Eric’s eyes were wide with outrage that almost overwhelmed the transcendent epiphanies of fire and ice that were all that was allowing him to endure the hideous blaze still consuming him from within. It was as much the shocking jolt of hideous PAIN breaking out of its icy shell as his mother’s castigation that snapped him back into focus, Eric now glaring at the too-handsome Caligula-like features of the would-be Roman commander. Yet for all he knew, Rome’s armaments and strategies were themselves the remnants of ancient conquering civilizations whose spiritual echoes of conquest and dominion had somehow reached what had been, at the time a world utterly free of the System or the magics of ascension, possessing only the crimson arts and necromancy that had always been mankind’s birthright.
Domini gazed at Eric with an odd smirk, before nodding his head in odd approval. “A full hauberk of mithril. Helm as well, cleverly crafted to protect and not hinder your vision at all. Excellent. And I see the mithril blade double strapped at your hip you wear so as to not hinder your punching at all.” The man chuckled. “Very well. Let’s see just how strong a warrior you are, boy.”
Moving so fast that Eric realized with a certain shiver of excitement that this monster was at least as fast as he was, Domini shifted his eldritch gladius to the small of his back, his shield disappearing as if it had never been.
Domini’s hands glowed darkly, sending a shiver even through the fires of Eric’s soul.
He smiled at Eric’s sudden caution. “That’s right, lad. You aren’t the only one who understands the power of Essence based attacks. And I have yet to meet anyone who can best fists and flesh harder than steel. Harder even than your hate, boy!” He laughed coldly. “You have the rare honor of being personally bested by the master of a hundred battlefields! It will be a pleasure to instruct you and Aurelia on all the failings that will ensure my victory!”
With that he roared and charged. Eric abruptly found himself for the first time in a very, very long time, desperately fighting just to keep from being overwhelmed as his body was battered by a flurry of powerful punches and kicks that had his shins and forearms throbbing with agony as great as the fires burning from within.
You have been struck by Angle kick! Shin check deflects!
You have been struck by Angle kick! You save versus dry heaving. You have taken one Medium Wound!
Right hook cracks left orbital socket.
Straight punch shatters eye tooth!
You have successfully saved versus knockout punch!
“Eric! Are you truly this pathetic?”
His mother’s icy contempt immediately jolted Eric out of his horrified daze as he was battered and bruised by a monster beyond him in so many ways, his blood upon his enemy’s granite-hued fist sharing so many bitter sharp secrets.
Domini: Level 30 Bronze Warlord. Strength 600 – Vitality 600 – Quickness 600 – Finesse 600 – Perception 400. - Note. Your opponent has achieved an Ideal Configuration and unlocked hidden bonuses!
“No, he’s not pathetic,” said Domini with a small smile as a dozen of Pavel’s lessons abruptly snapped to the fore. “He’s merely a boy daring to take on someone who’s been mastering the battlefield for centuries. No matter how great your child’s ascension, experience triumphs raw power, Lady Aurelia, and few have more power than those who have ascended to Bronze upon the field of battle!”
Even as his opponent took the time to subtly gloat, savoring the contest, preening in his own assumed victory and the remaining mercenary’s awe, Eric subtly shifted his balance and stance so that his legs could more easily come into play. He recalled all too well Pavel’s exasperated tone bacid when he was trying to correct just a few of Eric’s many martial flaws.
“You can hit well enough, Eric, but there’s a reason why cultivators practice unarmed combat so frequently in challenges and why the feet are used every bit as much as the fist.”
He recalled the foolish derision he had at least kept in check, knowing that, practically speaking, punching was key and grappling was vital when dealing with armed opponents. But kicking? A few powerful blows before one’s opponent closed, with one’s balance off and one’s leg vulnerable to a crippling cut, had always been his unspoken prejudice. Pavel had sensed it and remarkably hadn’t derided him for it. Though he had at least made sure Eric knew how to execute a basic snap kick and a roundhouse or angle kick where the power was generated by hip rotation more than anything else. The two easiest kicks to learn, Pavel had said, and the angle kick especially was a powerful one to master, emphasizing that Eric would be a fool not to at least learn the basics, for when he was finally ready.
