Four days passed in a frustrating haze of studying medical maps of the human body with energy lines meant to simulate the pathways of how Primordial Energy flowed through body. The lines merged into six different points on the bodies that reflected the skill slots. Adam had been woefully horrible at energy control, waking up three out of the four nights to activating his skill. And the fourth night the only reason he didn’t is because he decided to sleep in his armor.
The only relief from hours of studying and sitting in silent meditation with an overbearing Ava were the few hours a day he trained with Caius and Finn. Adam considered himself athletic. He was tall, fast, strong, and generally good at everything he did. He thought he would be able to pick up swinging a hammer around in no time. Caius had said it would take centuries to master, but Adam thought he was just doing that thing where people try and get you to take something seriously by exaggerating how long it would take – unfortunately, Adam was dead wrong.
Every tiny detail of how he held is hammer was broken down. Then broken down again. Then again based on the position of the enemy he was attacking. Diagrams were drawn out about movement and attack angles. How to set up blows and lead a fight to where you wanted it to go. The second he thought he was beginning to understand, he would find himself disarmed because he hadn’t adjusted his grip. And that was only if he kept his hammer at one length, it didn’t account for if he made it longer or shorter.
If he focused too much on what he was doing with his hammer, his footwork became sloppy, and he was left off balance. Then Caius would drill him in the basic stances of moving around again while Finn hurled elemental attacks at him.
Even using his shield properly was a lesson in just how technical every aspect of in-fighting was. If he took a blow a fraction of an angle off, it would push his balance in the wrong direction limiting his counter or altogether throwing it out the window. Shield too far from his body and a shockwave would be sent up his arm or his shield flung off him all together. Too close when he took a blow, and he couldn’t properly maneuver around his shield or position it properly to redirect the force. He mentioned it must be easier to just be a spell caster, but Ava had quickly and thoroughly lectured him on the knowledge and precision required to do that. The more Adam learned, the more he realized he didn’t know.
This didn’t include working as part of a team. That added an entirely new dynamic where every move had to account for what your teammates were doing. You had to know how they would react to how you moved. The skills you would use, blows you would be willing to open yourself up to, and trusting that a teammate would cover for you. Caius promised that would come with time.
Despite the constant physical abuse and humiliation of not being able to land a single blow on Caius, Adam was happier than he had been in a long time. There was finally meaning in his life again. Something to work toward. To get better at.
The problem was, he found himself reviewing the technical aspects of his battle stances while he should be focusing on his energy control with Ava. They had said she was the best at it on their team. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the most motivating of instructors.
“Were you this stupid when you were little also? Or is this just a new thing to piss me off?” Ava said. She had grown increasingly frustrated after the second day. “I mean this should be like teaching a dragon-pup to sit on command. It should only take about thirty minutes.”
Adam shrugged in apology. He honestly didn’t know what to say at this point. She kept saying that he just needed to imagine placing gates in his pathways to stop the flow of energy. He could slowly close or open the gate to control the flow of energy to a certain skill so he could modulate the power output and not waste Primordial Energy. This was a basic building block necessary to be a successful warrior otherwise you would be far too inefficient in your skill use and would burn out too quickly.
The problem wasn’t forming the gates for Adam. He could see the energy lines running through his body just like in the chart and had been able to set up the gates slowing the flow of energy. The problem was that he felt like half of his Primordial Energy wasn’t in the pathways but suffused every part of his tissue. So, the gate was bypassed by half of his Primordial Energy no matter what he did.
“Wait.” Adam paused. “Did you just say dragon-pup? You keep dragons as pets?”
Finn looked up at him from whatever he was tinkering with at the time, brows scrunched together. “They’re only the most common house pet in Allaris. Why, don’t you have dragons as pets in your kingdom?”
“Dragons?” Adam asked again. “As in big, scaly, fire breathing lizards that fly around and hoard gold?”
Finn and Ava glanced at each other with confused expressions.
“What? No.” Ava said. “They’re maybe one hundred pounds max and little adorable fur balls. I guess they do really like shiny things, and each breed has its own environmental affinity, but it’s no more than minor manipulation.”
“I miss Gorbanthau.” Finn said. “The little guy always slobbered all over me, but he was the best lap dragon a kid could’ve asked for.”
This floored Adam. He stood staring between Ava and Finn trying to figure out if they were messing with him. How could the ancient gods of Egypt be real and match the descriptions of history, but dragons end up just being common house pets. Adam was about to open his mouth, but Ava cut him off.
