Crimson Ascension

Far in the distance, accompanied by the howls of a creature that got closer by the hour, a black cloud floated in the sky. Whenever it passed, light drained from the land as if devoured by an incomprehensible force. It didn't follow the whims of the wind, unlike the others—it approached with intent.

One day ago, he would have thought nothing of it. Now, he had other things to concern himself with other than an ominous mass of hovering darkness.

"Again," he rasped, the irritation of countless failed attempts taking a toll on his patience. "It's not enough! Didn't I tell you to stop holding back?"

The rift inside his astra, the connection between his soul and the crimson realm, had once transported him to the Sixfold Corridor, but no matter what Draven tried, he couldn't replicate it. The wounds on his soul were plenty, tears in the very fabric of his being pulsated with a torment beyond flesh. Yet the pull of the corridor never came.

I'm doing something wrong.

Elevalein struck him with a wave of dizziness. The green mist took the shape of needles before shooting toward his soul, piercing it from all angles. Draven's mind went blank with the pain, but he gritted his teeth and endured. To shout when a vengeful beast hunted them was welcoming death with open arms.

After another failed attempt, Draven let his hexion alleviate the spiritual wounds. But as the crimson liquid flowed within him, he froze. Locked in that dungeon, reduced to nothing but a prisoner, constantly struck by the prodding sight of an Evoker, he had not dared let hexion exit his astra. Unlike now.

The hexion that flowed in his veins and enhanced his physique went back inside his crimson sun with but one thought. "Again," he said, voice resolute.

Elevalein looked around, hoping to find someone to make him stop this madness. Finn, perhaps. But no one was around; the turns they took watching the perimeter made sure of that.

When the pain came, Draven was ready. He still felt it, unfiltered, raw, but he knew what to do. Every drop of hexion returned to his astra. The cloud that was his will constricted, as if trying to avoid the torment. He gathered every fragment that made him who he was inside the hovering sun, entered it, and headed to the rift.

A beckoning call urged him to flee, a feeling he remembered seeing once—the Sixfold Corridor. He had done it. He had found a means to replicate the impossible phenomenon that allowed his rapid growth in power. All it would take was one ethereal touch, and the feathers of time would no longer bind him. Draven touched the rift, eager to flee the pain, and the world shivered.

The pain vanished. His body felt whole.

A dark, unassuming room without doors or windows almost put tears in his eyes. Yes! Draven almost jumped from excitement and sheer relief of no longer having to endure the torture. The lightless surroundings did not hinder his sigh, nor did tears in his soul impede his resolve. He needed to get stronger as fast as he could.

"Where this?" Morph emerged from his hand as if from an open wound.

"The Sixfold Corridor…" Draven muttered in surprise.

He had expected to be alone in the timeless chamber; he alone crossed the rift, after all. Perhaps there was no longer a distinction between the Hemomorph and himself, not when they shared a soul.

"You can expand your astra here and not even a day will pass in the world outside," he said, gathering his wits. "I'm gonna open the remaining meridians and make Ascendance—"

"Silly. How can open meridian, if body not here?" Morph cackled in a reptilian laughter. "Only soul. Silly."

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"What?"

Draven frowned, projecting his consciousness to where he knew the meriands would be. Instead of the barriers that restricted his potential, he found nothing. Not a thing. It was as if all of them were open, or if they never existed.

"Dammit!" He roared, blasting the ground with a punch. "What's the damn point of being here in the first place, then? It's useless. Skill alone won't allow me to beat that monster."

"Yes." Morph looked around, confused. "Should have used rune first."

"Didn't I tell you? Amplification alone might give us the strength, but there's no stopping it. Once it activates, I'm as good as dead. There's nothing else to regulate its flow, and I don't know how to make a working remnant."

"Here. Time to learn," Morph nodded as if Draven had just agreed with him before returning to his astra. The rhythmic cycle of beckoning and imbuing filled his small sun.

"Time to learn?" Draven looked at the ground, which had already reverted the damage, and an idea filled his mind. Maybe the Hemomorph was smarter than it sounded.

Hexion wavered, oscillated with loose control, and enveloped his index finger, forming the Hemomorph's Mantle. With the clawed hand, he drew the Amplification rune in the floor, before letting some of his hexion fuel it. The rune flared with blue light for one second, then blinked back to obscurity, but Draven did not feel discouraged. It worked. He could draw runes on the floor, even activate them.

Moments later, the floor returned to its pristine condition.

Space. Stability. Amplification. Absorption. Regulation. Those were the runes he remembered by heart, his only chance at figuring out a way to draw a working circuit that enhanced his power without condemning him to certain death.

Draven closed his eyes, urging his hexion to mend the wounds on his soul. He'd need absolute control over it before attempting to create what was effectively a remnant, a working artefact that used a form of magic that surpassed even Empyreans.

The wounds of the soul were deeper than those of flesh, more complex and lasting. Had Draven suffered a cut or even the loss of a limb, he was confident in the ability to mend it in mere minutes. But it took him hours to see an improvement in the many holes and tears in his soul. Days before they closed fully.

Morph didn't say anything or come out of his trance. He amassed power with the single-minded focus of growing stronger. Draven respected that. They were similar in more ways than he cared to admit. Neither would balk at the price power demanded.

With a finger gloved in hexion, Draven got to carving. He drew the five runes, recalling them from memory, imprinting them on the ground, until the symbols shone, separated, unpowered. Ugly. He had focused on many things during his training with Helvan, but calligraphy was not one of them. Now, that oversight cost him.

The runes, jagged and imprecise as they were, flickered with an unstable sense of wrongness. Like a tower built by the inexperienced hands of a Transmuter, they flickered on the verge of catastrophic collapse.

That won't do. Draven sighed, knowing he couldn't experiment with their many combinations without first addressing the blaring issue in front of him—his amateurish ability to draw. At least I have plenty of time.

He began in the rhythm of drawing a set of runes in one line, before replicating the same process in a level below, always attempting to make them look better. More stable. Draven was glad the sun was nowhere to be seen, as the absence of time and exhaustion worked wonders to keep him focused.

Heart Flame would have been a great aid, but it was constricted to his body. In the Sixfold Corridor, only the soul could enter a second time.

Hours. Days. Weeks. Perhaps one month passed. Draven had no way of telling the passage of time other than by witnessing the growth of Morph's astra. It was almost as big as his, signaling his approach to Greater Reverence.

Slowly but surely, he mastered drawing the five runes. His finger no longer wavered with uncertainty; each line was precise, filled with meaning. The runes shone bright with power, not one hint of instability in their blue hue.

One line connected an encased rune to another. Like branches of a tree, runes surrounded Amplification with little to no reason behind them. Draven could understand the meaning of individual runes, but a combination of them did not speak with formed sentences. There was no other way of learning their language other than to attempting to combine them.

He drew the final line and let hexion power the circuit. The ground exploded. Draven hit the wall with enough force to crack it. Still, a smile parted his lips. A stronger reaction meant the remnant itself had been stronger.

If it took one thousand attempts, Draven would draw them one thousand times. He had time to spare.