Luca DR
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Edge of apocalypse 117
🕑 Added 2023-08-29 14:07:06 +0000 UTCI'm going on a one-week vacation to Vienna, which means that there won't be chapters for a week. When I get back, expect a double release so I can make it up to you ^^
117 - Anger
On the way back, Albert encountered the same monster he chose to escape from. However, despite only a few hours had passed since their last encounter, Albert’s grasp of his abilities had increased enough that the power imbalance had shifted completely. Not only was he completely healed and his mind rested, he knew how to use Bending well enough to at least escape if needed.
His advantages meant that Albert could experiment.
Jeff, watch me and be ready to take over if I fuck up.
Fireball queued up and firing solutions implemented.
Good. This meant that if he messed up, Albert only needed to mentally allow Jeff to Bend and the AI would take over. While Jeff seemed unable to Bend directly, always needing Albert’s conscious effort, this queue function seemed very promising.
Albert concentrated. He didn’t like the idea of letting Jeff do all the work. It would leave him vulnerable if anything happened to his AI, and the last thing he needed was another mistake. Already he had lost too much.
With an effort of will, much greater than before when he simply clicked on the mental icon Jeff had provided, Albert tried to force the universe into a fireball. In the distance, the monster roared, and Albert knew an icicle was seconds away from speeding towards him.
The universe resisted, and the backlash sent Albert to his knees. His vision flashed, and the world spun. Strangely, the mana around Albert was as still as a pond, a long shot from when Jeff had Bent reality to copy the old system skill.
It’s hard.
He pushed himself back on his feet, steadying himself against a wall. The monster was about to release the magic. Albert concentrated, this time trying to recall the sensation of using the skill from when he still had the System. Magic all around him swirled, rotating around him in a lazy circle.
A small flame licked his fingers. At the same time, the monster finished casting and the icicle sped towards Albert.
Albert was confident he could have dodged without issue. He had been able to do that and much more until not long ago. In his haste to try out Bending without Jeff’s help, he forgot that his situation had changed. His eyes barely had the time to widen, and his pupils expanded before pain exploded in his left shoulder.
Anger bubbled up. The frustration of this situation, the pain of the wound, the headache from the backlash of his failed Bending attempt all mixed together.
“Fuck you!” Albert yelled, grasping the icicle protruding from his shoulder with a hand and ripping his out. Blood trailed, dripping from the icicle’s sharp tip.
Albert’s eyes focused on the monster. “Yeah, you.” He spat, anger and frustration all focused on the monster. “Fuck you in particular.”
He screamed again, shattering the icicle in a burst of strength. He didn’t even notice the slight increase in mental fatigue. Nor did he notice the magic around him swirling and rotating in vortices. Instead, with a snap of his fingers and a snarl, a large ball of blue flame appeared in his hand, molding and fitting his open palm like putty. There was no pain, not that he would have cared.
He lobbed the ball of flame, hotter than any he had ever created before, at the monster.
The humanoid made of living ice disappeared, engulfed by searing hot blue fire in moments. The fire vanished soon after, leaving nothing behind, save for a cloud of slowly dispersing mana that was dense enough to warp visible light.
Albert swayed, and grasped the wall to keep himself from falling. Only when the anger slowly receded back into whatever corner of his mind it had originated from did Albert realize what he had done.
Reality Bending Power: 5 -> 9
Albert expended the last of his mental energies to heal himself, the act of Bending leaving him on the edge of passing out. Still, relying on sheer stubbornness and bullheadedness, he stumbled his way towards the cloud of mana hovering in the air above where the monster had died.
To normal sight, the warping of the light made the cloud look like a lens, the edges distorting the blue light of the cave into many adjacent colors.
The cloud slowly lost its cohesion, splitting into many smaller versions of itself and drifting away. Albert watched it from a safe distance, following the biggest clump as it followed some unseen current and drifted up and down, going deeper in the mountain before disappearing a few dozen meters from where it had formed.
Did it vanish?
