“This is it…” Kiso’s hands trembled as he lowered the parchment into the imprint on the pedestal.
Chapter Twenty Four -
Amidst baited breaths, Kiso fit the parchment into the imprint. After settling the parchment, he sent spiritual pressure into the string once again before entering the key into the hole.
For several seconds nothing happened, causing Yuni to frown and say to Kiso, "Maybe it's not the right...." Before she finished speaking, a bright light suddenly shone from the pedestal.
Atop the pedestal, bright letters started to burn themselves into the surface of the imprint under the parchment. As the letters burned their way through, the parchment itself burst into white hot flames, disappearing.
As the parchment disappeared, a short message burning bright in the imprint was left behind.
It read: Juniors...Don't you usually turn a key in a keyhole?
Kiso's mouth opened as they stared down at the message.
Yuni poked his arm saying, "She's right you know.."
Shaking his head, Kiso reached down, turning the stiff string key as far as he could to the right. The moment the key refused to turn any further, the bright message faded and an incredible spiritual pressure began to seep from the ground around them.
Strands of wind started to quickly swirl in the dimly lit cavern surrounding Kiso and Yuni in a sphere.
Soon, wind visible to the naked eye had completely enveloped them blocking their view of anything beyond. In the next moment, a soft feminine voice rang inside the sphere carrying a profound spiritual pressure in her voice alone.
She spoke to nobody in particular saying, "Juniors my name is Yuka, since you have come here I believe you were destined to have done so. In the past, I battled against an evil god of death for centuries. Despite dozens of battles that shook the very earth, I was unable to rid the world of his horrid evil. In my final battle versus that evil god, he managed to land a deadly blow on myself. That blow cost him dearly though as I was able to seal him away in the vile place he came from. Unfortunately, he had fostered many children during his time in this world and they will surely work to free him."
The voice faded for a moment before continuing in a slightly more urgent voice, "My time is limited, so I cannot teach you the secrets to battling against their evil, however I can leave you with a single powerful technique. This technique is among my weakest techniques, but with mortal spiritual pressure it is probably all your little bodies can handle. The technique itself is of the ocular variety and is called Divine Wind. I will bestow upon your bodies a shortcut to using this technique but the level at which you will excel in it depends on yourselves."
The spherical wind around them suddenly rushed into the key hole, causing the strands of hair forming the key to glow a dazzling azure color. The azure strands of hair unwound themselves floating upwards into the air. Five strands in total, they hovered above the pedestal as burning letters once more shone on the imprint.
Kiso and Yuni silently stared on, mouths open, observing the letters as they came into view.
"These strands of hair on from my humble body, allow them to burrow into your eyes and they will do the rest. Don't let me down juniors." Burning brightly few a couple seconds, the letters soon after faded away. From the overload of spiritual pressure, the pedestal crumbled and the alter cracked threatening to fall apart itself.
Kiso gulped as he shifted his gaze to the azure strands of hair floating in the air before him.
Glancing at Yuni, he noticed she was staring wide eyed at him, seemingly asking permission to grab one of the azure glowing hairs.
Kiso smiled and nodded, reaching forward himself to grasp a hair. As his fingers made contact with the silky hair, they couldn't help but become completely numb with an ice cold pressure.
Sensing a strange tinge of danger, Kiso quickly brought the tip of the hair towards his eye. At the moment the hair came remotely close to his eye, it shot out from Kiso's hand burrowing straight into his eye.
"AHHHHH!!!!!" Kiso clenched his eyes and screamed in pain. His eyes felt like they were melting away and his vision behind his closed eyelids went completely white. A few short seconds later he faintly heard Yuni scream as well. The pain from the hair burrowing into their eyes was far worse then any other pain they had ever endured. Even Danstun's attack was inferior to the pain caused by this tiny strand of hair.
For several tens of minutes, Kiso and Yuni knelt with the hands over their eyes, enduring the extreme pain. After what seemed like eternity, with tears streaking down their faces, the miserable pain finally started to fade.