“You won’t ever get to see a dragon if you don’t learn how to control your energy.” Ava said.
“I’m sorry. Really, I’m trying my best. It’s just as if my Primordial Energy is split in two. Half in the pathways that you showed me, and half just running through my body freely.”
Caius jogged back from where he had been scouting, stopping the conversation. They had moved further toward what Adam imagined as the countryside of this ancient city. Still surrounded by corn fields and massive ant hills. They hadn’t seen any signs of other intelligent life yet, but Caius was keeping it that way until they could at least get Adam comfortable.
“We’ve got a problem.” Caius said. “The ants have gone mad. There’s something happening further out that is sending them into a frenzy.”
A moment later, the ground started to tremble. Just a subtle shift in the dirt. If Adam had been walking, he probably wouldn’t have noticed it. The trembling grew worse by the second until it felt like he was in an earthquake. A steady roar became audible in the distance along with a pillar of dust rising into the air.
“Is that what I think it is.” Ava asked.
“I’m afraid so.” Caius confirmed.
“What are you talking about?” Adam asked. He hated he was so ignorant to everything that was happening. He was always the one in control. Always the one that people turned to for direction in the military. Now he was more of a burden than anything.
“It’s a beast tide.” Finn said, standing and cracking his knuckles and his neck.
“It means the beast have gone into a frenzy. It normally happens because of a lack of Primordial Energy - or, in this case, a colony is being driven by the queen to expand. Ant tides are common enough solely because of their reproductive rates and the size of their colonies. They can only support so many without expanding.”
“You sure it’s not because of Adam’s killing spree the other day?” Ava remarked.
“With the number of colonies we’ve seen, it was bound to happen at some point.” Finn said.
“We needed to work on fighting more together anyways. Ideally, we would ease Adam into this. If we were closer to the city, I would say to just make a break for the interior, but we don’t have much of a choice being this far out.”
“Well, this should be interesting.” Ava said. “You idiots just make sure to keep them off me and I’ll keep you alive.”
“I’d appreciate a little room to work as well if you can spare it.” Finn said.
Adam suddenly felt extremely overwhelmed. His only real skill was his [War Regalia of the Primordial Titan], which was great for protecting him, but he wasn’t sure how well he could keep a horde of titanic ants off Finn and Ava. He was in far over his head. That was only made clearer by his training over the past few days. Still, there was nothing to be done about it now except his best.
“Alright.” Caius said, summoning a sword in each hand. Sparks of electricity arced over the polished metal and even danced over and around his arms. “Finn, can you open up a little more space for us?”
They were standing in a clearing that was almost the size of a football field. Tall cornstalks lining all sides. Finn nodded and sent a burst of flames in a wide arc behind them. The stalks caught fire and charred and blackened at an astonishing rate.
“The Primordial Energy inside the corn feeds the skill, making the flames burn hotter and faster.” Finn said after noticing Adam’s confused expression. “That’s a lesson for another time though. You still need to figure out how to control your own energy before you start utilizing ambient energy.”
“Right…” Adam said.
Finn followed it up with a blast of air that pushed the burned husks out of the way and opened up a lot more space. “All better?” He asked.
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Caius nodded. “Ava and Finn, you two stay at the back. Ants aren’t intelligent enough to try and flank us. Unless the Queen comes out and directly controls them. Adam, I want you in the middle. Don’t run off and try and intercept individual targets. You need to think about the big picture here. Try and push as much energy into the taunting aspect of your armor.”
Ava opened her mouth to say something but was silenced with a look from Caius. “We know it’s been tough with energy control, but you can do it. You need to keep as much focus off Finn and Ava as you can. That armor of yours can take a beating and believe it or not, you’ve progressed leaps and bounds over the past few days.” Caius continued. “Finn, we need widespread destruction from you.”
Finn spread his hands out in front of him and wiggled his fingers, the rings on his hands reflecting the weird light of the dome. “I think I can do that.”
“Good man.” Caius said. “I’ll be a roamer and finish anything Finn sets ablaze and try and keep stragglers from getting too close to you two. You know how to move if I’m too far.”
‘Don’t worry about us, babe.” Ava said with a wink. She pulled a long-curved sword from her fanny pack. “We can look after ourselves.”
