I came back to myself slowly this time, the world fading back and forth between the black of oblivion and the white of agony. My jaw ached, and I could feel droplets of sweat running down my body – again. Still, at least I had not catapulted myself from the bed, that time.

Sitting up carefully, I felt oddly well; if you have ever been in agony before, you will know just how good its absence can feel, but I felt better than that. It was not the simple please of endorphins and contrast, but even the pain I had felt before was gone, from my burns to the lingering shadows of my breaks.

Looking down, I checked my fleshy hand and to my shock, I found it whole, unburnt and perfect, though it was covered in what appeared to be some kind of black dirt. Looking down at the bed, I saw a fine layer of the stuff around where I had lain, with more where my hand and feet had been. I checked my chest, and found it there too, and with a frown pulled out two cleansing pills; one for me, and for the bed, again.

“What was that crap?”

For a moment, I had thought it was the result of the Phoenix elixir, but thinking back to the first time I had used it, there had been no such residue. I checked the ceiling, and the rest of the room to make sure there had been no fires, or breaches that explain it, but found nothing. Still frowning in confusion, I turned my attention inwards; I did not remember much from my efforts, other than the pain, which had been significantly more than either the first time, or the work I had done on my arm. It was definitely a process that was not possible under normal circumstances, and I could absolutely understand why it was the standard for cultivators to stop at the single, wide channel.

With a mental step, I explored my channels, rolling along their lengths and checking every warp, weft and baffle and verifying them against the pattern in my arms. I seemed to have done a pretty good job, though I had half a thought that the repeating pattern might lower the efficiency a bit; I had been unable to extrapolate the sigil-like design to one large enough for my torso, for example, and had simply stamped the smaller one multiple times.

The fact that I was still alive was hopeful, though now I was paying attention I could feel the slightly raw, bloated feeling of my channels, as I had before, as Praxis spun through them. From prior experience, I knew they would not settle down until I pushed a little, but before that, I needed to check my reserves.

Taking a breath, I moved my mind to my Core, and panicked as for a moment I felt no movement and I thought it too fast – and thus too empty - to even be perceivable, but then the pulse came and I realised with some amazement that my Praxis reserves were full, the beat of my Core steady, slow and solid as it replaced only what my body passively used.

Dumbfounded, I sat for several moments in shock; I had no idea why I was full, but at a guess it had to be somehow related to the Pheonix Elixer. I tried to remember if that had been the case when I had first formed my Focus, but while I had completed the thing very quickly by normal standards, I had certainly not spontaneously created my Core or anything like that.

With a shrug, I dismissed the mystery for the moment, knowing that I likely had little time for navel gazing, with the city being in the situation it was. Instead, I quickly dressed myself and snagged the now surplus bottled battery from the bed-side table, storing it with a smile, glad to have a backup, just in case.

Then, fully dressed so at least I would not be found naked if all went wrong, I Focused, feeling the Praxis surge through me as I used my will to yoke the lightning inside of me. As the coruscating light travelled through me, I felt my new channels settle, as they had before, the electrical stream now a permanent violet-white all along its path.

I gave it a moment to confirm I would not explode and then, just for a moment, stepped onto my Path and blasted both as hard as I could, tearing Praxis through my Focus and Exemplar as hard as possible.

Nothing changed around me, as nothing moved inside my room, so I quickly pulled out another shoe from my ever-growing inventory and dropped it. The shoe did not seem to move, at first, but after a relative couple of seconds I noticed that it was in fact making progress, but so slowly that it was barely visible. With a frown, I dialled back my Praxis, letting it flow normally and watched as the speed of the fall increased, but it was still way slower than it should have been. I tried to run the maths in my head, though it could only be rough. I was definitely above where even the sixty-percent integration of my Exemplar should have put me when at my normal rate, I was faster than my maximum had been before.

Slowly, I dialled it back, the shoe still eking its way through the air until I was at my previous normal, only to discover that I had to throttle it significantly in order to arrive at my former baseline.

Dropping my Focus and stepping off my path, I concentrated on my reserves as the shoe finished its long journey to the floor. Gazing inwards, I was delighted to see that it had barely dipped, and I had to guess that most of that had been my initial expenditure. It seemed like the new additions to my energy system had added about half-again to my final power, while lowering the cost significantly. I did not think I would be running out of energy quickly, fighting normally anymore, and even going all out, I would likely be fine for even sustained periods, provided it did not get too crazy. The shift in final result would help, as I hopefully would not need to dip quite so deep from then on.

