And by logic, Atticus should still be contained.
This should have been pointless.
He should have still been helpless, powerless, outmatched in this situation.
That was what logic said.
That was what the projections scread.
So why… did sothing feel wrong?
A slight twist stirred in Xal'zereth's core, a sensation he had no na for, a defect he rarely experienced.
Sothing was coming.
Sothing beyond numbers. Beyond control.
And he hated it.
He stared harder at the boy floating midair.
The Unknown.
And Xal'zereth would have none of it.
His three-fingered hand rose coldly, calmly. An orb of condensed mana flared into existence at his palm. It pulsed once, twice, then began to grow.
A radiant sphere of devastating density, swirling with violent currents of energy, emitting a high-pitched whine as it charged.
And then, it launched.
It tore through the sky like a cot of death, searing a path of light as it scread toward Atticus.
The air warped around it, its force tearing clouds apart and splitting wind currents. The Apexes' eyes widened in shock. Zenon's voice caught in his throat.
Why wasn't Atticus moving!?
Xal'zereth's mana suppression field was still active.
Atticus shouldn't even be able to use mana.
And he didn't…
BOOM!!!
The beam hit its mark, but stopped.
A purple shield had exploded into existence around Atticus, intercepting the blast. The collision shattered the air with a thunderous detonation.
Smoke and dust coiled like rising dragons around the impact zone.
And when it cleared… he was still there.
Unhard. Unmoved. Unbothered.
Xal'zereth tilted his head slightly.
"…Intriguing."
His voice was soft, contemplative.
"A shield… not of mana. Not of life force. Sothing else."
His black eyes glinted.
"So this… is spiritual energy."
It was an energy the Zorvans had long theorized ever since it appeared amongst humans, long tried to master, but never fully understood.
To the Zorvans, it was still a primitive anomaly, sothing unrefined. Sothing uncategorized.
"Futile," Xal'zereth said coldly. "Even with spiritual energy, it's still bound by the limits of a primitive mind."
His hand rose again.
Another orb ford, but it was larger this ti. Denser. Darker.
Dread engulfed every single person watching. The Apexes' eyes narrowed, and Zenon's breath quickened.
But before the second blast could be fired…
The air changed.
At first, it was faint. A flicker.
Then, they saw them.
Four orbs of radiant color slowly circling around Atticus. Each one glowing with a different hue. They drifted lazily at first, orbiting him like celestial bodies.
But then they began to accelerate.
Their movents quickened, blurring in motion, each color streaking through the air like lightning.
A vortex began to form, a luminous storm of spiraling hues.
To most, it looked beautiful.
But to others… it was the beginning of a dread that would never fade.
Xal'zereth's eyes narrowed.
He launched the second blast.
It struck.
The spiritual shield cracked, warped, buckled, until it shattered like broken glass.
Zenon's eyes flared.
"Atticus—!!"
Everyone in the area felt the dread.
But before the second blast could consu him, the orbs rged.
A burst of colorless energy spiraled outward.
Then, a column of dark crimson aura erupted from Atticus, soaring into the heavens like a god's judgnt.
BOOOOOOM!!!
The mana beam was annihilated mid-air, disintegrated into motes of useless dust.
The air exploded with pressure. The clouds above split in half.
Xal'zereth stared silently at the pillar of energy, scanning its composition.
But there was nothing to scan.
No data. No equations. No readings.
Only a force that was unknown, unpredictable, and terrifying.
"…An anomaly," he muttered again, voice low.
Sothing about this energy… wasn't just normal. It was sothing more.
Sothing that did not belong to any category in Zorvan databases.
Sothing unwritten.
Unbound.
And for the first ti in centuries, a single thought echoed in Xal'zereth's mind, emotionless, yet undeniable:
"This is not supposed to exist."
And then… the world began to react.
The eruption of the dark crimson aura affected everything. The very laws of balance rippled from the core of Atticus's release.
The elents answered his call.
The heat of the atmosphere intensified to cataclysmic levels, causing the distant mountains to smolder and erupt into spontaneous fla.
The nearby seas roared violently, tides rising to impossible heights. Rain fell upward, defying gravity, then spiraled in whirling torrents across the air like serpents of storm.
Hurricanes were born in seconds. Winds howled with a rage, tearing apart trees, rocks, even fragnts of collapsed sky-islands.
The ground rippled like liquid, fracturing into jagged pieces. Monoliths of stone surged up from the earth like fangs. Entire sections of terrain rose and fell, as if the planet itself were breathing.
It was chaos, in its purest, elental form. A combination of calamity birthed from a single source.
And at this source, Atticus remained still.
Unmoving. Serene. The eye of the storm.
He appeared to be in his own world.
After his initial rage, that had been quelled only by Ozeroth's intervention within the prison orb, Atticus had made a decision.
He had chosen to trust them. To leave his fate to those he cared for, a decision he had never made before.
But one he had no choice but to embrace, considering the circumstances.
And so, he turned inward. Deeper than ever before.
He shut out the chaos outside. He ignored the screams. The crashes. The deaths.
And when he did… a new world opened before him.
The ti he had spent searching for a way to advance his elents was long, far longer than what Atticus would have wanted. And even after he figured out his path, it still hadn't been enough.
Before the banquet, Atticus had figured out that he needed one emotion to combine the elents of fire, water, earth, and air together.
He had been so excited about this discovery that he had even wanted to leave the banquet and chase it. He had been so sure that it would take ti, weeks to figure out the feeling he needed.
However, as Atticus sat down in that desolate world, everything had unraveled before his eyes.
As he connected with the four elents, Atticus had instantly felt sothing, a feeling, one that he had never truly experienced before.
It was like a godsend. As though the universe had been waiting for him to be in this exact situation.
At that mont, he discovered why he hadn't been able to grasp it in the first place. Atticus wasn't just feeling one emotion. He was feeling two.
Anger.
Raw, relentless, unfiltered wrath born from the burning desire to obliterate those who dared threaten his people.
And…
Resolve.
Cold, unshakable, unwavering determination to leave this prison and protect his people.
Two emotions that were opposites by nature, yet appeared inseparable within him at that mont.
They rged. They fused. They beca one:
Wrathful Resolve.
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