Resonance//Dissonance [BOOK 2 in progress]

In all honesty, the situation with the tall woman really bugged Luke. He did not want to hurt her, and he really didn't know what caused that incident. But in all reality, as a man, he was used to being ignorant to playing a part in a mess beyond his intention, and he knew he will get an earful for it eventually so he let it go for now.

No time to waste. He still had things to do, things to prepare, stuff to get done, improvements to be made.

Since he was no longer locked down to pure refining, he could decide on what steps to follow. The refining itself was good, but in his opinion too slow and too much without a focus. While an overall power-up is good, he needs to shore up his weeknesses and improve on his strenghts.

The first thing he decided that needed to be made right was the Tool of Slaughter he carried with him, since he broke it during his fight with Klaus, the Spine Blade retracted into a form of a bracelet made of bone, a spine wraped around his writs, hooking over the hip bones with the cracked and shattered tail hanging limply, shards connected by small, pulsing veins that glistened crimson under the sunlight.

Luke was no Artificer, but he had some basic learning material, was given some hints at the nest at how to „take care of this devilish monstrosity he conjured up from a dying vermin" and some actual ideas how to recycle some of the mess he made around here into something productive.

Already, there was alot of material for him to work with, carcasses, now mostly rotting held bones. Bones, Luke figured, the Blade could use to restore itself.

„... somehow?" he wondered aloud.

Using telekinesis he spread his awareness out, and by sense of touch he picked up every bone he could reach, every brittle piece of it, their porous surface so unique and diffrent from each other. He hugged and gripped pieces of meat, feeling the rotting things for more bones, which, when once found, he rip and tore to obtain more succulent sources of marrow.

This took some time, he reveled in this disgusting endevor, not because he enjoyed digging through bodies, ever since he was under his fathers tutualge he quite disliked that practice. He found the depth of his skill hypnotizing. The sensory imput, transported all throughout his body, translated by his magic sense into a 3D map of the surrounding, changeing and reacting in real time to tremors, movement, even that of an ant, or a blade of grass shaken by the winds breeze.

It all was so...magical.

It's beauty shined through the macabre that surrouned him.

Once he collected what he could, he started recalling Jerzy's teachings, which to be fair, were extremely confusing, disjointed, and a mixture of many diffrent schools of magic, thought and launguages, the Spiky Man once called his methods the MMA of Inscribing. It was focused on practicality, with the style and mythos of it being left behind somewhat, it was still there, but only so it can serve as the support for the ritualistic side of the craft.

Never the less, to Luke, it was still amazing, so… magical.

Something so common to most of magical folk seemed to carry this immense, almost infinite expanse of possibilities, variables, a method of infusing Words into reality, to bring forth a portion of Divinity, no matter how miniscule.

He focused, sitting cross legged on the ground that crackled under his weight. Gently, with gingerly care, he took off his bracelet and allowed the hip joint to detach off the spine, the miniature blade straightened and seemed almost relieved at the change.

It was damaged, badly. His last technique shattered it outright from within, a cascade of violence ripped through it, turning it into magically infused shrapnel. What was left, the core, was an amalgamation of broken bones and sore, raw tendons and blood vessels that pulsed weakly under the sunlight.

Luke exhaled deeply, and rested his chin on his palm while in contemplation, poking the thing with his finger.

"What am I supposed to do with you, my nightmare born buddy?"

In response, the item wreathed weakly, as if begging for mercy.

"No, no, worry not, we will fix you up, you will be the deadly Tool of Slaughter and more in no time, I just need to figure out How to do it first."

Taping his finger on the poor little thing, he scrambled his thoughts and parsed through the lessons.

With some crazy ideas swiped right away, he decided to experiment step by step.

"All right, first, we do the basics, one Energy Gathering Array coming right up."

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And with semi practiced motion, Luke sketched out a rough artwork surrounding the Tool, just after first glance he noticed how shit it all looked.

„All right..." he said as he wiped it all off the pavement and grinded it down to a flat surface again."Almost right up!" and so followed even more and more attempts, each one still far from what he felt was acceptable, but each one getting closer and closer to at least not huring his eyes.

While he was on the Nest, his lessons seemed more tedious, pure memory and learning. Now? Now, it all had a flow to it, a purpose, a sense that made any and all mistakes simply feel off. Before, they were a thing that could be tolerated, something to squeeze in, brute force it to work. As he gazed upon the markings now, he could Resonate with their purpose, with the passages that connected the meanings, and it hurt him so to allow for any Dissonance to remain.

Inscription is a work of art, a song being sung by the means of magic and cultural understanding, a delicate poetry spoken into the wild, chaotic realm that contorts and twists to the whims of the words announced to it.

It is...glorious.

And it's glory scorched his senses, as Luke was unable to portay it properly. A peculiar feeling, inability to express. Something he tried to forget so badly, the last time his words got stuck in his throat, mind burning asunder from emotions falying it raw as he saw her tears, head dropped low with her rosy cheeks buried in her trembling palms. His breath shortened as he remembered her body shaking in throws of sadness, sadness he caused.

