Chapter 352: The Lava Bat
"Argh. That hurts. Alot."
Hex scrambled out of a spatial tunnel that collapsed right behind him. Blood seeped out of his mouth. Scabs formed over the rest of his body though. Part of his hair had disappeared. And his skin was torn, hanging loosely over his chest.
He winced and groaned as he fell onto the ground, with the dried-up mud pressing right into the mangled flesh on his back.
His empty lungs begged for air, forcing him to take a deep breath. But the sudden intake of air burnt his throat.
Cough.
He burst out in a fit of coughs, spitting phlegm and clotted blood. In the mixture of those, he noticed a few bits and pieces.
’Are those...my lungs?’
It seemed absurd. But the burning pain inside his chest and the concentration of nature elements indicated it to be a fact.
Despite the burning pain, Hex remained on his back. A soft grin appeared on his lips. That had been close. Very close.
He had not suffered not even an iota of this against the Calamity. His mother had been right. No matter how great a genius he was, or the amount of luck he had, true mastery over an element couldn’t be achieved without experiencing all the aspects of a particular element.
The battle against the Calamity forced him to understand space itself, how it behaved, how to use it, and how to fuse it with his attacks. But no matter how great experiencing the advantages of space was, nothing could beat experiencing the dangers of shattering layers and collapsing spaces.