Kiso lowered his hands and attempted to open his eyes. Feeling his eyelids retract, the darkness from the cave was nowhere to be seen. That bright white light filling his vision wasn't affected in the slightest.
Yuni's trembling voice range out from Kiso's left, "K..Kiso....Can you see?" Her tone was full of fear and apprehension.
Kiso reached out towards her voice, touching what felt like her arm as he replied, "No, everything is white, my eyes feel completely numb. I can't even tell what direction I'm moving them, it's like they're not even there!"
Their breathing quickened as worry filled their hearts.
During all of this, Julian stared from the outside not daring to speak a word. Upon hearing them finally speak as they knelt there beside the crumbled pedestal, he called out, "Kiso, Yuni, what happened?!"
Staring blankly in the direction of Julian's voice, Kiso called back, "We supposedly received the technique but we can't see!"
Julian was shocked but hurriedly suggested, "Use your inner eye, what's going on inside?"
With an enlightened expression, Kiso and Yuni both shifted their bodies into the meditative stance. Closing their useless eyes, they observed the insides of their bodies.
"This is...?" Kiso quickly discovered a vast amount of his spiritual pressure being drawn from his core towards his eyes. Without hesitating, he quickly started to urge the nature energy around him to enter his spiritual veins. With the boost from the nature energy, his trembling body started to slowly stabilize and tiny black dots started to appear in the field of white.
Calling over to Yuni, Kiso said, "Yuni, use nature energy too, I think my vision is coming back!"
"Right! I'm already doing that!" Yuni enthusiastically replied.
After several tens of minutes, the field of white almost completely disappeared. Kiso slowly reopened his eyes, blinking hard several times as the world around him came back into view.
With a sigh of relief, Kiso looked over at Yuni, who had also reopened her eyes. Their gazes met and they simultaneously let out a gasp, "Your eyes!!!"
They scrambled to move closer together, staring into each other's eyes. A vivid azure circle could be seen surrounding all four iris. The azure circle gave off a faint glow similar to the strands of hair.
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
Excited expressions quickly painted their faces, if nothing else their glowing eyes definitely at least looked cool.
Julian noticed their glowing eyes and he forgot to breathe for several tens of seconds before exhaling and calling out, "You can see again right? How is it, has anything changed? Do you comprehend the technique?"
His words broke the excited tension in the air between the two of them as they looked over towards Julian.
"Eh... Everything looks the same as before and... There wasn't any information on the technique itself.." Yuni called back, a hint of disappointment in her voice.
Kiso chuckled, "That's not necessarily true Yuni, look into your core. Can you feel that?"
Inside Kiso's core, the dark vortex still raged, yet tiny streams of azure light swirled in the darkness as well. Kiso closed his eyes, attempting to sense the nature energy around him.
"Ahh.. I can't seem to sense any additional energies in the surroundings." Kiso thought to himself, frowning. He really hoped this hidden technique had allowed him to sense and be able to absorb an additional nature energy. His frown suddenly faded though as he shifted his inner eye towards his spiritual veins.
Prior to obtaining the azure circle in his eyes, his spiritual veins would only have energy flow through them when absorbing nature energy or using his spiritual pressure. Yet now, even without doing either of the two, faint amounts of nature energy constantly flowed from his core through his spiritual veins towards his eyes.
The most exciting part, was this nature energy was the same azure light that was swirling in his core!
"Yuni, can you see the azure light flowing in your spiritual veins? What do you think it is?" Kiso sent Yuni a mental message.
She furrowed her brows, closing her eyes to have a look. After a few seconds a smile grew on her face and she happily replied, "I can see it..But I don't have any idea what it is either.. Do you think its wind energy?"
Kiso pondered the words left behind by Yuka deeply, frequently coming back to the two words 'ocular' and 'technique'.
"Can't hurt to try.." Kiso thought to himself as he urged spiritual pressure into his eyes.
