I had spent a few hours waiting for the house to fall asleep. I walk down the hall and to the bathroom. I turn and look over the counter. My sandy blonde hair cut right above my shoulders. My bangs could use some help as uneven as they are. Across my left shoulder underneath my tanktop the scar stood out more.
I lean into the mirror examining my new muscles and my strange new eyes. I was trying my best to suffocate this boiling feeling. Nothing I did stopped it. I threw on a sweatshirt and headed out the house. One last effort to rid myself of the nightmare tonight.
I would have done it a month ago with Stella on the first day we went adventuring, but we ended up going to Fayha. I didn't even bother taking a quest to kill them because I knew I could get one. Of course I was hunting the monster that killed me fourteen years ago. I was out for an anomalied criet.
The windy road led up to the railing. I peered down while not touching the railing. It's still a good view even if the sea is crawling with criets and other monsters. I walked down the stairs watching the new moonlight reflect off the dark ocean. The sand grains seemed blue in the moonlight.
I stepped on the sand. I've been here more in my dreams than actually here. I walked glancing around the narrow beach. I might run into adventurers down here, but they won't send me up like they did before.
I dropped my backpack and reached inside. Instead of the sword I felt a small ball. It was heavy and wouldn't move at all. It also pulsed with magic.
"Oh, wow!" I pulled my hand out. "How the hell did Universal Destruction do that?" I asked myself.
It was necessary for me to also experiment with what Universal Being was while down here. As I wait for a criet to attack me, I'll spend time reviewing things.
Before I get into the fun stuff I had to check something else. My goblin-slash had done something both during the last competition fight and with Baydí. Given how magic and physical things don't interact much, changing one's momentum isn't really plausible, yet, I had done the very thing. I seemed to have slung myself like picking up a character in a game and moving them.
Tapping my foot on the ground, I decided to just test it out first. I hit the goblin-slash stance. Imagining to sling the magic I used to burst forward, I started running. From behind my back I thrusted my fist forward, along with slinging the magic.
The results of such were none. I ended up tripping. The sand scratched and stuck to my face. Where I had landed redden lightly. I stood up and crossed my arms.
"Hmm."
Rethinking the capabilities of magic I'm sure it's impossible, yet I did it unconsciously. Tapping my foot, an idea sparked in my head.
I activated the enhancement magic around my speed. I couldn't manipulate physical momentum, but when I used magic over my physical body to move I can manipulate that momentum. The magical momentum still shifts my body, but isn't created physically.
My head spiraled comprehending that. I flicked my hand behind myself and goblin-slashed again. I moved the magic within the speed enhancements. Like I thought, my momentum could be manipulated in another direction.
Finishing the punch, a gust of wind followed from my arm. Standing still I looked at my hand, the singular enhancement rune on my bicep. If I got better at this, I could move all this into a singular attack, I'm sure I could eventually multiply the momentum even farther.
"Wow… great find." I said to myself and cheered. "Now, the main course."
I used the status skill. It wasn't exactly helpful with skills that never existed before, mainly because it was more like a database that was constantly edited. The owner of the database is the President of Mila, Yeal. The King of Time had been alive since the awakening and had seen thousands of skills and abilities which she recorded into the database to help people understand their abilities.
I had just created a new one that hadn't been recorded, though I'm sure in another way the momentum control was achieved. I sighed and reviewed Universal Being.
Universal Destruction was the simplest to understand and use. I raised my hand and threw a small fire into the sand. It caused the physical sand to harden. The area of effect of it was about two feet.
I had got to this point but I still didn't know how to use Universal Being or anything within it. I had used Universal Destruction before but I was suffering the worst headache of all time, I didn't feel the magic. So I simply imagined using the magic.
That was the worst way to ever try magic, as I already knew. Magic wasn't simply feeling steel and recreating that feeling. It wasn't even recreating everything that made steel steel . Every form of magic didn't feel like its physical counterpart. Instead, with magic, everything had its own feeling. Feeling the magic in magical steel could feel like grass. The feeling didn't line up and that was why just imagining it wouldn't exactly work.
