Aetherios System: Whirlwind

Chapter 20

The thunder of hooves shook the ground.

The bull-beast came at him again, lightning crackling across its hide with arcs of white-blue light searing the air and filling the arena with the hair-raising static. Dust scattered beneath its charge, the walls quivering from the impact of its weight.

Alex’s heartbeat stayed calm as it came for him.

He stood in the center of the pit, his bare arms streaked with dirt and dried blood. The Aether around him flickered and roiled. The dark black-red energy of the Demon Asura followed his mental call, shifting around his skin and condensing.

[Asura’s Armaments] pulsed down his right limb. He could feel it now, the buzz of anger and focus converging in his right hand, energy burning just beneath his skin like a million enraged hornets. Wrath, he could almost shape it, guide it.

Almost.

The beast roared, horns flashing with lightning as it lunged.

Alex dodged.

One step to the side and the world blurred. He slid under the beast’s left horn, feeling the rush of wind and static graze his cheek. His hand, the one wreathed in that faint red haze, cut upward in a clean, practiced line.

The aura solidified as he swung.

His fingers were surrounded in aether, sharpened by the condensed energy of fury, turned into a seamless blade. Red-black light along the edge hissed as it carved through bestial flesh. He felt a resistance, then a sudden give. His arm sank into the creature’s body up to the elbow. Hot blood sprayed across his chest.

The bull screamed once, a sound somewhere between thunder and agony, then it staggered as Alex ripped his arm free.

Blood gushed out in a thick geyser, spattering the dirt at his feet and over his clothing. The beast took two faltering steps behind him before collapsing. The lightning in its horns faded to a dull blue glow until finally being snuffed out.

For a moment, there was an uneasy quiet, Alex only heard his own slow breathing and the hiss of his aether dissipating. The blade of wrath melted back into vapor, curling like smoke before it vanished into the air and the ambient aether.

The announcer’s voice suddenly echoed from the stands above. “Victory, Alexander Pierce.”

A few cheers went up from the surrounding crowd, as well as some sparse clapping. Alex could make out mostly just murmurs from the spectators, a few whispers of awe or curiosity. But he barely heard them.

He stood, staring down at the body, watching the steam rise from the wound, and frowned deeply. The cut had been clean, sure. Deadly even, that was more than obvious. But it hadn’t felt right to him.

The aura had flickered unsteadily halfway through the strike, maybe from a waver in his focus, a tremor in the channeled anger that fueled it. His control was still not quite there. He flexed his hand, watching faint wisps of crimson light fade from his knuckles.

“Not enough,” he muttered. “Too weak.”

Since his last lesson with Master Sionnadel, Alex had been working on practicing with his [Asura’s Armaments] when he made a rather interesting discovery thanks to her warnings. He was suing the skill all wrong, even from the very beginning.

Back in the Forge Dungeon, when he had made a large greatsword, he had been thinking of the skill and the Demon Asura aether as just simple energy. Because he had spent so much time suppressing and keeping it in check, he had forgotten all about what made the Martial Style so powerful, the corruptive wrath.

It was the fury and anger that bit at his opponents that made his Martial Style unique. That was also true of his [Wrath Siphon], [Burning Strike], and [Asura’s Bloodwrath] skills, all of his martial skills dealt with anger and fury, letting that feeling fuel his strength. It was also what made the Martial Path so dangerous, Alex had fallen victim to the overwhelming anger before.

He had decided to control and suppress it, but lost a part of the Martial Style in the process.

Even Sylvaris had warned him of exactly that. “Fury is power, but it is also blind. Use the wrath in the style I gave you, but do not let it use you. Control without feeling becomes rigidity.”

The Elf’s words seemed cryptic and strange to him way back then, but not now.

Removing the feeling and the emotion from his martial path’s aether let him produce weapons from his new skill that were stable and durable, just like the greatsword he had made. But they weren’t powerful. They would be like he had made any other item from durable material, and that was all.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

If he wanted to make a weapon that held the power of his Martial Style, then the item needed to contain the anger and fury as well.

Which is why he went back to basics. Making only blades around his hands, and learning to control the emotional turmoil the energy naturally had. It made the “weapon” far more powerful, letting him kill that arcane beast in one strike. But it made them also erratic and unpredictable, even faltering or breaking if he wasn’t careful.

He need to practice more, far more.

By the time he made it to the officer’s desk at the edge of the arena, the blood had already begun to dry on his arm. The officer didn’t even look up from his tablet as he spoke. “Alexander Pierce: Confirmed victory. Seven hundred fifty merit points added to your total.”

Alex nodded absently and passed on the metal token that confirmed his score.