Slipping on a hidden stone, Fel barely avoided the descending scythe. Feeling the wind slash past his neck, Fel twisted his head, discovering the reaper hovering behind him, eyes simmering with annoyance.

“You’re like a fucking cockroach aren’t you?”

Archaios readied his fist, fortifying it with complex runes that linked together to form a massive, archaic gauntlet that radiated the very essence of death itself, causing the surrounding plants and trees to wither.

Before Fel could even prepare himself, the gauntlet rocketed into his abdomen, shattering his armour and sending Fel flying back, his runic armour disintegrating around him.

A dozen black runes stuck to Fel's person and feasted on his vitality, wrinkling up his flesh and turning it a sickly grey.

“What level are you?” Coughed Fel as he spat out a glob of blackened blood, glaring at Archaios as he raised his scythe high over his head.

“Level 1 middle.”

Then, the scythe fell.

---

Blood splattered on the ground, the stunning silver contrasting with the dark, bare earth. At one end of the trail of silver blood was a slender arm with a steel sheen and white-silver veins, being slowly chewed on by long, black tendrils of deathly energy.

At the other was a metallic angel who looked as if she had leapt out of from a painting, with limpid, quicksilver eyes and long wings, full of metal feathers, that looked as if God himself had taken his time to sculpt each and every one of them to perfection.

Yet the image was marred. An ivory hue flushed the angel from head to toe. Her face, contorted in pain as she tried to move her missing right arm, cut cleanly off at the shoulder, silver blood flowing through the thin, black, mist that hung around the gaping wound, sinking into the earth beneath.

Eyes swivelling into focus, Fel witnessed the scythe descend, the flash of metallic wings and the splatter of brilliant silver, along with the fall of Siyla, who was now struggling on the ground, a haunting grim reaper stood above her, scythe rising into the air yet again, hungry for its meal.

Something, something deep, deep inside the depths of Fel’s mind broke, like a sledgehammer to a padlock. A golden circle shone into existence on his forehead, and a blood-red tint descended across his vision, that was quickly replaced by a thunderous gold as his veins turned to an identical colour.

His internal energy converted itself into two other energies. One jerking with bolts of lightning, and the other glowing with a divine light.

The internal energy kept converting to these energies until not a single drop of internal energy was left behind

The strands of converted energy fused together into a thunderous sphere that emanated a dense, suppressive aura that oozed through every pore of his body. It was so dense and powerful that his body could hardly withstand it. So much so that his body was falling apart, his organs rupturing under the all-encompassing pressure.

While his parivartana lines gave him a certain resistance towards lightning and divine energy, it did no such thing towards this thunderous sphere.

To bring the situation under control, Fel pulled on the sphere, extracting as much energy as he could from it. He sent it hurtling through his lines, and out of his body, sending bolts of lightning in all directions, disintegrating the plants around him and ripping apart the earth.

Seeing they were approaching Siyla, Fel stopped discharging the energy and pulled it back towards him. But Fel wasn't being suicidal, instead of taking it into his body he compressed it into a layer above his skin, like a suit of armour. He kept on compressing the layer as it absorbed more and more lightning, even as the pressure tore his body apart. Before long, the layer was so dense it was almost solid, as if it made of a milky-gold metal.

Archaios took a step back, extending his black, runic armour over his entire body, drawing out an ancient scythe, made of weathered, jet-black steel, a short spike protruding from the end of its handle. Flicking his hand, he conjured a dozen, large, black runes, and let them rotate around his person.

Without a word, Archaios disappeared in a shadowy blur before appearing before Fel, curving his scythe behind Fel's neck then pulling it back towards him, trying to behead him in one shot.

Yet the scythe couldn't penetrate the 'armour,' and could only tear it slightly, from which a spurt of lightning erupted out, like blood from an artery.

In the next instant, Archaios, flipped the scythe around, jabbing at Fel's chest with its end. Yet the jab only penetrated the armour slightly, from which an eruption of lightning leapt from, this time right at Archaios.

Swinging a large rune before him, Archaios blocked the blast of lightning, only for a flurry of thunderous fists to push him back.

A few metres away from Fel, Archaios dispersed his now ruined rune, "Tch, how does your lightning restrain my death energy? To such a degree as well..."

