The 5000th trial made Arson wonder if he was suited for the life of a cultivator. He’d fought in armies. Helped build cities, and even brought skills to realms that would have otherwise failed and imploded without his direct involvement.
Arson was unaware that an entire society now fought over the ownership of a dam he created. He didn’t know that his younger face had been tied to the efforts of a crime syndicate tied to his great grandfather. Nor did Arson know that many realms were being combed through to find a young cultivator within the lower realms, that had apparently stolen the heart of a young princess, and interested a queen.
The princess, had at one time been older than Arson, but his journeys had closed that gap entirely. While the queen searched for a young man whom she felt to be perfect for her own daughter to marry.
Each of these was already considerable when looked at individually, but if a person were to acknowledge the heir to the Omen family being freed, and now feeling as if he had something to prove to Arson, most, if not all, would be concerned.
The battle during the 5000th trial was so hectic that he hadn’t allowed Micro and the others to join him.
Originally, he’d thought the trials were simulations. Then his theories ran toward a series of pocket dimensions, set up to test those who ventured throughout Endless. Now a single trial before what he could feel was a pivotal moment in his life, Arson took in the people around himself.
Not as generated foes. Not as a hurdle to overcome, but as people who potentially needed his help.
His journey had brought him across realms he didn’t know were myth, and had no intention or sign of descent; he was far from his climax and knew it.
While Arson moved through the crowd, his Gestalt ability was active. Around him were four different versions of himself, that moved in a formation, with a fifth held within Arson’s soul.
The first four forms held different characteristics from Arson. The first, his intelligence. This version of himself was always calculative and often gave commands to the other forms of himself in vital instances.
The second and third, were combat oriented. One using what Arson knew to be every martial form he’d ever learned, and the other, had a grasp on runes that frightened Arson, almost as much as the fourth and fifth forms.
The fourth form seemed to hold all of Arson’s bodily traits. Regeneration, resistances, and a near olympian physique. Yet this form also didn’t fight, instead, it healed and defended Arson and the other forms.
While the last form literally manifested from Arson’s shadow, the few times that Arson tried to use this form of the Gestalt skill, he paid for it.
When manifested, its figure hovered above his back, draped in a shadow cloak, but everything held beneath the cloak, helped form the overall body of the being.
This insatiable Gestalt form, looked like Arson as the other forms did, but was made of light and stars, which gave his shadow a truly unique presence whenever he summoned it fully.
The form also drank in ambient mana all around Arson, and the effect seemed to grow the more that Arson used them all together. A single form by itself, barely ever caused problems for Arson when he tried to control the power, but as the number of forms used grew, so did Arson’s internal struggle.
“Let’s hurry this up, I don’t have very much time,” said Arson while he looked between his forms to make sure that nothing was amiss.
“We may need to kill the queen, Arson,” whispered the form Arson had named, Thinker.
“Ha, you would say that. I’m telling you that I’m not the one you should be worrying about,” said the form he’d named Temper. The martial artist may have tried to hide his excitement at a potential fight, but still clenched his fist and began to look around.
“Why would you say that, Thinker,” asked Arson who’d come to believe that Thinker never worked outside of reason. So must truly have a reason for his words.
“The queen, my lord.” Arson and the other forms looked over toward a king and the woman beside him. The pair dressed regally and reminded Arson of pictures of the King and Queen of Aspire; a CityNation within a realm that Arson had visited frequently during his trials.
Aspire was one of the three realms his father controlled. The King and Queen left to rule over his lands could be removed at any point, but the way his father ruled, it would most likely never happen.
Realms were messy sometimes; the stacked galaxies that formed the SunSpire realms held many planets, lifeforms, and hierarchal systems, but his father’s own law was simple… Those with the knowledge to lead properly, were put into positions of power.
My father is an emperor, but he is only seen as a king, I wonder why?
“We aren’t in Aspire, are we?” asked the form Arson named Bloom. The piece of himself that he considered to be his magical knowledge, was sporadic in nature, but when given a task by thinker, Bloom became dangerous, even more quickly than the others.
“We aren’t, but wherever we are, is rich with an energy, an energy that that woman is jam-packed full of, makes me wonder if she has a rune I don’t,” answered Bloom to himself as he licked his lips.
Arson was beaten by the last form he was comfortable with using, his fourth form.