Caius nodded. “Remember, conserve your energy. We don’t know how long this will last. Worse comes to worse, you three retreat and I’ll hold them off.”
Adam looked beyond Caius to the pillar of dust rising over the cornstalks. The horde of ants would be on them shortly. Finn and Ava took up their position behind him, leaving a good fifty yards of space to give him room to work. His pulse quickened and he gripped his hammer, spinning it in his hand. He felt a bead of sweat drip down his spine as the roar of the incoming hoard faded to the background. This was exactly how he felt before his first fight in the SEAL’s. That oddly comforted him, and he took up his stance – shield set in front of him.
Caius nodded to him. “You got this.” He said. “Remember, don’t try and do too much. Overextending yourself is less helpful than fulfilling your role. We got your back.”
Adam didn’t have time to respond as the first of the horde broke through the corn stalks and into the opening. The first few ants paused for a second as if confused by the sight. These seemed larger than the ones he had fought before. It looked like they had thicker carapace and jagged spikes protruding from their legs – each a good ten feet tall.
The standoff didn’t last long before the ants reared their heads back and chittered as one. It was as much a war cry as a starting signal to the battle. Just like that, all of Adam’s nerves had vanished. His vision cleared and the rushing sound of his own blood in his ears faded to the background as the ants charged toward him.
Caius dashed to the left while a massive fire ball fell on the right side of the incoming ants - exploding in a burst of flames that engulfed at least ten of the beasts. Adam increased the length of his hammer to its full six feet and swung forward, the head of it connecting with the ant charging directly for him. He killed It instantly and a wave of clarity washed over Adam as it seemed the energy from the first ant flowed directly toward him.
“Use it.” A deep voice rumbled in his mind as two ants streaked by him heading directly for Ava and Finn.
Adam recognized the voice. He didn’t think he could ever forget after meeting Atlas on the mountain peak.
“How?” He said through clenched teeth. A moment later he rolled under a leg stabbing at his position and followed through with a blow to another ant’s head. To his left, two more ants were burned to a crisp and just beyond that a shockwave sent four ants flying through the air, blue electricity arcing over their bodies as their carapace sizzled.
“The armor knows. Feed it, feed it and it will grow.” The voice grew more distant. The thunderous quality dying out to a faint whisper as if it was the final words of a dying man.
Adam didn’t know what that meant. He could barely control the energy in his own body, how was he supposed to feed the armor. An antenna slammed into his side and sent him careening through the air. He rolled to a stop and barely had enough time to get his shield up to stop the stab of another leg. More and more ants streamed passed him and toward Ava and Finn while others did their best to skewer him.
Adam felt the ground tremble and looked back to see a stone wall erupt behind him - causing the ants to slide to a stop. It was enough of a distraction to the ants attacking him that he was able to finish each with a blow of his hammer. Again, there was a rush of Primordial Energy that seemed to flow from the ants to him. He felt it surrounding him like a warm blanket, but not necessarily entering him.
How the hell was he supposed to feed his armor? What did that even mean? He parried another swipe of an antenna with his shield and jumped to the left dodging an ant charging from the side. Caius appeared to his right, another blast of lightning coming from his swords that left a circle of ants unmoving - smoke rising from cracks in their carapace as if they had been burned from the inside.
The pressure Adam had been facing dissipated as every ant turned toward Caius. They charged away from him and toward the true threat that was Caius. He was surrounded – ants closing in on him on every side and all he had was a leather jerkin to protect him. Adam yelled as he saw a barbed antenna pierce Caius’s shoulder – causing him to drop his sword that puffed to mist. A green sheen enveloped Caius followed by a purple crackling web. He jumped, soaring far above the battlefield as Finn altered gravity around him.
Adam felt useless. He was the one with armor. He was the one that was supposed to stand at the front to keep the team safe. All he had managed to do was kill a few ants while letting Caius be stabbed through the shoulder.
The energy from the few kills he had been able to get still swirled around him as if it was in the space between his body and his armor. With a defiant roar, he charged the ants who were looking for their next target. A few had been doused in water and frozen solid while others still were being lit ablaze, though the barrage of fire was slowing noticeably.
He met the ants in a frenzy of blows, taking the first two by surprise with vicious strikes that left them twitching on the ground. More energy poured toward him, filling the space between him and his armor. With each kill, he felt a mounting pressure weighing on him – itching to be put to use, but still Adam had no idea what to do with it.
