The morning in the Elysian Domain did not arrive with a rising sun, but with a sudden, brilliant shift in the violet-gold sky.
The air turned crisp, carrying the clean scent of dew and mountain air.
Justus stood on the wooden deck outside the bamboo pavilion, his bare torso exposed to the cool breeze.
Across his chest and shoulders, the dark, vein-like frost-fever marks from his ordeal in Northwood had completely faded, replaced by smooth skin and a subtle, hummed pulse of restored spiritual energy.
He unburied Gryphon from its sheath, the heavy blade gleaming beneath the sky.
He took a basic combat stance, sweeping the sword in a clean, horizontal arc—
Crack.
The moment Justus tried to channel even a fraction of his spiritual energy into the blade, a violent, jet-black static erupted from his knuckles.
The energy wasn’t smooth like fire or fluid like water; it felt heavy, viscous, and suffocating.
The dark aura violently flared across the steel before instantly snapping back into Justus’s arm, sending a jolt of recoil through his collarbone.
Justus stumbled, catching his balance as he breathed heavily, his heart hammering against his ribs.
“You are trying to wield it like a sword,” a voice spoke from the edge of the pavilion.
Elder Silas leaned against his knotwood walking stick, holding a steaming wooden bowl of dark, herbal broth.
“I’ve been fighting with a sword my entire life,” Justus muttered, his throat tight as he sheathed Gryphon.
“The energy should flow down the steel, not fight me back.”
“A sword is a tool designed to direct force outward,” Silas said, walking down the bamboo steps onto the grass.
“Elementals who manifest fire or wind shape their spiritual energy into an extension of their intent.
But Darkness is not an extension, Justus.
It is an appetite.”
Silas set the bowl down on a flat rock and looked at Justus with piercing gray eyes.
“When an elemental user channels fire, they command a flame.
When you channel Darkness, you are tearing open a hole in reality.
It wants to pull everything inward—including your own consciousness.
That is why it resists your control.
You are trying to push an ocean through the eye of a needle.”
Justus looked down at his trembling hand.
“So how do I stop it from consuming me?”
“You stop fighting the void,” Silas replied simply.
“And you learn to master the baseline.”
Silas raised his knotwood stick and lightly tapped the tip against the dirt floor.
Instantly, four translucent, blue spiritual barriers snapped into existence around the clearing, enclosing Justus in a fifty-foot square arena. Read this novel at novelping . com for the best experience.
“For the next three days, you will not touch your sword,” Silas announced calmly.
“You will sit in the center of this barrier, channel your energy continuously, and keep it from breaking the perimeter.
If your control slips for even a fraction of a second, the darkness will implode on you.”
Justus stared at the shimmering barrier walls.
“And if I fail?”
“Then your spiritual core collapses, and you die in this beautiful valley,” Silas said without a trace of hesitation.
“Now sit.”
Justus gritted his teeth, crossed his legs in the center of the grass, and closed his eyes.
The moment he sank into his inner consciousness, he felt it.
Beneath his sternum lay a massive, silent abyss—a pitch-black sea of energy swirling in endless, chaotic loops.
It was wild, ancient, and terrifyingly vast.
Focus, Justus told himself.
Keep it steady.
Just a trickle.
He slowly pulled a single thread of dark energy upward into his chest.
Instantly, the peaceful silence of the Elysian Domain vanished from his ears.
A violent, rushing sound—like a hurricane roaring down a narrow canyon—filled his mind.
Outside, Silas watched quietly as black, liquid-like shadows began to seep from Justus’s skin, pooling around his legs on the bright green grass.
The temperature within the barrier plunged sharply, frosting the grass blades black.
I have to control this, Justus thought, his teeth grinding as sweat poured down his forehead.
I surrendered my freedom for this.
I left Daemon and Lyra behind so I wouldn’t be helpless anymore…
The thought of his friends hit him like a physical blow.
A sudden surge of guilt flooded his mind—the memory of Daemon’s pale, unconscious face, and Lyra’s rattling breathing in the doctor’s hut.
Did Vance really save them?
Did Silas actually deliver the nectar?
What if they woke up alone in that snowstorm, thinking I abandoned them?
The moment his emotions wavered, the dark energy inside his chest flared violently out of control.
FOOM.
The pooled shadows beneath Justus erupted into a jagged, pillar of black flames that slammed directly into the blue barrier walls.
The sky above the pavilion darkened as the void energy fought to devour the surrounding space.
“Your guilt is feeding the abyss!
Darkness feeds on chaos—if your mind is divided, it will consume you whole!”
“I…
left them!” Justus roared through gritted teeth, his eyes snapping open—glowing a terrifying, pitch-black hue with crimson irises.
“I left my team behind!”
“You gave them life!” Silas barked back, his knotwood stick humming with a subtle, golden light as he reinforced the cracking barrier.
“You made a trade, boy!
A leader who carries regret into battle is just a corpse waiting to fall!
If you want the strength to protect them when you return, you must master the burden you chose!”
Justus stared into the black inferno swirling around his hands.
Silas is right, he realized, a cold clarity washing over his panicked mind.
Regret won’t save them.
Weakness won’t bring me back to them.
I chose to bear this weight.
Justus closed his eyes once more, taking a slow, deep breath.
He stopped trying to force the darkness back down into his chest.
Instead, he pulled it close, wrapping his intent around the chaotic energy like a iron chain around a wild beast.
Slowly, agonizingly, the towering black pillar of fire began to shrink.
The wild, ravenous tendrils of shadow stopped lashing at the barrier walls.
They pulled back, condensing around Justus’s body until they formed a smooth, razor-thin aura of pitch-black energy hovering just an inch above his skin—silent, compact, and completely contained.
The temperature in the barrier stabilized.
The frosted grass ceased to decay.
Justus opened his eyes.
The crimson in his gaze was sharp, clear, and steady.
Silas stood outside the barrier, watching the thin layer of black aura wrapping around the boy.
A rare, almost imperceptible nod of satisfaction passed over the elder’s face.
“Not bad for day one,” Silas said, lowering his stick as the blue barrier dissolved.
“You controlled the overflow.
But keeping it contained is only step one.”
Silas turned toward the distant, jagged mountains rising at the edge of the Elysian Domain.
“Next, we test what happens when you actually unleash it.”