Elias's new constructs were wreaking havoc, but he had not even moved in thirty seconds; what he was doing was gathering himself.
His vitality, which had scraped down toward a thousand points, was climbing again, pulled upward by the ash and the blood and the slow, patient work of his regeneration.
Coupled with his stamina, which Blood-Forged Flesh was slowly converting from the damage he absorbed, was stabilizing.
His eyes, even in this situation, were still closed as the Passenger was silent for the first time in hours, and the silence was not the silence of absence. It was the silence of something watching very carefully.
Elias thought that what he had achieved here had somehow shocked this voice.
He breathed in and breathed out, his body consuming all the ash before it reached him, allowing him to breathe in the air that tasted like iron, and in mere moments, he was healed.
He opened his eyes, and they were the color of granite, and with the slow, inexorable pace of a juggernaut, Elias began to walk towards the pit, and everything around him was dying.
Ⓔ
Tarian's Perception was among the highest of the surviving candidates, and because he had been watching the red light in the distance with an intensity that bordered on obsession, he was among the first to see the change occur in real time.
He did not know the talent that this Ascendant Candidate had, or the Lumina Vein Art they practiced, but he knew that something had changed as the pulsing red light that had turned thousands of these creatures to ash was now… steadier.
It was now a deep crimson glow that did not flicker, and around it, at the edges of his vision, he could see smaller lights moving, sweeping arcs that caught the ash in the air and briefly illuminated the shapes of things that should not have been possible.
Tarian was able to note two things at once, and both of them were so astonishing that he did not know if he was wrong.
The first was that Elias was using a construct of Lumina, a power that only Amber Exiles were supposed to be able to use. Tarian was able to do this, but he was at the Mist Phantom level, and he was a genius in the lightning path.
He was not shocked that someone else near their age bracket was able to create a Lumina Construct, but he was aware that it had barely been a month since Elias had become an Ascendant Candidate. Did that mean that in just a short month, he had become a Mist Phantom?
Still, when he thought about the fact that the master of the Stoneward Asylum was a powerful Angel, then he was not surprised that Elias had reached the Mist Phantom level in a month… with enough resources, even pigs would have the strength to crush mountains in a week.
However, resources could not take the place of sheer talent and comprehension capabilities, because creating a Lumina Construct was the fusion between the Lumina Vein Art and the essence of a Siphon, and that was the gap that kept a lot of Siphons at the Mist Phantom level for the rest of their life.
The second thing he had noted was the ash flying into Elias's body without him having to take the time to slowly absorb them.
Even though most of the young talents here would claim that the only difference between them and Angels would only be noticed at the Void Sentinel level, this was a gross oversimplification.
An Ascendant Candidate like Elias had something that none of them would have full access to until they reached the Amber Exile stage, and that was the full awareness of their Lumina Space.
Tarian knew the location of his Lumina Space, but if he attempted to look inside it, all he would see was fog, unless he used the specialized tools that could peer into a Lumina Space, and those caused great pain to the user and could harm the foundation of the body.
Even as a Wisp, an Ascendant Candidate had full access to their Lumina Space, making it easier for them to understand their techniques, Lumina Pools, and overall power. This was an advantage that few thought about, but he was seeing it being displayed before him, and Tarian did not know if he should be upset or just jealous.
"What is that?" the girl beside him asked. More and more of them were noticing the arcs of light slicing through the creatures like a blade through grass.
Tarian did not answer, as he was busy categorizing what he was seeing and filing it against everything he knew, everything he had read, every briefing and report and whispered rumor from the servants who spoke too freely when they thought no one of consequence was listening.
He had read everything available on Ascendant Candidates, and he had been thorough, as he was thorough about everything that might one day stand between him and the throne.
As he watched Tarian suddenly come to a realization,
"He is not fighting them," Tarian said slowly. "He is processing them."
No one replied. They were all watching now, even the ones too exhausted to lift their weapons. The sight of someone tearing through these tides of bodies while every one of them was running on fumes and willpower alone had a particular quality of fascination that transcended the circumstances.
Was the distance between them and an Ascendant Candidate that vast?
Theron stood up from the ground beside the broken fountain. His brown eyes were no longer on the earth, as he focused on the glow of Elias that appeared more like a red sun in his perception.
"The stone has stopped screaming," he said, and there was something in his voice that Sera could not name. "It has started watching."
®
On the wall, the Formation specialist who had done the mathematics of the pit's output touched Calyx's arm.
It was an extraordinary breach of protocol. She was a servant of the Guild, and he was the Lord Protector, and you did not touch the Lord Protector uninvited. The fact that she did it told him more clearly than anything she could have said that what she was about to tell him mattered.
"The rate of emergence is slowing," she said.
Calyx looked at her. "How much?"
"Down by twelve percent in the last ten minutes. Down by nineteen percent in the last twenty." She paused. "Lord Protector. It started when the… construct appeared, and the rate of killing by the candidate from the Asylum broke past a thousand every ten seconds… perhaps we are seeing an end to the tide."
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