Caius was back in the fight, his shoulder back in working order and his swords newly summoned. He truly was a storm wreaking havoc. A storm the ants were eager to stop as more and more attention was turned toward him.
Adam cursed as the few ants he was distracting turned toward Caius and left him to deal with the bigger threat. Again, the sense of uselessness filled him.
“Come on you daggum armor. WORK.” Adam screamed the words in his helmet, pushing out with a mental command toward armor. Like a dam breaking, the pressure surrounding him lessoned. He could sense it flowing into his armor and circulating back into his own body, as if they had been merged into one essence. The armor began to pulse and faint light emitted from the outside.
The ants stopped their pursuit of Caius who had turned to a hit and run tactic between their ranks - leading the ants on a wild goose chase around the clearing with more joining every second. He felt his bones groan and the ground crack beneath his feet. With each pulse of his armor, he grew, and with it, the taunting effect of his armor was magnified exponentially.
It was like he had become an all-consuming challenge that was impossible to ignore. Adam had doubled in size, his armor, shield, and hammer growing with him. He could feel the attention of the ants turn toward him, every beady eye fixated on him in an instant. It was as if a weight had descended upon his shoulders as the beasts rabid fury washed over him. Luckily for him, he wore Atlas’s armor. What was the weight of a few titanic ants compared to the weight of the world.
They charged him, unable to fight the primal instinct to take down the taunting force that was Adam. He met the attacks not as a defender just trying to buy time for his team, but as the aggressor. Chittering cries filled the air as he stuck with a ferocity he didn’t think he was capable of. He bashed ants with his shield, spun between attackers delivering blows not just with the onyx head, but also with the spike on the butt of his hammer.
He felt antenna pierce the cracks in his plate from behind, only to have the wound heal over a second later as Ava’s warm touch closed in around him. Fireballs fell on ant’s closest to him while other still were frozen in place. Caius resumed his lightning assault now free to duck in and out without fear of reprisal from the monstrous ants.
Adam was quite literally surrounded – ants twenty rows deep trying to claw their way to him. He was constantly beat and battered from all sides. For every blow he doled out, he took three more from the enemies around him. He felt his armor put a persistent drain on his Primordial Energy to maintain the size and taunting, but it was constantly renewed by the ants he killed – their energy feeding the insatiable hunger of the skill.
***
Finn stood at the back and watched Adam grow to the size of a giant while ants berated him from all sides. In that moment, he was extremely happy he had spent his childhood inside his father’s library studying Kavarro’s fourth theorem on dimensional integrity instead of playing with swords and shields like the other kids. It was much safer here at the back with someone else to do the distracting. He could hurl fire balls one after the other at targets that completely ignored him.
Finn had the foresight to stock up on wood after the first fight against the Stone Sentry and had placed out a small house worth of wood beside him as soon as this fight started and lit it with a flash of his ruby ring. It was always easier and far more efficient to draw fire from a source instead of creating it on his own. The fire raged beside him while he pulled small bits out at a time, little balls that floated around him that he fed with Primordial Energy infused air burst to let them grow into unstable infernos of mass destruction. Finn couldn’t help himself from laughing as he tossed the balls of fire one after another.
Ava glanced at him and rolled her eyes. “You sound like a sociopath.” She said. “You shouldn’t take such joy in roasting creatures like this.”
He grinned back at her. “Oh, come on. Haven’t you wanted to just let loose after everything that’s happened. Besides, those critters are quite literally ten-foot-tall murder insects that want to conquer and consume Primordial Energy in a never-ending journey to expand their colony. It’s not like I’m torching dragon pups. And now that Adam has…” He gestured toward Adam’s massive glowing figure laying waste to ants around him, “figured out how to do that, we can have a little fun.”
“My idea of fun is not getting skewered by an ant.” Her body glowed with a slight green sheen as she sent healing streams toward Adam and the occasional burst toward Caius. “And since this is such a ‘good opportunity’, shouldn’t you be practicing with some of the other elements? We all know how good you are with fire and gravity all ready, but your air, earth, and water skills are barely passable.”
Finn knew she was right. He was much fonder of using his gravitational and fire rings compared to the air, earth, water elements. His [Elemental Rings] skill was supposedly beyond rare, though he was surprised he had gotten it. The gravitational rings made sense. He had studied dimensional forces with his father since he could walk. The fire rings made sense as well. What boy didn’t have some level of unhealthy obsession with destructive forces like fire. But air, earth, and water just didn’t quite fit with him. Sure, he had studied extensively growing up doing his best to understand the fundamental make up of their world and the interaction Primordial Energy had on the elements, but those elements had always felt… wrong to him.
