Chapter 424:Finally.

Chapter 424: 424:Finally.

It started with potential, then accumulation, followed by release. And when release came...

Instant.

Atheline disappeared and reappeared hundreds of meters away.

His eyes widened.

He disappeared again, flashing to another location. Unlike his Wind movement, there was almost nothing between the two points, at least, that was how it felt.

The technique wasn’t true teleportation, he knew that immediately.

His body still crossed the distance but Lightning compressed the action into such a short interval that perception struggled to follow it.

He appeared on another mountain, then immediately vomited. Atheline remained bent over for several seconds.

"Definitely..." He coughed. "...surface level."

Atheline sat down before his newly discovered understanding convinced him to kill himself through enthusiasm. He remained there for the rest of the day.

Lightning became his sixth Law.

The concepts he’d grasped were only the surface.

Instant.

Release.

Potential becoming action.

There were deeper truths he could sense beyond them.

Judgment.

Connection.

Polarity.

Destruction.

Perhaps even life, considering the way electrical impulses existed within living bodies but Atheline deliberately refused to pursue them.

He had enough.

Six elements.

Six beginnings.

.

.

.

That night, he contacted Lilith.

The communication crystal activated and she appeared wearing dark training clothes.

Atheline smiled at her before speaking.

"You were training."

"So were you."

"I’ve been training for five months."

"And you believe that means I should stop?"

He smiled.

"No."

He examined her through the projection, something about Lilith had changed again; the Darkness Law surrounding her felt more settled.

"You’ve been practicing the Law."

Lilith nodded.

"Carefully."

"Draco’s warning?"

"And common sense."

Atheline raised an eyebrow.

"You?"

Lilith ignored him.

"I’ve learned how easily it can affect more than I intend."

She raised one hand and darkness appeared. Even through the communication crystal, Atheline could tell it wasn’t ordinary shadow manipulation.

"I can remove light from a defined area without creating a shadow."

He leaned closer.

"Completely?"

"Almost."

"That’s something."

"And I can suppress sound inside it."

His expression changed.

"Silence."

"An expression of Darkness."

Atheline remembered what the ruin had taught her.

"You’ve progressed."

"So have you."

He smiled.

"Six."

Lilith became still.

"You comprehended Lightning?"

"Surface level."

"Show me."

Atheline stood, then placed the communication crystal on a rock.

Lilith watched as lightning gathered around his body before he disappeared. The projection showed an empty clearing, then Atheline walked back into view from the opposite side.

She stared blankly at him as he smiled proudly.

"Well?"

"You left the crystal behind."

His smile disappeared.

"That’s what you noticed?"

"Yes."

"I crossed almost half a kilometer."

"And then walked back."

Atheline stared at her.

Lilith smiled.

"Impressive."

"Too late."

They spoke for almost an hour afterward. The conversation eventually became less playful.

Klaith remained missing, plus tix months of investigation had uncovered pieces but nothing decisive.

Several ancient records had been deliberately altered. Some entries connected to the Cataclysm contained inconsistencies. Names had been removed from documents.

Certain historical accounts concerning the Sovereigns had been copied repeatedly, with each newer copy containing slightly different information from the previous one.

Klaith had overseen many of those archives but there was still no explanation for where he’d gone.

Atheline’s expression became serious.

"Any sign of the Protector?"

"No."

"That worries me more."

"Me too." Lilith paused. "The corruption is worsening."

Atheline’s amusement disappeared completely.

"How much?"

"Enough that everyone is preparing."

There had been more attacks. Beastmen territory had suffered several outbreaks. Corrupted sea creatures were appearing more frequently.

Human kingdoms had increased patrols. The Demonic Continent had discovered several settlements where inhabitants disappeared without signs of battle. Even the Elven Continent wasn’t untouched.

Atheline listened quietly.

The world hadn’t waited for him.

"Any movement around the World Tree?"

Lilith hesitated, and that was enough.

Atheline’s expression changed.

"What happened?"

"Nothing catastrophic."

"Lilith."

"The corruption hasn’t reached the heart of the tree."

"Yet."

"No."

Atheline looked toward the ground.

That strange sensation inside him moved. The same thing that had reacted when he first heard about the World Tree’s corruption.

He touched his chest.

"Atheline?"

"I’m fine."

Lilith didn’t look convinced.

He changed the subject.

"One month."

"What?"

"I’ll return in one month."

She smiled softly.

"You’ve decided?"

"Six Laws."

Atheline looked toward the storm moving away in the distance.

"Learning another isn’t the problem anymore."

