“Then, first step; compression,” Rakna muttered and encased the sphere of Eion with a formation and his own mana. “Pronos, gradually apply your Infinity Magic to it,” he instructed and the Hydra nodded. “Evelyn, Flavia, help me put more pressure on this too.”

The two girls who were called out looked at each other before complying with Barrier and Gravity Magic respectively. The Eion instantly became assailed by the many layers of force and shrunk by half. Its color began to darken and waves of heat started rising.

“Doesn’t it kind of defeat the purpose if you need several people to do it though?” Marie inquired.

“Well, I’m hoping that the System will intervene and consider it a skill,” Rakna said as he relayed the supervision of the magic formation to Eye of Symphony. “And if we’re lucky, perhaps even a Nirvana Skill can be made.”

“Of course…” Kaelith muttered to herself and before anyone could make another comment, they heard an indescribable noise. They all turned toward the sphere of Eion that was now even smaller and had gained a sort of dark spot in its center. Next, its size began to steeply decrease until there was basically nothing left for them to see with the naked eye. Instead, it was as if there was a sort of veil hiding a literal part of space from them.

“Good. Girls, maintain the pressure for a bit longer,” Rakna instructed. Flavia and Evelyn nodded with sweat forming on their foreheads and the therian used Star Flash to stand right in front of the compressed Eion. “We don’t have 12 hours so I’ll cool it down myself,” he uttered and his eyes began to spin until they became whirlpools. His body followed suit and turned into a werewolf.

He extended his hands forward and as his fur glowed cyan, a large amount of frost energy emerged from inside his body and surrounded the Eion. It slowly but gradually formed a miniature star to confine it.

Rakna exhaled a hoary breath and glanced at the others. “Pronos, Flavia, Evelyn, let go,” he ordered and they complied, cutting off the mana supply of their spells. After they were dispelled, a searing sound echoed from inside the star and the werewolf beckoned everyone to take their distance.

He carefully controlled the miniature star to float down closer to the ground and after a minute, it stopped making a steaming sound and Rakna hummed positively. “Flavia, can you do something for me? When I dispel this star, catch what comes out of it with your telekinesis. Do it very carefully as if you were handling the most fragile thing in the universe, okay?”

The Chaos With nodded uneasily. “Understood… but what is going to come out of it exactly?”

“Well…” Rakna cleared his throat. “Better not tell you yet,” he uttered and she tilted her head. “In any case, are you ready?”

“Yes…?”

“Then I’ll countdown from three,” he stated and pointed his palm at the star. “3, 2…” As the count approached its last instances, steam began to exit the frost star. Rakna casually blew it away with a bat of his wings and reached the end of his countdown. The small star faded away and he calmly urged Flavia to catch the object that popped out.

There was a bit of lingering steam blocking everyone’s view but she skillfully spotted the shadow through it and carefully caught it with her Nirvana Skill. The first thing she noticed when it got into her grasp was how light it was.

Rakna once again blew away the steam as he reverted into a therian and it was revealed that what she was holding was a strange dark-blue stone with a patchy shape.

“Is that what’s left of all that energy?” Nyx voiced her wonders and Rakna nodded.

“Yes, this is what happens when Eion atoms are fused; it solidifies. But, in a nutshell, what you see right now is an overfed atom,” he explained and smiled lightly. “Emphasizing the singularity of the word ‘atom’. This is not a molecule; it is quite literally the physical form of a giant atom.”

“Then, that means the fission--!” Flavia exclaimed and suddenly felt very scared of what she was sustaining airborne.

“Yep,” Rakna nodded with a teasing tone, to which she responded with a glare. “The very instant that this ‘rock’ is damaged in any way, the atom will split and explode. Even the tiniest of scratches can set this off. Hold it well, Flavia. It’s also very brittle. Imagine it’s foam. Even a trivial pressure will bend its shape.”

“Muu… I swear I’ll get back at you for this…” The witch mumbled with puffed-up cheeks. “At least, tell me what I’m supposed to do with this!”

“Wait a little bit--”

“Hey!”

“Pronos, did it appear on your status?” Rakna ignored the pouting woman and asked his pet who shook his nine heads at the question. “Hm, I see… Let’s blow it up then. That should consolidate it for the System. Flavia, gently place it on the barrier,” he said whilst conjuring a green buffer shield next to the Eion.

“Give me a moment….” Flavia replied and took her time to adjust the strength of her telekinesis to displace the stone until the barrier without producing any sort of impact. When she was sure that nothing had gone wrong, she heaved an audible sigh of relief.

Rakna smiled in amusement and focused on the buffer barrier he made. He flicked his fingers and made it change shape into a cone. With the Eion inside, he made it float up at a moderate speed so that there would be no shakings on the load it carried.

“Pronos, I will be releasing my barrier once it’s high enough. Keep your eyes on it and then hit it in with whatever method you prefer. You should detonate it if we want it to be confirmed as your skill,” Rakna said and the Hydra acknowledged it, opening one of his mouths to breathe out a green poison that took the form of an arrow.

