MAGUS INFINITE

My Attunement skills may turn out to be one of the defining core of my abilities going forward, and I needed to properly nurture them.

Going through my status screen was almost reflective, as it provided me with all the context of my growth, highlighted my weaknesses and strengths while showing me a path forward.

It was like checking all my tools and weapons before battle, and I deemed what I was about to accomplish to be necessary if I was going to be opening all seven earth gates and becoming a Celestial, according to the Hollow Avatar.

Next to fall into my sights were the Law Shards. I had somehow completed gathering all my law shards, and yet, I had barely even begun understanding what each shard was able to do or how they could help me reach the level of a Sovereign.

However, it did not mean that without a mentor I did not know what to do next. The growth of a mage like me was unparalleled, but I was able to gain certain abilities that had aided me in my growth, and one of them was my most recent Title, Lightning Arcanist.

One of its traits was Arcanist’s Authority, which accelerated my Lightning Resonance growth and helped me to perceive and interact with Lightning Law Shards directly.

I had barely been an Arcanist for long enough time for me to begin exploring these Law Shards, and I placed the exploration of these shards as my next project after opening more of the Earth Gates.

I believed that exploring these law shards would require time and silence, something that I could barely get in this checkpoint, but in my second checkpoint, the Darkness Sovereign Sid had given me a space where I could work out of sight.

There was no reason for me not to open one Earth Gate, then go to the second checkpoint to explore my law shards, using this method to relax and explore the full reaches of my powers as I gained new ones and developed the older ones.

These checkpoints were a resource I was not using well enough, and it was time all of this was changed.

∞

There were many things to go through, but I would explore all those as I battled my way across the Caelith. Before I dismissed my screen, I quietly slotted Demon Slayer beside Heavenly Beast Tamer.

The Title slotted into me like a second skin, and a quiet gasp escaped me as the cold clarity of Demon Slayer touched my soul. Perhaps it was my imagination, but the darkness inside the Hollow Room was converging more rapidly than before.

I had spent too much time exploring my status screen, and it was time to decide what I did with the camp before the fight began. Killing Rex would shift the eruption from thirty minutes to three hours, but I did not need to do that anymore; I was no longer the Adept that needed hours to prepare for what was to come.

Also, I could not turn away from the fact that my actions of delaying the eruption may have called the attention of the Sovereign of the Stars even earlier than necessary. Let the Conclave have the eruption as they desire, and I would be at the edge, killing every demon that emerges from it.

I wanted the eruption to happen... by all the light in the heavens, I never thought that one day, this would be the sort of thoughts in my head.

∞

I dismissed the status screen, but the last line still lingered in my mind, even as I stood before my tent. The line was my Soulscar.

I did not need the screen to tell me. I had woken already carrying it. This scar was the road outside the city where I buried that child; it was the young boy Liam saying goodbye to two brothers before I took his head, and the hundred million souls I had drawn away from their bodies, from babies to old men, mortals to Arcanist.

I had let them all go, but the scar was the memory, and the memory was permanent, a thing no reset would ever smooth away.

The funny thing was that I did not resent this burden, since I decided that carrying the weight of the dead was the correct path for me. I needed to remember every life I had taken lightly... There should be a consequence to killing, and if I wanted to change the world, if I wanted to fight beings like the Sovereign of the Stars who treated all life as chess pieces, I could not be like them.

I was not a hypocrite, and I would not judge others without holding a mirror to my own actions. I could not give myself the permission to ever forget what unchecked power did to the world.

I would wear these scars on my soul, and even if there was a chance to erase them, I would not.

∞

I looked at the other end of my tent and saw my Staff, and the smile that broke across my face was real. I reached for it, and it gently rose to my hand. I shielded it from truly touching my skin, because with my present staff resonance, the fragile Acolyte staff would be shredded to pieces.

I shook the staff, and all three charms rang softly, and tears wanted to fall from my eyes, but I held it back. There would be time for tears later, and I placed the staff behind me, held by a single thread of lightning.

My eyes turned to the other side of my tent, peering to the south; at almost a thousand miles away was my home, and I now had the power to reach it. I could abandon this camp; with Stormsteps, no one would be able to figure out how I left.

I could see them again... I swallowed the ache in my heart, and it was the hardest thing I had ever done to look away, because I know... I know that if I leave, I would carry my family away from the continent.

I would forget this battle; I would leave everything behind and protect them for as long as possible. Even if it was to give them one year of life, I would do it... If I see the face of my mum again, or hear the voice of my dad, or hug my sister, then the world could burn.

But there were too many counting on me, and Aurora did not just give up her life for me to run; even though I knew she would not care, she had given me a gift, and would not care what I did with it... But it mattered to me.

I pushed open the tent flap and walked into the morning. My eyes found the Caelith that covered one part of the sky, and I could see so much more.

”Oi, Elric, stop staring at the black rock and come eat something.”

The pain that ripped across my chest was unexpected, but I pushed it down, and wearing a wide smile, I waved at Bari and headed towards the campfire that was burning down to embers.