Chapter 690: The Most Primal |
Garina was starting to feel uneasy.
In truth, she had been for quite some time. Uneasiness was no longer sufficient to describe the emotion she felt. This was something else. Something she hadn’t felt in so long that she couldn’t even place what the feeling even was. It was taking just about all the acting skills she had to keep Noah from noticing that something was off.
More specifically, the thing that was off was him.
Noah wouldn’t fucking break.
No matter what she did. No matter how hard she pressed him. No matter how many times she killed him. She’d even gone so far as to start messing with his training plans when there were only two more nights before he went with Fuyin to infiltrate the Inquisitors.
All of her attempts barely managed to put a single crack in him. He’d gotten mad. That was it. Mad. After being put through what was objectively the most bullshit training in history, after Garina’s best attempts to push him to the limit, Noah had only gotten to the equivalent of someone who had been cut off in a line.
And for the first time, Garina started to wonder just what it was that the Line could do to a mortal soul. There were gods that had had less determination than this. She wasn’t even sure such a thing could even be attributed to the Line anymore.
It was simply Noah.
Garina was not young enough to dismiss what she had done to Noah as something that could simply be pushed through. It was easy to grow desensitized to death. When someone saw enough of it, they could convince themselves that it was simply normal. That it didn’t matter.
When the Prophet had trained her, he had made absolutely certain that Garina would never forget that. The memories were seared into her skull like a brand. They had been for hundreds of years. Those memories were some of the clearest — and worst — that she had.
Garina knew death. She knew it far better than she would have liked to. And she knew that dying was never some mere trifle to be ignored. Even Sievan respected the power he himself wielded.
The fear of death was the most powerful motivator that almost every mage had. It was a teaching tool. One that could push a mage to the absolute brink of their abilities… and one that could shatter the barrier between their body and soul completely.
It was the ultimate motivator.
For Garina, the Prophet had found a family. Mother and Father and their little girl. The Prophet left her at their doorstep, and they took her in without question. At the time, their girl had been her age. At the time, Garina hadn’t yet had a name.
At the time, Garina hadn’t known what power would cost.
But she had learned.
For five years, they raised her. She ate with them. Worked with them. Shared in the joys of their success and wept with their sorrows. They were the closest thing that Garina had ever had to family.
Garina had watched as a Rank 6 monster tore them to shreds.
She’d fought, of course. With every single scrap of power she’d had. All the training that the Prophet had given her before he’d left her with her family.
And that had surmounted to nothing.
She had been weak. The monster shattered her spine in a single blow and left her lying in the dirt, unable to do anything but watch through the blood and tears stinging her eyes as her family was slaughtered one by one before her eyes.
Mother and Father tried to protect their daughter. They were mages themselves, and not weak ones. They put up a good fight in an attempt to save their daughter. To buy her time to escape.
But she hadn’t run. She’d run to Garina, tried to drag her to safety.
And when the monster was done with her parents, it had turned to them.
Garina did not care to remember what happened next — but she refused to let herself forget. The monster had come for them. Her sister had done everything in her power to fight back. She’d fought with every scrap of desperation that resided within a mortal soul.
As the monster bore down on the other girl, Garina’s soul had screamed in agony. She’d said every prayer. Begged every limb in her body to so much as twitch. None of it had worked. And on that day, something broke.
The barrier between mind and body and soul shattered.
She had moved.
And when Garina was done with the monster, there was nothing left of it but a few splatters of ragged, bloody flesh and the scent of ash and blood and tears.
She hadn’t even cared. The memory of the monster was a muted bloody haze. What Garina remembered was not the monster. It was the face of her sister. The girl who had died of her injuries in the mud.
The mortal that had given her life to save an adopted sister. An adopted sister who had been the reason her family had died.
Garina had nothing to give them but a burial. Her back was still broken, but such things paled in comparison to the might of true unity over one’s body. She’d dug three holes — each six feet deep and not a foot less — and buried each one of them.
Only then did she allow herself to collapse.
Only then did the Prophet emerge for the first time since he had left her on the doorstep of her family.
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Garina knew death well.
The Prophet had made sure of it, and she had never forgiven him for it.
She was no teacher. But when it had come her time to teach, Garina had done everything in her power to avoid becoming him. She’d been confident she could find another way to push someone to the breaking point.
Garina was pretty sure that just about anyone else would have already broken.
But Noah refused to. He brushed the deaths off and came at her again. And again. And again. He ignored her taunts and insults. He didn’t care that her training was little more than just bullying. He just kept coming.
Garina’s fist slammed into Noah’s skull for the third time that night.
He died.
He came back.
His clothes were on within moments, and then he was coming at her again.
The back of Garina’s neck prickled. The strange feeling that had been building ever since she’d first started trying to train Noah grew stronger with every punch he threw. She still couldn’t place what it was.
Garina threw another punch. Noah’s head jerked to the side, allowing the blow to whistle past his ear. He threw a fist of his own, and Garina raised her hand to block it. The blow was wild. It wasn’t the strike of a trained martial artist. Calling it the strike of a wild animal would have been more accurate.
But Garina hadn’t been training him to fight.
Her knee shot up toward his stomach, but Noah twisted his body and spun out of the way before the blow could connect with him.
The move was slow to her senses — but Garina wasn’t using the full power of a Rank 7. She’d been steadily intensifying the intensity of her assault over the course of their training. At the moment, she was somewhere around the middle of Rank 6… and Noah had dodged her attack.
