Awakening

Kantan felt a disturbance in the first floor control room, the amount of ambient chi diminished noticeably as he cultivated the demonic essence around him. He had been trying to condense and weave his chi as close together as possible, only making what felt like average progress. The new cultivation pattern he was using would give him significant benefits down the road in the form of efficiency and storage capacity, but it required a significant amount of time. He had forced himself to hold the pattern himself to improve his chi manipulation, not wanting to rely on Veri for all of his growth.

This freed up her consciousness to focus on watching the rest of the floor through the control gem. In it a you could see a different person in the dungeon in each facet, and with a bit of chi you could rotate the view around the person. A small flash of light in the black haze that having so much demonic essence created confirmed that something significant had happened. Veri's thoughts flitted across their connection as he stood to inspect the gem. "Looks like the newest batch of hopefuls have arrived, at least I'll have something to watch while you figure out ranking up."

A jolt of remembrance surged through his mind, "The trial! I had completely forgotten with everything that had happened." Kantan raced around the central pedestal, which was now pulsing with an almost negative glow to it. He searched through the different facets of the gem, trying to find Lyra to see if she had entered. A pang of guilt sat in his chest as he realized he had never shown up to go exploring with her the night before. He was unable to see a view of her trial right away and a bead of frustration started to form in his mind. "I can't find her trial, did she not enter?"

Veri's interest piqued and he could feel the curiosity dripping from her thoughts. "Oh? Do you have a girlfriend?" Her usually bubbly tone seemed to intensify, and more thoughts flooded him before he could respond. "Does that mean I have a girlfriend now? I mean we are technically the same person now, or at least we share a physical body. I have always been curios about…" Her voice trailed off and the implied tone shifted dramatically, making Kantan's ash gray face gain some color again.

Kantan flustered, overwhelmed by her interrogation, "She is not my girlfriend!" His tone carried more spite to it than he intended and triumphant humor threaded itself into their connection from the other end.

"Oh I see, you WISH she was your girlfriend." Kantan became a darker shade of pink at her thoughts, "Now i'm more curious about how humans cop-"

Face darkening even farther, he sent a mental clamp on the connection much like you would put a hand over someones mouth to keep them from talking. "Enough of that! She has no desire to hold me in the same light, especially now that I'm not entirely human." Loss clawed at the edges of his psyche when he considered his prospects at finding any love, let alone Lyra's, given his new demonic features. His hand found one of his horns, fingering the edge of it as if to verify that they were still there.

A muted sense of pity seeped through his clamp on their connection, making him feel slightly worse about his appearance. He released his hold on their link and she wasted no time in resuming her speech. "You know, as somewhat of an expert on demonology and the different shapes demons take, i'd say you look quite menacing." He searched her thoughts for more pity or a hint of consolation, but found none.

Kantan chuckled to himself before responding, "You know it's not typically a good thing to be considered menacing, Veri. The only place that seems to help is on the battlefield, not that I have seen real battle." He continue to scan through the different faces of the cut gem, watching the various trial takers. He recognized a most from his class, though there were definitely some from other classes. After a few minutes of watching, one of the lower facets caught his attention, an imp with pale gray skin not unlike his own jumping away from a stone chair. It was then that he recognized the trial taker in that facet, the perspective sitting above and behind the person in the dungeon.

"That's her!" He placed his hand on the gem and crouched down to get a better angle on the lower facet. As his hand connected with the gem, multiple strands of awareness surged into his mind. Each one was like a gale force hurricane of thought and emotion quickly overwhelming him. Kantan yanked his hand away and grabbed his head as it pulsed. "What the hell was that."

Veri squeaked a high pitch noise, only worsening the pounding in his head, "You could sense them? Human's shouldn't be able to sense a dungeon's bond to its creatures, it is too much for your simple brains to process." Kantan's head began to calm itself, though he felt distinctly mentally fatigued. "If you can feel a dungeon bond, I wonder what else you could do. I didn't imagine binding to your chi channels would have that drastic of an effect, especially so quickly."

Kantan droned Veri out as she continued to ramble, focusing instead on the fight between Lyra and the Imp. It was going well for her, both her agile fighting style and the reach of her doubled short swords gave her a distinct advantage over the imp's stubby arms and legs. What she brought to the fight though, the imp was shoring up against with the use of Chi. Cuts that she landed on it bled little, closing up actively without any seeming end. He could tell she was getting slightly flustered, she liked having a decisive win when she fought.

Kantan tried to extend his senses toward the gem in the hopes of being able to trace the essence back, but there was too much feedback with the high chi density. There was simply too much demonic essence in the air around this viewing center, and he didn't have enough knowledge or experience to sort through the different feelings he obtained when manipulating his Chi senses.

Lyra danced around the imp, relying on her agile frame and fighting style to keep out of harms way. Thus far she had only managed a few shallow cuts on the demon, and its chi healed the injuries almost before her eyes. It was hard to stay completely outside of the imp's reach despite its small arms. Every time she tried to circle out and away from it, a quick surge of chi would send it flying at her. It always flew straight though, and she was getting better at predicting its trajectory each time it jumped to catch up to her.

A plan was formulating in her mind, one that would require her to be quick and precise if she were to deal with this demon before it got the upper hand. Again she blocked an attack from the imp's razor sharp claws using one of her short swords, the grating noise of claws on metal making her skin crawl. Instead of lashing out at the creature directly, she feigned an attack on the right side of the demon. It took the bait, jumping back with a burst of chi to prevent itself from getting stabbed.

Lyra's heart pounded in anticipation as she pulled away from the imp, a mock fear on her face plainly visible to the imp. It screeched in impending victory, and once it regained control of its momentum shot forward much faster than it had previously. The speed caught her off guard, making adrenaline pulse through her veins. Time seemed to slow and panic striking through her mind as her instincts told her that she would not be fast enough to intercept the demon like she had planned.

Her blade moved to intercept the creature's pounce, but her adrenaline focused senses knew it would be too late. The light of her father's bracer glinted off the demon's claws even as a dark foreboding energy trailed off of the bony protrusions. After all of this, was she going to die here. Doubt plagued her mind as her life began to flash through her memory. Her childhood flitted past, her adolescence fresher in her mind seemed to flow slower. She saw countless days pass in classes, many evenings pass in the fields and alleyways of the clan's domain. Most of these memories she had shared with Kantan.

As each instance of happiness, each moment of sadness, and each moment of normalcy passed through her mind with an unnatural clarity, Lyra felt a shiver in the center of her body. A small fluctuation in the space where she had always been taught her core was to reside. She latched onto the feeling with everything she had, the claws of the imp mere inches from her face and throat. A surge of energy shot from her center through to the rest of her body as she pulled with her will on that feeling. Energy reached her arm in an instant, causing it to blur faster than her eyes could follow.

At the same time Lyra could feel her legs shifting with an unnatural grace, causing her body to shift to the side opposite of her strike. Abruptly time sped up, the imp flying past her just barely. Lyra basked in the power flowing through her, incomparable to any adrenaline high she had ever experienced. She felt as if nothing could stop her anymore, as if time moved ever so slightly slower.

A soft thud brought her out of her revelry, causing her to turn and face the imp. She could feel her adrenaline spike through her veins, as well as the Chi she had awakened coursing through her Chi channels. Lyra let out a heavy sigh, not realizing that she had been holding her breath. The imp was a few feet away, cleaved in half.