It was only now, bones aching with blows that healed far faster than his enemy would think as Domini continued to smirk, that Eric appreciated just how valuable those lessons had been. At least Pavel wasn’t even seeing the bruises fade with the hyperion glow still radiating so strongly from fresh that still smoked and sizzled as Potency surge boosted Unified Restoration kept him hanging on to life and vitality... yet it was only by embracing the higher ideals of COLD, and his desperate need to release the awful excess potency that kept welling up within him like an endless flood of power welling up inside him that would literally cook his own soul down to nothing if he didn’t finish DISCHARGING IT! that he was even upright for this long.
And it was only now, still shivering with the wonder of his latest Transcendent attack... awed and horrified that the potency behind it immediately roared back to full... and continued putting such a terrible strain as it demanded ever greater release... that Eric appreciated just how damned important Pavel’s lessons had been.
Because learning how to kick, even the most basic kicks, hadn’t been about fighting. At least not entirely. It had been learning how to channel his Qi through his entire body. And even if his carved peripheral channels had made it so much easier to channel through his hands, his consistent evolution as Eve’s, or Death’s Disciple meant that his whole body was now receptive to the flow of Qi. He was struck with the sudden sense that now was the best chance, perhaps the only chance he would ever have of embracing symmetrical perfection, channeling the fearsome over-abundance of essence and spiritual energy roaring through him in ways that would finally unlock the full potential of his Unarmed Combat skill.
Of course he had no conveniently carved channels on his legs... so it would only be with sweat and tears of pain that he would reforge himself into a disciple truly worthy of his master as Domini chuckled with something close to contempt, catching his leg so easily before twisting around and tossing him a good dozen feet.
Before Eric leaped back to his feet and charged forward again, but only after earning the man’s mocking laughter as Eric began lashing out with a furious barrage of snap kicks and shin strikes, all of which were effortlessly shrugged off as less than nothing as Eric fought to master both his balance and the feel of spiritual energy shivering through his blazing-hot soul.
Before being sent cartwheeling back with a slap just like his mother’s.
Acting check successful! Arrogance in play. He totally believes your groan!
“Really, child? You would kick like an infant who knows not what to do with his legs?” Domini shook his head in genuine bemusement. “Truly, you are a child, left to your own devices to forge yourself into something... unique, right?” He gave a condescending smirk. “And you’ve clearly had breakthroughs. Breakthroughs that make you as worthy as any Rank 10 Bronze Classer.” His bemused smirk turned cold. “But not thirty, boy. Not by mocking me with techniques you don’t truly under—”
His words cut off with a hiss as Eric embraced the sudden icy epiphany shivering through his soul. Feeling the howling flood of Winter’s might swirling through not just his arms, but his entire body!
He would have shook his head with wonder, wondering why he had never before pushed himself in the way that Pavel had clearly been hoping he would understand that he ultimately had to... yet Eric had been so consumed by his split-focus tri-fold path that he had made a beginners mistake he might never have made, had he been a pure cultivator.
As it stood, it was only now, facing a deadly opponent who was actually buying him the time he needed to learn under the crucible of ultimate peril, what was perhaps the most basic of lessons.
How to channel the most basic of flow of spiritual energy through all of his limbs.
Yet in his case, it wasn’t a young disciples fist shivering with a quick flash of unusual strength.
It was his leg shivering with the potency of a Higher Order Transcendent strike as the Winter Queen’s own hideous strength howled and buffeted his soul.
Congratulations! You have had a SUCCESSFUL Cultivation breakthrough in the crucible of battle!
Finally, you understand the most basic of lessons any warrior monk knows!
You strike with both hands and feet because its not about keeping your balance or the superiority of bladed weapons. It’s about the pristine flow of spiritual energy through your ENTIRE BODY!