Opposite Archaios, Fel redirected the majority of his new energy into a sphere above his palm, extending it into a long javelin. The mere radiation from the javelin fried his palm, whilst its pressure compacted the earth beneath him to stone.

Fel held the javelin in place, compressing as much energy as he could within it, so much so that tiny, milky-gold runes flickered into existence around it. One would only need a glance to know these runes were the embodiment of this new energy, of this Heavenly Lightning.

Archaios tried to run away, he knew he couldn't block that javelin, but found that he couldn't move at all. He was rooted on the spot, locked down by the rune's aura. The Heavenly Lightning completely suppressed his death energy, so much so that he could hardly revolve the death energy within his body, even his runic armour was melting away.

After Fel had compressed all the lightning energy he could into the Javelin, he drew it back, made sure it was aimed dead on at Archaios, then hurled it forth with all his might.

The javelin's pressure tore apart the earth, annihilating even the smallest speck of earth as it flew by. Yet, even though it consisted of lightning, not a single spark flew from it, only an endless ocean of pressure.

Seeing the approaching javelin, Archaios used all his strength to mobilise a smidgeon of his death energy, just enough for him to take a stone token from his spatial storage and smash it between his fingers.

The stone fragments evaporated into a grey mist that wrapped around him, condensing into a dense fog that obscured his person before closing in, vanishing from sight, taking him with it.

The javelin hurtled through the air, and kept going, till it struck the distant valley wall, around six kilometres away. All the compacted energy was released in the collision, resulting in a giant explosion, so great it rivalled that of a conventional missile. The milky-gold runes followed suit, and while their explosions weren't nearly as large, they released a strange form of radiation that clung to the compacted earth. Neither undead nor mortal would be able to tread that land for half a century.

The technique had syphoned every last drop of energy from Fel’s body, so much so that his weakened body couldn’t even support itself and began to collapse under its own weight. An illusory figure appeared within the circle on Fel's forehead and waved its misty arms around. Fel's parivartana lines moved in response, wriggling around like golden worms.

Aerl, who was spectating from within Fel’s collapsing mind-space, could only look on in panic as Fel’s parivartana lines went insane. Strangely enough, he couldn't sense the illusory figure. Yet, as Aerl looked on, he found that the lines were moving to a more orderly state.

After the lines had settled, the illusory figure let out a sigh, before dissipating to the winds. Its work was finished.

No longer were they a mess of lines, circles and runes, seemingly branded arbitrarily across his body. There were was now a clear symmetry with two distinct layers that overlapped to form a greater formation. The two of the four, dense, circles around his shoulders had vanished, with the other two moving to the flats of his shoulder blade.

Scanning Fel’s body, Aerl found tiny golden strands littered across the top of his skin, leftovers from the ‘evolution’ or perhaps, ‘optimization’ would be a more suitable term.

Thinking it would be bad if someone walked by and accidentally brushed off the golden strings. Aerl kicked his brain into overdrive to find some way to use them. Paravartana lines were precious things, their ability to grant their users affinities to various energies was priceless.

Glancing at Siyla’s unconscious body, Aerl knew exactly what to do. Searching through his tattered books, he found a technique to manipulate the parivartana lines and form them into various seals.

Hopping into the spirit weapon he twisted the golden strings into the only complete seal in the book: a sacred-attributed seal. Though it was complicated, parivartana lines were renowned for being easy to manipulate.

Aerl then took the seal and embedded it into Siyla’s heart. Compared to Fel’s lines that spanned his entire body, Siyla’s lines only stretched over her heart. However, the seal was unique because it would grow over time as it was supplied with energy, in this case, sacred energy. If given enough time, it could grow to be just as extensive as Fel’s.

Giving one last glance over the situation, he found that Fel’s situation had stabilised. His body glowing with a soft, heavenly light as the golden lines set in. While the two were half dead and vulnerable to any passerby, they were alive.

But Aerl couldn’t leave them like this, he had to do something. Hijacking Fel’s communication rune, he sent an emergency signal to all his contacts, obviously, without voice input. It was only then Aerl could lie back. He had done all he could.

---

Eyes flickering open, Fel regained his consciousness, finding himself in a large room, plastered in white with a cold, blue crystal, hung in the middle of the ceiling, being the sole provider of the light. Fortunately, the crystal was rather bright, so the room was well-lit.