The earth was rigid. Getting it to respond to his wishes was difficult. It was as if the earth was happy to stay where it was, and his meddling was going against the natural order of things. Just raising that one earthen wall earlier had taken almost twenty percent of his Primordial Energy.
Water and air were a littlel easier. They were both malleable and more forgiving to work with. He couldn’t create water like he could with fire, but it was almost always around. He could pull it from the ground and freeze it as he had done a few times this fight, but the further down he had to reach to draw the water from, the more difficult it became.
Air was a different story all together. It was everywhere, never needing to be created and couldn’t be destroyed. It was also elusive and slippery, like a child covered in soap who escaped the bathtub and was running around the house. You could catch it, but it could just as easily slip out of your grasp again.
“Perhaps you’re right.” Finn admitted. “But also, and just as importantly… and even more compellingly.”
Finn cracked his fingers and wiggled his eyebrows at Ava who pointedly ignored him. He reached one hand toward the fire roaring at his side feeling pleasant warmth as his fingertips brushed the fire. Streams of fire engulfed his arms and spread over and around his body. He drew on the bonfire for more than a minute – extracting every last ember while Adam held the attention of their attackers. A maniacal laugh escaped his lips as the inferno engulfed him and was slowly condensed into a rope of fire that spun around his body. He pushed the majority of his remaining Primordial Energy into the process as he floated the rotating band of fire over the ants, the fire at his side now barely more than embers.
He felt as if his body itself was burning. Sweat poured from his brow and his skin turned a beet red as he continued to condense the torrent of flames rotating in the sky above. Finn grunted as the pressure increased. He needed an outlet. A pressure release valve, so to speak, that would allow him to continue. With that thought, small droplets fell from the fiery ring like rain from a storm cloud. The droplets hit the ants and sizzled on their carapace. He just had to wait for the right moment. As soon as Caius was clear, he would drop this infernal bomb.
Thankfully, Ava noticed what he was waiting on and yelled for Caius to disengage. He listened immediately and removed himself from under the hellscape that Finn had created. With that, Finn dropped his arms, the ring of fire dropping like a meteor with it. It descended, completely burning through the circle of ants surrounding Adam leaving behind incinerated bodies before exploding when it hit the ground. A wave of fire burst out from the impact in all directions as it consumed the surrounding ants.
The ants had proven fairly resistant to fire this far, only burning for a few seconds before the fire inked out of existence. This wave, however, left a hundred ants burning as they skittered in confused jumbles. Caius jumped back into the fray, his sword slicing in and out of the ants destroyed defenses as Adam crushed them with brute force.
Finn’s body, suddenly drained of close to all his Primordial Energy, felt weak and exhausted. He dropped to a knee beside Ava, chest heaving. His vision spun as the severe Primordial Energy depletion set in. He just hoped he wouldn’t…. He dry heaved, then vomited everywhere, little purple cornels filling the ground in front of him.
He squeezed his eyes shut. The entire world felt like it was shaking. The ground rumbled beneath him. He felt Ava tapping him on the shoulder frantically.
“Finn. Get up.” The tapping turned into a pulling under his arms. “FINN. GET UP.”
He groaned and rose to his feet, barely able to stand. He rubbed his eyes, steadying himself with a hand on Ava’s shoulder. When his vision finally cleared, the scene before him was astonishing. A burning wasteland with ant’s charred, some still on fire and some still twitching, lay before him. Black motes of pure Primordial Energy floated into the air from the disintegrating bodies all around the clearing. He briefly wondered why Caius wasn’t drawing them into his storage vault for use later.
Adam and Caius stood side by side facing the other end of the clearing. Before them stood a gargantuan black carapace ant, head coming to three points at the top as if it was wearing a crown. It was three times the size of the others with a long stinger reaching off the back. Beside it stood two smaller black carapace ants each with a stinger of their own that were about the same size as the others they had just fought. His stomach dropped at the site.
“The Queen.” Ava murmured.
As if in confirmation, the queen bellowed an enraged cry. The very air vibrated with the fury of the queen finding her hive decimated. Finn groaned, realizing he had burned through his Primordial Energy pre-maturely.