Chapter 107: You Can Never Hide Your Radiance

After years of hunting targets that were many times stronger than him, Elias had gained a sort of sense for when something was about to go wrong. The reason he was alive today was because of his healing factor when he had failed to respond properly to that sense of wrongness.

It was this same sense that was blazing in Elias’s head the moment that the giant began eating the beating heart. This sense was blazing so brightly that Elias knew without any doubt that he would die… whatever this power was, he had no way to resist it.

Without any hesitation, Elias charged, knowing that this was most likely the last charge in this battle; if he could not stop the giant, he would die.

Elias moved faster than he should despite his injuries, and the eyes of the giant widened in rage as it swung its club that was on the verge of shattering after all the clashes he had with Elias.

The swing of the giant was wild; the injury in his spine did not allow him to reach his usual full range, and there were lots of gaps that Elias could use to slip through the blow.

Eyes filled with hate and despair, the giant knew that he could not stop Elias and struggled to chew the beating heart that was harder than diamond, but his eyes widened in shock when Elias, who could have easily dodged his swing, went ahead to clash with his club.

Elias met the blow, not dodging or parrying, but leaping straight into it. The club connected, full force, cracking ribs, shattering his collarbone, and hurling him across the clearing like a rag doll.

He crashed through the unfinished altar, as bones exploded around him, and hit the ground hard.

Vitality: 112 / 2385

Stamina: 008 / 613

He lay there, broken and bleeding, not knowing where to laugh or cry.

In the moment before the clash, his own body and talent had betrayed him.

Elias’s advance, despite his injuries, had been nearly perfect, and the giant was far too injured to swing a blow that would connect with him, but in the end, his body had retaliated against him, and his Talent did not want him to stop the giant from completing whatever it was that he was doing.

Whether he would perish did not seem to matter to his talent; what it wanted was for Elias to push himself to the brink of death at every moment so it could evolve.

In the distance, the choked laughter of the giant resounded through the clearing, as he struggled to swallow the heart and looked at Elias with amusement and relief in his black eyes.

Elias looked up, his eyes burning with green fire. He could not say he had not expected this to happen. From the beginning of this battle, his talent had been pushing him to take a higher risk, and when the battle with the giant began, the hunger of his talent had not lessened; it had grown.

If Elias were inside his Lumina Space, he would have seen that the cracks in between the massive moon that represented his talent were glowing so bright that his entire Lumina Space had been painted in a shade of red.

Elias had previously suppressed the growth of his Attributes after he survived the battle with the monstrous mother, so his overinflated stats would not draw too much attention because he was still a level 9 Wisp, and he did not have any way to present himself as someone on a higher stage.

His plan had been to upgrade his Attributes again after reaching the Fury Forge Stage, but during the battle with the giant, he had begun straining himself and acquiring injuries, and that contributed to the stimulation of his talent, and it was beginning to grow more violent.

Elias sighed and looked at Lunareth in the sky that was hanging full, and this told him that he had been fighting for at least two hours, maybe closer to three, because the shadow of the second moon was emerging from the horizon.

He was so tired and was still filled with so much energy. This was not just cognitive dissonance; it was the fact that he was fighting a higher-stage Siphon while he was still being suppressed.

Even lying on the ground, Elias could feel the power of the giant growing like a sun rising in the darkness, and the sense of his death only increased.

Roars of anguish and happiness were emerging from the giant, and his voice was transforming, because deeper and more monstrous. From the sounds of breaking bones and tearing flesh that Elias could hear, the giant was undergoing a transformation.

In this moment, there were many paths he could take, or regrets that could cross his mind.

All through this battle, it was true that he had never tried to use all that he had… always shrinking his radiance because he feared the manipulation of those stronger than him.

Apparently, his talent would never allow him to take the safer option. It would always push him to the brink, and if he did not find a way to properly channel this power, he would perish.

“If that is the case,” Elias whispered, “More.”

Elias had killed seventy-five Fury Forge in this clearing, and before coming here, there were hundreds of bodies here, if not thousands.

There had been survivors inside the clearing, but unlike the small woman who had emerged, the rest had either been too weak or broken to leave the pile of bodies, and when Elias and the leader of the cannibal, the so called, Flesh Mauler began to battle, all signs of life had vanished in the clearing, primarily due to the explosive nature of a Mist Phantom techniques.

Slowly bringing both of his hands to his chest, he grunted through the pain as he pushed his broken fingers into the right configuration. It did not need to be perfect; he just needed to open the doorway to his Lumina Space.

The chant for absorbing Lumina emerged from his mouth as blood continuously poured out from his crushed lungs and flowed out of his mouth,

“Blood of the slain, I tear it free,

Crimson veins, bow down to me.

Heart as forge, I burn your lives,

Spiral fierce, devour the tide,

All you were, now mine to take.

I am the hunter, I am the gate,

What you lost, I now claim!”

Despite the laughter and cries of pain from the transforming faint, a silence seemed to fall on the clearing, and the nine glowing purple marks on his chest that were covered by blood and broken flesh suddenly lit up.

Elias heard the sound of a thousand throats sighing in relief as he became the center of a storm of Lumina.

“WHOOSH…. BOOM!”

A shockwave erupted from his body as he was brought into the air, surrounded by a cyclone of red and blue.

Elias felt his bones beginning to crack and his flesh grind away. The pain was horrendous, but his talent was screaming in joy, and finally, Elias opened the floodgates and allowed all the growth he had been holding back to merge with his flesh. He did not have a choice. In the present state of his body, collecting this much Lumina would kill him, but Elias knew there could also be an opportunity here to use his talent and hide it under the shade of something else.

He wanted to roar as both pain and pleasure filled his body, and then, deciding to stop holding back, Elias unleashed a roar from deep in his soul, and this sound seemed to ascend into the heavens.

The swarm inside him erupted, the glowing motes transforming into a violet and golden storm that formed acocoon around him.

Inside this cocoon, flesh knit, and bones snapped back into place, his blood burned away as newer blood began to take its place. He could feel souls pouring into his body, and the barrier above the Wisp Stage was broken. Elias felt his body beginning to naturally ascend towards a higher state of being.

Then Existence stopped.

The entirety of this clearing, no, the entire forest and the oasis within froze in place, but Elias’s mind was still aware, and yet, he knew this was because his mind had been excluded as the cool voice of Commander Yseult entered his mind,

“Congratualtions Elias, you are on the verge of reaching Fury Forge, but you need to satisfy a hidden condition before you can reach perfect completion of this Stage. The decision you are about to make will be the most important decision in your life. Are you ready to hear them?”

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