Chapter 300 Volume V - Chapter 18: Purple Flames and Pure Mana
In the midst of the flames, I saw a few people looking toward me. They seemed to be trying to perceive what was happening.
It was the same for Sue, not far from me. Her eyes were wide, her focus completely off Julian. Even Lucia, who looked like she had just come out of the lake, her clothes wet, was in the same state.
But... I didn't care about any of it, not even the fact that the man in front of me was getting serious for the first few seconds. Because... I felt strange.
How long has it been since I lifted the seal on purpose...? I've always been in my human form since the day I met Lithoa, never once taking off my necklace... right? Now, after all these years, it feels strange not to hold myself back.
Mana is closer than ever and my body feels different. I can feel the second heart inside me again for the first time in a very long time, the world looks very different... And I can see the mana.
And then there is this pale, blue-colored thing... It doesn't feel like mana, but ever since it became visible, the world seems clearer, I also don't feel the pain in my body as much.
This is the first time this has happened... It has nothing to do with lifting the seal.
Ah... right. First, I have to deal with the man in front of me. I'll get used to the lifting of the seal soon, and I'll figure out what this blue glow is later.
I refocused my eyes on the spot in front of me, I put all my focus on the spot where the man had just stood, and then... I saw that there was nothing there.
The mana in the atmosphere suddenly rippled, twisted in front of my eyes and condensed on me. The non-existent winds suddenly accelerated… a strange but strong breeze aimed at me.
Ah, is that why he was so fast...? Wind magic, huh... He reminds me of Aiden.
I raised my hand, squinting my eyes, directing the mana that followed my every move, aiming for the wind that was seconds away from reaching me. Then, I simply pulled my hand slightly to the left and stripped it of all the mana it possessed.
A tightly clenched fist appeared in front of my eyes, but it had lost its speed so abruptly that it literally contracted in place. The mana had left the man's body so fast that he was off balance when the only energy he could control was that purple... caora. The surprise was even on his face. For the first time, there was real shock on his calm face.
"Wh- what?"
I didn't bother answering, I aimed all the mana above us this time, concentrating all the sleeping atmospheric mana in the mini-town on this spot.
All the sound in the area suddenly disappeared. The color of the sky suddenly blurred, became strange, as if something was causing the light to refract. When I lowered my hand, all this mess came down to the ground.
The man disappeared again, vanished as if vaporized. The fist in front of my eyes was no more.
A split second later, the ground shook slightly, I felt cracks forming under my feet. As the mana was flowing from everywhere right in front of me, solidifying... I slowly lowered my gaze.
I saw a figure right in front of my feet. He was face down on the ground, the center of the cracks in the concrete. His clenched fist was only inches from my toes. His whole body was convulsing as if he was trying to stand up but under extreme pressure.
"Is that it...?"
Of course, it wasn't... It couldn't be. Just because I stopped him from using mana, he couldn't suddenly become nothing.
The contraction in his body suddenly stopped. He didn't move a single muscle as if time had stopped. I raised my foot and aimed to crush his shoulder without letting him do anything, but within a split second, my whole body stiffened.
The whole world was suddenly covered in a purple glow. With the ring on my finger vibrating, I not only pulled my foot back but also threw myself backward quickly while shielding myself with my arms. The color of all the flames around us suddenly turned purple as the mana solidified to form a barrier in front of me.
The next second, every single one of them descended on me. So much so that I could see nothing but purple.
I gathered all the mana in the atmosphere around me, wrapping my whole body layer by layer. As I gritted my teeth, I saw the purple flames coming into contact with the first of these layers.
My whole body suddenly became hot. Even though there were layers of solidified mana between me and the flames, I could clearly understand how hot they were.
I formed several Platforms under my feet and quickly ascended into the air. I could see nothing but purple flames, but I didn't want to be attacked suddenly, and I had a belief that I could get rid of them by ascending into the air.