He wanted to say so, so many things to her, to explain, to portray the ache he felt, for her to understand. He wanted her to understand.

His pupils shrank, as he focused on the memory, even now, he could smell her sweet perfume, and see vividly her amber hair, her petite, perky ears, shyly poking through the strands, strands so silky in texture, they made his skin tingle in pleasure whenever he ran his fingers through them.

He saw these hairs, as they dropped on her green and white sundress, when he told Autumn that...

„FUCK!" Luke roared as he smashed both his fist into the inscription, ruining it beyond saving. He started pummeling the memory away,

„FUCK,FUCK, FUCK! YOU FUCKING IDIOT!" shame flooded him, whatever Teru did unlocked some parts of his mind he kept hidden from himself, memories precious, yet unwanted started bubbling up to the surface and he thrashed madly to keep them supressed.

„Not now! Not yet, not yet!" He mumbled to himself as he propped himself on his palms and knees on the ground, centering his breath.

It took a moment, but he finally reclaimed some measure of peace. He shook the memories off like a wet dog after a bath. With some semblence of dignity, he straigtened up. Gaze hard and steady, he looked upon the mess he has made, and silently burned it all into slag again. Once the floor bubbled with heat and melted into taffy, he used panels of telekinetic power to flatten it out akin to using a rolling pin, and with some struggle, channeled some power into a steady gust of wind that cooled down the surface into glass for a smooth finish.

Luke made a mental note to finally shore up other disciplines and elements of magic once he had some time, he was Omniversal. Not tied to runes or schools. Just Chaos—pure, writhing, formless—and a will strong enough to force it into shape. Chaos wasn't just power; it was the origin point, the raw fabric from which all magic was drawn. Through him, it twisted into threads, spun into meaning, and woven into the tapestry of spells he used to rewrite reality around him.

In theory he had acces to all schools of magic not limited by physical mediums, and even that was up for debate between The Avien and The Stitcher, the only time he remembered the creepy old fuck said so many words in one day.

„Grrrhh" just at the thought of that thing, he got the shakes, his left arm creaked and groaned in memory of that hellish implantation. He tightened the bony fingers to steady them.

Back to the subject at hand. He once again cradled the miniaturised Sword-Whip and whispered to it.

„To reclaim what was lost, to add meaning for it to last, to become stronger, ever sharper, ever more dangerous. That is what I will, and thorough this medium of Bone and Sinew, you will carry on slaughter, bring Gore and enact Violence so grand, it will rain blood and flesh."

At those promises, they made them both shiver, the madman, and the maddened creation, conjoined in the oath of a bloodier future.

„Yes...That is it, I need to follow this through." Whatever Olga'Theru's ritual had done to him, for better or for worse, it opened the channel into his inner world, it made him more sensitive to whatever was inside him. Previously deaf to his own feelings and needs, now he rediscovered it again, and Luke will be damned if he would only allow it to drag him down. He dived deeper, and took the reigns, if he is forced to confront his inner world, he will make the most out of it.

Trailing the feeling his promise created, he followed through and guided his understanding further, inscriptions spilled around him, As if following a thread of yarn down to it's begging, he navigated through the maze of concepts, meanings, symbols and symmetry. He Inscribed words, and formed them into passages, a form of proze took place on the medium simple, melted parking lot. A recipe for a disaster being completed with each, new scribble.

The Tool of Slaughter slithered weakly, like a limping dog, it made it's way towards the center of the array. Pitiful in it's damaged state, it yearned to reclaim the power it held as a remenant of a monster, it craved to overshadow it's past, to become more, MORE!

Dragging itself through the sleak terrain, it could feel the trembling of the air, the vibrations of magic as it's wielder twisted the reality around them to act as a nursery for it. To foster it's growth, to hasten it's reach for flesh to tear. It slithered with increasing vigor, something so clearly unnatural, unmeant to be, born of horror unspeakable. Born to create horrors ever worse.

Once it reached the inner circle of the inscription, something clicked, the erratic draw of power halted for a moment, and as the item furled itself into a spiral once more, the energies raged as they were drawn into it.

Withtout stopping, Luke piled onto his work more and more verses, more and more possibilites, wants and needs, Truths and Lies. He defined a cryptic vision of what is more to come, through his hands, and the Tools Edge.

Finally, he put the last dot on his text, and the circle was completed. The Inscription became self-reliant and self-governing. Runing on a set of rules even now, would be hard for Luke to describe, it drew on all bone and gore it could reach, filtered and enchanced it before feeding the scum into the Tool, polishing it as if a wheatstone, adding more meaning to it, more threat.

And the Creator of this deemed it unfit to be left behind. As the mountains of bones started evaporating under the absorbtion of hunger and greed, so did his restraints. His mind spun wildly as Luke thought of what he, his powers, and his life amounted to so far, and to what heights might his struggle reach. What burden can he pile onto himself to force more out of his body and mind.

A wild grin spread across his face as he turned his back on the now, hissing Blade.

„There is more work to be done, more to achieve." It was as much of a statement as it was a promise.