The ground exploded under the force of the smaller stonebear’s swipe, nearly separating Noki’s upper half from the rest of his body. The sheer amount of Earth Aspect under its control was amazing; it was as if its entire body was composed of it and merely took the shape of an animal. Noki couldn’t sense that as his Spirit Kulda wouldn’t form until he was an Iron Soul, but his bout with the Knifebear had given him a feel for when Aspect was being used,though that was proving to be less of an asset than he would have liked. The stonebear moved surprisingly fast for its size, and was relentless in its pursuit; a far cry from the Knifebear that liked to wound its targets at a distance before closing in.

Noki narrowly dodged a flurry of strikes from the stonebear and took a few steps back before his body refused to let him move any further.

“Again?”

A powerful instinct overrode control of his body, preventing him from getting any closer to where Mion currently was. Though he was not conscious of it, his body knew the battle raging behind him was far too intense for him to handle; if he had gotten any closer he’d be harmed just from the pressure of the Tera alone.

“I don’t know if its the big one or Mion doing it, but it feels like there’s a wall between us, I can’t go any further,” Noki thought as the smaller stonebear darted towards him. He waited until the last moment to circulate his Physical Tera to give him the boost needed to dodge the attack. Noki sidestepped the bear and,with all of his might, threw a punch right at the side of its front leg. The stonebear retaliated with a powerful back swipe that caught Noki across the chest and sent him into the base of a tree nearby. Had he not been circulating his Tera, the blow would have crushed his bones into powder and killed him instantly; as it stands, he only suffered three broken ribs and some light internal damage.

“I was lucky it wasn’t with its claws, those things would have ripped me to shreds.” Noki tried to move his body, but it felt as if every muscle in his body was being weighed down by an invisible force; all he could do was breathe and even that came with considerable effort. Worse, the pain from using his Tera started catching up with him, each circulation of his energy felt like hot magma being poured through his body.

“That must be my pathways, they really are being damaged,” Noki thought as the stonebear slowly stalked towards him, obviously feeling no danger from him. “Damn it, if I could use all the Tera stored inside me I’d be able to beat this thing, I know I can!”

That surprised Noki, that was the confidence of someone that grew up fighting in death battles. The confidence of a Divine Artist that was able to discern the level of ability an opponent had just by having a simple exchange. A week ago Noki didn’t even have Tera to use, so where was this bravado coming from? Still, deep down he knew it to be true; if he had access to his Tera then this stonebear would be nothing but food for him.

As the stonebear drew closer, Noki’s adrenaline spiked and he tried to use that to move his body, but it wasn’t enough and the bear had raised a paw overhead, ready to crush him.

“Not like this! I’m not dying like this!”

There were so many things Noki hadn’t had a chance to do; he never made it as a Delver or ascended to the next rank or even seen the world. He was going to leave his mark on Queen’s Embrace and become the greatest Delver to ever exist. He was going to be a Divine Artist of great renown.

He was going to be more than the Null of Watercliff Village.

Noki saw the mighty paw of the stonebear close in on him and braced himself, but the blow never came. He had reflexively closed his eyes but when he opened them he saw the beast’s paw still in midstrike and the stonebear had a look of confusion on its face. It dropped its attack and began sniffing around the area, searching for something.

“What? What’s going on?” Noki’s question was immediately answered by a familiar voice coming from behind.

“I left you for five minutes and all hell breaks loose.” Noki didn’t have the energy to turn but knew it was Kila speaking. “What were you doing fighting a stonebear? You’re not ready for that.”

Noki thought he responded with ‘It’s not like I invited the stonebear here’, but he only heard groans escape from his mouth.

“You have some insane luck,” Kila said as she pulled the bag from her back and dug through it, “I was able to find a few scourbeasts that weren’t trampled.” Kila pulled out six cores; two brown ones from lionapes, a green barklizard core and three dark green ratviper cores. “Its not a perfect job, I didn’t have a chance to fully distill the cores but they should-”

Tera flowed from the cores and into Noki’s body, giving him not only the energy to sit up but also speak.

“Thank you,” Noki said as the shooting pain in his body became a dull throb, “I feel better already.” Facing Kila, he could see that she seemed to be under some kind of stress; sweat formed on her brows and she wobbled ever so slightly. A quick use of Divine Sight showed him that extreme amounts of Mental Tera was flowing from an object on her waist, enveloping herself and Noki, along with a sensation he couldn’t quite place. “Why are you draining so much of your Tera?”

“Why do you think the stonebear stopped attacking?”

Noki pondered it for a moment before answering. “Oh, you put it under an illusion?”

