Chapter 40: The Change of Intent

The new Pools of Lumina were being filled up, and Elias, even when he noted that the strength of this wisp was fading, did not pause and moved towards the next barrier. His actions did not have to be delayed due to his thoughts.

Perhaps it would cost him a part of his consciousness if this wisp were to be destroyed, but his Will and consciousness could be regrown even if it were difficult. The chance to be here would never come again.

He was used to his body breaking, his mind screaming, and before his first true test as an Angel, was he about to let the fear of death stop him?

As he crossed over to the next barrier, the wisp paused and looked at the seven tornadoes of vitality that were attempting to pierce through the web of darkness covering the empty pools. Yes, attempting. While he had been busy breaking the barriers, he had not forgotten that there was a web of darkness over his pool that was easily destroyed by the tornadoes.

However, because these webs were destroyed extremely quickly by the force carried by the tornadoes, it did not matter much to Elias, but even this great force was beginning to struggle a bit with each new pool that was being opened.

“Is this my limit?”

Elias could see at a glance the connection between the number of tornadoes that corresponded with the limit of his Vitality Absorption Technique. It was as if even if his Will was strong, his tools were not up to the task.

He had noticed that it was not as if the tornadoes lacked the power to pierce through the webs; they were constantly being filled up by the vitality pouring into his body, but the webs were growing denser, smarter, almost adaptive. Each time a tornado struck, the web flexed, absorbed a portion of the force, and reformed slightly thicker than before.

That was the first clue.

With a loud booming roar, the web of darkness blocking the first of the seven pools was shattered, and they were quickly filled up with Lumina. Then all seven of the tornadoes of vitality descended on the last three Lumina Pools, and the barrier over them did not last as long before they were shattered.

The wisp shivered because Elias thought that he might have just figured out the solution to his problem. The behavior of the tornadoes after they had shattered all seven pools and attacked the last three pools was enough evidence to show that perhaps he was not using these tornadoes in the best manner.

Why should he have to be shattering the barriers with his fragile wisp form when he could use these tornadoes for that task?

Granted, the tornadoes wanted to fall back into the deeper Lumina Pools, but Elias knew this was because they were following the path of least resistance.

They were not tools. He thought they were like starving animals on leashes. And leashes, Elias knew, could be redirected.

Perhaps, he could use this wisp as a guide and focus the vitality tornadoes towards piercing the barriers for him.

This theory seemed simple on the surface, but Elias could see that changing the direction of the vitality tornadoes would alter the Vitality Absorption Technique in a way it may not have been designed for.

He did not think for a moment that he was capable of changing a secret technique from the Order, but he was sure that this technique was far more complex than what it showed on the surface.

The technique could absorb eighty-eight percent of the vitality in his surroundings, and while Elias believed that this meant he could potentially summon nine vitality tornadoes, that was not what he was focused on.

He was already at his limits with seven of these tornadoes, and having more would crush him like a bug. No, Elias thought that he could direct the tornadoes to strike at the barriers instead of waiting for the wisp to do it.

As far as he could tell, his consciousness was separated into two, and one part of his consciousness was focused on channeling all of this vitality into his body, and now it was the time for this wisp to aid that consciousness and change the way he was absorbing this power.

Rhys, that damned bastard, had always told him, “The same lock can be opened by many different keys.” This did not make much sense to Elias at first, but he could appreciate how this sort of thinking could be applied to this particular situation.

He had been using brute force, and he had reached his limits. Now, it would be wiser if he used his head.

Elias did not rush the idea. He let it sit, sharp and cold, in the part of his mind that had long ago learned to treat every new possibility like a blade: useful until it turned on you.

The wisp hovered motionless above the eighty glowing Pools of Lumina, its form flickering like a candle in a draft

He exhaled, or at least the wisp form mimicked the motion, and began to reframe the technique in his head.

The Vitality Absorption Technique had never been about brute destruction. It was about drawing. Pulling vitality from the environment into himself in the most efficient stream possible. The tornadoes he was seeing here were simply the shape that the stream took when forced through the narrow channel of his current Will and body.

But the barriers were not the environment. They were obstacles in the environment. So the question became: Could he teach the tornadoes to treat the barriers the same way they treated empty space?

Not by smashing through them like battering rams, that was what he had been doing, and it was killing him, but by pulling the vitality through the barriers, weakening them from the inside until they collapsed under their own tension.

It was a subtle shift. A change of intent rather than force.

Elias closed the wisp’s eyes, or at least dimmed its glow, and sank his focus into the seven tornadoes. He did not command them; his other consciousness was doing that, and any command would clash with the Vitality Absorption technique. What Elias did was to show the tornadoes his intent.

He fed each tornado a single, crystal-clear image of the eight barrier blocking their path to the empty pool of Lumina they wanted to fill. The tornadoes seem not to be aware of the Pools of Lumina beyond this barrier, but if Elias could trick them into thinking the barrier was gone… then they could do his work for him.

One by one, he impressed the image onto each vortex. It helped that he already had eighty Pools of Lumina that he had seen and observed, and with his perfect memory, he was able to impress his Will on them without any flaws that he could observe.

The tornadoes slowed their frantic spinning. It was as if Elias’s effort to control these tornadoes had always been the right method, but he did not know it. The edges of the tornadoes softened, became less violent, more probing.

They began to extend thin tendrils toward the remaining barrier, and Elias gasped as the first tendril touched the barrier.

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