Chapter 620 - Four primordial energies

From the first time I saw him, I knew he was just like every other demon I had met: a maniac like the rest, only better at hiding it.

That is what confused me. His heart, the look in his eyes, both told me he is ready to attack at any moment. To fight with that typical joy and aggressiveness only demons seem to possess. Yet his face and outward behavior are calm, perfectly controlled.

I cannot even blame it on some concentration type skills. Personally, I think those are rare for demons because they are what they are. This guy just controls himself.

But ever since he came into the room used for duels, alone and out of sight of everyone else? Damn, I could feel that bloodthirst in his heartbeat.

Both of us get thrown away by the kinetic energy that explodes in between us, but I absorb more of it and move quicker, reaching him before he can regain his composure. I release more of it directly at him, but instead of absorbing it, he redirects it and uses his own to attack me.

He is skilled and clearly used to kinetic energy, but after a year with Lioren, I do not think I will ever find anyone as talented as he was. This professor's use of kinetic energy, though skilled, lacks the natural ease that only Lioren had. With him, it felt like just another part of who he was, carrying that same overwhelming sense of oppressiveness.

I deflect the Professor's attack and launch my own while shifting my body to avoid him.

He realizes as quickly as I do that he will not be able to face me with kinetic energy, but he is stubborn, like all demons. So he continues to try.

His output is strong, but unlike me, he focuses on defense when it comes to kinetic energy. While I prefer it for movement and flight, he uses it like a tank, deflecting attacks and building a barrier over his skin to endure the attacks.

The thrill of the fight surges through me, and I increase my output, overwhelming his attacks and slamming against his kinetic barrier. Each attack sends him sliding back slightly. Loud thumps fill the huge room, reverberating through my chest and bones.

Every three heartbeats, I release another, synced perfectly to that rhythm, each containing my entire mana output transformed into kinetic energy through my heart as a medium and [Redistribution] as a support.

I know he is waiting for me to tire out. I see it in his eyes, that gleeful look, waiting for an opening to jump me and tear me apart limb by limb.

Still, I do not stop. And the look on his face changes when he starts realizing he might be the first to tire out. In the end, unlike the Vice Director, he is not much higher level than I. I estimate him to be around 350.

I have dealt with worse.

When he changes his mind, he does not show frustration or disappointment. Instead, his excitement grows. That calm mask he wore is long gone.

Void energy surrounds him, a swirling mix of gray darkening toward black, with hints of purple. A single stream seeps from his left forearm as he pulls it free, spreading and circling around him to form a vast halo.

When my kinetic energy crashes into it, it dissolves, like tossing a ball of sand into water and watching it crumble into tiny particles.

That circle of void energy spins and sends out a pulse that crashes into me. My control over kinetic energy and mana slips instantly, even the one shielded by my natural barrier, and that is inside of my body.

It fascinates me so much that I let it hit me again, even as he closes the distance using kinetic energy. I rely on my passive to absorb the impact, knowing it will hurt, but I focus only on observing the behavior of void energy.

As rumored, it is not just mana disruption. Void energy affects primordial energies, too, and part of me wonders how it would affect Fragments.

After the attack hits me, my reservoir floods with kinetic energy from the impact, already turning into mana. Even so, I slide across the floor with my limbs twisted and broken. Another pulse of void energy comes at me, followed by a kinetic attack. Before they land, with just one working leg, I use Wraith Dance to escape, breaking that leg in the process.

I lift the first seal on my Ignition Heart entirely, letting an immense surge of thermal energy flood my body. It combusts under my skin and starts healing me. Limbs twist and snap back into place. Ribs restore themselves. Torn flesh regrows. All of it followed by the incredible pain that always comes when using such pure thermal energy to heal through the passive.

I let it continue to combust under my skin and move again, but this time much more recklessly. Kinetic and thermal energy clash inside me. Kinetic energy breaks my body as I move too fast. Thermal energy heals me just as quickly.

When I appear by his side, he moves to attack with another pulse, but I disappear again, snapping both my ankles in the process. Golden flames start seeping out of my skin as I reappear on the opposite side, raising the flames around me until they clash against his void energy. While they clash, I bury my now healed feet into the ground, twist my body, and, channeling kinetic energy through myself, deliver a blow to his right shoulder.

I watch his skin and clothes ripple under my touch. His skin tears open, and his flesh and bones explode. His entire shoulder and right arm vanish into a pink, bloody mist as he staggers back.

I give him a second to regain his composure.

He looks up at me, clutching his left arm against the remains of his shoulder. He is smiling like he is having the time of his life.

"Very well," he says in the same calm tone he always uses, which does not match the maniacal grin on his face.

The third primordial energy seeps out of him. A blue mark appears on his forehead, and a circle of primordial lightning forms behind his back. The same red and white lightning that Tess also has. It moves, turning into dozens of finger-sized projectiles that surround him like a sea of stars.

So he uses kinetic for defense, void to support his attacks, and lightning for ranged attacks. Not a bad combination at all, and I am not surprised by the amount of respect people have shown him. So far, even after seven floors and starting the third year in the tutorial, I have not seen anyone else with three primordial energies.

His void energy pulses again, but this time, I am ready and move before it reaches me. High in the air, I absorb my inertia, and dozens of lightning projectiles pass where I was headed. When I move again, more of them pass through where I was.

