Alpha Instinct-Chapter 114: "The Third Strand"

The searing white flash subsided, leaving behind spots dancing in the void and the sharp, biting smell of ozone. The swamp air, usually thick and heavy, now crackled with residual energy.

Leonard hung in the air, feet slightly off the ground, his body a conduit for raw, untamed power. The blinding light now coalesced around his hands, no longer just crackling sparks, but writhing tendrils of pure, white-hot lightning, twisting and snapping like living creatures. His eyes were still blank voids of storm energy.

Fleshripper, kneeling, paralyzed by terror and the overwhelming power radiating from Leonard, could only watch.

Leonard raised his hands, palms facing the doomed Gnoll. The lightning intensified, the sound escalating from a crackle to a deafening roar of raw energy. Then, he unleashed.

Bolts of true lightning, jagged and blindingly bright, leaped from his fingertips. They struck Fleshripper not as single impacts but as a continuous, unrelenting barrage. The first bolt hit the Gnoll's remaining shoulder, exploding outward, sending chunks of burnt meat and shattered bone flying. Fleshripper shrieked, a sound drowned out by the crackling thunder.

Another bolt struck its chest, carving a smoking, cauterized trench through its torso. A third vaporized its knee. The lightning wasn't just hitting; it was tearing, ripping, disintegrating.

Fleshripper convulsed uncontrollably, its body jerking wildly under the onslaught. Its eyes, wide with a final, primal terror, stared directly at Leonard, reflecting the deadly light show that was ending its existence.

A final, silent scream seemed to tear from its throat before the light in its eyes extinguished completely. Its body collapsed, a mangled, smoking ruin barely recognizable as the Named Elite it once was.

The violent noise finally jolted Kaleb awake. He sat up groggily, his head pounding from the mana depletion. He blinked, trying to clear his vision, and then he saw Leonard. Floating. Crackling with lightning that wasn't coming from his swords but from his hands.

"Holy shit! What the fuck is that, Leonard!?" Kaleb yelled, scrambling backward, utterly incredulous, as if seeing a ghost wielding a thunderstorm.

He watched, stunned, as the lightning subsided, leaving Leonard hovering silently for a moment before slowly drifting back to the ground. "Lightning... from his hands... that means... mana control." Kaleb's mind raced, connecting the pieces. "The insane swordsmanship... that's physical prowess. The reaction time, predicting moves... psychic ability, Temporal Cognition. And now... pure elemental magic?"

The realization hit Kaleb with the force of a physical blow. "He has all three," Kaleb thought, his mouth dry. "Physical... Psychic... Magical... Leonard possesses all three strands of Neumond power. A Weise"

Slowly, inevitably, Leonard drifted back to the ground, the residual lightning fading from his form. The moment his boots touched the mud, he collapsed, unconscious.

Kaleb rushed to his side, his earlier terror momentarily forgotten in a surge of panic. He fumbled through Leonard's pouches, then his own, pulling out two vials—one mana potion, one regenerative. He uncapped them clumsily and poured both down Leonard's throat. He checked Leonard's pulse. It was weak, thready. "Shit, shit, shit..." He was dangerously close to death from the massive energy expenditure.

Kaleb looked around wildly, searching for a solution, anything, and then his eyes landed on Mikaela, still slumped against the tree where she'd fallen. He hadn't even noticed she'd arrived amidst the chaos. He ran to her, shaking her shoulder gently. "Mikaela? Hey! Wake up!" No response. She was out cold too.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Kaleb exclaimed, throwing his hands up. "Are we taking turns passing out now? Is this some kind of competitive fainting contest? Goddamnit!"

He tried shaking her again, then splashing some water from his canteen on her face. Nothing. He glanced back at Leonard, then at Mikaela. Desperate times... He muttered a quick, "Uh, sorry about this, Mikaela, Goddess forgive me," and then slapped her across the face. Once. Twice. A third time, slightly harder.

Mikaela's cheeks flushed pink from the slaps, but, ironically, it worked. Her eyes fluttered open, slowly focusing. She blinked several times, groaning, feeling the ache in her body and the sharp sting on her face. "What... what happened? Why does my face feel like it's on fire?"

Kaleb immediately averted his gaze. "Ahhh... that... well... never mind that now! You need to wake up and heal Leonard! He's gonna die from mana depletion!"

Mikaela, pushing past the confusion and the stinging, understood the urgency. She fumbled for her own vial—the Goddess' Tear—and drank it quickly. Kaleb helped her to her feet, supporting her weight as they stumbled towards Leonard.

Reaching Leonard's side, Mikaela sank down beside him. She placed one hand on her own stomach, centering herself, and the other on Leonard's forehead, beginning to channel her healing magic once more.