You’ve successfully shaped Eve’s pristine potential into spiritual energy paths that flow through all four of your limbs!
NOTE. You are attempting to channel a Transcendent Strike!
Save versus catastrophic destruction: SUCCESS!
Evolution’s path is the ultimate Path of Ascension! Your mistress is Gold and your potential is unlimited, for we never stop evolving!
Not until the day our race is wiped out for good.
Doom Fist has evolved into Doom Strike!
Doom Strike is now Rank 6!
Essence Fusion is now Rank 5!
Unarmed Combat is now Rank 23 as you learn to incorporate the most basic of kicks (and how to channel spiritual energy throughout your entire body!)
You have been blessed with the insights of the Winter Queen.
Doom Strike is now Rank 7!
Tibia saves versus shattering! You are temporarily at -3 to skill checks for 7 seconds!
Eric’s fierce smile of satisfaction as his opponent wheezed for air from lungs now bitten by pristine cold turned to a cry when a furious snarl revealed that his opponent was finally taking him seriously as a forearm harder than tungsten steel, radiating the very essence of hardness, slammed against his shin.
“You wish to fight in earnest, boy? Alright then, playtime is over. Now I will teach you in earnest!” Domini snarled before Eric was sent reeling back, nose gushing a spray of blood. Then he was slamming against Eric’s ribs as he desperately twisted inside the blow, only to be met by a rock-hard knee bomb exploding against his floating ribs.
Eric’s world became a haze of pain before he finally regained his bearings and EMBRACED their furious snarl and his own Essence enhanced strength, ignoring his System interface warning of serious damage and broken ribs.
You have suffered 3 Medium and 2 Serious Wounds.
Five ribs cracked.
Organs have saved versus rupture.
You are unable to sense your foe’s weakness!
Unified Perception senses organs most vulnerable to cold.
You have embraced Burst of Strength! You have successfully hip-checked your (surprised) opponent!
Doom Strike!
Doom Strike!
Right kidney punch infuses your opponent with COLD!
Rank 7 Hardness Essence Versus Rank 1 Cold Essence FAILS to shatter opponent’s bones!
Your opponent’s own breakthroughs have allowed him to infuse his entire body with the essence of Hardness!
Your Higher order attack STILL penetrates defenses for 1/7th standard potency drain!
You have claimed a portion of your foe’s Vitality and Quickness.
Left hook catches your opponent on the sweet spot!
You have claimed a portion of your foe’s Vitality and Quickness.
Your opponent’s speed no longer exceeds your own!
“No, impossible!” Domini snarled, gazing at Eric in wide-eyed disbelief. “I have achieved rank seven in an art a child like you couldn’t hope to understand! My entire body can withstand artillery shells cast from any mortal cannon! And you would think to mark me with Winter’s Chill?”
His lips curled in a dangerous snarl.
His hands were no longer tight fists but held with rigid stiff fingers cupped only enough that no blow would injure his own fingers.
And somehow, with the sense of deadly sharpness radiating off of them, Eric doubted they would be jolting to a stop, anytime soon.
Even against a bank vault, those fingers were cutting right through.
Eric’s lips curled in a feral smile even as the ground smoked underneath his feet, for all that he felt winter’s fury howling through his soul.
Good. His foe was taking this seriously.
Time to ASCEND!
Willpower check made! You have learned to master the storms of ice and hyperion flame lighting you from within! An icy fire seeks balance within your soul.
You can now focus sufficient to use Battletime!
Speed Racer helps you dodge Piercing Strike!
The winter landscape was suddenly alive with the sound of shrieking steel, howling cold, and entire groves of trees bursting under the furious onslaught of a pair of warriors who would do whatever it took to best their foe. One riding the cusp of enlightenment, the other a centuries-old killer who refused to fall to a child’s patchwork ascension.
And when a certain Contender’s attempts to land a devastating punch infused with Winter’s deadly chill grew a bit too enthusiastic, he was forced to pay a terrible price when a fiercely triumphant Domini’s razor sharp fingers aimed to tear out Eric’s throat.