"Calm yourself Bloom, something's off here, and we don’t need your wings to come out again,” said Glory. Arson’s fourth form put a hand on Bloom’s shoulder and smiled, until he also took in the queen entirely.
Arson was lost in his head momentarily, curious as to how one of his father’s many thrones had been infiltrated by what he saw before himself. A perversion of life, not born naturally from darkness like Seneschal, but an outright parasite held within living flesh.
“My lord, are we being too cautious?” said Glory. The group now all stared down the woman with a killing intent that could no longer be hidden.
Arson thought a moment and knew based on what he’d seen in the trials what the woman was without a doubt. He couldn’t hide his disgust for her kind, and knew that they might have to do exactly what Thinker said too and kill the Demon he knew had replaced the Queen of this land.
“Yes, Glory, I think it may be time to let Bloom and Temper do as they please,” said Arson, and Glory immediately moved his hand from Bloom’s shoulder.
Arson contemplated summoning his fifth form, what he considered to be a being made from all his potential, and changed his mind. He’d named it, Reaper, for a reason and knew the battle in front of him was going to be violent enough without senseless violence.
Reaper did what he pleased unlike the other forms, as if nothing could stop him, not even Arson. All of the forms had minds of their own from what Arson could tell. He couldn’t read their thoughts, nor sense what they felt, but felt that the more they were summoned, the more aware and personified their inner characters became. They all played roles, but Arson hadn’t found a role for Reaper.
Arson didn’t see himself as a killer, or murderer. He’d defended himself in practically every trial he’d experienced for season cycles. He himself was now 19, and through his 12 season cycle journey, he’d come to understand what pieces of him should change and grow, but that detail, would never change as long as Arson lived.
The queen seemed to glance at Arson in the moment that he decided internally that the woman before him could no longer be considered a person, but as the demon she was. An entity that would soon be satiated on the mana of her environment, and explode.
Not like a bomb, but a plague. The demonic energies that had warped the lands of many realms Arson had been to was fearsome to battle against. Beasts grew multiple heads, and grew extra limbs. Cultivators brought close to death became brain dead killing machines, pushed only by instincts.
Even the vegetation would be distorted to fight against the inhabitants of any place affected by the type of demon in front of them. The treacle sent in the air that soothed those around the demon was a dead giveaway. He’d fought 12 demons of this type prior, and still didn’t know where the beings came from, or what their objective was beyond chaos and the mass genocide of cultivators; whatever empowered them, and the destruction of any proof of their power.
Arson came to his feet and paused, before he looked at Thinker and asked, “Give me a distraction?”
Thinker rolled his eyes, and pulled out a knife that Arson truly wondered where his form had gotten it from. He hadn’t given it to him, but Arson’s eyes did go wide when Thinker pulled out another knife and handed it to Temper as he walked over to him and whispered in his ear.
Maybe this is a bad idea, I don’t know that I can beat the demon without their help, but I didn’t even try…
Arson took in the woman’s aura once more, and shook his head. His forms would be needed; he knew instinctually that they were closer to fully bringing his inner capabilities to their maximums, and seeing them work often helped him increase his own skills drastically.
“Bloom, Glory, you two are with me, I’m about to go make things messy, I think.”
…
Dare Omen knew something was wrong within Ascension. He’d returned home once his brother had escaped. Apparently Sovereign was off with his friends to go find the home of his… rival.
If Dare hadn’t met Arson he would have said his brother’s sudden belief that he could be rivaled was laughable, but Dare had reason to believe that his brother spoke true.
He himself had experimented on Arson and even failed to make him submit to torture of any kind. Dare’s further issue in his brother’s choice of target, was what Arson had told him during their numerous conversations.
If what Arson had told Dare was true, Arson had seen and done things, that no child should ever be put up against. Though Arson had made the things he’d done seem casual, Dare knew through his studies that Arson’s diminishment of his own feats, was most likely due to the position of infallibility he'd placed his parents in.
Arson had often shared an experience that filled him with more fear than Dare’s tortures as a running joke between the two. Only in the next moment, to tell Dare why his accomplishment was small compared to something his parents had done.
Dare hadn’t believed Arson about anything even up to the point that Dare had given up on his final test on being an Agent of Omen. Until he vanished. Not, pulled away to other chambers like other prisoners of Omen, disappeared from the realm itself.
