Grey Skill 3

Cursing under my breath, I discarded the facade of a warrior struggling to stay alive and picked up my pace, fixating solely on the battle at hand. I used the carallians as dummies to test out different techniques to incorporate into my evolving aether-infused fighting style.

I concentrated on the feeling of cladding myself in aether. Feeling the fundamental differences from when I had once done the same with mana.

It was difficult to describe, but it was denser, yet more pliable and soft. So much so that the concentration needed to envelop my body in aether without it leaking or spreading. Concentrating on the proportions of aether to different body parts was also far greater than it had been when I had done the same with mana.

Yet, the differences in outcomes couldn’t be ignored. The power my body received as aether siphoned through my limbs felt as if the strengthened muscles were mine and the protective layer of aether was my thickened skin. It didn’t feel borrowed like when I strengthened myself using mana.

In retrospect, my inability to use elemental magic would’ve hit me much harder if it hadn’t been for my training with Kordri. Being taught to conserve mana and fighting with minimal movements and utmost efficiency while dealing the most possible damage served me better now than it had been all throughout the war after my training.

As I continued getting lost in the battle, I brought back the memories of my time with the bald asura—all the times he had killed me in the soul realm while teaching me how to fight. His movements were fluid yet sharp and the speed at which he was able to move was chilling. Add to that his King’s Intent that could literally squeeze the air out of a silver core mage’s lungs and I could see why he was respected even amongst the asuras.

Back then, he had taught me how to fight to the utmost limits of a human, but what about now? Could I reach the levels of Kordri with my new body and aether? Could I surpass him?

My mind stayed sharp as all of these thoughts raced through my mind, not caring how much time had passed. My mind was aware yet it blocked out everything but the enemies capable of hurting me. That was how I had been fighting since waking up in this hellhole. It had been eat or be eaten, and with my mana core shattered, I fought and trained on a daily basis not to be the latter.

The words I had spat at Regis threatened to resurface but I buried them by concentrating on the sounds of the battle—the crunch and grinding of rocks as they stomped the ground, the subtle whistle of the wind as the carallian’s swung their gangly limbs.

Ducking below the snapping jaws of a carallian, I knocked it off its feet with a low sweep kick. As it scrambled to get back up, I focused on another carallian barreling toward me.

Splitting aether between my back leg and the point of my elbow, I burst forth, pushing my supporting palm up against my fist to reinforce my strike. The sharp bones that protected the carallian’s torso shattered upon impact and my elbow dug into his midsection like a spearhead.

The carallian crumpled to the ground with its spine snapped. As it convulsed on the ground, I shifted my head to the left to avoid the carallian I had tripped. Two, well-placed stabs later and both carallians were added to my pile of corpses.

My eyes scanned for the next prey, and it was only when I couldn’t find anymore that I finally noticed that the sky had turned back to blue and that the corpses strewn around me were slowly fading.