Just barely missing, while not actually missing at all.
Eric’s eyes widened with agonized horror when his jaw was cleaved from his face in an explosion of blood and gore.
You have DARED to underestimate your opponent and have paid the price!
You have been critically struck by Sheering Blow! This is an ESSENCE infused attack and EFFORTLESSLY cleaves through your jaw!
You have SAVED versus Stunning blow!
Eric’s ears rang with agony as his suddenly exposed mouth sagged in a silent bloody scream.
Domini sneered, eyes dancing with cold mirth as a frosty chuckle escaped his lips, finally revealing his true self. “And that’s what you get for DARING to challenge your betters, you foolish child. Now YIELD to me and I will spare your life. Otherwise, this is but the least of the pain you will suffer at my hands.
It was all Eric could do to FREEZE tight the howling terror echoing through his soul as Domini, like the expert he was, chose that moment to finally reveal his killing aura in all its grisly majesty. All the lives he had taken, countless would-be champions falling to his blade.
Perhaps he should take it as a compliment. Even in his furious fugue, Eric’s now too perceptive mind, picking up far more thoughts than was good for any sylvan brain, could sense that very few had ever pushed Domini to the point of facing them with his essence-infused fists.
Before now.
Willpower modified skillcheck made.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
It would have been so easy to crumple, filled with terror and despair.
Instead, Eric screamed and charged his foe like the fool he was.
A fool determined to make his enemies feel his fury one last time.
YOU REFUSE TO FEEL FEAR!
MAY TERROR’S WEAKNESS BURN IN THE FIRES OF YOUR WRATH!
You have Critically struck your foe with FIRE FIST, embracing the platonic ideal of flame!
Multiple Artifacts allow your target to successfully SAVE versus instant obliteration!
Silver-tier treasure REDUCES 6-fold baseline damage multiplier to 1 Serious wound!
You have successfully ruptured 7 Elite Bronze tier wards Domini never thought would be triggered on Earth!
You have successfully RUPTURED 1 Silver Tier blessing your foe would have never dreamed could be so casually ruptured by a white-tier monstrosity such as yourself!
CONGRATULATIONS! FIRE FIST IS NOW RANK 19!
(You are done fucking around. Now it’s HAMMER TIME!!)
Eric howled as the mangled mess of his shattered jaw morphed into the hideous shark-toothed maw that cared nothing for euclidean geometry that was his birthright, seeing the tingle of fear in his enemy’s eyes and the reflection of his own hideous transformation which he DID NOT CARE! about at all as he snarled away mastery of icy dominion and draining his foes dry, instantly replaced by the searing hot flames of retribution.
Where Domini had been expecting a broken youth sobbing for mercy he instead received an uppercut whipping out so fast that not even he could react before he was sent flying, the powerful Classer’s trigger wards violently erupting like with a brilliant crackling flare, countless firecrackers released all at once, as a roaring Eric turned the world to liquid FIRE!
The air echoed with the howling winds so reminiscent of that which was first unleashed upon the world after suffering just a flash of a Valorium Core’s meltdown, echoing with Red’s distant screams of “It burns! It burns!” before fading to a dying wheeze as a maelstrom of blazing hot hyperion radiation set half the valley ablaze.
Of course none of that superheated radiation setting so much on fire did anything but ruffle Aurelia’s hair, her glare locking on her snarling son, now covered in liquid flame, gazed down upon the wild-eyed Domini, covered in third and fourth degree burns which weren’t healing nearly as fast as they should on a powerful Classer with a fucking absurd 600 Vitality, synergistic powers or no.
Yet the burned man was gazing at up at Eric as if he were the murderous abomination.
“That’s not the way of it, Eric!” Aurelia snapped, her eyes as hot as the fires now blazing in the background. “You’ve already proven yourself flames’ master. It is COLD you now seek to understand. Understand so well that you can embrace it as effortlessly as...” Her words cut off in a shuddering gasp, wide-eyed as she gazed, like a child, eyes wide with wonder at what Eric held in his hands.
