Death was coming for them.

The illatrian lay broken against the crystal wall, destroyed by Cen's mighty new skill, and yet, not knowing how or why, Nar knew that the monster was not downed for good. That the battle was not yet over, and that his part was not yet played…

And so, he struggled to hold on, and to make it work.

But [Aura Blade] fought him, refusing to yield to him, even now, when he needed it the most. Even as death rose in front of them, the truth revealed for the others in the party, it still denied him!

"[Aura Blade] is, in a way, an extension of [Sword Aura]," his master had explained to him. "But in another way, one might say that it is a completely different kind of skill."

Nar grit his teeth, struggling to hold onto the control of his aura, not within his own body, but within the blade itself.

"Cycling aura into your blade grants you increased damage, by the means that your aura is simply coating your blade and is damaging in itself… That was [Aura Attack], the basic skill that we all begin with," the man had continued. "In [Sword Aura], we took that a step further. You cycle your aura into the sword, yes, but you mix in your will, focusing your intent into a single, powerful strike that is also powered by your knowledge and capability with the sword itself. In this way, it replaces the generic [Aura Attack] with the sword paths' basic upgrade," the Master of Blades explained. "And now, with [Aura Blade], we go yet one step further… In fact, we go several! First, the aura and intent cycled into the sword must now remain under your complete control. This is direct manipulation of external aura, and in some ways, it's somewhat close to what your friend Cen is learning to do, but through the blade."

The aura coating his sword shrieked and snapped, fighting to break free of his control. It was like wrestling an angry snake. Slippery, fast, dastardly… It was his own aura, and yet, at the same time, it felt like a beast of its own, and he held onto it only through the greatest, sheerest, effort of will. The aura in the blade felt only his through the barest of stretched taut threads, which threatened to snap at any moment.

Yes, it was his own aura, but it felt so distant, so different, it could have been anyone else's!

It gave him an even greater amount of respect for the difficulty of what Cen was trying to achieve with her own path.

"You must control the aura within and surrounding the blade, as it seeks to escape your grasp," the master said. "And when you strike, you must push it all out, at once, keeping control over the aura that leaves your sword. And here, you must become like your friend Tuk, his will controlling the path of his rings, and calling them back to his fingers… Except, you are controlling pure aura. Even as it leaves your sword at speeds you can barely comprehend, let alone control, that is exactly what you must do! You must control its flight. You must keep its intent pure and the aura together lest it disperses before it reaches your enemy. And once it reaches it, you must hold it within your target… The longer you can hold the control over your skill, the more damage you will cause. Of course, that will require more aura from you, further taxing your [Mastery] leash. Therefore, you must also consider that you need to split your [Mastery] between the edge of aura and its control."

Nar grit his teeth, doing his best to ignore the regenerating illatrian before them, and pushed his focus further into the sword.

Just fucking do as I'm telling you to do! He shouted at the unruly aura. In reply, the shifting, snarling gray light snapped out even wilder, tendrils of pure, deathly aura reaching out around him.

"Watch out!" Rel shouted, warning Tuk as she herself jumped out of the way.

"Nar? What's happening?" Tuk asked him.

"I'm… Trying… To control… It!" Nar managed.

If he let his control slip now, his aura would explode, damaging not only himself, but anyone else caught in the blast.

"You can do it!" Rel encouraged him. "Come on! You got this!"

"We'll buy you time!" Tuk added.

Nar could only grunt at them, as he held on with everything he had.

"[Aura Blade] does not look like a flashy skill at first," his master's words continued to echo in his mind. "At its earliest levels, the skill contains all the aura within the blade, not a shred of it manifesting externally until you strike… And that is the level of control, of smoothness, that you must achieve. First and foremost, all the aura must remain within the sword! You cannot see or hear even a speck of it!"

But how? Nar thought, wrestling for control of the unruly aura. That was the part he still failed to achieve. He had cut with his aura, but the aura had always also been on the outside on the blade, but this now, it eluded him, and the hazy memories of the one time he had unleashed the skill did not help much in the moment.