Noah’s leg snapped up to whistle toward her side in a kick.
Something prickled against Garina’s ears. She shifted out of the way. But, before she could attack again, he had turned the momentum of the first kick into a second one. She raised an arm defensively beside her head.
Noah’s heel slammed into it.
Garina skidded a step back. A tremor rolled through her arm and into her very bones. It wasn’t from the physical strength of the strike.
It was magic.
The sensation prickling against her ears grew stronger, and realization finally drove into Garina.
She wasn’t feeling just a prickling sensation. She was hearing it.
It was music.
He’s doing it. If he’s accessing even a tiny part of his runes through the barrier of death, then the merge is nearly complete. Just a bit—
Noah’s violin snapped into his hands. He slashed at her with the bow in a blur.
The strike was so fast that even with her powers at Rank 6, she was forced to jerk back in surprise. Noah’s attack whistled past her nose, just a hair away from connecting.
The music in her ears grew louder. It was coming from the air around Noah. Every single motion he made seemed to build into a symphony around him. Garina’s domain buzzed against the sound. Something was… off about it.
Then her eyes widened.
Chaos?
Noah’s fist slammed into Garina’s stomach.
The physical force of the blow wasn’t enough to even make her blink — but the soul contained within the strike was another story. Garina doubled over as what felt like the horns of the heavens themselves roared in her ears. Vibrations tore through her entire body with enough force to send her staggering back.
Stunned thoughts swirled through her mind.
His soul is immense. How is a Rank 5’s soul so powerful? I expected it would be strong, but this is—
Noah’s heel sliced through the air and cracked into the side of Garina’s head. She stumbled to the side. Her runes buzzed. Confusion shot through Garina. She hadn’t reached out to them.
Garina never would have called on them in training, and certainly not by accident. But power had slipped from the runes all the same. It was a minuscule amount, but an amount all the same. Power was missing… and she hadn’t spent it.
Noah’s knee drove up into Garina’s stomach. She doubled over as another vibration ripped through her. The air around them crackled with magical energy, and it wasn’t Noah’s.
Another strike whistled toward Garina’s face. She crossed her arms before herself a moment before Noah’s fist slammed into them and sent her skidding back. More vibrations tore through Garina’s body.
Even though she hadn’t taken any true damage because of the resilience of a Rank 7 body, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end.
Garina lowered her arms. And, for an instant, her gaze met Noah’s.
Power burned within his eyes. Black streaks of lighting crackled through his irises like a roaring storm — and she felt the weight of his soul within them.
This was the true purpose of soul shaping. Gaining a connection to the soul was the first step in allowing it to manifest itself in the body — which was, in turn, the first step in manifesting Rune Force.
Noah’s done it. His mind, body, and soul have merged.
But more than that. This music… it must be part of his pattern. It must let him steal magic from me. How does that—
Noah’s elbow blurred toward Garina’s head.
She lifted an arm to block the strike. It was too fast to avoid without using powers above that of Rank 6. Garina gritted her teeth as his elbow connected and vibrations tore into her again. Her soul twitched from the strike.
Rank 7 or not, taking repeated strikes like this from a Rank 5 whose soul was far larger than it should have been was painful — and Noah was far from done. His strikes came one after the other in a hail of blows.
The song roaring in her ears grew louder still. Prickling magic burned against Garina’s skin. Noah’s pattern was ripping energy from her and just leaving it lying around. He probably hadn’t gotten a strong enough grip over it to access the magic he stole while the effects of his death were still hindering him.
If anything, that made the feeling building within Garina since the start of their training grow stronger. If Noah hadn’t just died before he’d achieved full connection of mind, body, and soul…
Just how strong is he? How much will he become capable of in just a few short years?
Iron prickled against Garina’s tongue. She crossed her arms before her to block another strike. At some point, the tide of the fight had turned — and it struck Garina that she wasn’t going to be able to turn it back if she didn’t start calling on her magic.
But she’d just killed Noah. He couldn’t properly use his runes. Using hers would have made the fight completely unfair. The purpose of this was to push him to his limits… and it seemed she’d finally done that.
Noah sent a kick hurtling toward Garina’s midsection. She moved to block it — and chaos energy snarled in her face like a furious animal. Tongues of red power twisted down Noah’s leg — and it relocated itself as if it had never been in the path of her arms.
His heel slammed into her stomach. Garina doubled over. Blood splattered from her mouth. Shock pierced into her mind.
She’d known Noah and his group had potential. But this was something else. To be able to use power like this at Rank 5 spoke to more than just the power of Noah’s soul. It was Noah himself.
Achieving such a level of synchronization the first time his three parts fully merged into one was ridiculous. He should have been nearly entirely cut off from his runes. The Soul and body were severed. To pull them together this effectively meant there was nearly no doubt or hesitation within Noah. He was completely aligned with himself. He knew his desires. His weakness. His strengths. And he had accepted them. This should have been nearly impossible to achieve for a mortal.
And, only as the blood fell from her lips to the grass before her, only as she looked into the storming eyes bearing down on her, did Garina finally realize what the feeling that had been mounting through the fight truly was. It should have been ridiculous. A Rank 7 could not feel this toward a Rank 5.
But she did.
She knew the feeling, and it was fear.
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