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189. To Wear a Storm
🕑 Added 2024-10-10 14:00:05 +0000 UTCImmense power rushed into him. Before, at lower Ranks, he’d been completely overwhelmed and totally unable to handle it. Now, it felt… not controllable, but handleable. Something he could manipulate. Instinctively, he called out to it, and it answered, moving with his urges. A massive surge of energy, smashing into him all at once. Pain, heat, and a jolting discomfort bit into him, all while his core ran faster. His aether called out to the rush of energy as he did consciously, wanting it as much as he did.
Ike channeled the lightning into his Lightning Clad skill, circulating it over his skill, then into his body. It mingled with his aether. It had the same wild, uncontrollable properties as aether, but something additional as well. A secondary property. Like solam and lunam, but of the air. Of the sky.
Putting that to the back of his mind, Ike focused only on calling the energy into him. Even as he reached out to it, it faded away. In moments, there was none of that lightning strike left, just the quieting warmth of his burns.
Ike turned his eyes upward. The storm churned on, twisting and beating viciously at the sky. Such power. Such strength.
Was I looking in the wrong direction all this time?
The purple-sword-wielder pushed at him, trying to break free. The strike had weakened Ike, but not so much he couldn’t hold on. He tightened his grip and activated Lightning Caller again. This time, even before the lightning came, he spun his aether up, opening all his aether passages and baring himself to the sky.
“Come to me!” he screamed, clawing at the sky as if to drag it into himself.
“Are you mad? We’ll both die!” The purple-wielding man struggled in his grasp, but to no avail.
Thunder rolled. Lightning flashed in the sky. His skill warmed up, gathering more and more aether. All at once, it discharged.
“Yes!” Ike’s eyes lit up in delight. He called out to the lightning with every ounce of his being.
Once more, white light consumed his being. This time, though, he was ready for it. He greedily sucked it in, pulling it into his core. His skin burned. His flesh crisped. Still he drew more power into him, absorbing every bit of the lightning he could.
The purple-wielding man screamed. Ike laughed in joy.
Thunder cracked. The light faded. The ecstatic rush of power vanished, leaving Ike cold and alone once more.
His eyes flashed. He scowled. I won’t accept this. I’m taking all of it. All of it! He activated Lightning Caller again. The skill barely lit up, reluctant to activate. Ike ignored its reluctance. He poured aether into it, forcibly activating the skill. More and more aether, pushing against the skill’s limit. Still the skill refused to activate, stubbornly resisting.
The man struggled in his grasp. Ike tightened his hold. If he failed, he would at least kill the man. He pushed a huge surge of aether into the skill. At last, the skill activated.
This time, Ike wasn’t just ready and waiting. This time, Ike pounced on the lightning like a predator. He gripped it with his whole being and dragged it out of the sky. He sent aether up along the path of the lightning and into the storm, and latched onto the storm itself. With all his might, every scrap of his strength, he sucked the storm out of the sky.
The storm fought back. Like a living being, it struggled in his grasp. Lightning lanced down time and time again, even without him activating Lightning Caller. It smashed into him. His body blackened. His bones cracked. His organs burned. Ike ignored all of it. He kept pulling, kept dragging. One wisp at a time, the storm descended. It sucked into the remains of Ike’s body. Wrapped around it.
“Whether you want it or not, you’re mine!” Ike snarled. He clawed at the storm as if he could grab it with his bare hands and shove it inside himself. Nothing mattered anymore. Not his body, not his soul, nothing. He had staked his whole life on absorbing this storm. Not only the battle, but his future, his path, his magic. If he couldn’t absorb this storm, he would burn out here. There was no future for Ike without the storm. Either he absorbed it, or it destroyed him!
“What are you doing? Are you insane?” the man shouted.
Ike ignored him.
Overhead, the storm whirled to a fever pitch. The winds raged. Rain lashed down on them. Lightning burned everything in sight. Even the other fighters fell back, unable to keep fighting in the tempest. Not a Tempest, but a true tempest, a storm so ferocious there was no other word for it. The winds uprooted trees and battered the walls. Hail and rain swept away the grass and shrubs that remained. Thunder rolled constantly, like a drummer in the heavens. And in the eye of the storm, Ike grabbed the purple-wielding man to him and drew the storm into his core.
“Stop! Stop!” The man bashed at Ike. He sliced at Ike’s body with what little strength remained.
Ike didn’t feel him. His body was already in ruins. Little remained but the carbonized remains of his corpse. He was the storm, and the storm was him. It resisted his capture, but he wouldn’t let it escape. To destroy his body was immaterial. At this point, he was the winds and the rains and the clouds as much as he was a fleshy body.
“I was wrong,” he murmured. His eyes lit up, shining with the force of a thousand bolts of lightning. He turned his gaze upward, at the sky overhead. Looking to skills to create his Storm Clad had been foolish. A futile effort. Manmade skills could never capture the true fury of the storm. Looking to artificial skills to form his desired skills had been foolish, when the answer had been right there all along.
He released the purple-wielding mage. The man staggered back a few steps, then fell to the ground. His body was nearly as ruined as Ike’s. He crawled away, only for lightning to strike him down. There was no surviving within the storm. Not a single living thing could escape its wrath.
But now Ike was no longer a mere living being. He was something beyond. Something greater.
Within his core, his pillars trembled. All at once, they shattered. Ike’s Rank dropped. It plummeted. Rank 2. Rank 1. Mortal. The storm smashed him to bits, and nothing remained.
On the wall, hiding inside the barrier, Wisp caught her breath. She stepped forward, gripping the edge of the wall. “Ike…”
The sky quieted. It lightened. The clouds dissipated, revealing a clear sky. All around, the fighters peered out from their hiding spots. Even Llewyn climbed out from a hole he’d dug in the ground. They looked around.
Llewyn laughed. “He failed! What a fool. Trying to attain a power past Ranks and skills… that path has long been cut off to everyone. He’s learned the hard way what we’ve all come to accept.”
He turned to the wall and pointed at Shopkeep. He shook his head. “You chose the wrong champion. A child, who thought he could overturn the heavens. And now, you die—”
KA-BOOM!
Lightning flashed. And within it, a form appeared.