Jeff sent a request to switch to magic vision, which Albert accepted. The cloud jerked for a moment, but the disturbance passed immediately, making Albert question whether it had been even real.
Ah, it became too diluted to see. Matching normal ambient magic. But if this is true, the more Alignment Energy there is to disrupt the absorption of magic, the more of it will linger here. Right?
It is very probable.
What will happen then?
Unknown. Magic is semi-sentient at the very least, and it has a propension to crystallize on its own. It might generate bizarre things.
Is that a technical term?
Albert rested. At the same time, the thought of magic vibrating whenever he copied his old skills echoed in his mind, and he was unable to get rid of it. Eventually, Albert fell asleep, wondering about the nature of his power.
Albert woke up drenched in sweat.
Wow that was some terrible sleep.
It had the effectiveness of two hours of rest, spread unevenly over the eight hours you tried to sleep.
Can I Bend myself to sleep? I don’t want to suffer through this again.
You can Bend to do anything you want.
It was time for Albert to venture back outside of the mountain. He willed himself not to feel cold.
He felt the act of Bending as it happened. In his rage against the ice monster, he had done something that had unlocked a better understanding of his power than any experiment he had devised ever could have. He had relinquished control. It was something so alien to his nature that only when utterly enraged did he do it.
Funny how it just so happened to be what he needed to properly Bend. He needed to relinquish control. In a way, the idea of control and lack thereof reminded him of his efforts with his first level up, back when he still had a system and levels were a thing.
Perhaps it was a common theme, which made sense since both forms of power were related to the system. The levels were provided by the system, and Bending was born from the ashes of the system’s destruction.
If I relinquish control, though, who or what fills in the gaps? Is it you, Jeff?
No.
Worrying.
Bending himself into not suffering the cold for a limited time was right at the edge of what Albert could safely do without straining himself into uselessness. While on one hand, straining himself beyond his limits had increased his Power earlier, and not doing so meant no growth, he wanted to leave some wiggle room so that he could fight if he encountered danger.
Two questions weighed on his mind as he left the cave, and he pondered them as he made his way to the cave entrance.
If he had to relinquish control when Bending, who or what did the actual heavy lifting? Something surely did. When he had been the one to do the heavy lifting, Bending either failed or resulted in a weak, barely stable spell, which told him that the reason he had to let go was not because control killed the spell, but because he didn’t have the mental capacity for it yet.
The second question was even stranger: if magic lingered now, due to the presence of an ever-increasing amount of Alignment Energy, how come he didn’t see any trace of it when he Bent? He even tried switching to magic sight, but he saw nothing. Nothing but ripples.
What was even more worrying was that Jeff didn’t know either. The AI had theories, as did Albert, but they were all in the realm of speculation and would need experiments beyond what Albert could do, and was willing to waste time on.
A shame, really, but time was not on his side.
A hint of a smile touched Albert’s lips as he emerged from the darkness of the cave and stepped into the blinding snow-capped mountain. A smile born of the realization of how much he had changed over the years.
He thought about who he was back when he still played with magic in awe and wonder, about his first fireball at home that burned his bedsheets. Now, he studied magic like it was a science. And he had, unlike before, the patience and wisdom to prioritize.
Need I remind you of your outburst of anger against a monster?
It served a purpose, didn’t it?
By chance.
Don’t spoil the moment.
Yes, perhaps Albert was not at his most stable, mentally. And yes, this meant he was shaken pretty bad, considering he wasn’t at his most stable even when he was still living at home and the problems were much smaller.
Now, after having been betrayed multiple times, he had found himself stripped of most of his power, wielding powers he did not know, navigating the world alone and isolated. He went from fighting to save the world with his family to living in a world that was already beyond saving, latching onto the hope that perhaps there was a way to have his family back.
He went from being full of wonder, to being full of pain, scared and alone.
Albert chuckled, chocking back tears as complex emotions swirled inside him.
Well, then. Let’s get to work to fix this mess.
