Chapter 44 - Father And Son

“The letter from little Gracie? Is that where it went? I had intended to give it to you when you were older, but... I never knew what I did with it."

“It’s fine, Dad. I would’ve found it in the end anyway, and finding it now made me realise that with your help I can save Cleo."

“Well I can't deny your focus. Is she all you think about?”

“Yes,” Laurence said honestly. “She’s all that is ever on my mind, and she will be until I revive her."

“But what if you can't revive her? What if there are no ways to truly bring her back from the cycle of reincarnation? Will you turn her into some kind of revenant, or just restore her body and use it like a thrall?”

“Turning her into a revenant would be too cruel, and I would lose the chance of finding a solution later if I did. And the thrall? That will never happen. Resorting to that would be complete failure, something I will never accept."

“So why are you so certain you have to use the well? What gives you the confidence to even try where millions of Mephisos, alive and dead, have failed?”

“This." Laurence took the pendant off his chest and quickly drew an array on the floor. Carefully he set the simple necklace down at the heart of the array before detaching the stone from it. As he stepped away with the simple chain swinging in his hands the stone grew in size, until it was as big as it had been in his home. Inside was that same beautiful scarlet-haired woman, with the same look of pride and pain upon her face, even as her body died. Her irreparably broken mana reservoir floated in front of her, surrounded by thin specks of blood, sparkling like fireflies within the crystalline shell that surrounded her.

“Is that...?”

“Cleopatra Tiberian Ignis, the love of my life." Laurence sighed as he tentatively placed a hand on the crystal. Every time he looked at her he could not divorce the joy and pain that he felt; the joy of seeing the woman he loved, and the pain caused by the situation she was in. “Before you even think about it, don’t try to touch the crystal. You’ll become encased like she is, and it will be a pain to get you out again."

Hearing that Angus momentarily stepped back, but he did not stop looking at the woman who had been frozen in time upon the moment of her death. He looked back at Laurence and, seeing the pain upon his face, he sighed. “Alright, show me how far you’ve come in combat. If you can prove yourself to me then I’ll give you the key. I’ll even tell you the location to the second one, but you have to prove that you actually have the capability to protect the keys in your possession."

“Alright, I agree,” Laurence said as he picked up his spear. With a wave of his hand and a small amount of mana Laurence formed a simple hammerhead below the blade of the spear. “I hope you don’t mind me changing the spear, I feel more comfortable using a hammer anyway."

“It’s fine. Show me how far you’ve come with the Book of Destruction, I’m curious to see what martial style you’ve created."

Laurence nodded. Letting the hammer hang loosely in his hand, head against the ground, he smiled. His entire body relaxed, but the mana that floated in the air around him began to churn. “First, the offensive stances."

The hammer in his hands began to rotate as his fingers rolled against the haft. “Gamaliel...” Quickly, it picked up speed and as he moved to strike his father, a funnel of wind that originated from the head of the hammer shot into the sky. It raised Angus off the floor easily and the man could only break out of the turbulent winds after releasing an excessively large amount of mana. Before he could react further however, Laurence whispered “Netzach!” and his second strike landed. Immediately the mana that Angus had built up shattered and he was caught up in the turbulent winds once more. They were weaker, so he could fight against them, but Laurence would not let him. With each strike that followed a shadow appeared behind Laurence that added to his strength. Despite each strike increasing the power of the next by a fold, Angus still shrugged off each blow like it was nothing. It was only when Laurence smashed the hammer into Angus for the tenth time that the older man began to notice something changing. The phrase “Naamah” slipped out between Laurence’s lips and immediately the shadows combined with him. His power spiked and the overhead strike that followed was tenfold stronger than his previous strongest strike.

Using the spear in his hands, Angus tried to block the strike in its entirety, but it still caused his knees to buckle slightly. The ground beneath his feet crunched as it was crushed by the force that travelled through the body of the older man. They both shuddered as the strike was successfully blocked, but Angus reacted a moment quicker than his son. He punched Laurence in the side to disperse some of the wildly churning mana that had invaded his body. As his fist slipped against his son’s ribs, a whisper of the phrase “Yesod” could be heard. Laurence spun like a top, even as his hammer slipped down, off the haft of the spear. He slowly steadied himself, but the rotation continued like a windmill spinning against his body. Taking a step back, Laurence settled the rotating force and grinned. “Samael!” he roared and thrust out. A pillar of light as thick as a tree trunk shot out from the tip of his hammer and rammed into Angus, sending him skittering back. Even so, as the beam of light pushed against the older man, he managed to divert it and send the main force of the strike high into the sky. As the light cleared Laurence saw his father, bare chested and sizzling from the heat of the beam. Before his very eyes the terrible burns that had been inflicted upon Angus’ flesh healed up in a single breath.

“Pretty solid so far,” the older man said while grinning at his son’s obvious shock. “The fact that you could force my body to visibly heal rather than just heal upon the instant that it was damaged shows there is a good amount of force behind your strikes. But is that it?”

“The rest is not tested in true combat,” Laurence said wistfully. “I’ve never had a real chance to use them so I don’t know how effective my new forms will be."

“Oh?”

“They should be stronger, but the strongest part is... It’s incomplete. If it was complete then my entire path of destruction would be complete, and we wouldn’t even be having this engagement."

“So are you stuck with it?”

“Yeah, that’s one way to put it. My martial form has twenty stances, seven attack, seven defense and six support stances. I’ve mastered six attack, seven defense, and six support stances. But that last stance... I’m really missing something with it."

“How did you come to that number of stances? It seems... lopsided. Why seven, seven, six and not three sevens?”

“It comes from the concept I chose for the basis of my path of Destruction. I picked two sides and they had... they have to be equal. I don't know how in depth you've studied Destruction as a path, but the concept is pivotally important to your completed martial art. My concept was the thing I knew best. The creator and the destroyer. Back when I was first studying in the Empty Throne school I came across an image that depicted the thrones of creation and destruction. I saw the names, and the pattern, and thought it was a prefect fit to my brand new martial arts concept." Laurence flicked his hammer between his palms restlessly as he spoke. Even now he was still working out how to complete the final step that would propel him into ascendance. “Did you know that the way a martial art of the Book of Destruction is formed is by taking mana and breaking it down, then compressing it into incredibly malleable essence, which in turn you can manipulate for fantastical effects? It's far more complex than the standard bursts of energy and curses that most people use to fight, and because of its complexity I, and everyone else before me, needed to create keywords that allowed me to perform each stance as quickly and as uniformly as possible. I have nineteen keys, and the twentieth key I know, but the very lock it is supposed to go into is incomplete.” the hammer slipped slightly in his palms, and there was a slight change in the whistling of the hammer between Laurence’s fingers. It was a small slip, but was like a record scratching in his movement, something an Immortal of his caliber should have never experienced. “I was overeager, and I think I might have made the task far more difficult than I should have. The time taken to learn each stance is compounded upon the previous, and so unless there’s a break in my misfortune, I may take the rest of the cycle to complete it. In essence, I’ve screwed myself Dad, but I still need to find the well."

“You stupid boy...” Angus sighed. “Show me the rest of what you have and I’ll see if you’re good enough. If not, I think I’ve got someone who will work well with you. Show me how much damage you can truly cause. Show me what an avatar of Destruction can truly do."


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