Chapter 26

Singular Breath (II)

It began to rain fire. The whizzing sounds formed a world-wide symphony, the light itself cascading as though building a stairwell to the sky. Two figures coated in thick tendrils of smoke blew across each other, rippling in a wide arc across the air and landing onto the ground with a tumble, rolling back and kicking up dust in their wake.

Yet, not even the bleeding crevices were enough to stop them as they both heaved onto their feet, slapping their hands together and ringing out a deafening sound of a bell as earth spiked out into a wave-like shape against a surging, tidal storm of silver-stroked darkness.

The explosion shook the world, shooting out tens of thousands of pieces of debris into a shower as two shadows sparked past it, one dyed wholly in a thick coat of darkness, swinging her arm in a chopping arc, while the other sported a fiery-white exterior, spinning midair with his leg extended flat.

The dark and the fire collided into yet another spectacle, the sheer outpour of energy collapsing unto itself for a moment before ripping out into a blowout. A pillar of dust billowed out, rapidly shaping into a tornado that, rather than sucking things in, tossed the remnants of the collision out like bullets.

Both figures darted about nimbly, their feet coated in a sheen of wind, firing off bolts of fire and dark at each other without a pause. One of them came to an abrupt halt and slammed his arms down, digging into the ground and, with a primordial roar, ripped it apart, seemingly digging out a behemoth of flames from the depths of hell and tossing it out into the world.

Nearly half a mile long abomination of fire, featureless at first glance, made up of rotting and burning chunks, poured out of the underground inferno and blew toward the woman who gnashed her teeth and stepped back, sucking in a deep, cold breath before slamming her fist into her lungs. She immediately coughed up a mouthful of black blood that remained afloat in front of her, wiggling and swirling, almost like a cocoon before hatching. Just before the abomination of fire slammed into her, the sphere of black blood erupted into tens of thousands of tiny tendrils of silver darkness that radiated out like petite arms, elongating and roiling around the fiery abomination, bringing it to a stop just a few inches from the woman’s figure.

Coated in sweat, she shouted and shot her blood-covered fist forward, straight into the maws of the abomination whose head alone appeared like a mountain against her tiny figure. The coral flames rippled out in a violent spasm for a moment before being overwhelmed by a tidal surge of blood-colored forms that corrupted it from front to the back.

The man on the other end Blinked away, angling his body and slamming it into the ground whereupon a dome-shaped house of dirt heaved up from the ground and surrounded him, the same reality repeating nearly ten times before the now-crimson-red anathema shuddered in silence, imploding unto itself.

A shower of gore, fire, and blood reeked out against the world and folded over the domed shields, acidic in their nature, eating away through them. It was almost as though a sea of sizzling blood fell from the sky in a single bout, eating away at the world beneath it without recompense.

By the time the blood ate away through the shields, however, the man was gone, abruptly appearing some hundred feet away at the woman’s flank, startling her. She rapidly weaved her arms in front of her and slashed her right forearm, letting the gushing blood form a membrane in front of her. Right after, a rippling bolt of Lightning -- a consummate form of attunement between several elements, namely Water, Wind, Fire, and Nature.

The bolt of lightning, as thick as a grown man’s thigh, burned through the bloody membrane within the blink of an eye, slamming into the woman’s side violently, ripping her armor asunder and turning her skin painfully red. She yelped out loudly in pain as she felt the force of a thousand mountains slam into her side and violently jerk her into the air like a cannonball, shooting her off for a whole mile and a half before losing momentum.

All her organs cried out in alarm as she used Dark, Wind, and Blood to forcibly stabilize her condition, yet still finding it extremely difficult to stand up. She felt dizzy and confused, yet could still instinctively note the sense of danger bubbling under her feet. She tossed herself back intuitively, evading a sharpened pillar of Frost and Earth that ripped out from beneath her.

She felt him coming, yet stopped -- remaining still even as he closed the distance between them to less than a hundred feet. He, too, suddenly came to a halt and lowered his raised arms, panting and wheezing, his clothes sticking to his skin due to sweat. Just a breath later, a notification rang in front of him, but he hardly paid it even a curious glance, remaining glued to the woman, a sense of bitterness and regret swelling in his eyes.