"You must feel it! Reach into the sword! As crazy as this may sound at the moment, it's still your own aura! The energy of your very soul!"

A rage of dark purple and ice roared into existence, blasting Nar's face.

The icy aether pelted his armor, but some of its sharp edges sliced right through, tasting his blood. Terror sought to assault his mind, but with the ongoing titanic conflict between him and the aura within the sword, Nar barely even acknowledged its existence.

Why do you fight me? Nar asked his aura, ignoring the maelstrom of darkness and purple swirling around him. Do you want me to die? Is that what you want?

His aura shrieked in reply, reaching back through the sword, into his pathways, and echoing within his mind, fully erasing the feeble touches of the illatrian's AOE that was trying to find purchase within his mind.

Wait… Was that…

The dungeon spun around him, screams and shouts washing over him, but his focus remained lasered onto his scarred weapon.

Just there… I needed more aura to fight back against that AOE, but I was already at the [Mastery] limit… And I just re-balanced it out, then pushed it back into the sword again!

Nar shook his head. It had happened on instinct. On reflex, and it had been smooth and without any resistance from the raging aura in the blade.

It's still my aura… And we're still connected. Am I the one screwing this up?

Holding back, while trying to push forward. Cycling in, while needing to extend outwards?

Nar took a deep breath, and loosened his shoulders.

Alright… Alright… Let's try this then.

Fighting against all his instincts, he eased his control, and fully committed to cycling his aura into the blade, just as he did for his [Sword Aura], but pushing himself into the blade with the aura, keeping hold of it.

The raging aura sputtered and flared, and a pounding headache roared in his head as suddenly, his whole sight became bright, blinding aura. But slowly, and gritting his teeth, he calmed his aura, coating his blade as it usually did.

Now… We go inside.

His aura soaked into the blade, slowly sinking in, and disappearing, leaving no trace of its glow and contained destructiveness. But he could still feel it. He could still see it, a searing gray within the metal, focused around the crude pathways he had forged into the weapon… And part of his consciousness remained with it, inside the very weapon, and Nar allowed himself a deep, and shaky breath of relief

He was finally in control… He was finally within the blade, and in control of his external aura. But even as he realized the magnitude of what he had just achieved, he also realized something else. It was not enough.

The paltry amount his [Mastery] allowed him wasn't going to be enough to end the undead monster. As it were, it was barely enough to reach it, having to cut through the storm of darkness and ice aether that was blasting the entire cave.

Again, he didn't know how he knew it, but he just did, and he was past the time of doubting himself.

But now what? He asked himself.

His [Mastery] was a hard limit, as he had come to realize in his previous assessment, and his master had warned him, quite severely at that, to never, ever, go beyond it, or rely on its unpredictable aid again. And he had promised not to, so as to not become someone who relied on shortcuts and built a frail, weak path due to it… And surprisingly, this time, the sword in his hands did not seem inclined on breaching through his [Mastery] either. It was not the way, and doing so was as likely to kill him and his entire party, as it was of reaching the boss.

So how do I…

Twin jets of darkness blasted past his sides, and his eyes went wide as he allowed himself to glance back.

Rel and Tuk lay crumbled on the floor by the mouth of the corridor that led out of that nightmare. Their aura armors were gone, revealing thorn gear and skin blistered and burned by dark, smoking, icy stains.

And slowly turning to face forward once more, he caught sight of Gad, Mul and the strange wolf that had joined their fight, strewn across the floor, impact craters on the cave walls above where they lay, unmoving… And he found the illatrian, standing over Cen as Kur and Jul rushed to protect her while Viy lay twisting on the floor, holding her head, and no doubt jailed in the grips of that monster's mental ravaging.

That thing was going to kill them all.

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His party.

His friends.

His new found family.

No.

Within him, a consuming darkness and blinding light reared its head…

NO!