Flipping my world on its head, I felt a wave rippling across my body. My outstretched hand formed the rune of Universal Destruction. The feeling wasn't the same as anything I've ever felt, nor did it feel like magic. I had simply used something that was always there, like a muscle I never used.
I quickly created the same amount of fire, unsure of how long Universal Destruction lasted or what it cost. I threw the fire. It hit the sand next to where I threw it last. This time the area was around five feet.
Experimenting more, it seemed to increase exponentially as I increased the radius of the fire. Not even the amount of fire mattered if I just stretched it long enough. A discus of fire would work well with this spell, but there were obviously more ways than that to use it.
Universal Helper was vague. Allocating magic points into more places than normal. The description seemed to not fully understand it either, which means whoever had this before that Yeal learned it from must have not said much about it.
This could also mean that there is more to Universal Being than I can find through this status skill. I'd have to really experiment on what it does.
Apparently my fire had stirred up the attention I was seeking. The water started to stir. I pulled the sword out of my bag. It was heavier than every sword I held in my life combined. When I moved my hand down the hilt, an invisible hilt became visible around my hand. I grabbed far down to allow for less effort to hold the weapon. I lowered the weight by a great amount to the point I could barely feel it. Thankfully, due to my drastically increased amount of magic from Baydí, I had replenished the amount of magic I spent with fire quickly.
As I finally lifted the sword, as if called into the world by me, a criet crawled up the shore. One giant claw dragging behind it. A single glowing eye showed through the seaweed.
A screech came from under all the hair and seaweed. I swung the sword vertical to my body. The sword stretched around seven feet not including the hilt.
Pulling my magically enhanced strength through enhancement runes, I carved the air around the head of the criet. The two presences that were channeled within a sword like this easily cut the monster's head off. Blood spewing around the air. The sand around where the sword's tip landed shot up.
"Holy…"
I put down a criet the same way I would have put down a goblin. Not only that my strength was truly so much more now. You could clearly tell the magical strength over my physical strength now.
I was honestly expecting more from the scum that killed me. I activated Universal Destruction, laying the rune on my cheek, I threw out a giant fire ball into the sea. One a bit too big,
A raging fire spilled out lighting up the small beach like a dying star for a second. Universal Destruction multiplied the damage scarily and pushed the shore back. The twenty foot beach was temporarily doubled in size, as the waves came crawling back.
"COME ON! That's all you have?! You failed to kill me and can't even kill me now!"
They must be hungry or easily agitated because five jumped up from the returning ocean. Only one had hair and seaweed on it, the others had blue skin, one with green skin. They looked like buffed hunched men with a singular glowing eye and one arm being a giant claw. The ones without hair were stronger, I remembered.
One of the blue ones jumped out of the water at me. The water curled around its body and shot towards me in a way similar to Baydí's water. I swung the sword and the water fell into the sword. The sword's blade grew a few centimeters.
"Woah."
I jumped back from it. I threw the giant sword behind my back. I goblin-slung around the first one and towards a blue criet. I carved the air over my shoulder and down. Blood spewed from a scar cut similar to mine, just not going through it.
"Haha!"
The sword was thrown into the sand at my left side. Another criet was slinging its claw at me. I twisted my body around the taller sword and shot over the claw at its head.
We crashed to the sand. I created a wide fire line of fire and cut the neck of the monster. The line faltered and the enhanced damage wasn't enough to cut through bone. It threw me off its body and spasmed. Blood pooling around its nearly decapitated head.
Fights with stronger monsters were thousands of times more gruesome than with goblins that died with magical sparks. I didn't like how it looked. It reminded me of Āpala and Baydí. The burns around its neck reminded me of Delusion. It was horrid for that moment but nothing attacked me.
When I looked up all the blue criets including the one I attacked first and the hairy criet were attacking the green one.