A wide grin on my face, and a fresh spring in my freshly healed feet, I left my room behind to go find the others.

*

***

*

“Helloooo?”

The common room of the City’s Edge was empty, save for scattered furniture; the blood that had marred the walls long since cleansed. The air was still, hanging quietly in the unoccupied silence.

“Hello? Nobody?”

I guessed that, with the absence of our unconscious guests, and due to the sturdy construction of the inn, there was no real need to have somebody on guard, but I found the absence odd; even the slim chance of attack, or of another dragon, should have meant that somebody was on guard. My friends were too used to the chaos to simply go to bed, I thought. Walking over to a window, I opened the inner and outer shutters and peered out through the narrow slit at the sky, noting the pale light of early morning; I had been out for at least an entire night, it seemed.

Sealing the place back up, I was about to head upstairs to knock on doors when I heard the distinct click of an opening door and I turned to find Loneth glaring at me from one of her hidden exits, a broad-headed, indigo coloured hammer clenched in her fist.

“Oh, it’s you. Your friends left, couldn't wake you, for some reason. Heavy sleeper? Hardly seems like the time. Anyway, they said something about an attack, and one of the Blood and Bones had just showed up so I guess it’ll be happening over at their place. Feel free to leave.”

I gave the owner a flat look; she had been marginally less brisk since the aura popped, but aside from when she had told us about the Risen Throne, she had mostly been herself. She was somebody who frequently left the aura, to work on buildings outside the city, so maybe she was just used to maintaining the outlook, as a method of coping with moving back and forth. Either way, I was still a little nonplussed at the attitude; we had intervened and - in theory – saved the inn from sect members, after all.

“They went to the Stone?”

I blinked rapidly, mentally kicking myself for selfishly opting to work on my channels, knowing the city was in turmoil and danger could come calling at any moment. It had not occurred to me that if it happened while I was mid-work that I would be unable to stop, or that I would be either too engrossed or two out of it from the pain that I would not even be aware.

“Stone? Is that what they call it? No idea. But it’ll probably be hard to miss if they’re not back yet.”

“When did they go?!”

I asked the question with some urgency; if my friends had all left me, even in the security of the mini-fortress, then the situation was probably pretty dire.

“About an hour ago.”

“Shit...!”

Turning, I ran for the door, unlocking it and closing it behind me with a growl, and then the next, finally stepping out into the empty and ruined street. I glanced around, making sure there were no enemies in my immediate surroundings, and then Focused, stepping onto my Path at what was now my new normal.

The world hung around me once more, as much as a still street could, and I took off running at the slightly more than the equivalent speed of twice a Foundation stage’s maximum, or just over one-thousand times a normal human being. And all without severely draining myself. It may have been urgent, but it was definitely exhilarating.

Leaping lightly from building to building, I raced across the city towards the Stone; I considered jumping up again, but at that point I still had not quite figured out how safe it was, and the memory of falling thousands of feet with my heart in my throat was still pretty fresh.

But even without that, I was pretty sure of where I was heading, and in the relative span of minutes – mere moments in real time – I arrived at my destination, still bordered by a mostly intact square of buildings, though this time there was a significant change from my last visit.

On each side, that I could see, the blocky fortress was surrounded by an army. Here and there, I saw clusters of people dressed in the colours of the sects; black and red, pale gold and brown and yellow. But around those knots, a strangely still multitude gathered, dressed in dirty grey cloaks that seemed to be torn and stained with dry blood.

With a frown for the many thousands that surrounded the place in stillness, I moved about the edge of the square, from roof to roof until I faced the gate, from the same vantage as I had the day before. Letting my Praxis fade back to normal, I watched.

In front of the sequential gates – which were closed – I could see a series of individuals hammering at the hardened and reinforced wood, and even from my distance I could hear the hollow booms. Every few moments, one of the faceless in the crowd would catapult towards the top of the walls, or towards the top of the structure itself, only to be blasted back in a shower of pale green light. The strange guns aop the walls were still and unmoving, pale grey smoke drifting up from them, and I figured they had either been damaged or overused. I could not see the floor through the press of bodies, nor could I see any dead or disabled, so I had no idea as to the truth.

Quietly, I turned my gaze inwards and shifted my Core so that it was using my sigil; it was more expensive, and it kind of hurt, but I had a feeling I would need everything I had to make a dent in the thousands in front of me.