What did it matter if it cost him his life?

What did it matter if he burst into a thousand pieces?

And yet, even as he pushed, cycling harder than ever before, no more aura came to his aid… His [Mastery] was already fully taken up by the aura held within his blade, as well as the amount he had left in reserve to keep control of the blade of aura, once he unleashed it. But he still needed more, and there was no way to reach for it…

No matter how hard he pulled, tugged or begged at it, his [Mastery] locked him out of the massive well of power that lay within him, crying to be released. But without the [Mastery] to control it, it was blocked! Useless.

And they were all going to die at the hands of that monster, a monster that had shown up out of the blue in their very first dungeon… At the very beginning of their free lives out in the light.

NO! NO! He raged.

He gripped the sword's hilt with such [Strength], his fingers went white within his armored gauntlets, and the sword visibly shook in his hands.

It couldn't end like that! Not after everything they had done. Not after everything he had achieved and trained for, and not in their very first dungeon!

He wanted more than to just live. He wanted more than to just train. He wanted more than to just save his dad…

The master had been right.

Going within the dungeon had shown him why delvers delved, and while he still needed to reach the O-Nex one day, to gain the full picture of the new reality of his life outside the B-Nex. And he wasn't going to give up the warm golden light, the caress of the gentle breeze, or the cold touch of the rain…

Now that he knew the true vibrancy of green and blue and white, now that he knew the glowing silhouette of the distant horizon, the shadow of the tall mountains, the roiling expanses of green forests, and the green and yellow prairie in its vibrant many colors… Now that he had seen the day and the night, and even the beauty of the Labyrinth, ships gliding in the twilight, with their glimmering golden-pink, rainbow trails… Now that he had seen all of this, he wasn't about to give up. He wanted to see more.

He craved to feel more.

He needed to experience more.

He hungered for a lot more.

It was not enough…

And something reached out to him. Something reached back into him, and in stunned shock, Nar looked down at the sword in his hands.

The pathways within the burned metal blazed with a light so bright, they shone through the metal itself. Through the guard. Through the grip. Through his very fingers… And they linked back to his own pathways.

There was a moment of screeching pain, as his aura was sucked out of his reach, and suddenly, he could cycle more! And knowing that the end was coming for Kur and Jul, still guarding Cen, Nar cycled more, sending it howling through his pathways and into his blade at a blistering speed that defied thought itself!

MORE! The blade seemed to cry, as it once again took all of his paltry 194 points of aura… The sword could handle even more! And Nar obliged.

A third time.

A fourth time.

A fifth time.

And then, the sword at last could take no more. Its pathways glowed like the searing lightning he had seen in the confluence, and at the center of his blade, a ball of light radiated a heat so intense, he could feel it burning him through his own armor.

What is that… he thought, stunned.

However, he had no time to contemplate what had just happened. He had enough aura at his disposal now, and once more prepared to unleash his [Aura Blade], this time making use of all the aura that the blade held for him.

Surprisingly, it was not hard, and he discovered that it was still his own aura, even if stored within the sword.

He gripped his blade and stepped into position, raising the blade high above his head. Ahead of him, the illatrian had paused, ignoring the three defenseless delvers before him, and lifted his purple eyes to gaze upon Nar instead. The undead took in the sight of Nar's glowing sword, its pathways lighting up the entire cave even as his aura disappeared into the weapon, greedily absorbed into it, and ready to be unleashed… And Nar almost laughed at the all too sapient expression that flickered in the illatrian's face.

Finally afraid of something, eh?

And the monster should be afraid. If Nar were to be honest, he too was more than just a little scared of what he was about to unleash in that tiny cave, surrounded by endless metric tons of rock, and trapped within the great mountain itself. True, it was no [Strike of the Champion], but one day it would be, and then, it would surpass even that…

But how do I hit him? Nar wondered.