"There isn’t another."

"Exactly." He smiled faintly. "Now I need to figure out what happens when I use all six."

Lilith became serious.

"Carefully."

"Of course."

"I mean it."

"So do I."

"You’re smiling."

"That’s unrelated."

"Atheline."

"I’ll be careful."

The communication ended shortly afterward. Atheline stood alone. Five months had passed, only ine remained.

He had assumed the final month would be easier but he was wrong. Using six Laws separately was manageable but using them together nearly destroyed his core.

The first attempt happened three days later.

Atheline stood inside an enormous barren valley he’d chosen specifically because there was almost nothing nearby he could accidentally kill.

Six elemental signatures surrounded him. Atheline inhaled, then attempted to circulate all six through his core simultaneously. Pain exploded through his body at the very moment.

Atheline collapsed, every element vanishing as he struck the ground, blood left his mouth. For nearly a minute, he couldn’t breathe.

When his core finally stabilized, he rolled onto his back and stared at the sky.

"Bad idea."

No one was there to agree. He remained on the ground for nearly an hour as thoughts raced through his mind.

The problem wasn’t power, i was contradiction; wind wanted movement, ice wanted stillness, fire wanted transformation, earth wanted stability, water wanted adaptation, and kightning wanted release.

Atheline had attempted to impose all six truths simultaneously but his core had rejected it. He spent the next week recovering and thinking.

The answer came from something embarrassingly simple.

Nature.

Atheline sat beside a lake where wind moved across its surface, water flowed beneath, earth supported it, sunlight provided heat, cold existed in the depths while a storm gathered above.

None destroyed the others simply by existing. The world contained contradiction naturally.

Movement and stillness.

Change and preservation.

Freedom and foundation.

Adaptation and decisive action.

Atheline stared at the lake.

"I’ve been treating them like six separate things."

That had always been his approach.

Six affinities.

Six tools.

Choose whichever suited the situation, but they belonged to one world and one person.

Him.

He closed his eyes and stopped forcing the Laws together; instead he allowed each to occupy its own place.

Wind moved through his circulation, water adapted around it, earth stabilized the foundation, ice restrained excess, fire transformed what needed to change, and lightning released accumulated pressure.

Atheline’s eyes opened.

Six elements appeare, and nothing exploded.

He smiled.

Then the entire valley shook before he could even celebrate. He immediately dismissed everything.

"Progress."

The following weeks passed quickly.

Five months and eleven days.

Five months and seventeen.

Five months and twenty-four.

Atheline trained from sunrise until exhaustion forced him to stop. He also fought less, there were few creatures left nearby willing to approach him.

Those that sensed his presence generally fled. Atheline stopped suppressing his aura as heavily and allowed that to happen.

He no longer needed opponents since his enemy was imbalance. Again and again, he summoned the six elements. Again and again, something failed.

Too much Fire destabilized Ice.

Too much Earth restricted Wind.

Lightning disrupted Water.

Then Atheline adjusted, small changes at first,nothing dramatic. Eventually six separate elemental manifestations could remain around him for several minutes.

Then an hour.

His core slowly adapted. The mysterious presence inside him grew stronger. By the final week, he could no longer ignore it.

He was meditating when it reacted. His six Laws were circulating peacefully, then something opened.

His consciousness was pulled inward. He saw his core, bright and dense with six streams surrounding it. Behind them was something else.

He approached.

For months it had disappeared whenever he tried examining it. This time it remained.

A shape floated in the darkness behind his core. He stared at it in wonder. It resembled the orb he’d absorbed inside Doom Cave but not completely.

The outer shell was gone, now, something existed within it. A seed ira sort of fragment.

Atheline reached toward it.

The Unaspected Ruin’s final words returned to him.

Almost time.

His fingers nearly touched it when the fragment pulsed then everything disappeared. Atheline’s eyes opened to find that he was back in the forest with sweat covering his body and his heart was racing.

"What are you?"

The presence remained silent, but for the first time, Atheline knew one thing, it wasn’t harming him but waiting.

Waiting for what, he still didn’t know.

Six months arrived quietly.

Atheline simply woke one morning and realized the date. He sat outside his final camp while sunlight filtered through the trees.

He looked around.

The forest had changed him, or perhaps he’d changed within it.

He stood and stretched a little before letting out a happy sigh. His hair reached farther down his back now and clothes were worn despite repeated replacements.

His body had become slightly leaner, though Peak Mystic vitality meant six months of constant fighting and training had strengthened rather than exhausted him permanently.