No energy like his could be found when the Agency searched after the missing prisoner, and Dare trusted in the organization's ability to find anyone in the realm easily. Especially with the use of their blood.
Even worse than his brother’s sudden decision, was what now happened at home. Something was wrong with the mana density within the entire CityNation of Ascension. Only those at much higher levels of mana usage experienced the change, at first. Now though, the change was apparent to all in the CityNation.
Things that once took very little energy and concentration to achieve, were now much harder.
Even his father Deus was forced to stop taking from the ambient mana around himself, as he knew it would distort the lands close to him, and even make it more difficult for others to cultivate.
The land needed mana to grow and thrive, and so did cultivators. Only so much at a time was created in a realm, and it was commonly understood that no cultivator, no matter how powerful, should ever take more than the land needed to thrive. This was because without the land the cultivators couldn’t survive. Mana was created through the strength of the planets held within a realm. Planets without mana were known as, DeadLands, or skies unloved by gods. Cultivators felt that the gods were the ones who decided what places received mana. They also believed it was the gods that decided how much mana each realm was given, and that the amount was determined by how well the cultivators managed and grew the planets with the use of mana.
This was why a summit had been called to talk about what may be happening within the CityNation of Ascension. Those gathered were the most powerful individuals within the realm itself, and his father Deus was among the people that many wanted to hear from during the chaotic time.
Many had been affected, and the changes to the realm had only been noticed a few days ago by the common cultivator. The colors of the vegetation seemed to be drained of their vibrancy. This was something seen in mana deserts within realms that were touched by mana storms. Or any natural weather based mana system that moved across the planets within the realm.
Things had gotten so bad that within Ascension their own king and queen had called on foreign powers to consult with. Powers that now took the throne in an attempt to thwart the growing panic within their society. This made Dare wonder about the intentions of the foreign leaders once the issues within his home were resolved.
Dare assumed originally that it was indeed the mana storms that plagued the southern half of the kingdom that were the direct cause of the kingdom’s predicament. It was common knowledge that the storms had become extremely bad in recent season cycles, but when Dare had brought it up to his father on their way to the summit, the man had laughed at him.
“I guess we will see why you think I need to think bigger father,” thought Dare to himself.
“We have all been gathered here today,” started the king, but a figure could be seen as he walked through the crowd directly toward the throne. At first Dare paid no attention to the man, and assumed any disturbance would be handled quickly. Then Dare saw who it was and cursed loud enough that people around him looked at him curiously.
“Arson, what are you doing here?” yelled Dare. His words carried across the room and Arson looked directly at him before he winked back.
Dare watched as Arson continued forward, and around Dare many things occurred at once.
A cloaked man, stabbed a nearby noble. The spray of blood was violent, and the mess made was enough to cause the victim to slip when he reflexively tried to run away.
Another figure took flight and spread two wings that rippled with runic formations. The light cast was infused with enough mana to make the ambient energy within the room stir.
A knight behind the King's men, was swept off his feet by a particularly precise kick to his ankles; that also managed to break the armored leg guard the man wore in a single strike.
All Dare witnessed during these events occurrences, was Arson close his eyes, and continue to walk forward.
With every step the young man took something changed either in his appearance, or with the environment.
With the first, a tribal sun appeared on his face and began to move violently. Dare had never seen Arson with his eyes closed during his season cycles worth of torture, nor had Arson truly ever shared what his abilities were beyond regeneration.
When Arson took his second step, and seemed to pull a mask from thin air, chaos had already taken control within the ballroom.
Arson looked like a bird, or a dragon, but Dare couldn’t truly tell what the creature was. Much of the crowd had begun to evacuate from the interior of the room. The figure that flew yelled a mixture of cult derived teachings, and random absurdities at the cultivators too afraid to stay.
Many others attempted to fight in an attempt to gain honor with the King. Yet there seemed to be a single individual that dashed through the crowd and ended most viable threats in the room in only a handful of blows.
While Arson took his third step, Three hands could be seen as they formed on his back and shoulders. Dare couldn’t tell if they were armaments or decoration, until Arson charged.
“Arson, no!”
…
Arson charged toward the queen, and the woman smiled as the king stepped in front of her.
Glory rushed passed Arson with a grin, before he closed the incredible 400 meters in an instant, and dove toward the monarch of Aspire.