The illatrian was incredibly fast, not to mention that it had [Instinct] to warn him. The monster's [Instinct] had to be screaming at him right then and there, just like Nar's always did for him, and if the monster dodged him, it would all be over.

Nar lowered his stance further, the watchful, purple eyes of the illatrian catching his every move, ready to burst into action… And that was when flames roared into being, filling the cave with the brilliance of its searing heat.

In an instant, [Gaze of the Frozen Abyss] and the [Frozen] status melted away from Nar, halting the slow, but sure sapping of his HP and stamina as they both neared zero.

Fire aura devoured dark and ice aether as Mul raised to his feet once more, living flames encasing him, his eyes alight like fire itself.

The illatrian stumbled backwards, shielding his face from the all-consuming flames that threatened to devour him, and Nar knew his time had come.

"And when at last, you have it all under control," his master's words came to him. "When your aura is ready, waiting to be unleashed into the [Aura Blade] of destruction, you need the very last component to make the skill come true… The intent that will hold the aura together, even as it is no longer within your reach. So, think! What is your will? What do you want to achieve? What is the purpose of your strike? Like [Sword Aura], focus your will into the strike, and commit your entire being to it! Then, you shall become the [Aura Blade] itself, unleashed to eradicate your enemy…"

But what was his intent?

To survive? To enjoy life? To protect his party, or to one day return to his dad?

No, those were his goals… Right now, his intent needed to be something far more destructive. Something far more devastating… What he needed now was the power to destroy anything that blocked the path to his goals and dreams. What he needed was the capacity to annihilate anything that dared interfere and stand in his way… Just as he had done during the Climb, in the Ceremony of Final Atonement, and at every fight that had barred his future, once more, he needed to destroy his way forward.

Yes… That's it, isn't it? He realized, a grin spreading beneath his helmet of shifting gray aura. Unbeknownst to him, hints of deepest black and sheerest white spread across his armor, flowing outwards from his core, and consuming its original grayness as his intent sprung forth, whispered past his lips.

"Clear my way," Nar breathed.

And he struck, bringing down the blade to sever everything before him and reach the undead that sought to end their journey, just as it was beginning.

He struck with all the hard work, effort and suffering he had poured into building his path. He struck with all the need to protect his new family, of one day reaching his dad, and to remove this obstacle before them… Who blocked the happiness and hope they had already paid so dearly for.

The skill roared out of his blade. It was an edge of sharp aura, slicing out from his blade as he brought the sword down, even as Jul pushed Kur and Cen out of the way, just as Nar had known she would. And while he was still Nar, cutting down with his sword, and controlling his aura within the blade as calling upon the skill, at the same time, he became a second Nar… One who held the intent of annihilation, his will spreading out from the sword, cutting into the ceiling above and the ground below as though it was mere air, and not sheer, solid rock.

Reality slowed down to a grinding halt, and the orange lit cave went black and white as all sound was sucked into the screeching void of Nar's cut, the very air displaced so thoroughly before the violence of that edge of aura that it created a vacuum in that cave.

And a bright line of black and white split the cave in two, and the illatrian with it, and Nar's heart seized in his chest as he beheld his intent made manifest.

It's beautiful… he thought, staring at the line that cut the very dungeon in half.

One day, that line would become the [Strike of the Champion], in all its glory and might restored, and then, it would grow even further, as Nar built his path into something that no one had ever seen. Not even in the Nexus, where nothing was ever new or unique.

But he would be, and nothing would stand in his way…

A low, distorted growl echoed, and sound rushed back in a shockwave that kicked Nar backwards.

He stumbled onto one knee, propping the steaming sword on the floor to steady himself, and the crude twisted pathways, as well as a new, circular indentation at the core of the blade, still gleamed with the echoes of the might he had just unleashed.

However, Nar's eyes never left the final dungeon boss, his jaw clenched as he struggled to hold onto the aura that was now fully separate from him.

