Song of Destruction

II

The sky was awash with yellow, orange and red as the blazing sun hung on the horizon, dark blue climbing it's way past on the opposite side of the sky.

Aurelius got up, stretching his body to get rid of the feeling of staleness in his muscles. Though stale at the same time his body and soul felt light and full of energy. He walked over to the side of the cave while tying his hair up in a messy bun. Reaching the wall of the cave he placed his mask on his face, put up his hood and grabbed his scythe. When he let go of his mask it simply stuck to his face as if he had glued it on. He twirled his scythe around a bit before shifting into a stance and slashing his scythe towards an empty stretch of space in one fluid motion, his movements a blur as he completed the action within an instant. Wind billowed through the empty cave, flickers of black and blue that had erupted from his scythe flowing with the wind, tracing chaotic patterns in the air. Once again he stood casually and twirled his scythe a bit more before slapping it onto his back, the scythe staying in place even after his hand left the shaft. He stretched a bit once more and let out a breath.

The night had begun.

Pushing forward with one leg his figure blurred, arriving at the entrance of the cave in two steps. At the entrance of the cave he turned around and jumped, rocketing upward and landing on the crest of the smoldering volcano. 'the sun set right in line with the entrance of the cave, so straight forward should be east', he turned a bit to the left, 'and that, should be northeast', he sighed, thinking to himself. He had come here to fight a Titan. Why? To become stronger of course. With strength one could travel wherever they wished to, they could do whatever they desired, and most importantly they could protect everything that they held dear... and beat up whoever dared to try to take it all away.

But in any case the profits he could gain from the Titan could be split into two categories, one, the experience itself, and two, it's Core Fragments. To step upon the path of power meant to form a core. All souls have an energy, essence, that can be manipulated, changed and formed, and to create a core is to push it inward towards the solar plexus and forge it through ones intent. What was intent? Well intent is simply ones understanding of something. The weaving of intent and soul essence is what allowed the Pathbound to materialize an element, be it fire, water, wind, or some more obscure powers like poison, shadow and metal, there was countless powers in existence and even more variations of those powers. No two powers were the same, even the powers of two people which seemed to be perfectly similar would be different, even if only by a fraction. Once the core was formed, the energy that resided within would be soul essence that bore the aspects of the intent that was involved in creating the core. This power, while being the exact same as it's materialized counterpart, was still soul essence, that could then be materialized into an element, and so was simply referred to as soul essence. What a particular type of soul essence was called was determined by the person who bore it. He personally named his own, Voidweave.

The Titan that he had come to fight in particular was called the Firelight Titan. What was Firelight? Well, just like the soul naturally created Soul Essence, the world itself had something similar, Light. Not regular light but auras of various elements that permeated everything, kinda like a light that you can't see. Firelight essentially referred to all heat-type light. Similarly there was Waterlight, Lifelight, Earthlight, and more specific ones as well. One cultivated by drawing in a unique blend of Light that together matched their own essence. The Firelight Titan was called the Firelight Titan because it was the hegemon of all heat-type beasts.

The bright glow of lava melded with Aurelius' own sunset colored eyes as he stared at the churning of molten rock beneath him. He closed his eyes, feeling Voidweave essence flowing through his back and sprouting out as massive wings that flared with black and blue, flickering and flowing with unnatural calm, like time itself had slowed. Bringing his mighty wings down he flew over the volcano, gliding through the air like butter. He flapped his wings, flying higher and higher into the night. In whichever direction the heat increased he flew, flew, and flew some more for what felt like an hour at the least before he saw an absolutely colossal volcano that pierced the sky. He could immediately tell he had reached his destination as the heat had reached a maximum, and of course the extremely big volcano, there simply was no way he hadn't reached the Firelight Titan's lair. 'The big dude should be resting considering the heat is at its lowest at midnight', he thought for a moment then looked up, to the crest of the ginormous volcano, 'which means he should be in there'. It was a calculated guess, considering it was the hegemon of fire and heat type elemental beasts and the volcano before him should be its lair, it was likely that while resting it would be inside the volcano.

   Unperturbed by the unreasonable size of the volcano Aurelius flapped his Voidwoven wings, a blur as he sped through the air. He seemed to glide through the air soundlessly as if the wind paid him no heed. Within minutes he crossed the great distance to the top of the volcano, landing with grace on it's cusp.

   Aurelius' coat fluttered in the air along with the searing breeze, his dark wings dissipating into motes of black and blue. It sure was hot here, hell a regular human would have already died of the heat by now. Letting out a small chuckle, Aurelius looked down into the furious yellow glow of the lave beneath him, and sure enough, there it was, in all its hot glory, 'pun intended', the Firelight Titan itself, well it couldn't be seen but he could sense it submerged in the lava, 'heh, this the second time I've done this, both the looking into lava from the crest of a volcano part and the going to fight the Firelight Titan part". Aurelius' grin widened, he had already used up some of his essence coming here, though not much it was enough to put him at a disadvantage. He raised his palm, staring as gold and white spun in it's heart. 'Well then, I'll just have to sneak in a good strike'.

   Yes, Aurelius had not one but two cores. Looking over the great view from the crest of the absurdly tall volcano he thought back nostalgically to the time he created his second core. He had split his core in two, cleanse one half of its Voidweave essence and reforge both halves into a Voidweave core and a Solar core at the same time. It was hard, it temporarily weakened him, but it was worth it.

   Aurelius reached behind him and grabbed his scythe, shifting into stance. Incandescent gold and white blazed over his body and his scythe as he augmented himself with Solar essence. Then without wasting another second he threw himself down the volcano as fast as he could, which was pretty damn fast when he enforced himself. Coupled with gravity he flew like a missile, Solflames flooding the volcano as he brought down his scythe with all his might.

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