Crucible Aeternum: Ascending through Skill Trees

"Third Step: Sublimation"

The moment he spoke the words, Galeon's mind shifted. His perception increased in range and clarity, but at the same time, it felt scattered. Or rather, his perception of himself was scattered.

It was as though his entire being had dispersed, melding into the environment making him less distinct than he previously was. He was just another part of nature, another part of reality. Unlike Transformation where he interfaced with his surroundings on a deeper level, Sublimation made it so that he was truly a part of it.

He had no need to interface with anything. He did not need an intermediary, a medium with which he manipulated his surroundings on a much more delicate level. In the Third Step: Sublimation, he only needed to move according to his Will.

This was a level that he had barely managed to reach previously without having gone through Transformation. It was a bottleneck that he should not normally have breached simply because of the implications of this state. To understand the problem, one simply needed to ask a question.

How could one move their own body without first grasping a basic understanding of it?

A child does not learn how to walk from the moment they were born. They go through a learning phase full of trials and errors and frustration. They crawl and stand and fall and crawl again. And at the end of it, they might finally be able to walk. It was the same in this case. This was the reason why Galeon had never been able to truly complete his technique.

He had already created it, yes. But just creating it did not mean it was whole. If even the creator himself could not practice the technique, is it really usable? Is it really complete? This had been gnawing at him for a long time that he eventually gave up on it.

Origin was enough for most things. And a rudimentary and incomplete Sublimation was already overkill for the commissions he had been taking. Never did he actually think that he would be using the true version of Sublimation ever, yet here he was. Fighting against a gigantic monstrosity.

The beam of Prismana slowly died down, but before it could completely vanish, the liquid light that Galeon had scattered around the battlefield had already reached their intended positions. Now, it was time for him to give this worm a taste of hell.

The liquid light cutting through the beam of Prismana suddenly exploded, breaking the worm's attack completely while also blinding it. Before its vision could recover, it felt a sharp blade cut through its back. It roared out while swinging its body in an attempt to slap away the attacker, but it hit nothing.

It sensed another attack coming from its front. It turned its head, which may or may not have any eyes, toward the direction of the new attack and found Galeon swinging his single sword out from a distance away. The sword released a jet of liquid light vibrating at such high frequencies that only the worm could hear.

It roared in anger as it moved to dodge, perhaps hoping the attack would hit the attacker behind it. The worm managed to slip past the attack with just a light graze on its side, but when it looked back at Galeon, he was already gone.

Then a sharp and blazing pain assaulted the giant worm on the other side of its body. It swung its body away, its head turning toward the direction of the attack only to find Galeon had appeared there. But in the same instant that the giant worm saw him, he disappeared leaving only liquid light floating in the air.

Indeed, Galeon was teleporting across the vast battlefield as he toyed with the giant worm. The liquid light that he had scattered earlier served as coordinates to which he could teleport. To him, however, it was less of a teleportation and more of shifting his perspective.

Third Step: Sublimation, this part of the technique is the true beginning of the ridiculous things that Galeon could do. There was a reason he could not complete the technique without an innate mutation ability.

As stated earlier, in Sublimation, his very being becomes one with the very reality around him. But while this may sound amazing, it is still actually very difficult to use. The mind will always subconsciously search for its own distinction. It would always try to be congisant of itself.

This makes it so that complete manipulation of the surrounding reality was still impossible even at this level. Unless one was some kind of god, then such a thing was pure fantasy. But what was not impossible was manipulating multiple other parts of one's being. In this case, the liquid light.

Galeon's mind subconsciously understood that this liquid light was a part of him. Therefore, wherever there was liquid light, there was Galeon.

He is the Light and the Light is him.

He is the Bringer of Light.

And soon, the speed at which he was teleporting across the battlefield grew faster and faster. It had reached a point that two versions of himself seemed to appear at once, attacking from two different sides, and still he was growing faster.

The attacks were powerful, but giant worm was not a calamity for nothing. Its body was among the sturdies things in the world right now, and although it had accumulated quite a lot of injuries from Galeon's pestering attacks, it was still nowhere near being on the brink of death. But it did not seem to care about who was winning. It just knew that it was at a severe disadvantage and so it began finding an opening to retreat back underground.

Unfortunately for it, the Divine Lance of Radiance had already finished her preparation. Galeon had bought her more time than she expected and so she was able to gather a decent amount of power to hold the hulking monstrosity down.

Shine rose into the sky surrounded by the golden crystals that now numbered thirty. She had replenished the five she had previously used for defense and had added a few more. Her golden wings fluttered behind her as she raised her left hand to the sky as though offering the golden crystals to a distant god watching from above.

She clenched her fist and all thirty golden crystals shattered releasing a storm of golden lightning and flames that swiftly gathered onto her giant lance. The golden lightning and flames stretched out the figure of the lance, making it even larger than Shine herself. Now, it looked like she was wielding the very same lance that her avatar wielded.

"Radiant Dawn!"

She called out as she threw her giant lance, its radiant gold painted the skies in the same colour. She looked like a goddess of storms as she bellowed out with full power, her Prismana draining by over half as she hoped it would be enough. She knew that her lightning and flames were not as strong as Galeon's liquid light. Even this attack of hers might not have the effect she wanted.

But her worries were unfounded. Galeon managed to distract the worm from noticing the giant lance until it was already too late. The lance was descending with such great speeds that even Galeon would not have been able to evade had he not prepared to teleport a large distance away.

When the giant worm finally noticed the lance, it was already too late to even swing its body around to reduce the impact. The lance impaled the giant worm through its body with an explosive sound closer to an exploding missile rather than a strike of lightning.

And even when it accomplished its purpose, the golden lightning and flames on the lance still did not die. They continued to torture the giant monster, chipping away at its defense to make it easier for anyone to kill it. Well, only two people really had the power to kill it even now. One of them had just used most of their Prismana on that attack and would have to gather more power to deal a finishing blow, but the other one was already prepared. It was all part of the plan.

"Fourth Step: Severance"

His words were like a trigger, bringing silence upon the entire battlefield. Not even the crackling lightning and raging flames could be heard. Not even the pained roars of rage of the giant worm could be heard. The only thing that could be heard in that moment was Galeon's voice. But that too soon disappeared. There was a clear sense of emptiness that struck everyone who was there to witness the phenomenon. It was as though a part of reality had been cleanly carved off, cut off from the rest of them.

"Fifth Step: Infinity"

And as though he existed anywhere and everywhere at once, Galeon's voice resounded from the very space of the battlefield. His figure could no longer be found from the moment he reached the Fourth Step, but all of a sudden, several dozens of him appeared all around the battlefield. Their stances were all the same, holding their single swords as they prepared to slash out.

"Sixth Step..."

He never finished words even as all the people who listened intently held their bated breaths in both anticipation and fear. The shock of his power was terrifying, but what happened next left them all feeling chill run up their spines, numbing their heads.

Each body of Galeon burst out with interminable light as they all shot toward the now trapped giant worm. But to everyone watching, they could see space itself bending to accommodate him. It was as though space itself was guiding his movement toward a singular point where all of his different bodies converged, disappearing into that singular point.

And finally, the giant worm fell to the ground.