“My darling boy, what curious thing are you up to now?”
Yet Eric had no words for the awe he felt, shuddering through his soul. Feeling on the verge of an epiphany so profound as one hand embraced the furious pristine ideal of living flame. Wrath and radiation. The glorious gift of heat, light, propagation and, ultimately, utter obliteration. While in the other hand, he held in hand its polar opposite.
A fist full of impossibly bitter cold, where heat was replaced by frost. A frigid contrast where instead of giving the fiery gift of obliterating Wrath, he would TAKE with Dominion’s fury every last iota of energy, vitality, and heat... claiming it all.
Consuming it all.
Leaving nothing but bitter cold in its wake until quantum flux itself would collapse in glorious oblivion, leaving nothing but arcane ash behind.
The platonic ideals of Heat and Cold.
A higher order manifestation of both.
Each of them absolute opposites in their extremes. Cycles of obliterating heat radiating Wrath’s fury... and physic’s defying cold that went so much lower than 0 Kelvin... SUCKING and DRAINING all heat and light and life like an electromana black hole. Absorbing it all.
CLAIMING it ALL!
Heat and Cold.
Both polar opposites.
Yet both meeting in the endless curved of infinity at oblivion’s end.
In their ultimate, primal form, BOTH extremes would reduce their foes to quantuum flux and arcane ash.
HE shivered.
The ground shivered,
Domini himself with his absolutely monstrous stats was sent sprawling to the ground as the world itself seemed to tremble with Eric’s epiphany, Aurelia’s honey-sweet voice that of the nurturing mother he had always desperately craved.
Yet never once received.
“What have you forged, my darling, beautiful boy? I taste it! I taste...”
Eric shook his head, lost between reverie, wonder, and realizing he was missing something still.
“No, mother. It’s not quite finished.” He gazed with wonder at his hands, eyes widening as he dared to bring them closer and closer together, before freezing with Domini’s desperate scream.
“NO!”
Domini’s eyes, so wide with horrified dismay, instantly morphed with fury.
“No! I have conquered entire planets, burned entire cities to the ground! I will not die a nameless nothing to your son’s mad ascension!” He screamed, his voice oscillating between horror and fury, now fully armed in half a dozen crackling wards clearly generated from magical energies Eric only half understood
“I will take your head, you brat, and claim your sister by right of Dominion!” He roared. For Domini too was clearly through playing around, roaring as he charged Eric shield first, a sword glittering with unparalleled sharpness. A vorpal blade, now darting forward to claim its due in blood and tears. A heartbeat before the ground abruptly stiffened around Eric’s feet, the air erupted in brilliant blinding flashes, and Domini disappeared without a trace.
“Caecus, Maeco, Palesco!”
“Eric!”
Strength check: Failed! You are unable to break earth bonds infused with the essence of Hardness!
But Eric was no fool. When his foe quit holding back, so had he.
Burst of Strength check: Successful! You have infused Burst of Strength with the essence of WRATH! You have SHATTERED bonds infused with the essence of Hardness!
Burst of Strength is now Rank 17!
“Die, mongrel!” Domini snarled only when Eric’s doom truly was certain, lashing out with a cross cut against a flat-footed Alex about to be cleaved in half.
Only for his eyes to widen in furious disbelief when Eric effortlessly twisted around, meeting foible against forte, effortlessly forcing the more powerful man’s blade offline as his own blade windmilled forward, forcing a suddenly panicked Domini to desperately backpedal, circling Eric with a wild look in his eyes.
“No. There is now way you could parry the essence of Sharpness and Hardness with base Mithril!”
