Spirit's Awakening: The Path of Lightning and Water

Chapter 167: Heart of the Desert

Lassim’s halberd sliced through the air, its edge glinting with the fresh blood.

The spear wielding gnoll’s head rolled off its shoulders, its body crumpling to the sand before it even realized it was dead.

The others snarled and charged, desperation lending a manic energy to their movements.

Lassim moved with a fluid grace, each strike precise and deadly.

A gnoll lunged at him with a rusted sword, another scavenged item, but Lassim parried and countered with a quick [Thurst], impaling the creature through its heart and sending a bolt of lightning off into the distance behind it nearly clipping another gnoll.

Another came at him from the side, no weapon and instead with its claws outstretched.

He sidestepped and delivered a swift kick, sending it sprawling before bringing his halberd down to finish it off.

The remaining gnolls hesitated, eyes darting between their fallen comrades and the deadly cultivator before them that was releasing a dangerous pressure onto all of them and was clearly not weathered and hungry like them.

The three surviving gnolls of the group, clearly less eager to die, began to back away, their growls turning to whimpers.

Lassim saw their retreat but did not pursue. He had no desire to kill unnecessarily. The gnolls were driven by the clear hunger in their eyes, not malice.

"Go," he commanded, his voice carrying over the heat of the desert. "Get out of here…"

The trio of gnolls didn’t need to be told twice. They turned and fled, disappearing into the darkness.

Lassim sighed, lowering his halberd. He wiped the blade clean before returning it to his inner heart world and resumed his journey, the encounter with the gnolls a mere distraction instead of an obstacle.

He felt a bit bad for them though and might’ve shared some food if they hadn’t attacked him first.

The following days passed in a monotonous rhythm, marked by the relentless heat of the desert by day and the cool, somewhat actually cold, temperature by night.

Lassim continued his nocturnal travels, moving swiftly under the starlit sky, and resting by day in his concealed tent.

The gnoll encounter seemed a distant memory, replaced by the desert stretching endlessly before him. The waves of the sand reminded him of the southern sea. He so wished to be back in the water swimming, which Mari agreed with the sentiment.

On the fourth night, as Lassim trekked through the sand dunes, he felt a tingling sensation crawl over his skin.

His hair stood on end, and a familiar resonance with the lightning mana up ahead stirred within him.

The sensation was both thrilling and comforting, a clear sign that he was nearing his destination.

Lassim quickened his pace, his eyes scanning the horizon for any sign of the Singing Dunes.

As he crested a particularly glassy looking dune, the landscape before him transformed. The sand dunes seemed to come alive, buzzing with an electric hum.

Each grain of sand vibrated with a faint chirping sound, a cacophony that resembled the song of countless birds.

Lassim found the sound soothing, a welcome contrast to the oppressive silence of the desert and the sun’s oppressiveness.

In the distance, a mere 1 kilometer away, the sky was dominated by a mass of purple-black clouds, roaring and splitting with gigantic bolts of lightning that occasionally struck the ground below.

To most, the sight would be terrifying, but to Lassim, it was a familiar and comforting scene.

Zaphy, his bonded lightning spirit, let out a screech of pure joy, her form shimmering with excitement.

As Lassim stepped onto the ground tempered by millennia of lightning strikes, he felt an immediate connection and resonance.

The bond between him and Zaphy began to strengthen, much like it had with Mari. This unexpected but welcome development promised that his bond with Zaphy would grow passively just by being in this region.

This realization brought a wave of relief. He had been concerned that his focus on Mari’s bond might neglect being able to strengthen his connection with Zaphy.

But here, in this land charged with lightning, he could nurture both tethers simultaneously. The lightning elemental spirit’s joy resonated through their connection.

"Well, that’s a relief Zaphy!" said Lassim.

Zaphy, overexcited as usual replied, "This place is MUCH better than those stupid fish that stare at you blankly with those dead eyes. Ah—…Sorry sister Mari I didn’t mean you have dead fish eyes… even though you’re a fish! They’re beautiful eyes I promise!"

Mari inside the inner world sent a few splashes of water mana she manifested using Lassim’s cultivation at Zaphyrella and soaked her feathers.

"I’m sorry sister!!" Zaphy pleaded for mercy as a few more splashes were sent her way. Lassim just chuckled and let them settle it between themselves.

Lassim continued his steps through the heart of the desert, the landscape becoming increasingly otherworldly.

The air crackled with static electricity, and small balls of lightning danced playfully through the storm, dodging the random bolts that struck the ground.

