Chapter 389: PUSHING THE LIMITS
At the outskirts of the Eldoria, there is a particular cavern that was protruding numerous ear screeching sounds that drove ferocious beast’s away.
This cavern deep beneath the fractured leyline pulsed faintly with silver light. The Eternal of Judgement stood at the center, her ethereal form wreathed in radiant chains that hummed with authority. Ethan knelt before her, sweat already running down his brow though the training had only just begun. He could feel it—the crushing pressure of her domain, a force that stripped away all pretenses and demanded nothing but absolute truth from one’s soul.
"Again," her voice was stern, reverberating like a tolling bell, each syllable pressing into his chest. "You are not walking the path. You are still clinging to human logic. Mistwalkers were not bound by such triviality—they breathed possibility. Their mana was not a weapon. It was creation itself. Show me that resolve."
Apparently, Ethan’s mana attribute is an exact match to her underlings back in her heyday. So she decided to impact in him a secret technique that granted her underlings the title of being ’Mistwalkers’
Ethan grit his teeth, forcing his trembling hands forward as he summoned a veil of mist. At first, it came sluggishly, thin tendrils seeping from his core like morning fog. He tried to condense it, to shape it into something tangible. The image in his mind was clear: a simple dagger. But the mist refused his command, dispersing into the air as if mocking him.
The Eternal’s chain lashed out, not striking him but shattering the mist entirely. "Pathetic. If you cannot shape conviction into reality, you will never wield what the Mistwalkers left behind. They did not beg the mist to obey them—they became the mist."
Ethan fell to one knee, panting. He hated how powerless he felt under her gaze, but at the same time... her words carved into him, awakening a hunger he didn’t know he had. He remembered Kaelen, Kelvin, and the others—how far they had come. He clenched his fist.
Rising, he spread his arms again, shutting his eyes. This time, he let go of the desperation. The mist was not a tool. It was an extension of him. His breath slowed, his heartbeat steadied. When the silver fog poured out once more, it was thicker, swirling around him in sheets. He thought of protection... and slowly, almost stubbornly, a crude buckler of mist hardened before him. It flickered, fragile, but it existed.
The Eternal’s lips curled faintly. "Better. You are beginning to understand. Do not grasp at form—breathe it, own it. When you can weave a storm from the silence of your will, then, perhaps, you will be worth the Mistwalker’s legacy."
As Ethan collapsed from exhaustion, the scene shifted to another part of the cavern—where Eirana stood between her grandmother, Naena, and the Eternal herself. Her breathing was heavy, her knuckles bloodied, but her golden eyes burned with unshakable will.
This time, Neana made her to discard her three got long silver sword and rely fully on her fists. As that will fully unleash her Qi with it’s techniques.
Naena’s voice, though weakened by her injuries, was sharp. "Again, child. Juggernaut is not a title gifted. It is seized by those who can stand when all others fall. Your Qi is raw, but your body—your body must become the fortress that will not yield."
Eirana roared, her small frame suddenly exploding with power as she launched forward, her fists coated in thick, vibrating Qi. She struck the stone pillar before her, the force making the cavern quake. Dust rained down, but the pillar remained. Her hands trembled violently, blood smearing her skin.
The Eternal’s chain swept across the air, wrapping the pillar in radiant light before it struck her in return. Eirana staggered, her body screaming in protest, but she refused to fall. "Again!" Naena barked.
This cycle repeated until her arms felt like lead and her bones threatened to shatter. Yet, each time she pushed, her Qi thickened, becoming more disciplined, her strikes sharper, her footwork heavier and more deliberate. Her grandmother’s training broke her body down, while the Eternal’s training sharpened her soul.
At last, she stood, panting, her vision blurred with sweat and blood. She raised her fists once more, and this time, when she unleashed her Qi into the pillar, it cracked—a jagged fracture running across its center.
Naena’s eyes gleamed with pride, though her lips betrayed no softness. "That... is Juggernaut spirit. Not invincibility. Unyielding persistence."
The Eternal’s gaze lingered on Eirana. "Good. You are a Nullcarver, yet you defy the chains of what could be rivaled to mana itself. You are more dangerous than you realize. Master this path, and you will become the anvil upon which the world breaks."
Eirana wiped the blood from her mouth, a small grin tugging at her lips despite the agony in her body. "Then I’ll break it, again and again, until no one can look down on us anymore."