That made Kila a bit upset. It wasn’t Noki’s fault, he knew almost nothing about…well anything, but it still hurt to have the complexity of what she was doing reduced to just an illusion. It was easy to make people see something that wasn’t there, people aren’t as observant as they’d like to believe, but to remove something that was just in front of you? That requires near perfect control of Tera and either extremely potent or vast quality of Mental Tera; Kila only had the former.

“Yeah, it’s under an illusion,” Kila said, “but it won’t last long. Heal up a bit and we’ll make our way down the mountain.”

“You want to leave? Now?” The sludge of Tera that filled his pathways started breaking down, flowing not only throughout his body but also into his other core.

“Of course,” Kila responded, “I’m running out of Mental Tera and that stonebear is a Greater Iron. Plus, Mion is distracted with the other one, he won’t notice if we slip away.”

A pang of hunger shot through Noki’s body, but it felt distant as if it belonged to someone else. The excess Tera settled into the orange core and a pulse of power caused Noki to tremble.

“No,” Noki said and it was like his words were made of stone.

“What? We don’t have time-”

“I said no!” Noki drew himself to his full height and let Tera erupt from his body. An orange flame like aura coated his body in an instant and his eyes shone. Noki’s iris had constricted and split in two, before reforming into an asymmetrical v-shape. His facial features grew sharper while his nose flattened slightly and the tips of his locs bleed to a dull yellow.

The greatest change was the strength of the Tera coming from his body. Kila could sense his Physical and Mental Tera melding into one, but that was impossible since only chimeric and scourbeasts did that due to them being born with only one core. Yet there she was, witnessing something no human should be capable of doing and on the verge of near mental fatigue; still, she tried one more plea for Noki to come to his senses.

“If we don’t leave, you’ll be killed. Envoys from the Okari will be here any minute and you’re already an enemy of theirs.”

“Enemy….” Noki growled as he turned to face both the hunting stonebear and the direction where Mion was fighting the larger one. “Devour…enemy…”

Those were the only words said before Noki howled like a wounded beast. His Tera overpowered Kila’s and forced her to drop her technique, revealing both her and Noki to the stonebear. It would take some time for her Mental Tera to recover enough to use any other techniques, but with what little she had she used to formulate a plan.

“He’s not in his right mind and is going to get killed, which means I’ll probably be next from either the bears or Amani.” Kila wasn’t sure about that last one, but failing a Kolo couldn’t lead to any great outcomes either. A quick check of her cores told her that she had less than five percent of her Mental Tera and forty percent of her Physical Tera. Her Spiritual Tera was near maximum but she hadn’t learned any techniques that utilized it and she never got the opportunity to find out her Aspect. “I could use the spiritstone and just slip away, right? Get a head start to the village and just tell Amani I left before it all went down? But what if she checks my story out and finds out I’m lying? Ugh, this is why I hate using so much Mental Tera, my thoughts get all fuzzy.”

Kila saw Noki headed on a collision path towards the stonebear and decided to knock Noki out. Her Soul Rank was still higher than his and she held the advantage in both close combat and Tera usage. Sure he just overpowered her, but that was because she wasn’t using all of her power to restrain him. Confident in her chances, she moved towards Noki ready to strike, only to have him stare daggers at her.

“What? That can’t be, I’m still using the spiritstone to mask my presence,” Kila thought, “there’s no way he…” She broke off her attack and saw Noki’s attention snap back towards the stonebear. When Kila took a step forward, she saw both Noki and stonebear stumble from the sudden stop of their momentum. Somehow, Noki and the beast were able to detect her. “Is it my intent? But for Noki to sense that would mean…”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

With no further distractions from Kila, Noki and the stonebear met head on and pitted their bodies against each other. The sheer size difference gave the stonebear the advantage, until Noki drew in the remaining power from the now disintegrated cores. He entrenched himself by planting his feet through the ground and circulating Physical Tera to his limbs. When the stonebear saw its movement halted, it attempted to move back so it could paw at him, but Noki leapt forward, grabbed onto its neck and twisted. The momentum of the move forced the larger creature to lose it’s balance and crash onto the ground.

Noki leapt from the beast before it landed and bounded to one of the nearby trees. He moved like a lionape, swinging and leaping all around the stonebear but with the speed of a Lesser Iron. He kept moving from tree to tree as the stonebear righted itself and gave a defiant roar, as if to say ‘was that the best you could do?’ Noki landed on a branch before springing into the air and delivering a powerful kick into the head of the stonebear. It was protected by a thick layer of stone, but the force of the blow caused the creature to sway. The stonebear retaliated with a blind swipe, but Noki dropped to all fours and dodged the attack.

Kila couldn’t believe her eyes. It looked almost as if Noki was fighting like a chimeric beast with the way his body moved. On the ground he’d almost scuttle on all fours, which reminded her of the poisonous scorpions in the Red Forest, and in the air he moved with the agility and familiarity of a lionape. Again Noki retreated to the trees to avoid any attacks from the stonebear before circling it and delivering another kick. Another swipe, another retreat to the trees.