These animated lightning orbs followed the trail left by his [Tempest Steps], like a school of fish following a larger predator.

Lassim observed them following his trail with amusement but did not engage; their playful nature posed no threat.

The deeper he ventured, the more surreal the scenery became.

Glass spires rose from the sand, their surfaces smooth and reflective. These spires looked like they had once been rocky formations, transformed by the intense heat of countless lightning strikes.

Incidentally, some of these spires were being struck repeatedly by lightning, and atop them, Lassim spotted figures in purple martial robes, meditating and tempering themselves with the lightning.

Lassim found this sight intriguing. The disciples’ robes fluttered gently in the wind, their expressions serene despite the ferocity of the storm around them.

However, a few of them did wince and show signs of pain whenever particularly large and forceful bolts of lightning struck them.

As Lassim approached to get a closer look and possibly ask for directions, two individuals descended from out of nowhere, their auras radiating the formidable power of the Spirit Transcendent stage.

Lassim also noticed that directly above their heads was each a single halo.

One wielded a sword with a tassel at the end of a long handle, the other a spear. Their purple robes bore red accents, unlike the gray accents of those meditating.

"Stop right there," the swordsman commanded, his voice firm. "This is the Lightning Sect’s Tempering Fields. You do not belong here."

Lassim paused, his instincts on high alert. The pressure from their combined auras was immense. Basically on par with his if he released his full cultivation. He could sense their readiness to fight as they raised their weapon, about to strike at any wrong move.

"Sorry, I am a bit unsure of where I’m supposed to go," Lassim said calmly, his eyes meeting theirs. "I was looking for how to get to the Lightning Sect."

"You’re trespassing," the spearman countered.

"I promise, I have good reason to visit the sect. I’m trying to join, and I even have a letter from my Headmaster at the Myriad Spirit Academy."

The guards, undeterred and used to higher stage rogue cultivators trying to sneak into the sect replied, "Yeah, yeah, and I’m a mythical pink lightning sprite. We’ll see if your story is the same once you’ve spent a few days in our sect’s prison hold."

Lassim’s cultivation instinctively responded to the threat. He circulated his elemental mana, and the storm above reacted wildly, bolts of lightning striking closer and the wind whipping into a frenzy.

It was an incredibly unusual change in the entire atmosphere surrounding them. It was as if the entire region just turned into Lassim’s personal domain. The clouds in the immediate 2km range came under Lassim and Zaphy’s control.

The guards tensed, their eyes widening as the storm mirrored Lassim’s rising power.

They felt the antagonistic nature of the clouds above immediately as the main focus of Lassim’s ire and challenge. The lightning clouds that they always felt a connection to now seemed like they were angry at them.

They didn’t struggle to control their own mana or the ambient lightning mana, but they could feel the innate dislike of it, which was a bizarre and uncomfortable sensation they’d never experienced before.

"Very well," Lassim said, gripping his halberd tightly. "If a fight is what you want, then so be it."

The swordsman moved first, his blade slicing through the air with a flash of lightning trailing behind it.

Lassim parried the attack with his halberd, the clash of their weapons sending a shockwave that rippled through the sand.

The spearman followed up with a swift thrust, aiming for Lassim’s midsection. He twisted his body, narrowly avoiding the strike, and countered with a sweeping arc of his halberd.

The fight was a dance of lightning and elemental steel, each movement precise and powerful.

Lassim’s mastery of [Tempest Steps] allowed him to move with blinding speed, his form a blur as he weaved between attacks and delivered his own.

The guards were skilled, their synchronization impeccable, but Lassim’s connection to the storm above gave him an edge.

As the battle raged on, the intensity of the storm grew. Lightning struck the ground around them with increasing frequency, each bolt sending a cascade of sand into the air.

Some struck the two guards directly as Zaphy’s influence extended out and controlled them to attack and hopefully catch the guards off guard.

Unfortunately, they’d been tempered countless times by lightning bolts and it only further fueled their cultivation techniques. Zaphy and Lassim didn’t realize this as it just restored their expended mana but by bit.

However, the guards’ initial confidence began to waver as they struggled to keep up with Lassim’s relentless assault.

He was much more powerful than any rogue cultivator ought to be and the worst part was that he was only a Spirit Transcendent cultivator that could leap two stages and fight them both at the same time.

Plus, he was emitting this weird kind of pressure, one they only experienced inside the main building’s church to Famthar. That was the location where they held advancements in rank within the sect and received their new robes in the annual ceremonies.