Horus rapped his fingers against the stone, concentrating all his senses on the wall in front of him.
"It's a bit thicker than we guessed," he muttered. "I can cut through it in two slashes. If I make too much noise the Firespitters will come running."
He was already on edge with the lack of Firespitters. He felt like his life sense should have caught one by now, but the third floor was more deserted than he expected. It felt like the Firespitters were all gathered somewhere.
"Let's just start," Wally insisted. "If you can cut down the wall in time we can escape."
Horus' mind referred to his memory of the map. This was a wall between a sealed-off portion of the dungeon. Behind the wall was a tunnel leading out of the dungeon, but to a dangerous field above ground with terrible flying creatures.
These monsters were all Elite-tiers from what Horus knew; they were faster and stronger than any of them and it was an open field between there and Bloodhaven.
Wally had originally opposed the plan, but June suggested they use John's invisibility cloak, raising the cloak and spreading it over their heads. So the monsters flying overhead wouldn't see them.
All of that wouldn't work if their pursuers heard them and came here. Horus needed to use [Crescent Slash] accurately or he'd doom them all.
Horus got into the Deimos stance and began channeling mana. He worked through the motions carefully, while gauging his control over the energy being trapped and suppressed in his sword.
Wally and John moved away, going to carve Skill shards out of the dead monsters and talk quietly. Wally glanced back at June, who stayed behind and smiled slightly, before putting an arm around John's shoulder and dragging him off.
By projecting his Life sense from the back of his head, Horus was able to sense all of them at once and a bit farther into the tunnels.
[Lifesight] > 21 > 22 (Adept)
The range of his skill stretched a bit farther. The system was truly benevolent, at least if you kept at something. Skills increasing in levels meant they grew in raw power you could output and the number of times you could use them.
[Crescent Slash] needed a large amount of Twilight mana to activate; increasing skill levels could help him. But only when his mana received the qualitative transformation of reaching Adept-tier could he consistently use it.
So skills get stronger with levels, but you still need proficiency to utilise them.
[Crescent Slash] was a scary attack. Even Elite-tier swordsmen would hesitate to face it head on, but in the hands of a sloppy fighter it could be avoided or cause problems.
He stared at the blade in his hand, swinging through the air slowly as he gathered mana. The celestial lights adorning its midnight-black body made it shimmer like millions of stars.
When he completed the movement, Horus held for a second. Then he released all the mana with a sigh using [Fading].
June blinked. "Why didn't you do it?"
"It'll fail. The noise will attract too many enemies."
"That was a lot of mana though…" June sighed. "I think… I don't know how to quantify it."
Horus turned to her. "Your [Perception] will probably evolve into [Mana sight]. It's probably what you're feeling."
It was a skill for spellcaster types, allowing them to judge the flow of mana from other mages even when they couldn't see the enemy directly.
"Forget me," June said, waving it off. "Why isn't the sub-skill working for you?"
Horus swung his sword casually, feeling the mana flowing through his arm and sword before escaping into the air.
"Back when we were in the tunnels, I did everything I was taught, but it came out wrong. Each swing stores energy and compresses it to the boiling point, then I end it with a slash unleashing everything in a perfect silver crescent."
Horus grew silent, pondering what he was missing while June nodded.
"I don't know what Twilight mana is like, but compressing mana is a bit easy for me," June explained. "Depending on the spell…"
Her silver eyes grew thoughtful and she began to strum a tune. Horus felt his mind sharpen fractionally and his body grew lighter. It was a spell that buffed allies.
It was also a nice song. June's face screwed up with concentration as she played, carefully picking each string like they were sharp.
Then she lost whatever she was holding and the song lost all of its magical qualities.
"So compressing the mana doesn't work for that spell," Horus commented.
June nodded and let her instrument sag with a sigh. "My mana follows a rhythm for casting. That spell had a lot of release points so trying to compress the mana is like holding my breath while singing."
An intrusive thought left Horus' mouth before he could stop himself. "I've never heard you sing."
"I sing sometimes at special occasions or closing hours at a job, but I'm bad with lyrics so I stick to playing. But in any case why is this important?"
"No reason," Horus said quickly, ignoring her suspicious gaze.
June huffed, brushing her red hair back. "Fine, then tell me how Twilight mana moves."
He doubted how much she could help, but explained either way. "Twilight mana is like the breath or flickering of a dying candle."
June nodded. "I see. That makes no sense."
"More than mana moving like a song?" Horus said with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah because how a candle flickers is completely out of your control, maybe breath is something that could work. You could compress mana by holding your breath?"
Horus shook his head. It was a good suggestion, given that he had trained mana control using breath when he was unawakened, but that wasn't how Twilight mana worked.
"Twilight mana is only like a breath or candle in the sense that both hang between death. It's that moment between the end of something. The dying embers of life. Before it's reborn with the next breath."
"So the death of something," June mumbled. "But also time."
Horus blinked. "Wait…"
He swung his celestial steel sword again, this time gauging the time it took before the mana was released from his sword.
"Did I inspire you in my confusion?" June said with dull eyes. "Because I don't really understand how you can control that. What are you compressing in this situation: death or time or rebirth?"
"Time."