Enoch was relentless.
He almost seemed careless. He dove in again and again, his blades shattering in rapid succession, his body accumulating blunt wounds.
He didn't have the time to display his refined swordsmanship, or even the depth of control he possessed over his spark; the old man's beatdown was so brutal that he couldn't even initiate a single sequence of offense.
A fist slid across his face, shattering his jaw. An elbow tore into his chest, breaking his sternum, and a thick, powerful leg slammed into his ribs, sending him flying.
Each of the old man's attacks carried echoing waves of aether that ravaged his body, his core damaged and his veins on the verge of rupture as he slid across the ground, blood left in his wake.
It was violent.
Anyone who truly paid attention would notice that… none of this made sense.
Enoch was nothing but a G-rank mortal, one who hadn't undergone any evolutions and whose spark was barely developed.
Yet somehow, under the ridiculous speed and power of the old man, his body didn't break. Or rather, it didn't break as much as it should have, and over time, it almost seemed to grow more resilient.
He was slow, but he was getting faster. His fists were weak, but they were getting tougher. His skin was soft, but it was getting rougher.
He accumulated blunt wounds, as if his flesh refused to tear open, and his bones remained strong, only lightly fracturing under the assault.
And the pain.
It seemed that the more of it he felt, the happier he became, and the stronger he grew, like a mad beast living out its final moments.
'…'
He was calm. So much so that it was almost paradoxical.
His mind was battered by conflicting waves of euphoria and agony, enough that one would expect him to have lost it entirely, to be cowering in fear, or drowning in delusional bravado.
But he was calm.
"GOOD!"
The old man slapped his palms together, and when he separated them, blood began to leak and pool between them, twisting and condensing into a long, heavy halberd formed from thick, congealed blood.
"Let's see if you can form that God Class!"
…
Unlike Enoch, who was pushing himself to his absolute limits in hopes of achieving a legendary form of power he had never attained in the past, Uriel simply wanted to live.
He fought to survive. To not die.
He and the little witch stood across from one another, silent.
Uriel's body was a pitiful sight.
Some parts were burned, others frozen and encased in blocks of ice, others still lingering with arcs of lightning. From time to time, he coughed, spitting out mouthfuls of water trapped in his lungs.
His skin was torn and bruised, blood covering him, and his left arm was broken, twisted in its socket at a horrifying angle. He also couldn't feel his right leg.
But he was standing.
On the other hand, the little witch wasn't nearly as beaten as he was, but her tunic was stained with blood nonetheless, her azure face pale and her yellow eyes trembling.
She was a mage-type. Even the slightest amount of physical damage was deadly to her, and with the sheer amount of backlash her core had endured, she didn't feel that her condition was all that different from his.
It was silent.
Yellow eyes met golden eyes, the former wary and trembling, the latter calm, almost distant and aloof.
Uriel nodded slowly.
"Resonance," he muttered, his voice hoarse. "That's how you make the link."
The little witch's eyes bulged, but it was too late.
WHOOOOSH!
Just like when Uriel controlled his aether with nothing but his mind and will, he reached out, resonating with the world around him, with its aether.
It was ridiculously easy. All aether seemed to bend and plead for it. All he had to do was allow it to happen, and the resonance formed.
It was almost laughable that he had struggled so much to understand it before.
'The resonance between my natal aether and the atmospheric aether bridges the two into a single pool I can use. Atmospheric aether serves as the fuel, and my natal aether as the sharpening and guiding tool.'
Uriel chuckled. The sound was immediately followed by harsh coughs that rocked his body and nearly pulled him off his feet.
'And runes are born from that resonance; from my intent, and the intent of the world. Runes are a language that codes and molds the transformation of aether, but also its changes. A language used to order and command the world.'
He fell to his knees, his vision darkening and his focus slipping just as the pain he had been ignoring surged back through his body.
His jaw clenched, and he forced it down, refocusing on his train of thought.
He was close.
'Form resonance. Birth runes from the resonance. Define the purpose and sequence each rune controls. Then form a formation that factors it all in.'
'Then cast a spell.'
BANG!
A spell circle that had been forming over his head, lethal and precise, shattered with nothing more than a flicker of his core.
He pushed himself upright, wobbly, and exhaled a long breath of exhaustion and strain. His focus waned and began to fade, but this time, he didn't mind.
His task was done.
'I'll just copy her runes for now.'
The pain returned like an avalanche. Tears brimmed in his eyes, his teeth cracking under the strain. His coughing returned as well, far more violent and ragged than before.
But as was said, his task was done.
All that remained was victory.
WHOOOSH!
A gigantic spell circle assembled behind him, mirroring the little witch's perfectly. Half the aether in Uriel's core burned away, and the spell circle doubled in size, dwarfing hers and filling the dimensional space.
The little witch couldn't stop trembling, staring upward not in fear, but in awe and shock.
She couldn't believe it.
It made no sense.
'How did he… my spell sentry… who…'
A spell circle assembled in front of her face in a blink, and in the next, a sickening crunch echoed as an earthen spear burst from the circle and tore through her head.
She fell backward, shocked, her body going limp.
Dead.
Silence.
All that remained were Uriel's whimpers and groans of pain, broken only by the wet violence of his coughing.
[First Wave Cleared!]