The cave was split in two in a line of pure darkness, reaching to heights and depths beyond Nar to understand at that moment, but the illatrian had still tried to dodge his strike. Rather than straight through as intended, the cut had hit the monster diagonally, splitting the undead from left shoulder down to his right hip and ending just above its right knee. And the illatrian howled in agony, his eyes glowing a brighter purple as his flesh knitted itself over the cut.

But, the searing bright line of aura that severed his flesh would not be denied, and it devoured through the monster's massive HP pool at an astounding rate, the damage compounded further by Nar's [Lingering Aura] taking effect to the utter devastation and ravaging of the illatrian's channels and aether core.

Nar could still feel a part of himself within that line, and he roared to keep control of it, to keep it in existence as he shredded the monster's HP at a vertiginous rate. The [Aura Blade] would remain active until its purpose was achieved, and until the obstacle before him was removed.

No one, and nothing will stop me, Nar thought, his entire being bound upon the eradication of that monster.

And its flesh knit and burst, and re-knit, and re-burst as slowly, the regeneration weakened. The monster was about to become fully dead, it just didn't know it yet. And suddenly, Mul was beside it.

His arms hung uselessly at his sides, but that didn't stop the brawler. His face twisted in a living manifestation of rage, he kicked the illatrian's legs from under him with such violence that with a crushing sound, the illatrian's limbs shattered into bony bits, and the boss spun in the air, not once, but twice, and slammed hard against the rocky floor, Nar's aura still destroying him.

Without missing a beat, Mul lifted one foot, and stomped down on the illatrian's chest, and flames exploded, the cave shaking from the might of that blow.

Mul lifted his foot once more, and again, down it came crashing once more, with a loud bang that spread cracks from the bright line of the [Aura Blade] still embedded into the monster's chest, even now devouring its HP and ravaging its insides.

Nar's lips parted into a snarl.

Yes… Yes! Finish him!

Cen dropped to her knees, staring wide eyed as the incarnation of rage that was her brother stomped down again and again, turning the body of the monster into a charred, unrecognizable carcass, Nar's aura still blazing brightly within the flames.

"How?" Jul whispered. "The suppressor…"

"Emergency dungeon release," Kur whispered, his tone awed. "His HP must have dropped to zero."

"Did he know?" Jul asked him, unable to take her wide eyes from the brawler's rage, their usual green-blue color shining orange.

Kur shook his head. "Only I did, as the party leader."

"Mul…" Cen whispered, her hands raised to her mouth. "So tis is the extent of your anger…"

Yes, Nar thought.

Here, and at last, was the real face of Mul's path and affinity. And by the Crystal, a common path or not, a common affinity or not, it was a sight to behold. That raging fire seared Nar's lungs, reminding him of the burning Pressure, and Mul hardly even looked like himself anymore, his face contorted in that rageful expression within the flames.

"It's over…" Viy breathed, suddenly opening her eyes, tears streaking down her face. "Crystal… It's over…"

"He's dead!" Kur shouted. "I-I got the prompt!"

At last, Nar let go of his aura, and it seeped, spent, from the remains of the illatrian. With the force of the Pile coming down on him, the consciousness that had flown from his blade smashed back into Nar, and he was fully himself once again.

The [Aura Blade] had fulfilled its purpose, and vanished, as the boss was no more. The obstacle was removed… The way forward, cleared once again.

And yet, Mul kept going, burning in his rage, the illatrian's burning remains barely even recognizable as a body anymore.

"What about him?" Cen shouted.

"We'll all be teleported out!" Kur shouted back. "And we need to get out of here!"

Dust was now falling from above, and cracks were spreading across the ceiling as the cave crumbled. Already devastated by Nar's deep cut, Mul's stomps were causing the cave to come crashing down on them, large splinters forming above them and rocks tumbling loose upon the devastated battlefield.

"Everyone, we're getting out of here!" Kur shouted.

"Mul!" Cen cried.

Jul rushed to hold the caster back from the devouring flames surrounding her brother, and everything went blank.

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