Chapter 178: Central Sector [7]

The pillar of azure blue light that erupted from the battlefield was not a spell. It was not a technique or a combination or the result of anything Leon had consciously decided to do.

The concussive force of its birth swept outward in a perfect circle and Zeus was lifted clean off his feet and hurled backward through the air thirty meters before he hit the ground and the earth around him shattered from the landing.

The pillar kept going. Up through the air, through the lower cloud layer.

A column of pure concentrated blue light wrapped in violent arcing electricity that crackled and snapped across the horizon in every direction.

The descending sphere of Progenitor Blood kept falling toward the battlefield.

The pillar kept rising towards it and they met.

KRAKOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

The Progenitor Blood sphere fractured from the first contact and then kept fracturing as the azure light went through it and the crimson shards that blasted outward were instantly vaporized by the arcing electricity before they could reach anything below.

The sphere was gone. Completely and immediately gone.

The pillar didn’t stop, it kept going up. Up through the space where the sphere had been. Up through the cloud cover.

The earth shook.

Every person on the field went to their knees or their hands and knees without deciding to.

Weapons fell from hands that had stopped listening to their owners. Spell circles died mid-form.

Even the elite vampire vanguard who had advanced without fear all afternoon stood completely still.

Every face on the battlefield turned upward. Human and vampire alike. All of them looking at the same thing. None of them saying anything.

A veteran warrior finally got a word out. "What in the gods’ names is that..."

Nobody answered him.

Emilia had frozen mid-swing with her staff raised. The vampire that had been lunging at her had stopped moving. She wasn’t looking at it. She wasn’t looking at anything on the ground.

Her eyes were locked on the pillar.

"...Brother?"

Her voice came out very small.

____

On the eastern route Theodore was moving at the kind of speed that makes terrain feel like an inconvenience rather than an obstacle when he stopped.

He then stopped and turned toward the western sky.

"What the actual hell?!"

He stared at the sky with an expression he did not often wear.

Genuine speechlessness.

____

Along the northern route Isabella and Arvendis were pressing at the absolute limit of a force march when the shockwave hit them.

Both Spires stopped.

The pillar was visible beyond the southern mountain peaks.

Arvendis stared at it and said nothing.

Isabella narrowed her eyes and pushed her perception toward the frequency of what she was feeling and her mind went very quiet.

’This much mana... Combined with a spiritual resonance this ancient and this overwhelming.’

’Wait.’

She almost dismissed the thought that arrived next because it didn’t make sense by any framework she had ever worked within.

’Could that possibly be Rai?’

She rejected it immediately. That was structurally impossible for anyone in that sector to possess it.

She stared at the pillar.

Beside her Arvendis had gone the color of old paper. His hands were shaking at his sides. Not from the ambient pressure of the pillar’s output though that was substantial enough on its own.

He was shaking because he recognized the frequency of mana.

He had felt it once before. Coming from a boy who couldn’t manifest a spirit soul.

His fingers wouldn’t stop shaking.

’No,’ he thought. ’This is impossible,’

He stared at the pillar that had split the sky open.

’Is it really that trash?’

____

High above the western frontier the Dragon Soul Forged Beast was cutting through the upper atmosphere at a speed that made the wind a physical thing when Alden saw it.

"What the actual hell is happening over there?!"

The pillar occupied half the sky even from here.

Luna’s grip on his coat tightened.

"Luna! Can you read what’s happening?!"

"It’s a Mana Spirit manifestation! I can barely process the output but the structure is consistent with a Mana Spirit awakening!"

Alden’s frown deepened. "Mana spirits are internal, aren’t they? I mean, there’s a limited range to how far they can manifest outside the body, right?"

"Not standard Mana Spirits!"

She paused and he could hear her fighting the next thing she was about to say.

"There are anomalies," she said. "Ancient Mana Spirits that have no precedent in conventional magical theory. When they finally awaken, their output doesn’t follow any ceiling that normal spiritual manifestations operate under."

Another pulse of blue electricity rolled across the sky and the warmth of it reached them even up here.

"Alden." Her voice had gone very quiet. "I recognize this Spirit."

He turned his head toward her. "Whose?"

She looked at the pillar. At the impossible column of blue and lightning that stretched from the earth to beyond the clouds and kept going.

"The Thunder God Spirit," she said.

Alden stared at her.

"It’s one of the primordial anomalies," Luna continued and her voice was barely holding together. "There has never been a confirmed living host in recorded history. The accounts that exist describe an entity that doesn’t amplify its host so much as it redefines what its host is capable of." She swallowed hard. "The output levels in those accounts describe something that can alter weather patterns."

She looked at Alden’s face and finished the sentence.

"The person who awakened it..."

At the same moment Theodore was looking at the sky from the eastern route.

Along the northern trail Isabella had gone very still with her emerald eyes wide.

Arvendis was staring at the pillar with the shaking hands.

The name arrived in all of them at the same moment.

Alden didn’t need Luna to say it.

He can already feel the energy signature that felt like something he’d stood next to for months without understanding what it was even if he can’t detect the unknown blue thunder.

He looked at the pillar.

His eyes sharpened into something very certain.

"...Leon."