“... so close...” he mumbled, dropping down onto the ground due to exhaustion.

“... a minute longer,” the woman said, now appearing wholly fine -- her previously exhausted state completely gone. “And you would have won.”

“... excuses,” Cain shrugged. “Was I good enough, I wouldn’t need a whole hour.”

"... you're a lot like me," Lillia noted. "Never satisfied, no matter what. On my fourteenth birthday, I challenged my brother for the Head Seat of my family. Though I defeated him soundly, it took me over five minutes. While everyone else praised me for my talent, vigor, and strength... I felt embarrassed it took me so long."

“...”

“They look at you like a lunatic,” she continued. “Yet... if you walk too far away, they curse and jeer, asking why you didn’t take them with you.”

“... why didn’t you?" Cain asked casually, hardly expecting the look of unfiltered anger to deluge on her expression.

“How could I? They think strength falls from the heavenly sky! They thought that just because I was with them, they would automatically grow stronger! An hour of practice was too much, a week of intense hunts had them criticizing me--no, nevermind.” she finished with a sigh, shaking her head. “You should find out soon enough.”

"... you seem mistaken about something," Cain said, suddenly standing up and stretching. "Though I'm disappointed I wasn't able to beat you... I'm not regretful. And... I don't intend to fly to the summit and then lament over how lonely it is there. My family and friends... they're the reason I'm here, the reason I'm fighting. Though I don't know your story, I imagine it was similar to you in the beginning. You didn't want to get stronger just for the sake of being stronger; there was another drive, there always is with lunatics like us. But... over time, you saw others putting in less and less effort, while you put in more and more."

“...”

“... once upon a time, I was in that latter half,” Cain chuckled bitterly, his gaze growing melancholy. “I dragged my feet against the dirt as though I was carrying some mountain. And another lunatic, against advice from everyone, pulled me along, holding herself back time and again. We give up parts of ourselves for other people all the time. You just gotta know... that’s fine.”

“... you won’t get far within the Crucible with that mindset, Cain Gregory,” Lillia said after a short silence between the two. “Not far at all.”

“... eh, who cares?” Cain shrugged, stretching as his bones creaked one after another. “Even if I don’t, somebody else more similar to you will. Aah, but it’s such a shame about the Talent... tsk, you musta seen my stats. They are pathetic. Especially my physicals... good God, sometimes I feel like my mother pumped me full of estrogen when I was a baby...”

“... your bones have been eroded significantly due to a toxic substance permeating your body,” Lillia explained suddenly. “Similarly, your organs are operating on a sub-optimal level. In time, even if you don’t do much, your stats will equalize as the Crucible heals you.”

“...”

“... you have the drive,” she added. “But... unlike me, you also have the crutch. It is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile those two. You will either drag others with you and hit a peak with them much sooner... or you’ll leave them behind while you soar.”

“... or,” Cain said with a smile. “You make sure you all soar. Anyway, could you, like, dispel this thing? My friends might be pissing themselves worried for me right about now. I’d like to show off that even though I failed, I also succeeded. God... that’s such a weird thing, isn’t it? It’s like coming second in a race. Like, yeah, good job... but you still fuckin’ failed, you know? I don’t know, maybe my old man was just a maniac who instilled some really weird tendencies in me...”

“...” Lillia said nothing for a moment, lifting her finger gently as the darkness surrounding them began to vanish slowly. “If you persist in your drive, we shall meet again. If not... I wish you the best of life, Cain Gregory. I have learned a lot from you, however short our meet may have been.”

“... good luck,” Cain said, smiling. “And if we do meet again, please go easier on me. Nearly took my dear life there.”

“...” she suddenly flashed him the faintest of smiles as her body began to fade, eventually disappearing into a mist just as the darkness surrounding the ‘bridge’ vanished completely.

“C’!!!”

“CAIN!”

“Ah, he’s alive!”

“Look, he’s completely fine! Ha ha ha...” the cries of his companions startled him as he turned back and glanced up, noting their excited expressions and teary eyes of the many. His heart mellowed out as a smile crept onto his face, tension vanishing from within his bones. Yeah, he mused, stretching once again. This is it... not tossing yourself in the fire every chance you get just to become slightly stronger... this... is all that matters...