Aurelia’s cold laughter washed over them both, a snarling Eric, spared from bleeding out only thanks to his Rank 31 Blood Mastery perk, not saying a word. Merely holding on to the glorious epiphany he was on the cusp of understanding as his right hand embraced furious heat, his left bitter cold, and somehow they managed to both rest upon the pommel of the nodachi he held. Neither cancelling the other. Both somehow meeting at the event horizon of infinity in ways he could scarce understand even as he teased out the invisible pattern he was still missing, more elusive than a furious Domini, weaving and darting forth, spewing out caustic spells so easy to sense, as his own poorly hidden form was, with Unified Perception seeing so clearly the brilliant tells of Bronze tier fast-cast battle magics that Domini had never learned the art to cloaking... perhaps because he had never needed to.
Until now.
As Eric weaved and dodged past desperate lunges and furious chants. And if his opponent’s martial mastery was indeed a desperate challenge to counter, spells made for hindrance and destruction traveling at mana’s oftentimes lackadaisical pace, the molasses of the electromana spectrum, were effortless for him to dodge.
“That’s because it is no longer base mithril, foolish man. Can you not sense that which radiates from it, the epiphany my glorious, wonderful, BEAUTIFUL son is on the CUSP OF RELEASING!? THE EPIPHANY THAT WILL ELEVATE US ALL!”
Aurelia’s very words were an assault that had Domini stumbling back, glaring her way. “No, what you did was forbidden! I will have you—NO!!”
Domini’s words were cut off with a desperate scream...
Because finally Eric had finally found it.
Finally UNDERSTOOD the weave and weft of the elemental pattern before him, could finally sense the flow of Heat and Cold and how to manipulate BOTH of them into one glorious transcendent attack.
Because it wasn’t just heat and cold.
It was ICE and FIRE in their most primal forms.
One tore free energy and essence by Dominion’s ordain.
The other gave life, light, and absolute destruction freely by Wrath’s decree.
Together, they could so easily, so effortlessly cancel each other out. The homeostatic harmony, the graceful middle ground, by which life itself beat its eternal heart, existence riding between the heartbeats of that eternal delicate balance.
But there was another path one could take.
A path where Ice claimed and froze with Winter’s hoary whisper, and FIRE returned with Summer’s blinding WRATH! A path where one’s foe’s very vitality would be stripped free the instant before it was sent blazing back in a white hot plasma beam so absolute that shadowy base reality would smolder and burn from the touch of Pristine Flame. All at just the tiniest cost to Soul Reserves and Spiritual Energy that such a terrible strike would normally entail.
For one’s own enemy would be forced to pay so much of the bill.
With both his vitality,
and then his life.
Eric laughed with his now fully reformed jaw in the bitter howling winds, his mother’s deadly storm hindering their foe every bit as much as Domini had sought to hinder him.
The Bronze Tier Warlord flinched with genuine fear at the sight before him.
“No,” the man whispered, shaking his head with dismay. “There’s no way some basic tier whelp could have a transcendent epiphany like this! He is no veteran of a hundred battles! No elevated cultivator on the cusp of Silver!”
Yet his words did him no better than howling into the bitter cold wind, his fury cracking then crumbling like the last handful of evergreens that hadn’t succumbed to the hideous cold freezing all of Queensland until this very moment. A dozen shotgun like blasts echoed through the air as countless trees exploded when their sap instantly froze. An explosion echoed by the distant disorganized cries of panicked orcs and gnolls stumbling around in blind, bitter cold panic as their organized march for conquest became a futile retreat that left them collapsing to the ground where they soon became corpses as the soil leeched every last bit of strength, heat, and light from their bodies.
Just an echo of the shimmering pale blue fire radiating from Eric’s mithril blade like a frigid corona. Yet in its center, saturating the blade itself and several feet beyond, was a shimmering golden bar that blazed hotter than the sun. Utterly contained by the chill surrounding it. A chill so cold that water vapor and air both froze before exploding in tiny quantuum fluctuations, consumed utterly by the higher order manifestation now radiating from Eric’s blade.
Yet Eric paid no attention to the System-wide alarm, or the multiple interface messages blaring about in the back of his skull.