The Eternal gave no smile, no praise. But as she turned back to Ethan—who now sat cross-legged, mist swirling faintly around him—there was the slightest shimmer in her eyes, like approval carefully hidden beneath judgement.
The cavern thrummed with the sound of two destinies being forged: one who sought to revive a forgotten legacy, and another who sought to carve a new one from nothing.
But unbeknownst to both the Eternal with Neana and the two people they were training, Kaelen stood silently at the mouth of the cavern, his presence cloaked by the shadows of the jagged rocks. The air was thick with the faint hum of energy—the mist swirling faintly as Ethan gritted his teeth under the Eternal of Judgement’s commands, his body trembling as he wrestled with the intangible, elusive art of the Mistwalkers. Not far from him, Eirana’s small frame was firm and unyielding, her fists clenched and her eyes glinting with fire as her grandmother Neana and the Eternal herself forced her into drills that pushed both body and spirit to breaking point.
Kaelen’s eyes lingered on them. Ethan’s hands bled as he tried to mold the vaporous mist into solid form, failing time and again but stubbornly refusing to falter. Eirana’s voice cracked with exhaustion as she struggled against a phantom opponent, only to rise again, spurred on by Neana’s unrelenting words.
A faint smile touched Kaelen’s lips—but only for a fleeting moment. He turned away, his boots crunching lightly against the cavern gravel as he began his slow walk back toward Eldoria.
’They’re all pushing themselves beyond their limits...’
The thought echoed in his mind as his gaze fell on the horizon ahead. His steps were measured, his body relaxed, but inside, his heart was a storm. He thought of Ethan, driven and desperate to master an art long erased from the world. He thought of Eirana, powerless in the eyes of mana yet stubborn enough to carve out a path as the Juggernaut of her people. He thought of Lila, wrestling with the unfathomable weight of her Seer bloodline. And Charlotte, trying to master the dangerous spell that had once killed her father.
Everyone... was doing their part. Everyone was reaching higher, climbing steeper cliffs, chasing after fragments of strength that might someday be enough to survive the coming storm.
Kaelen clenched his fists tightly.
’But what about me?’
The question stung deep. His steps slowed as he looked down at his own hands—hands that once wielded power strong enough to shake the foundation of the academies, hands that once carried the weight of Pandora’s magic, hands that had one unleashed a draconic energy that still is unknown to Kaelen if its still in his body. But now... with Endless draining the very veins of mana across the Human Territory, with the Eternals stirring, with chaos tearing apart everything he had known—what limit was there left for him to break?
He exhaled sharply, bitterness lacing the edge of his breath.
’Will I not ever be able to discover this draconic mana and make it my own?’
The thought was unbearable. He looked up again, staring into the twilight sky where the first stars began to peek through, faint against the dimming light. His mind turned, as it always did, to Endless.
The Dark Eternal, the Doom of Aetheris. The one who sought Pandora—the one who sought him.
Kaelen’s jaw tightened, his teeth grinding silently as a fire ignited in his chest. Images of Endless flashed through his memory: the chilling presence, the abyssal voice that seemed to gnaw at reality itself, the unrelenting hunger that had almost turned the Human Territory into a hollow shell.
"No..." Kaelen whispered into the wind, his voice low but firm. His eyes hardened, sharp as blades.
"It won’t end like this. I won’t end like this."
He straightened his back, his steps gaining strength as he strode toward Eldoria, away from the cavern. Every muscle in his body carried the weight of that vow, every breath steadying into resolve.
Endless’s end was drawing near. Kaelen could feel it. The Eternal might have been an unfathomable being, a force that even legends whispered of with fear—but Kaelen was no longer the same boy who once trembled before the unknown.
He had seen enough, lost enough, fought enough to carve this oath into his very bones.
"Your hunger ends with me."
The words weren’t shouted, but spoken with a conviction so fierce it resonated like a vow etched across time itself. Kaelen’s gaze pierced forward, cold, unwavering, yet alive with the quiet fury of someone who had nothing left to lose and everything left to protect.
As he disappeared into the distance, the cavern behind him still echoed with Ethan’s grunts of determination and Eirana’s shouts of defiance. But Kaelen carried with him a silence far heavier than those sounds—the silence of a man who had chosen his path, no matter how impossible, no matter how damning.
And in that silence, a storm began to brew.