If Kiso was still observing with his inner eye, he would have seen an immense amount of that azure light race from his core to his eyes. The vortex of spiritual pressure in his core vastly depleting in the process.
As spiritual pressure made its way into his eyes, the world started to change. The formerly dim cave seemed to become full of azure flowing light.
Looking out around him, Kiso noticed an azure light heading straight for his face. He instinctively attempted to dodge, but it was too late. Strangely though, rather then pain or anything unpleasant, a familiar feeling brushed across his face.
"It's wind!!!" Kiso exclaimed loudly, causing Yuni to jump.
"Wind?" Yuni couldn't help but ask.
A giant smile on his face, Kiso replied, "Right! Pour spiritual pressure into your eyes Yuni! You can see the wind!"
"Oh?" Yuni sent spiritual pressure into her eyes, the azure light dancing through the cave became completely visible.
A curious look flashed through her eyes.
"Kiso, do you think we can use the wind? This technique is supposed to help us fight against the Apostles of Death right? Well, if their techniques rely on those plumes of deathly smoke, the wind could just blow it away right?" Yuni asked aloud.
Julian couldn't help but butt in, "No, my entire family has the innate ability to use wind. Even with the wind's help the deathly smoke will at most be diverted. When battling an elder of the Apostles of Death, they can send forth tens of such plumes at the same time.."
Julian's words made Yuni's excited face slightly fade.
Kiso quickly asked, "Hmm, but to what extent can your family control the wind Julian? Like, how far away? And also, are you saying that even your father cannot fight against an elder?"
Julian's face changed, his eyes widened as he replied, "My father... Actually, he can certainly fight against the elders. Remember, he was able to capture that elder! As to what extent he can control the wind... Think of the winds during typhoon, that would be my father. He can use his spiritual pressure to create wind nearly a quarter mile away, although he has said that he can only absorb the wind already present in nature.
Most of our family can only create wind about a hundred meters away though, including myself."
Kiso nodded, it was about what he expected.
"Why do you ask?" Julian was curious regarding the root to Kiso's questions.
Smiling, Kiso replied with a simple action.
Actually when Kiso sent spiritual pressure into his eyes, at that moment he could also sense the spiritual pressure of the wind itself. Almost the same feeling he got when he sensed the darkness energy from a shadow. Using his previous enlightenment, he grasped the azure light, changing its direction.
"As I thought." Kiso's smile grew and he even lightly laughed out loud.
He sent the azure light representing the wind swirling around Yuni and Julian's bodies using almost the same exact method he might use darkness energy to move a human body around.
Feeling the wind surround their bodies, Julian couldn't help but cry out, "Kiso you can control wind now?! How?!"
With a devious laugh, Kiso simply replied, "All I will say Julian, is this technique is worth it. Even more so worth it for yourself."
Julian licked his lips with wide eyes, staring at the remaining three strands of hair still floating above the crumbled alter.
Kiso noticed his gaze and frowned, "Julian, I can say with a certain degree of confidence that you should reach the fifth stage of spiritual pressure before absorbing one of those strands."
He could say those words because he clearly felt his depleted spiritual pressure after controlling his new technique for even a single minute.
Julian gave a questioning look, but dispelled his desire and nodded at Kiso thanking him.
Yuni's face was contorted and she was deeply frowning.
"Kiso, why can't I control the wind? I also possess the technique, why can't I use it?" Her face was filled with obvious displeasure at the unfairness.
Kiso could only laugh and console her, "Yuni, I can only use the technique so easily because it happens to be extremely similar to the Skyshadow technique. You'll have to rely on yourself to learn how to use it."
Yuni folded her arms but didn't complain.
Shifting his gaze, Kiso took a deep breath and stared around the cavern thinking to himself, "Just now I clearly saw the azure lights were heading in that direction, it must be the exit!"
To Be Continued!
----------------------------------------
I'm willing to add a little information to this chapter if you guys feel I left any loose ends regarding the technique. Just leave a comment with the question/concern.