I ran over to the defending green one and tried to plunge Paukena's sword into it. When I summoned the sword it came out in pieces. Oh, yeah I didn't exactly fix that…
The claw hand of the monster swung back trying to retreat and came close to me. I dodged it and hopped back.
While they were attacking the green one I grabbed the giant sword again. What did Baydí call it when she used it? Segmented Sea right?
I tried to recall the chant while I lifted the sword without magic.
"Restless sea. Affirmations carrying ripples of destroyed continents. Rows of severed souls. Coil around a hurricane to drown the moon. Segmented Sea."
The waves in the blade rippled then started to fall out. They tailed off the tip of the sword. I ran at the now down green criet. I slashed the sword out and the tail end of the water connected at the tip and became a circle of water. It shot out and cut the monster in half. The blade shortened significantly after.
The rune of Universal Destruction buffed the damage along with the two presences. Not much could really defend against that attack if it landed.
I slashed one last time at the hairy criet. The blade cut it deep, but the water from the chant had ripped a chunk out of the criet's non claw shoulder. The chant ended and the chunk fell onto the ground in a bloody mess. The water retreated into the blade, some size returning.
The only criet I hadn't hit yet jumped at me throwing its claw towards my face. I was again forced to not use the sword and jumped into the air. I wrapped my body around the piercing claw, dodging a direct stab.
Its claw cut my shirt and my arms. I hopped up quickly onto its bulky arm, struggling to stay balanced. I retried the line of fire. The fire faltered before I was even able to hit it and the criet's arm threw me off.
I slid across the sand. Damnit. Why is it so hard to make just a line with fire? Up to now I was able to make swords, though that was with gravity magic. I was now facing the fact that my actual ability to manipulate fire was lacking.
Now wasn't the time to think about it, there was a criet behind me and two in front of me. I had been surrounded quickly. I goblin-slashed forward towards the sword. I rolled around the two attacking me. I grabbed the sword and tried to pull it up. I couldn't lower the weight as much. I barely defended against the hairy one, who was surprisingly still alive. Its claw hit the blade and the waves within the blade rippled.
I created distance while trying to form a dagger of fire. I couldn't do it without gravity magic's assistance. I tried to hold the shape of the flame but it was harder than I thought. I had to run farther from the three criets. Thankfully they were slow runners.
I was shortly able to at least make a sharp edge I could hold. I was panting when I finally made it. I needed to catch my breath first but they were closer than I thought. I sprinted away but my leg got caught on something. It was seaweed. It trailed all the way to the criet I hadn't hurt yet and he started to reel me in.
"Damn!"
I stood up and ran straight towards him. He swung his non claw arm and threw the seaweed. I was whipped around and towards the one I cut at the start. I had been slung like this during the competition too.
The claw and my dagger of fire deflected off each other. I was swung past it and chucked the dagger at the criet. It hit the criet in the face, the body falling over onto the ground.
I hit the sand away from it and rolled around from the impact. I was quickly thrown back that way, the criets trying the same thing. My hand desperately grabbed the dagger out the head.
I twisted and stomped my feet along the ground. Manipulating my magical momentum against the sling and ripped violently towards the unharmed criet. The seaweed snapped and my body collided with the criet. My dagger plunged into the stomach, chest then the jaw, ending the monster's attempt to fight back.
The hairy criet was attacking me with its claw arm. I smirked and snapped the dagger in the jaw of the last criet. An explosion rang out, but I pushed it away from me, only to protect my clothes, the fire wouldn't hurt me.
A headache came on as I tried one last time to make a large line of fire. My horns became ragged. I swiped a barely holding line as I swung it down on the dazed criet. I cut its head off.
I rolled over exhausted and panting. I tried standing up but my legs shook. I fell to my knees and crawled my way to the segmented sea. I laid my back against the blade and shut my eyes for a second.
Awesome. I cheered to myself. That was great. I smiled to myself. My magic just reached the end, the last amount didn't push me too badly.
"Heo?" A familiar voice spoke.