Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 44: Acquire

Toren Daen

I looked down at my chest, feeling a childlike sort of wonder as the pulsing fire stared back. It was red as blood and engulfed my heart, the flames licking at my ribcage. It thumped in rhythm with my heartbeat, flaring and retreating with the flow. Through the lens of my Phoenix Will, I saw things I would never have thought possible.

I felt aware of the world in a way I never experienced before. Every sound had so much more to them than just vibrations through the air. They had shape and character, charting paths through the world around them with a story all of their own. Fire wasn't just a chemical reaction, spurred on by heat causing a change. Fire... fire was emotion in its rawest, unfiltered form, without a care for the surroundings or who it might burn. My Will whispered all of this through my ear, allowing my mind to expand to new heights.

I looked at Lawris at my feet. He was crying as he clutched a wound on his thigh. The shrapnel from breaking my metal shackles had launched a piece into his leg, and a quick overview told me it might've severed the femoral artery. It was bleeding extensively, a shimmer of red pooling underneath.

I watched with a mix of muted fascination and horror as the red fire over the boy's heart slowly withered, growing smaller and smaller as his blood spilled onto the floor. I could see tiny, wisplike embers simmering from the pool of red liquid.

I shook my head, pulling myself from my reverie. I focused on my telekinesis rune, and my journal–which had been clutched in one of Lawris' hands–drifted from his grasping fingers. It floated over to me, allowing me to pluck it out of the air.

"This belongs to me," I said lowly. The fire in Lawris' chest gave one, final heave, then winked out. He stilled at the same time, his struggling and whimpering ceasing. The embers in his blood evaporated.

I felt a distant sort of pity for the boy. His death was meaningless; accomplishing nothing. For so many years to pass by, only to culminate in such an indignant end? It felt like a waste, even for someone I hated.

The death of his son spurred Lawrent out of his stupor, making him rush toward me with a roar. Lightning coalesced in a ball in his hand, which he threw with the speed of an arrow.

A flare of telekinesis met it, causing it to burst midair. Lawrent began to conjure a dozen more orbs of lightning, each crackling with the power of a storm. At the edge of the room, I met Dornar's eyes.

He inched to the side, aiming for the door. I slammed it shut with a mental push, locking the man inside with me.

I took a step forward just as Lawrent yelled, his pudgy body already matted with sweat. His attacks flew at me all in unison. I stared them down, the second presence in my head a breath of air in my lungs. I tucked my journal into the waistband of my pants, ensuring it would remain safe against the coming battle.

Before, I would've struggled to counter this spell. In such close quarters, with so many attacks screaming toward me, I would've been overwhelmed. I could only throw out so many fireballs; so many telekinetic pushes.

But now, what felt like a burden was light as rain. A flurry of telekinetic pushes flared in front of me, meeting each and every sphere of lightning in a raucous crash. Tendrils of electricity arced and sputtered around, cutting smoking furrows in the floorboards and causing the building to creak.

Two constructs of fire jumped at me from my flanks, their feline features snarling viciously. I snapped my hands out to the side, focusing on the nimbus of power in my sternum. Sound and fire mana gathered in my palms, then meshed together.

With this new strength, I could see how they danced. Sound wasn't just atoms vibrating through the air; it was the essence of molecules' movement through all matter. I took that and applied it to fire mana, which encompassed heat. Heat was the rapid movement of atoms; generic thermal energy.