His eyes were like a wolf’s, locked on his flatfooted opponent as time seemed to stretch and slow, seeing desperate fear turn to wild-eyed fury, knowing damn well that no hot-blooded Classer or Contender ever got to Bronze level 30 by fleeing conflict.
They embraced it, if there was even a hair’s breadth chance of success.
And really, what chance was there that a 600 straight stat Ideal Configuration physical monster would flee before a boy, when his whole identity demanded that he seize the board and claim his queen?
No chance in hell.
Eric knew that just as assuredly as he knew that Domini’s flinch and twist to run around was a lie.
Which was why his blade was already windmilling through the air in a tight, diagonal arc, the very air shrieking with oblivion’s passage as space itself seemed to shiver, and there a smirking Domini was, eyes lit with gleeful vindication as he was suddenly before Eric, his blade effortlessly tearing right through Eric’s entrails.
You have been critically struck! You have suffered Catastrophic damage!
You have SAVED against Stunning Blow!
“Goodbye, you little—” Domini’s triumphant smirk became frozen disbelief, only realizing after the fact that he had Bullrushed right into Eric’s cleaving swing.
“No...”
“YES!” Eric roared, before collapsing to the ground, spitting blood.
Utterly vulnerable to an effortless cut with a vorpal blade.
Yet no such blow came.
For Domini was gazing down in horror at his own utterly frozen midsection, six inches of frozen flesh on either side of the white-hot line of liquid flame that had just cut him in half.
And in the awful moment it had taken him to process his own bisection, Domini was in no position to swing his blade, for his two halves were already falling to the ground.
Swordsmanship is now Rank 32!
Essence Fusion is now Rank 6!
Essence Fusion is now Rank 7!
You have been aided by the insights of a Half-Step Gold!
Essence infusion is now Rank 8!
Essence infusion is now Rank 9!
Essence infusion is now Rank 10!
Essence infusion has achieved Journeyman Rank! - Enhancement Feat automatically chosen – Dual Harmony! You may now infuse TWO synergistic or antagonistic elements into a unified Higher Order Transformation within any applicable skill, spell, or power that meets all necessary requirements!
You have had a breakthrough!
You have unlocked a Dual Harmony Transcendent Cultivation Attack!
Ice Fire combines higher order concepts of Fire and Ice, Heat and Cold, to both draw all heat and vitality away from your target while unleashing the essence of transcendent flame the width of your sword blade’s edge!
Due to the nature of this attack, draining your foe’s own heat and vitality to fuel absolute destruction, you only pay HALF the Qi cost in Soul reserves! - Cost to unleash: 30 Qi & 15 Soul Reserves (Soul reserve cost may be further reduced with the use of Blood Orb)
This transcendent attack enjoys the combined Ranks of both the essences of Fire and Cold when comparing the rank of your Transcendent attack against any higher order protections your opponent has infused with their own essence configurations! Baseline damage will additionally be multiplied by the combined ranks of both Fire and Cold for baseline damage multiplier for all those who save versus instant obliteration!
You have learned Ice Fire at Rank 1 – Presently, Ice Fire is limited to: Soulbound Mithril Blade.
Note! Your former Windblade has been reforged into: Ice Fire Blade!
Your Soulbound weapon has ascended!
Ice Fire Blade is now impervious to all attacks below the transcendent realm! Your blade is now attuned to the Elements of Fire and Ice! Wrath and Dominion, auxiliary enhancements may also be channeled effortlessly. NOTE! Your weapon no longer has any affinity for wind.
(Windfire Strike may no longer be channeled through this blade.)
“YES! YOU HAVE DONE IT, MY SON! I ASCEND!”
Aurelia’s words rang through the howling winter storm that was consuming all of Queensland, the air now thrumming with low throaty laughter that sense shivers of horror and wonder through his soul. Yet Eric hardly payed the transformation of the world around him, seeming to alternately freeze to solid ice or erupt in exploding magma, any mind.
