Return of the Fallen Volume 7 Chapter 29
A few birds flew into the attic and circled the open room before flying back out. Kazuki had completely ignored the broken roof above his head and had been in the zone so to speak for hours.
Through the entire night and until the sun rose high into the sky, the magic pen didn’t stop a single time. As the early morning birds sang their daily songs, Kazuki sat up straight and stretched his hunched back.
*pop pop crack*
His stiffened back and muscles loosened with a melody of pops relieving some much agitation and stress. Kazuki finally put the magic pen down with his mind. Spread out in front of him, were piles of paper. Some were ripped and torn to shreds and some were crumpled up and tossed to the side. Only a few were still intact and held thousands of complex inscriptions on them.
The designs were magic tools and weapons for Nunully and the rest. Kazuki had managed to complete them over the long night.
He grabbed the stack of completed blueprints and excitedly carried them downstairs. Softly and quietly, he slowly opened the door to the backroom.
*Bang! clang clang, clang clang*
Sid was still focused 100% on the task at hand. Bags sagged under his eyes due to lack of sleep but that didn’t take any power away from the swing of his hammer. Kazuki knew how Sid would react if he interrupted him so instead of saying hello, Kazuki simply put the designs quietly on a nearby table as well as take out enough god metal for each item and silently placed it on the floor.
He found the plate of food he had left Sid the last time was completely untouched.
(The man is dedicated undoubtedly.)
Kazuki took the old food away and replaced it with fresh food. Even if Sid didn’t touch it, it didn’t bother Kazuki. Sid really put his all into crafting. He, like Tilly, was obsessed to a dangerous level. To ignore one’s roaring stomach, out of one’s own fruition was something that required more than a man’s average will. This something, whatever it was Sid clearly had it.
Kazuki quietly shut the door and left Sid’s shop. Buying some supplies in town, Kazuki left the city. After he walked a few miles down the road, Kazuki entered the nearby forest. He couldn’t fly over the city without activating all of the alarms or rather after last night’s disturbance, he would rather leave without drawing too much attention as it was annoying.
After entering the forest, Kazuki kicked off the ground and took a single leap.
*Fwhoosh*
The wind tore as he blurred and left afterimages in his wake. Barely a second passed and he was already 10 miles away. A few more steps and he had appeared in the middle of a mountain range.
Looking around, the mountain was desolate besides the occasional rabbit or hog.
“This place should do.”
Kazuki had spent most of the night designing weapons and other tools for his friends. The rest of the night though, his mind was fervently going over the explosion he had accidentally caused. He was trying to see how other energies interact with one another and when his aura, fire, and ki all came into contact with one another a powerful explosion rippled outward.
Kazuki had only used a tiny bit of energy for his little experiment yet the devastation the explosion left in its wake was something horrific. The explosion sent energy out in a needle-like pattern that penetrated not only the wooden ceiling, which in turn destroyed it but it also pierced clean through Kazuki’s tough metal-like flesh.
The energies had a weird effect on one another. They ate up the surrounding energy in the environment, which in turn amplified them. When there was no more energy to feast on, the three energies as if they had a mind of their own ate at each other. This resulted in a mass of destruction that outstripped their original power.
Kazuki needed to try it again. He needed to experiment more. This accidental discovery was a strange one. Sid’s interest lied in crafting while Kazuki’s was the further discovery of what all of these energies were capable of.
Kazuki sent out his fireball with a small flick of his finger. The fireball flew about ten feet away from him before stopping and hovering in mid-air. Kazuki then sent out his aura followed by his ki. As the energies were about to touch with one another, Kazuki quickly waved his hand and a 3-inch wall of god metal came out of his ring and stood between him and the explosion.
*BOOOOOOOM!*
The energies connected and a pull of energy was sucked toward the center before everything exploded outward with tremendous force.
*Tak tak tak tak tak tak tak!*
Kazuki’s eyes widened as he felt a heavy impact on the wall in front of him and the metal in front of him dented inward and to his shock was nearly penetrated through.
With the explosion over, Kazuki examined the wall and found dozens of indentions. The god metal had almost become like swiss cheese.
*Crack, snap*
As he was examining the wall, he heard the snapping of trees. In his surroundings, many trees came crashing down. Looking at his surroundings, there were evident scars from the explosion. Tiny needle-like holes, thousands of them were scattered all around Kazuki.
The center of the explosion had its worst of all. The ground sunk inward nearly ten feet down as if a meteorite had crashed. Thousands of small holes were drilled into the ground like some sort of beehive.
Kazuki walked toward the crater and felt that more than half of all the energy in the surroundings had been drained from this area.
(For it to eat up half the energy in this radius, this could definitely work. I could use such an attack on the Miasma. This could drain at least half of the energy in its surroundings. If I make this attack big enough, couldn’t I take away a good deal of energy the Miasma requires. Even if I don’t destroy it fully, this could be just the window Glacious needs. First I need to make sure I can block such an attack.)
Kazuki looked at the wall of god metal that was covered in dents and he was doubtful.
(This attack can easily penetrate my body, which is already hard to believe but it can also damage god metal to such a degree.)
Kazuki began to reshape the wall of metal but found that some of it could not be fixed very easily. The dents that were leftover had lingering energy like his wounds from last night. The three energies continued to vie for supremacy and were eating away at one another. Kazuki found it difficult to repair the metal while the energy lingered. He found that he could either wait a few minutes for the energy to run out of…well energy or he could give one of the energies the advantage over the others. By supplying either more ki, aura, or magic, the one with the most energy won out in the end. Once one energy won, Kazuki’s magic could fix the metal.
At the same time, Kazuki ran into another problem. Even though he repaired it, some of the god metal was lost from the initial attack. Measuring the god metal wall in front of him, Kazuki found that slightly more than 7 percent of the metal was gone.
(I didn’t think it was this bad but it’s right in front of my eyes, there’s no denying it. The orichalcum, some of it has actually been destroyed. How can I master something so dangerous? My body is easily torn through by this attack and it even destroys god metal.)
Kazuki had to do more tests to be sure.
(There must be a way to block it, to counter its destruction. Otherwise, how can I ever use such an attack on the battlefield? This attack requires my aura, magic, and my ki. I could easily throw a fireball a hundred miles away but my aura can only stretch about 1000 feet away from me and my ki can only stretch a fraction of that. My ki is the limiting factor. Because this attack requires all three energies, I can only initiate the attack so far away from me. The option then becomes how fast can I retreat once the attack is set in motion. The moment the explosion starts, I can cover a few miles but…
Kazuki looked behind him and could see needle-like holes a few miles away from him.
(I can’t escape fast enough. If just one of those attacks hits me in the head, I’m deader than a doornail.)
Kazuki tried a few more experiments but the results were left wanting. Each time, he came close to being pierced by the resulting explosion. He could make the wall of god metal thicker and thicker and it could protect him but in the end, he lost more and more of the metal to the attack.
The question became, should he sacrifice his body or sacrifice the god metal. This all came with the caveat that the explosion he was creating right now was fairly small compared to what it could be. He used only a small portion of his energy to create it and it destroyed hundreds of trees and miles of land. If he were to scale it upwards and use it for real on the Miasma, he would use most of his energy. The explosion that would come, would be something even he couldn’t imagine at the moment. If the god metal barely held up now, there was no way it would hold up against an even larger attack.
Kazuki was stuck on what to do.
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