It wasn’t until Kila decided to use her Divine Sight did she understand his hit-and-run tactic. “He’s channeling his Tera into his arms and legs so he can move quickly through the trees, and then sends all that Tera into his leg the moment he attacks the stonebear before sending it back to his limbs, just in time to dodge the attack.”

What both intrigued and frightened Kila was that she sensed no Mental Tera from Noki at all. Even if his energies had melded together, he should still have Mental Tera in his Mind Kulda…but there was nothing coming from him. That meant everything he was doing, the circulation of Tera to his reactions, was relying solely on instinct.

“To be able to do all that without conscious thought…Noki, what the hell are you?”

Noki continued his strategy. The stonebear was a beast of great power, but below average intelligence that relied on its superior strength to kill its prey. To its senses, Noki was just an Earthen Soul, until it landed a blow. At the moment, the stonebear thought there was a second enemy, someone who was of Lesser Iron Rank, that was attacking him. That’s why whenever Noki retreated, the beast would stay in place and search for the imaginary opponent. Noki had no knowledge of this and was driven only by his need to dominate and devour his opponent.

After the last pass, a crack formed on the crown of the stonebear’s head, right where all of Noki’s previous blows had landed. Sensing weakness, both Noki and the stonebear moved; Noki seeking to end the fight and the stonebear trying to protect itself. Noki prepared another powerful legs strike but was interrupted by a Earth Aspect infused roar from the bear. It was like an invisible boulder slammed against his body, though to Kila’s senses it took on the shape of a brown, semi transparent semi circle.

“So Noki can sense Aspect, but can’t see it. I guess that makes sense, he’s only at Earthen Soul Rank.” That thought felt weird to Kila after witnessing Noki fight well above his rank, but she didn’t have time to sort that out since the stonebear used its Aspect to reform its crown of stone. “It probably hasn’t been attacking carelessly because of my presence, so if I stop using the spiritstone, it’ll most likely increase its aggression; but if I stop using the stone, I’ll completely burn out of Mental Tera and be helpless.” The modified spiristone Amani gave her acts as a loop, sending the same amount of Tera it receives back to the user. That way, even someone with barely any Mental Tera could still communicate and hide themselves. “Wait a minute, that’s it!”

Kila watched as Noki and the stonebear continued fighting. Noki had gotten up the moment the stonebear was in range and struck him with what Kila now recognized as a version of the Iron Striding Corporeal Art. Now, the two had returned to their familiar pattern of Noki fleeing to the trees and the stonebear searching for the other attacker. Kila waited for Noki to land the blow and dodge the swipe before acting. She cut her Tera off and was immediately detected by the stonebear and Noki; which was precisely what she wanted. Kila used the momentary stoppage in battle to send all but one percent of her Mental Tera into the spiristone and sped towards Noki. Her Middle Iron Soul Body helped her to cover the distance in only two steps, and she thrusted the stone into Noki’s palm before pushing him away from the fight.

In an instant Noki vanished from both senses and sight, leaving only the stonebear and Kila left. “Good, now I just have to run as fast as I can from here. Hopefully Mion is still too distracted to notice both Noki vanishing and my appearance.” Kila wasn’t concerned about fleeing from the stonebear, the creature lacked the agility to keep up with her and the trees would provide extra cover, assuming she could make it there in time. As the beast searched for the vanished Noki, Kila took that as her opportunity to leave and began doing so, until a powerful Tera Wave glued both her and the stonebear to the ground.

Noki’s body flickered into existence a few feet away from Kila and he looked more feral than human. His eyes were a blood orange and the irises were now y-shaped. He snarled at Kila and flashed his teeth. Sharp,white canines protruded from his mouth and his lips thinned, giving him an even more animalistic appearance. Noki lowered himself until he was on all fours and circulated an immense amount of Tera through his body, reinforcing his limbs to the point where his muscles couldn’t handle the strain. The tore under the stress but his potent Tera healed him almost immediately.

Kila was sure that he had no Mental Tera, that’s why she gave him the stone. Her own Tera would automatically take over since he lacked the power to resist, he should be in Amani’s Sanctuary right now and his physical body should be laying somewhere on the ground. This went far beyond just fighting on instinct, if Noki was able to move without any Mental Tera at all, then that would mean he’s using his Physical Tera to control himself; he’s literally mindlessly fighting.

“This is bad, if I sent him to the Abstraction then that means whatever was left of Noki’s consciousness is currently there…meaning what’s in front of me now is-”

Noki’s Tera erupted in an explosion of orange around his body and cloaked his limbs in its power. His arms were covered in a mixture of bright red blood and cracking black, but he paid no attention to them as his power continued to build.

