Chapter 155: You Are A Dissapointment

This feeling of endlessness was true, but Elias began to feel a faint tug at his core. It was a slow, steady drain on his Stamina. Not enough to weaken him in the short term, but noticeable. Stone Skin was not a passive blessing; it is an active choice. Every moment he remains in this state, the Art consumes a sliver of his energy. He could maintain it for hours, perhaps even days if he pushed, but eventually, the weight would tell.

Elias began to understand the importance of Stamina and how much having the Passenger in his head affected him, but he was not too worried about this because his Elder Talent was perfectly capable of slowly destroying this issue as he pushed his Stamina to the limits.

His Stamina was growing fast, and with what he had accumulated, he would be able to maintain this state for days, but Elias found it hard to think about what sort of battle would keep him fighting for days.

But then, thinking back to the battle in the oasis as he had fought for hours and yet it felt like minutes, Elias admitted that in the heat of battle, time had a way of becoming meaningless, and it was one of the few moments where he was not in total control.

Elias raises his right arm, still marveling at the way the stone moves with him, and brings his gauntleted fist to his left forearm. He taps lightly. The sound is solid and deep, like a heavy stone striking another heavier stone.

He taps harder, then harder still. Finally, with a surge of curiosity, he draws back his fist and slams it into his opposite arm with enough force to shatter bone.

“Boom!”

The impact rings through his home like a hammer on a mountain, and his entire three-bedroom home shook. Elias feels the shock travel up his arm, into his shoulder, down his spine, but there is no pain, nor any crack in the stone armor.

Elias could not help himself; he began to laugh, even though the sound echoed strangely within the helmet.

“Stone Skin,” he whispers, and the words seem to resonate in the stone around him, he felt unbreakable. There was no space in his armor for anyone to peel it off him, and he knew that if any part of him was shattered by an impossible force, there was a great chance that his Stone Skin would heal.

Now, he just needed to understand how much the defenses of the original armor he wore affected the power of his stone skin. Elias thought about his final battle with the cannibal leader and wondered how much damage that being would be able to do to him at this point, and he almost wanted to request that the Commander teleport him to the oasis again for him to begin a new round of battle.

Elias suddenly turned his head to the left, towards the stone blade he had kept on the other end of the room. For some time now he had been feeling a faint pressure at the edges of his consciousness, but he had been so engrossed in the power of Stone Skin that he had uncinsciouly placed aside this sensation, and then he remembered the entire reason he had chosen to activate this talent, and it was for him to unlock the secret of this blade, and the Art of Stone Art.

This Art, no matter the power it was showing at this point, was still sealed; there were four other sealed abilities, waiting, and they want to be unlocked.

Elias paused. It was almost as if the stone blade was speaking to him, and without thinking about it, he held out his hand towards the blade, and it vibrated for a moment before it shot into his open hand.

Its color had been a bit white before he held it; now it shifted towards the grey tone of his stone skin, and before his eyes, the stone blade slowly collapsed into dust.

However, this dust did not vanish; it rose up from his hand, and before Elias could grab it, it shot towards his face. It merged into his helm, and Elias felt them flow through the skin of his face before they travelled down his chest and entered through the marks on his chest, and they descended into his Lumina Space.

They circled before the vastness of his Infinite Oceans as if they were a bit confused before they were drawn by the mountain inside his Lumina Pool, the core of his Stone Art.

The mountain that represented the core of this art absorbed the grey dust and it began to change…

“Clang!”

Elias flinched when the heavy sound, as if metal was striking stone, resounded all over his consciousness and reverberated through his flesh.

The great mountain core of the Stone Art began to shrink as if it were being hammered down.

“Clang… Clang… Clang!”

Its grey color began to darken, and from a mountain that was about five hundred meters shrank to three hundred, and was now much darker.

A shockwave suddenly erupted from the core of the Stone Art, and as it swept through his infinite oceans, Elias heard screams; it seemed to be coming from a woman.

If his pools were the same as any other Siphon, then this shockwave would have passed through it and vanish so quickly that no one would be able to hear these screams, but since he had infinity inside of him, this shockwave was traveling forever, and so Elias was able to hear words that he was sure he was not supposed to hear.

The screams were just part of it. After the scream faded away, a voice began to speak, and even though he did not know the language, he was able to understand their words.

“Father, I beg you with the first light of the dawn that touches your throne… spare him, I will give my life and my light for him. I shall suffer all the challenges of hell and shall never see your light again. I shall toil until the end of time to repay the glory that I lost for you… please father, do not kill him, for he is my heart.”

A long moment passed, and a voice that sounded like the heavens speaking resounded, “YOU ARE A DISAPPOINTMENT. THIS MORTAL MAN SHALL SUFFER AS NONE HAVE SUFFERED, AND YOU SHALL WATCH.”

Elias watched the screams and the voice escape into the infinite void inside of him, and he paused, not knowing what to do with the information he had just received. If Lumina Arts came from the time of the gods, then this happened too long ago to have any consequences for the present day.

Still, he felt a throbbing in his soul, and what could be pain in his heart, and almost shook his head in astonishment and amusement because he thought he did not only catch this voice, but part of the emotion of the ones who said them, and he could not help but wonder… how much pain would you have to be feeling if it could remain in the voice you left behind, long after you were dead?

Elias did not know if he would want to know this answer if there was a possibility for him to find out, and he could only look over at the new form of the mountain in his consciousness as his Status Screen Vibrated, and he smiled… his gamble turned out to be the right move.

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