“Cover your ears,” Rakna warned nonchalantly as he snapped his fingers and released the Eion to the air. Instantly after, Pronos shot the poison arrow. It zoomed through several enhancing magic circles before striking the target.

The Eion stone cracked on impact and bright cyan light illuminated the sky for the split of a second before turning into a massive eruption of blue flames and smoke. The detonation resounded for miles and the shockwave reduced patches of the ‘sugary landscape’ into smithereens. All animals in the vicinity ran away in terror and small towns far away felt dread at the sight of the mushroom of smoke on the horizon.

The detonation sounded like a crescendo of a bass, making its way through one’s ear, shaking the brain, and leaving from the other. Rakna’s group winced and rapidly covered their ears whilst resisting the winds. The therian on the other hand didn’t seem to mind. For him, thanks to Eye of Symphony, dealing with noise was as simple as changing the input volume of a microphone.

When the tremors ended and the smoke began to die down like the aftermath of a firework, Rakna smiled agreeably and looked at the others. “What do you think? Cool, right?” The answer he got was a collective smack to the back of his head by Flavia and Kaelith.

“Warn us properly when you do something like that!” The fox heiress shouted.

“And you seriously made me handle something as dangerous as that?!” Flavia followed up with a flushed face.

Rakna staggered forward from the hit and rubbed his stinging head. “Hey, be careful… My cloned self is far weaker than you two,” he muttered and they scowled at him. “Also, I did warn you. It’s not my fault if you didn’t react fast enough. As for the danger it entailed, I obviously agreed to do it with you all here knowing that foxy would save us if anything happened.”

The two women gawked at him, rendered speechless by his brazenness.

“So, how is it, little guy?” Rakna asked, the moniker once again contrasting with the behemoth size of the Nine-Headed Hydra. Pronos let out a purr-like sound from a few of his mouths and took the initiative to share a System window.

❮ ◈ ❯

After meeting the criteria and fulfilling a special set of circumstances, you have learned a new Nirvana Skill; Eion Fission Blast!

---

The System has analyzed and quantified the energy known as Eion. The Pet, Pronos, will be given two Unique Statistics; Eion Points (EP) & Eion Regeneration (ER).

Current Eion Points: 356/1000 [END*10]

Current Eion Regeneration: 50 per Hour. [END/2]

---

Eion Fission Blast

A Nirvana Skill purely available to creatures capable of generating the boundless energy of the Eternal Stones; Eion. Upon activation, the user will condense a certain amount of Eion into a sphere which will then be compressed and transmuted into an Eion Fission Stone.

The stone can be controlled mentally and will explode at the slightest damage, which makes it extremely difficult to parry or deflect. Furthermore, Eion is an energy known to be extracted from the spaces between dimensions and worlds. The explosion will naturally inherit the ability to break certain rules of physics.

Eion Cost: Variable

Mana Cost: 5 times the Eion Cost.

Attack Value: 100 ~ 5 000

Cooldown: 24 Hours.

Note: The more Eion is used, the bigger the resulting Fission Stone and blast will be.

❮ ◈ ❯

“Oh, how convenient,” Rakna commented. “It converted everything, from the compression to the cooling time, into a mana cost for you. Well, I guess I could have done the same to some extent by making a magic formation tailored for you. It all devolves into a spell, in the end, after all.”

“Look at you go,” Kaelith deadpanned. “Also, a Unique Statistic, huh? Can’t say I’ve never heard of it, but this is the first time I see one. By the way, wolfy, doesn’t your body produce that energy as well? Shouldn’t you be able to do the same thing?”

Rakna shook his head. “No. My body works on Eion, true. But there’s a massive difference between me and Pronos. Take it like this; I am a machine that runs on Eion while the little guy is Eion itself. I am plugged in; he is the plug. I can’t control or gather as much Eion as he does. Since the systems inside my body are the size of nanobots, the energy charge can never be dense enough.”

“Did you try?” Nyx asked curiously.

“No need,” the therian tapped his temple, pointing at his left eye at the same time. “All simulations and calculations are already made. The best I can do is cut off one of my limbs and compress it to make a sort of ‘alloy fission stone’. But the explosion that would follow wouldn’t be worth it in the slightest.”

“Well, it’s not that big of a loss for you. You’re already overpowered enough, you can leave some of the spotlight for us at least,” the blond said whilst fiddling with his gloves.

Rakna made a small smile. “I’m unsure… as a clone, who’s not even a fifth of my original’s strength, am I giving you enough spotlight?” He said impishly and the brawler took a metaphorical stab to his heart as the girls laughed at his expense. “Anyway, since we’re done with this, let’s check out that Trial,” he added and led his party to their destination.

* * *

Meanwhile, Natsu was drawing over the frost energy with the Eion pen, when his rather unstable dexterity made him veer off the line. “Aaah! By Hephaestus, I’m going to go crazy!” He yelled out in frustration at his eighth mistake since he started. “Why am I--!"

“Quiet down.”

“Yes, My Lord,” he immediately piped down when he heard the growly voice of his master coming from the other side of the cavern. He obediently fixed the mishap and continued his work whilst grumbling to himself, “Curse this damnable p--”

“I can hear you.”

“…I apologize, My Lord.”