Like a minigun firing only tracer rounds by the thousands per minute, his attacks bombard the place. That red and white lightning screams like it is tearing the air apart.

I land back on the ground and use Wraith Dance a few times. Then, to spice things up, I form a thermal orb, compress it, and shoot a golden laser-like stream that cuts across the space and forces him to dodge. The place he dodges into ripples, and through my [Ley line], another thermal orb appears and explodes.

Kinetic energy bursts from him, pushing against the flames. A few loud thumps follow, but even so, parts of his clothes catch fire from the heat. He does not seem to care, even as they burn on his skin.

Even without eyes on me, the lightning projectiles continue to track me, and this time, every hundredth of them is an orb that explodes, releasing a sort of lightning field around it.

Void energy is slower, and at least in his case, he seems to need closer range to actually hit me, but now he uses it to make the lines I have stretched around unstable.

After I use Wraith Dance to reach him, his projectiles disappear. Instead, all the lightning pulls into his body, forming a new arm to replace the one I blew apart. Within that crackling limb, an axe made of lightning energy forms.

His pulse of void energy crashes against a sacrificial wave of mana I send at him, and I reach his body.

I duck under his swing, mana flashes around me again as another wave of void energy crashes into it. The entire time until now, he had pretended the "cooldown" on his void energy was longer than it actually is.

In Pulser Stance, I move to his side and drive the palm of my hand into his chest. My frequency of kinetic energy wobbles in a triple-cascading effect and ignores the barrier he creates.

When he stumbles and coughs up blood, I move closer and deliver a kick that sends him rolling across the floor, easily covering the distance of a football field.

Even while rolling, he finds time to dissolve his lightning arm and axe into projectiles that crash against the barrier I form. The surface of that barrier wobbles like a water bubble about to burst, but it snaps back and holds while the lightning discharges around me.

Already getting back on his feet, he wipes the blood from his lips and stares at me with that bloodthirsty smirk.

And once again, I fully lift the first seal on Ignition Heart.

Thermal energy seeps out of me, and I let it. At first, golden flames flicker across my body, red-hot and burning, but causing no harm. Then they spread further. They climb higher and wider, blazing behind me as I slowly walk toward him.

He still faces me, his heart pumping out even more kinetic energy. The void halo spins around him, and the mark on his forehead glows.

Then I lift the second seal.

Thermal energy floods the room, wild and unchecked. I make sure only my body stays untouched as it surges through. The flames climb high, nearly licking the ceiling and stretching toward the distant walls of the massive cube-shaped chamber. Pure golden fire, burning as one, and at the center of it all, my small figure. Just a single dot engulfed by the blaze.

Finally, he hesitates. Pulses of void energy stop, useless now, no better than pouring a glass of water onto a burning house.

His eyes lock onto mine, but I do not stop, even as blisters bubble up on his skin.

Then he nods, the smile fading from his face. His heartbeat stops. All the kinetic energy vanishes, the mark on his forehead dims, and the halo of void energy flickers out.

He is the first to look away.

Only then do the burning flames freeze in place. I draw them back into my body within seconds. Ignition Heart becomes a whirlpool, pulling them all in, and I seal it shut once more.

Relief crashes over me at once, sharp and searing, as the leftover thermal energy inside my body combusts and repairs the parts on the verge of tearing apart. I show nothing and keep walking toward the guy.

"Professor Feran," I greet him.

"Assistant Professor Gwyn," he nods slightly.

"Tell me more about primordial void energy."

"I apologize, but I think I will need to go get healed first. Otherwise, I will be dead in a few minutes."

"Oh."

"Regretfully, it seems so. But I have to say, I admire the way you handle kinetic energy. I do not think I have ever seen it used as beautifully as you just did."

"Thanks, I guess. I had a good teacher. I will see you later, then?"

"Of course. It is rare to find someone for a proper fight in these parts of the world. May I ask if there is a demon among your ancestors?"

"There is not."

"Amazing," he rubs his chin.

"Why are you still here? Are you not dying?"

"I think I still have a few minutes left. The Head Healer owes me, so he will heal me quickly and without too many questions. Please do not worry. As for void energy, I do not know what more to say except that it affects mana and other primordial energies. Unlike mana disruption, which destroys structures, void energy isolates them, making them inert and unusable even to their source, after which they dissipate."

"That does not make much sense. It still sounds similar to mana based disruption."

He coughs up blood and wipes it away before shaking his head. "If you disrupt mana with mana, you either overpower the original structure, understand it better than the creator, or move faster than the creator to change it. Void-based mana disruption is like doing all of that at once, with isolation added on top. Some theorize it is the nature of the void, as infinite empty space, that makes it possible."

"Well, it does not matter now. Just go and get your healing."

He bows slightly and leaves.

At first, I think he might walk away slowly, like before when he first came here, taking ten minutes to reach the exit and dying somewhere along the way. But there is still some sense left in him, and he runs.

I head back to the middle of the room, where I find a puddle of gray metal, left over from the suppressive items they had put on me. I plop down on the ground and poke it with my finger.

A few hours later, the loop resets, and I find myself back in the room, surrounded by the rest of Group 4.

***

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