Images of silver blood and thunderous lightning flashed through his mind, followed by a looming reaper. Then, nothing. He jerked up, sitting with his back as straight as a ruler as he scanned the room, sighing in relief as he spotted Siyla at the other side of the room, softly sleeping under clean sheets, wearing a crisp gown.

He was about to walk over to her before he noticed something wrong. Something very, very wrong. The blue points of light, that had always hovered at the edge of his vision, were gone. Without so much as a speck in sight. In fact, he couldn’t sense any energy around him whatsoever. Yet, while his body felt fine, he himself was drained of energy. It was a new feeling. One of complete emptiness.

Yet, he had to push this aside for now. It was more important to check on Siyla. Silently shifting over, Fel made it to her bedside. He reached out to her missing limb, face dark, before retracting it. He didn’t want to wake her up.

“Aerl… what happened?”

From within Fel’s mind-space, Aerl, tossed the book he was trying to decipher to the side, not forgetting to leave a bookmark for later, “Oh, you’re finally awake. You good?”

“I am, she isn’t. Is he alive?”

“N-Yes, he got away. Though I assure you he won’t be coming back any time soon.”

Fel clenched his fist, “I wish he would.”

A faint voice floated up from the hospital bed, “Is that you Fel.”

The clouds of fury melted away from Fel’s person as he replied, “Yes, it’s me.”

Siyla grabbed onto the side of the bed with her arm and hoisted herself up.

“No, no, you really shouldn’t be doing that!”

In response to Fel’s worries, Siyla out to Fel’s head, burying her hands in his hair before abruptly clutching his head and throwing him to the ground.

“I’m not a damsel in distress!” Cried Siyla, grinning widely, tossing aside her sheets and rolling out of bed. Pinning Fel’s head under her feet to prove her point.

Seeing that Siyla was still going strong, Fel’s mood lifted, his mouth curving up in a small smile.

Yet, at the most inopportune moment, a yellow-robed Mage creaked open the door, bearing witness to a joyous Siyla pressing her heel down on a grinning Fel's head.

“W-well, you do you.” With a bead of sweat dripping down his chin, the emo-haired Mysvain shimmied out of the room.

He paused, going back to the door, edging it open, “By, the way, once you’re done, you can eat in the hall, here's a map of the shelter."

Blushing bright ivory, Siyla set down her foot down and pulled Fel up, “Let’s go, before he gets any ideas.”

Fel held in his retort – he probably already had a lot of ideas.

---

Sitting in the mess hall, the duo took the menu and ordered the first thing that caught their eye. While the lightning Mages called it a mess hall, it resembled a high-class restaurant more than anything, you could even order food to your room if you wished.

“Say, aren’t your tattoo’s a little different?”

“Are they?”

Siyla congealed a mirror, pointing it at Fel.

“Ah, so they are… Speaking of which, I do feel a little different.”

“Aerl, you’ve been moping around for awhile, show me my status.”

“Can’t help it. It’s not like to sideline me for Siyla or anything.” Aerl let out a long sigh, “Here you go.”

Fel Evenstar

Level: 1 (98% - Middle)

Affinities: Lightning (9), Divine (9)

Life Expectancy: 275 years

Innate Abilities:

1. Heavenly Thunder Constitution

Grants the possessor high affinities with Lightning and Divine energies, along with the ability to create and manipulate Heavenly Thunder. However, the possessor must cultivate with both energies at once, otherwise, the possessor’s body will not be refined.

2. Parivartana Lines v2

Allows for the possessor to easily channel internal energies and fuse them into compound energy. The Possessor can also channel energy into armour or wings. Energy runes can be substituted for this process for increased effectiveness.

“What the...” His status screen was almost unrecognisable, hardly resembling its previous state.

Not only was he at the middle stage, but the Parivartana Lines had a completely different function, it was more like an artifact than anything.

Seeing Fel’s frown, Siyla reached across the table and shook his shoulder, “You alright?”

“Yes, I just have to double check something,” replied Fel as he mentally turned to Aerl.

“What’s up with this?”

“I can explain your new constitution. You see, the pure body constitution is more of a blank slate, and your lines kept that slate blank. But when you exposed it to a large amount of high-tier energy, you coloured it in.”

“However, I've no idea why your lines changed. While I know a thing or two about parivartana line manipulation, I can’t create anything that intricate.”

“Fel~ you there?”

"Ah, sorry. Look over there, dinner's here!"