Kaleb finally took a deep, shaky breath, the adrenaline starting to fade. "Mikaela," he began, his voice hushed, "you... you didn't see what happened after you went down."

Mikaela, concentrating on the healing, murmured, "What? What did he do?"

"He... he was floating, Mikaela. Off the ground. And the lightning... it wasn't from his swords. It was coming from his hands. Pure mana."

Mikaela's eyes widened slightly, though her hands remained steady on Leonard. "From his hands? Magic?"

"Yeah," Kaleb confirmed, nodding frantically. "Physical skill, psychic perception, and elemental magic. He has all three..."

Mikaela went utterly still for a moment, the implications washing over her. She looked down at Leonard, then back at Kaleb, her expression deadly serious. "Kaleb," she said, her voice low but firm, "you cannot tell anyone about this. Not Evelyn. Not even Saito. Not yet. It's too soon. He needs to get stronger. This knowledge... it's too valuable, too dangerous."

Kaleb nodded solemnly. "Understood." He paused, then glanced towards the mangled, steaming corpse of Fleshripper. The smell of cooked flesh, burnt fur, and gore hung heavy in the air. "Well, guess I'll go... harvest... what's left of our friend." He attempted a weak, morbid grin. "Looks like the 'Flesh' got well and truly 'Ripped' this time, eh?"

He took a few steps towards the gruesome pile of meat and bone, then stopped, his face paling slightly. He swallowed hard, gagging involuntarily as the full stench hit him. "Gods, that's disgusting..." He averted his eyes for a moment, taking a deep, shaky breath through his mouth.

Steeling himself, he walked over and began the grim task of opening Fleshripper's shattered skull. The wet, squelching, cracking sounds that followed were stomach-churning. Kaleb paused again, hunching over and spitting, fighting back the urge to vomit.

Finally, the sounds ceased as he exclaimed, his voice slightly breathless and strained, "Found it!" He pulled the pulsating Soul Stone free from the gore-filled cranium, quickly wiping it on a less-bloody patch of swamp grass. "Now Evelyn will be okay... We can head back whenever you're finished, Mikaela."

"Thank the Goddess," Mikaela breathed, relief washing over her. "I thought it was all for nothing, considering the state Leonard left that monster in."

As Kaleb went to reply, a horrifying vibration pulsed through the air, a sickening thrumming in the ambient mana that made his skin crawl.

Then, a roar, unlike anything they had heard before—deeper than Fleshripper's, more resonant than Skullcrusher's earlier calls—shook the very foundations of the swamp. Birds erupted from the withered trees in a panicked flurry, and then an almost absolute silence fell, broken only by the crackling of the fires scattered around them.

Kaleb's eyes went wide with terror. "Mikaela, if you have any way to speed that up, some kind of cheat method, do it now, or we're all going to die!"

Mikaela didn't hesitate. She poured more of her ELEV into the Holy Healing, focusing all her remaining energy into Leonard, ignoring her own exhaustion. "What's happening...? More Gnolls?" Her face showed confusion beneath the strain.

Kaleb shook his head, his voice barely a whisper. "More Gnolls? No... Just one... Skullcrusher."

Mikaela let out a sharp gasp, the air escaping her lungs in shock. She looked down at Leonard, then poured everything she had left into the healing light.

Kaleb wrung his hands nervously. "He probably sensed Leonard's energy... when he broke through... when he used all three powers." He paced frantically. "He must be looking for us."

Mikaela, feeling she had done all she could, gently removed her hands from Leonard. "Leo? Leo, wake up!" she urged, shaking his shoulder lightly. No response.

Kaleb, looking awkward and slightly embarrassed, shuffled over. "Uh, there's... there's a method that might wake him up... archaic, but functional," he mumbled.

Mikaela looked at him expectantly. "How?"

Kaleb took a deep breath, muttered another quick apology under his breath, then grabbed Leonard's head, tilted it slightly, and slapped him hard across the face. SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! Three sharp sounds echoed in the tense silence.

Mikaela gasped, instinctively bringing a hand to her own cheek, remembering the stinging sensation. "You...?!" she started to ask, incredulous.

Kaleb quickly interrupted, avoiding her gaze. "Never mind that. Look, he's waking up."

Indeed, Leonard groaned, his eyelids fluttering.

"Come on, we need to go," Kaleb urged Mikaela. "Can you carry him? A mage class isn't exactly known for its strength stat."

"Leave it to me," Mikaela said grimly, already preparing to lift Leonard. "Let's go."

Just as Mikaela spoke, the landscape behind Kaleb seemed to warp. Skullcrusher, radiating palpable fury, slammed his colossal mace into the ground. The earth buckled and twisted, trees splintering, mud erupting upwards as reality itself seemed to turn inside out around the point of impact.

Kaleb stared, paralyzed for a split second. "Shit! Don't use your energy! Run!"