched under the punishment of the merciless sun for months—maybe years. Her eyes, carrying a light of madness that seemed to undermine her condition.

It defied belief that she was still alive, and even more baffling than that, was that despite her withered, dying appearance... as much as it didn’t make any sense, she was... growing stronger.

It made no sense, no logic could explain it other than that it was indeed stupefying. And perhaps that was the answer. Sometimes, for something to make sense... It simply had to not make sense.

It was well known... at least among those familiar with the details of her condition, that Lyra couldn’t afford to use even half of her strength without risking death. And that was just her condition before the attack on the Crimson family. Now, it’d be a miracle if she could use one quarter to one third, without dying on the spot.

Her dynisis roots were already on the verge of collapse, and actively circulating dynamis through them would only hasten the end. At best, she’d be crippled... permanently.

At worst... well, in some ways and to some persons, the second option might almost be preferable compared to the first... she’d die!

With the dynisis roots gone, one would be crippled, unable to circulate dynamis, passively or actively. They’d even be worse than unawakened mortals... at least, unawakened could still passively circulate dynamis since they had dynisis roots.

But beyond the collapse of dynisis roots, was the danger of a person’s core cracking. There was no other end than death, should a person’s core crack.

Though it was possible to live without a core, there in lied the distinction that was everything. There was a vast difference between never forming a core, or rather, never awakening one as every being was born with a core... and destroying one that had already been awakened.

The latter held no future but death, and it was said to be a peaceful one—if you could call it that. Aside from the slow, agonizing sensation of suffocation, of drowning in water... it was peaceful and painless.

The dying person’s Essence would simply lose cohesion. Essence was free flowing like water or better still, gas.

It diffuses, moving from high concentration regions, to low. So in order to remain in one place, there needed to be a vessel to hold it in— core, just like the body is a vessel for the soul.

Its osmotic nature like water, was then in interacting with dynamis present in the world, through the semi-permeable "membrane", that was the core. This ability to interact was what was called dynisis...it was supernatural, extraordinary... Magic!

Uncontained and now freely able to interact with the world’s dynamis, it would begin to dissipate, scattered into the atmosphere, to be devoured by the world to nourish itself.

So yes, it was nothing short of a miracle that Lyra’s waning dynisis roots, had not collapsed. More than that, she was radiating a might so overwhelming, it made her former peak, before her injuries sustained during childbirth, look like a joke.

However, the man before her seemed completely out of it. If not for the occasional glint flashing through his hazel eyes, calculating and seemingly searching for something, one would mistake him for a statue.

Boom!

Boom!!

Boom!!!

Each explosion came with more force than the last—another thing that made no sense. The pressure bubble was still shrinking, and by all logic, the pressure it exerted in that space, should have made it impossible for the wind to stir, let alone gather such power. But it was still building.

By now, her weathered, dry skin was lined with deep cracks, blood seeping from them in continuous waves. But just as the rampaging tempest of her dynamis had failed to kill her, so too did this bleeding, fall short.

It was as though she had become... immortal.

’Tempest.’

The word echoed through her mind and her eyes sharpened, the rage in them pooling into focus, and the javelin formed from her Will and dynamis, responded instantly, growing deadlier in form and intent.

Boom!

An explosion that eclipsed all before it, followed by rapid bursts of smaller explosions as displaced air struggled to stabilize, air pockets forming and collapsing in an instant. "Gales" erupted violently, as much of a gale as it could be, confined within a bubble barely three and a half feet in radius.

’Gale.’. She felt like she had touched upon something. A foreign concept, that bred a deep resonance.

Her aura pulsed again, building momentum.

Her body began to move with a strange precision, mimicking raging tempests and cyclones, and the steady current of breeze.

It was just one movement, one she had made many times already in this short amount of time, and yet, it was like many simultaneous movements at once.

Like the tempest; wild, violent, precise and uncontrollable. Like the gale; relentless, building, upon itself like a wall of pressure.

One carried the erratic wrath of a storm; the other, a crushing, focused force, like a wind-formed battering ram, strong enough to crush boats and topple ships alike.

[Congratulations]

A black notification screen flashed across her mindscape, but it did nothing to slow her momentum.

[You have comprehended: Tempest...]

[You have comprehended: Gale...]

[Your Will has evolved.]

[Awakened Will: Life Bark — A Young Tree of Dominance. Your authority over the world increases.]

An explosion went off inside her mind.

Her bleeding eyes suddenly glowed with vibrant life, and her body and dynamis that had acted wild and untameable immediately became docile, as if finally acknowledging her sovereignty.

The air within the pressure bubble stilled. The crushing force of pressing on her, from wind thickened by sheer pressure of the bubble shrinking, rolled off her body like loose sand.

Time itself seemed to grind into an agonizing crawl.

Seeing this, the man’s eyes flashed with light. His perfect smile stretched into a full grin.

His passive presence erupted into something vast and unfathomable. His aura burst forth, blending into the very fabric of the world.

The already dense dynamis in the atmosphere tripled in density within an instant. The skies and the earth rumbled.

At that moment, the sky split open directly above the Crimson Castle’s hospital.

From within it, a colossal, ruby eye devoid of emotion, gazed down upon the world.

And under its gaze, the world froze. Every life stood root in place, and even the sky and earth stilled.

But one woman kept moving.

She collided with the bubble with unimaginable force her evolved Will and sharpened dynamis crashing against its surface like a lance.

BOOM!!!