The stonebear took a step back and Noki moved so quickly that Kila needed to activate her Divine Sight just to keep up. Through her Sight, she saw Noki plant his foot and deliver an uppercut to the jaw of the stonebear, sending both it and a section of the earth jettisoning upwards. The force of blow would have deafened Kila if not for her channeling her own Physical Tera throughout her entire body, which was fortunate because the moment Noki’s blow landed, he was moving right towards her.

Kila drew her weapons, preparing to seriously harm or even kill Noki. She didn’t want to kill him of course, but she couldn’t afford to hold back for too long; that last blow and her scanning his core had confirmed that Noki was fighting at the level of a Greater Iron now. If she wasn’t on her game, she’d die.

Noki found himself in an…oasis? He wasn’t sure since he’d never seen one but Baira had described what her home was like and it had a passing similarity to that description. He brushed past the green leaves and saw Amani floating in the middle of the pool.

“Amani? What are you doing here? Where am I?”

“Noki? This is a surprise,” Amani said as she stood up, still wrapping her body in a robe of water, “ I didn’t think you knew how to use a spiritstone.”

“Spiritstone?”

His confusion at her statement made Amani question her assessment of the situation. “Where’s Kila? Have you two already split up?”

“What? No- I was waiting for her when I was attacked by Mion and some stonebears. Kila got me some scourbeast cores and then…” Clouds swirled behind Noki, forming into images that corroborated his story. “I can’t remember. I was talking to her and then the next thing I know I’m here with you.”

Amani regarded Noki for a moment before teleporting in front of him and placing a hand on his head.

“Even though this isn’t your physical body, I can still draw information from it here, but it’ll be a little uncomfortable.” Without waiting for his consent, Amani ran her energy through him and traced it back to the Physical Realm. The moment she established a connection, the images behind Noki faded,replaced by a real time view of what was going on. Amani took a step back to take in the sight and Noki looked on in stunned disbelief.

“That’s…me?”

“Yes and no,” Amani said, “let’s just for now know that if you don’t go back, there’s a chance both you and Kila will be dead.”

“Ok, then send me back!”

“I can’t right now, I’m also in the middle of something,” Amani said as her mental projection of herself shook. “You’re going to need to take the Tera that’s in your other core and send it back to your remaining ones.”

“Well how do I do that? I’ve never done anything like that before!” Noki waited for a response until he noticed that the image of Amani appeared to be frozen in time.

“Really? Now you go away?” Noki turned back to the image and saw…whatever that was…battling against Kila. She appeared to be holding her own but each time she engaged, she came out with a few more wounds. As far as Noki could tell, it looked like his body was covered in blood but moved as if they were nothing but surface cuts.

Amani was right; either his body would deliver a wound too severe for Kila to recover from or he’d bleed out, they might even end up killing each other. But what was he to do? Drawing Tera from the other core and putting it in his own made no sense, he couldn’t even feel that other core most of the time so how was he supposed to take energy from it?

“That thing is gonna use my body to kill Kila and I’m stuck here watching! Wait…that’s still my body!”

Noki remembered his first time in the Abstraction with Amani and how she taught him how to bring his training from here to his body. He didn’t know how he got here, but he must still be connected to his body in some way. At that moment, Noki’s insight in Tera grew and he understood that on a conceptual level, Tera is simply energy and energy, though it may take different forms, can be moved from one realm to another. It’s why he’s able to train in the Abstraction and take his results back with him; the energy switches from Mental to Physical Tera.

“Wow, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” Noki said in regards to his new understanding, “but that’s given me an idea.”

Noki sat on the ground and focused all of his being on an image of his body. As he did so, a bright orange core the size of the large stonebear appeared behind him. It was a mental representation of the core from his body, composed from the ambient Mental Tera of the Abstraction. Noki turned to it and it was like staring into the sun. He reflexively shielded his eyes, even though the light it gave off had no physical properties, and walked to it until he could touch its outer shell.

“Weird, I can feel something deep inside of it…a bit of Mental Tera?” Noki placed another hand on it in preparation of sending the energy to his other cores. He wouldn’t need to visualize them since his body would naturally disperse the Tera throughout, he only needed to isolate the orange core so it wouldn’t access any Tera. Noki willed for the Tera to leave the core, but was met with such great resistance that it knocked him back.

“So there is something in there,” he said as he got back to his feet. He looked at the image of Kila barely managing to stave his body off and focused back on the glowing, orange core. “I don’t know what the hell you are, but that’s my body and my friend you’re hurting. Don’t think I’ll let you do whatever you want.”

Noki ran back to the core, placed both hands on it, and pitted his will against his foes; fighting a battle on two fronts.