All his focus was on the wondrous glory of the higher order manifestation resonating along a blade now indestructible to anyone who hadn’t achieved what he himself somehow had. His lips curled in an awed grin no matter how much the earth cracked and shook, desperately holding on to the epiphany roaring through his soul, granting him so many insights, even Eve pleased by the manifestations of both Doom Fist and Ice Fire Strike that he had dared to forge not through arcana but through the cultivator’s path alone.
He gazed with a shiver of fascination at the higher order manifestation of crackling cold flowing like flame in a foot-wide diameter around a blade that now radiated the heat of the sun’s living core. Perhaps hotter. For nothing could quench or mitigate higher order manifestations of reality, save for similar concepts... or having the deadly horrific heat tightly sheathed in the chilly sleeve surrounding it that would freeze the flesh of anyone, even a thirtieth level Bronze with massive stats, that dared to move against him.
DARED to think he could force Eric’s sister to obey him like a drug-addled concubine enslaved to rapture and dominion both.
And somehow, Domini understood the icy fury of Eric’s expression.
Nine tenths of Eric’s soul was utterly focused on nothing more than simply HOLDING ON to this transcendent state for just as long as he could. Like an ephemeral dream, desperate to hold on before System shenanigans, Silver tier monsters who hated him, or simple mortal limitations tore it all free.
But one tenth of his soul STILL had room for revenge.
Dominus gave a single desperate gasp, moving to step back before sobbing when jolted with the bitter reality once more that his body now ended at a frozen chunk of waist. The only reason why he hadn’t bled out already.
He desperately raised exquisitely sculpted hands. “No, you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to kill me! I could serve you!” The ancient warrior’s eyes lit up with desperate fervor. “I could swear an oath, right now! Me and my men would serve you for a—”
ICE FIRE!
You have critically struck your foe!
Your crippled foe FAILS to save versus oblivion!
You have bested a master of the martial with over a century of combat experience (and the arrogance from too few defeats to ever prepare for them properly!)
Eve approves of this battle and forging TWO transcendent Higher order attacks in her honor! Where most Sylvan Sages before you have chosen arcana, you have chosen the Cultivator’s Path!
You have earned a total of three levels as a cultivator as besting near mid-tier Bronze foes and the contemplation and mastery of higher order Platonic Ideals naturally elevates your cultivation Foundation!
You have gained 3 additional levels as a Primary Adventurer as the potency of a Rank 30 Bronze tier cultivator becomes your own!
The words washed over Eric just like the flash-frozen pieces of Domini’s skull, exploding into chunks after his impossibly hot blade bisected his enemy’s head as effortlessly as slicing through air.
And for once, he didn’t instantly spend his level-up points the way he had so many times before. He held tightly to them, just as he tightly held to the transcendent concepts that were his elevation, his salvation, the foundation of all he was or might ever become.
“Yes, my son. Hold tight to your insights, allow your dreams to become mine as my masteries have become your own!”
His mothers earth-shaking voice became a coaxing whisper. “Our enemies that DARED to strike against us on so many worlds, all of them are STILL out there, my son. Even here on Terra, just beyond Queensland’s frigid boarders, there are thousands of abominations who have infested all our territories like roaches, so EAGER they all are to sup upon our transcendent flesh. All of them, traitors and OATHBREAKERS that must be stopped, and YOU now have the means to do so!”
The howling winter storms manifested in the form of a pristine elemental creature of impossible beauty and living legend. A half step gold radiating such a shocking corona of cold and heat that the very earth trembled and shook under her feet.
A gentle, loving hand gently stroked Eric’s trembling cheek, spraying him with blood that burst into frigid flame.
Yet the wild hellion of frost and flame that had once gone by the name of Eric Silver couldn’t help but smile, heart alight with a joy that his more innocent self had never felt before.
For the very first time that he could recall, he could truly feel his mother’s love.
Aurelia gave him a gentle smile. “That’s right, my darling. We are doing it. Together. Rescuing our people. Ending the threat to your beloved twin. And between the two of us, we will save our empire, and make our enemies suffer beyond their wildest dreams!”