As the first of the layers surrounding my body literally melted away, as if being eroded by the purple flames, I continued to ascent into the air. When I finally broke free of the flames in this way, I didn't stop, I went higher and higher, all the while looking down.
The flames that were descending on me didn't cover a very large area. If I had taken five or six steps instead of going up, I would have been saved. But if I had done so, I would have been an open target.
My eyes quickly left the purple flames and I looked for the man.
He was where he had just been, standing and... expressionlessly shaking off the dust.
When he felt me looking at him, he paused, slowly lifted his head, and looked up at me. His eyes, glowing purple, suddenly sharpened.
"Is there more you are hiding, Adrian Caleo? I really didn't expect you to stop me from using mana. It seems that I still can't use it."
"Depends on what you do next. I may have more to hide, or I may have none at all."
The man was silent for about two seconds, and the awkward silence made me frown.
"Then let's finish our business quickly..."
The moment he said these words, the purple glow in his eyes intensified several times. All the purple-colored flames in the area quickly moved toward him, concentrating on his clenched fist and covering it more and more.
I didn't only watch what he was doing. As his fist was covered in a strange flame that grew brighter and brighter purple with each passing second, I quickly reached for something that had been in my bracelet for months, a spear. It was the very weapon I had chosen for future use when I was at Lithoa's house.
I quickly grasped the long shaft of the spear as it materialized to my right, took a deep breath without waiting for it to complete... and then slowly took my stance. As I did so, the spear had finished materializing.
It was a crimson spear. The long shaft was a dark color with a lot of runic writing on it. At the end of the shaft, there was a small excess, resembling a small mallet.
The part connecting the handle to the double-edged blade of the spear was black as if made of a different metal on its own. Almost all of the runic writing on the spear seemed to be connected here.
The double-edged blade of the spear was a lighter shade of red. It looked sharper than anything I had ever seen in my life.
As soon as I transferred my mana to the spear, all the pale runic writing on it glowed furiously. As a strange, dense layer appeared around the spear, I focused on the fourth and final move of the Qilsak Style I had been practicing for so long.
The first move of the Qilsak Style was to manipulate the weight of the spear to deliver heavy and devastating attacks.
The second movement was aimed at lightening the weight of the body and increasing speed, rather than the spear.
The third movement was to anticipate the coming attacks by feeling the force and weight of the opponent and everything in the environment, really everything. It was actually quite different from the first two movements of the style.
The fourth move was similar to the first and second, but much more difficult and... different. Rather than manipulating or directing things that already have weight, such as weapons and the body, the purpose of this move was to give weight to the attributeless, pure mana itself and to use it.
It was not a movement I had mastered. I hadn't even practiced it much... but with the barrier between me and mana removed, it was not impossible to use it.
I moved my spear gently, lightly, shifting with my footsteps, never stopping where I was. An outsider might even think I was dancing... but the mana I was constantly transferring to my spear, the strange aura that surrounded it, was intensifying as I turned it over and over in strange ways.
As I was nearing the end, something strange happened.
The pale blue glow that I could see, that I could feel was helping me, suddenly intensified... As the man was preparing to deliver his threatening, purple flame-covered attack, tensing his fist, the pale blue around me became even more pronounced as if it was reacting to it, even excited by it. But I decided not to care as I felt stronger while this was happening.
I decided to attack the man first rather than letting him make the first move.
When I thought I could perform the fourth move, I stretched my legs on the platform I was standing on and threw myself to the ground.
The man narrowed his eyes, which glowed with a purple glow, the heat in his clenched fist evident every second I approached him, and his feet hit the ground harder than ever, causing cracks to appear in the concrete.
As I spun my spear in the air, adding momentum to its momentum, I also reached for the mana in the atmosphere once more. Cracks appeared between the man and me as if the atmosphere itself was breaking, everything blurred as if the light had lost its way.
As purple flames exploded everywhere, the enormous amounts of mana gathered at the tip of my spear met the man's fist with the tons of weight it had suddenly gained.
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