A jeweled blade taller than Glory appeared in the King’s hand, and Arson’s form spread his arms wide as the blade swung toward him.
The weapon sped toward glory’s midsection, and sliced through his muscles with ease until his spine was struck and the weapon was stopped completely.
Glory continued to run toward the king, even as the weapon tore deeper into his body. His smile only grew and he wrapped the king up in a bear hug before he tackled the ruler to the floor.
“Vivian, my queen!” The King barely managed to reach out toward the queen before his back smashed into the ground. The claymore he held vanished and he battled Glory in a desperate wrestling match to return to the woman’s side whom he believed to be his wife.
Arson pushed power into his oldest and favorite construct as his Gestalt forms wreaked havoc throughout the room. The large golden hand grew in size and moved with such speed that onlookers lost sight of the construct, until it reappeared in front of the queen the size of a small dinner table.
“Think,” said Arson. The word said in the runic tongue, and Arson dedicated a single fold of his mind for an image of the rune spoken. His mind cleared for the task at hand, and his mental focus doubled.
The queen laughed as she extended a single hand toward Arson’s construct. The giant hand was stopped by the seemingly frail arm of a woman not known for her strength.
Yet, a wave of concussive force rippled behind the queen and sent dozens more than a few hundred yards into the air. Some cultivators even struck walls and the ceiling above..
“Analyze…,” said Arson in the runic tongue. When he dedicated a fold of his mind to this rune, his Dominion of the Closed Eye, began to pulse around him, which gave him a continual snapshot of his surroundings mentally. Arson could only describe the sensation to others, as a camera that faced all directions at once, with a broken capture button. Depending on how much mana he infused, determined how rapidly each pulse came, and he was far from what he would consider to be compared to be an endless stream one after the other. Instead pulses framed his breaths as he continued forward.
“Move!” The final rune filled Arson with power when he activated it. The ring of gathered frozen energy particles around the sun in his soul space started to rotate and spin around the sun slowly at first.
With each bit of the distance Arson closed between himself and the queen, the more the particle ring of frozen lightning spun. The energy gathered there wasn’t being used or drained, but instead mixed to create a far more dense form of Arson’s own mana.
This was the first piece of what his mother had called Soul Refinement. Normally what took place in Arson’s soul was the release of gathered energy, to heal, revitalize, and empower his every action.
The energy that was used, came from every mana type, or mana poisoning he’d gone through thus far. The sun within his soul bathed every aspect of his body internally with the powerful materials within, but now…
Arson jumped into the air and began to spin, which caused him to front flip rapidly. Conductive waters formed leg guards on his feet and the air shook with the intensity of the mana being used.
The particle ring within had reached a speed with enough momentum, that instead of the Queen being the only individual truly able to gather mana within the ballroom, mana could now be seen visibly as it was sucked through the air and into Arson’s body.
“Foolish children, was death too far away for you to meet him in your own time?” roared the Queen. She knocked away the giant golden hand that tried to wrap her up in a giant’s grip. Then lifted both arms to block the kick that came from above.
Arson’s leg dropped down on the woman with a heel kick that distorted gravity. Everyone still on their feet was sent to the ground, with the exception of Arson, his forms, and a few dozen strong cultivators left in the room.
The real violence began then. Arson and the Queen began to trade blows that broke walls, cracked the floor, and made the room fragile enough to bring down sections of the roof.
Arson’s forms were the only individuals used to the environment created by him when he fought near to his maximum, which showed as Arson saw Dare and a man who looked very similar to him be knocked aside by a wall Arson had been kicked into.
“Big boom?” yelled Bloom in question.
“No,” yelled Arson and his other forms all at the same time. Bloom merely shrugged and laughed before he continued to plague the few people left who tried to defend the royal family. While others only stayed to watch, after some realized, the Queen’s power was of a much higher magnitude than should be achievable.
Without the use of dishonorable tactics. Selling one's soul. Or breaking the laws of the realms and system, the power being shown was improbable, if not impossible.
“You sure, I can big boom!” Arson was glad to hear his forms all decline because he had just caught a large section of the roof that had threatened to flatten him and couldn’t respond.
Though, Bloom, hadn’t heard Arson speak, and witnessed the struggle on his face as he heaved the roof at the Queen; so took his lack of an answer, as an answer.
“Ok, big boom!”
Arson froze when he heard those words and paid for it immediately. The Queen's flurry of blows at his mid section was unexpected and painful.
She appeared in front of him as if Arson moved in slow motion and rattled off seven punches and four kicks in a breath.
Arson managed to block the more severe blows with the aid of his two secondary constructs. The two white hands, punched, blocked, and countered many of the Queen's attacks, but a few managed to get through.
“I don’t know where you came from, but this has been fun, child, I believe...” started the queen, but Arson ignored the woman and glanced toward the aerial Bloom. His runic form was amidst the rubble that rained down around him from the roof, with both hands held upward.
Runes flowed down Blooms arms and into a ball made of pin prick sized formations. The ball was the size of a grapefruit, but held enough power to destroy much of the realm they were in currently, if not erase it from existence entirely. As formations may have been too much for Arson at that point, but for Bloom, this was child’s-play.
Arson knew he didn’t have much time left before he would have an apocalypse on his hands, so blocked out all of his distractions. Pushed down his fears. Took a deep breath, and roared.
The scream rattled the Queen for the instant he needed, so Arson moved.
“I will not be killed by you here, demon, nor will this land!” Conductive waters formed around his legs instantly, and the queen once more raised her arms to block.
In the next instance Arson struck. His two secondary constructs, came in from the woman’s blindspot, and clapped the demon’s ears with a powerful two sided slam. Arson knew most of the Queen’s weaknesses were no longer there, but the natural weaknesses of a humanoid body, rarely ever were able to gain immunities to.
The Queen wailed with pain as both her eardrums bursted and blood began to flow from her ears. The demon possessed woman uncrossed her guard and tried to grab at her own head, only for Arson to jump and kick out with both feet at once toward the woman’s chest.
The explosion from the conductive waters would have sent the woman airborne, but instead Arson’s two constructs held her in place, which caused her body to flap in the wind caused by the aftermath of the explosion.
Arson landed on his back and was able to look up and see the open sky above him, as well as the large golden hand in the air above the queen. He tore his gaze away from his first weapon, and toward the Queen who also looked up in a panic as energy swirled on the palm above her.
“This is going to suck for you,” mumbled Arson with a sigh as he rested his head on the destroyed stone beneath him, and let Jack descend from the sky at unfathomable speeds, with a conductive waters storm wrapped around the construct's middle.
“But my big boom,” said Bloom in disappointment as he lowered his hands, and let the runic formations disperse.
“I refuse to die here,” screamed the Queen. She continued to scream, while she thrashed, and tried to send demonic energy that had been converted from mana within the Queen's body.
Arson couldn’t let that continue. The reason he had been forced to fight the woman was in an attempt to make sure she didn’t release the energy that would destroy the land and its inhabitants. The only thing Arson knew that could stop the plague being released from the woman’s pores, was her complete evisceration of the possessed body. An action that Arson wasn’t going to hesitate to complete, not matter how big of back lash he would have to live through after the killing of a queen.
“Sorry Bloom, no big boom,” said Arson in the same moment that the massive table sized hand flattened with a thud against the ground. Arson pulled his Gestalt forms back inside himself when the screams stopped and braced himself for the explosion of unrefined mana he knew was about to be released back into the atmosphere.
He slowly gathered himself and rose to his feet as the sound of a turbine grew in his ears.
He also managed to find Dare, and nod at the young man. Dare stood frozen behind a section of rubble flanked by many others with a shocked expression that told Arson what he’d witnessed must have affected him. Arson smiled and waved before he spoke to Dare, while he pulled his constructs from around the Queen’s body.
“Dare, make sure all of the people get out of here, the realm is going to rebalance itself, and anyone close to the impact point may die,” warned Arson. Dare still looked dazed and nodded slowly, until a man behind him forced him to move.
Finally Arson took off his mask, opened his eyes and took a moment to himself, as he knew the next trial would most likely be the most difficult trial he’d ever completed.
In the next instant he found himself once more at the entrance to the Runic Skyscraper, in front of PRO, who stared back at him with a smile, before the trial box popped up in his vision.
Trial 5001: Show proof that you have gained a deeper understanding of realms, mana, runes, and Uni-Vare. Then convince the Parental Registry Organism, that you are qualified to leave on a trial basis…
Arson looked up at PRO, and cursed.
“Are you sparking kidding me?”