Cultivation is Creation

Meanwhile, Elder Jirok had completed a great formation.

Runic arrays materialized around the battlefield, each one pulsing with stabilizing energy that began to neutralize Kal's ink constructs. The master of formations worked methodically, his fingers tracing complex patterns as he established control over the environment itself.

"Your techniques are impressive," Jirok called out, "but ultimately flawed. Art is ephemeral, it lacks the structural integrity of proper runic formations. Without anchoring points, your constructs will always—"

His words died in his throat as he realized Kal was smiling.

"You focus too much on what you can see, Elder Jirok," the Lightweaver said gently. "The true formation was completed before I even revealed myself."

Jirok's eyes widened in genuine horror as he finally sensed what had been hidden beneath his own working. Thinly dispersed throughout the entire area was an opposing formation, its components so subtly placed that they had escaped detection.

Where his arrays intersected with these hidden elements, they weren't being negated, they were being absorbed and redirected.

"Impossible," he whispered. "When did you—"

"The infiltration wasn't just to disable your barrier," Kal explained, his brush never ceasing its movement. "It was to place components to this counter-formation, each piece so small that it registered as nothing more than background energy fluctuation."

She released her technique in a concentrated blast, a column of flame so intense that it appeared white at its core. The heat alone was enough to melt stone, and the pressure behind it could shatter mountains.

Kal made no attempt to dodge.

Instead, he drew a single, perfect circle in the air before him.

As the flames engulfed his position, the circle expanded, its edges turning like a valve. Rather than burning through his defenses, the fire was drawn into the circle, disappearing completely.

For a moment, there was silence.

Then, in a dozen locations around the battlefield, identical circles appeared. From each one, a portion of Avery's attack emerged, dividing her single overwhelming force into multiple manageable streams, each directed at a different point in Jirok's formation.

The carefully constructed arrays began to overload, runic symbols burning out as they absorbed more energy than they were designed to channel. Jirok worked frantically to stabilize his creation, but it was like trying to patch a dam while the flood was already underway.

"Impossible," he repeated, genuine fear in his voice. "No one has mastered spatial transference to this degree since—"

"Since the First Age," Kal finished for him. "Yes, I know. The knowledge was thought lost when the Great Library fell. But some texts survived, hidden away in places you wouldn't think to look. The sacrifices to acquire that knowledge were more than worth it."

As Jirok struggled to maintain his formation, Jun renewed his assault with redoubled fury.

The cracks in his bone armor were spreading, blue light seeping through them like blood, but he fought with the desperate intensity of someone who knew defeat meant death.

"You will not make a mockery of us!" he howled, his transformed body beginning to emit a crimson mist that corroded everything it touched.

This was his ultimate technique, the Devouring Haze, capable of breaking down matter at the molecular level.

The mist enveloped several of Kal's ink ravens, dissolving them instantly.

Encouraged, Jun pressed forward, driving the corrosive cloud toward the Lightweaver himself. Where the mist touched the stone floor, it left smoking craters that continued to deepen as the effect persisted.

Kal's expression showed the first hint of strain. His brush moved with increasing speed, drawing complex patterns that formed a spherical barrier around him. The mist reached the barrier and began to eat through it, layer by layer.

"This is the difference between us," Jun gloated, sensing victory. "Your pretty pictures cannot stand against the red sun's true power!"

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Within his dissolving shield, Kal closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, they glowed with intensified light.

"You misunderstand," he said, his voice somehow carrying clearly despite the barrier between them. "I don't oppose the red sun's power. I oppose its misuse."

He turned his attention to the scroll in his left hand.

With a flick of his wrist, one of the paintings separated itself from the parchment, rising into the air before him. It depicted a mountain lake under moonlight, the water's surface perfectly still.

Kal breathed on the painting once. The ink mountain shuddered, then stabilized. The lake rippled as if disturbed by a breeze. Then, impossibly, water began to pour from the painting into the real world, filling the space within Kal's barrier.

Jun laughed. "Water against my Devouring Haze? The mist will simply contaminate it and turn your defense against you!"

"This isn't water," Kal replied calmly.

The liquid burst through the weakened barrier, meeting the crimson mist head-on.

Where they touched, the mist didn't corrupt the water, instead, the liquid absorbed the mist completely, growing darker with each passing second. It engulfed Jun's transformed body before he could retreat.

His scream was primal, filled with disbelief and agony.

The liquid seeped into the cracks of his bone armor, reaching the flesh beneath. Where it touched, the corrupting influence of the red sun was neutralized, leaving him vulnerable to the blue energy that had been hiding within the water all along.

Jun thrashed wildly, his transformation beginning to fail as the opposing energy invaded his system. "What is this?" he gasped, his voice returning to something more human as his bestial features receded.

"Moonwater from the still pools of Mount Cerulean," Kal explained, watching with something approaching compassion. "Harvested during the blue sun's zenith and infused with purification runes. It doesn't fight corruption, it transforms it."

The elder collapsed to his knees, his body convulsing as two opposing forces battled within him. Red energy leaked from his eyes and mouth, only to be consumed by streams of blue that followed the same paths. His skin began to crack, light spilling from the fissures.

"You have a choice, Elder Jun," Kal said, lowering himself to hover directly before the suffering man. "Accept the balance, or be consumed by it."

"I... will never... submit..." Jun gasped between spasms.

Kal nodded, genuine sadness in his eyes. "I know. You never do."

He drew a final character in the air, the symbol for "release." It touched Jun's forehead gently, sinking into his skin. For a moment, the elder's eyes cleared, the madness receding. He looked up at Kal with an expression of mingled hatred and revelation.

"You... you really have done this before," he whispered.

Then his body erupted in a pillar of light, half crimson, half azure, that shot upward to pierce the clouds. When it faded, nothing remained of Elder Jun but scattered ashes that drifted away on the wind.

Elder Jirok's formation collapsed entirely as its creator stared in horror at the place where his colleague had stood. "What have you done?" he demanded, his voice breaking. "What manner of heresy is this?"

"Not heresy," Kal corrected gently. "Necessity."

The battle resumed with renewed intensity. Elder Avery, seeing Jun's fate, abandoned all restraint. The air around her shimmered with heat as she activated multiple fire runes simultaneously, something that would have killed a lesser practitioner from the strain alone.

"You may have taken Jun by surprise," she called out, her voice steady despite the immense power she was channeling, "but I've studied your abilities. Your paintings have limitations, each one can only be used once, and creating them consumes your energy at an accelerated rate."

Spheres of concentrated flame materialized around her, each one containing enough power to level a small city. They orbited her body like miniature suns, waiting for her command.

"Impressive observation," Kal acknowledged, readying his brush again. "Though not entirely accurate."

Avery launched her attack without warning, sending the fire spheres hurtling toward Kal from multiple angles. Their trajectories curved unpredictably, making conventional evasion impossible. The air ignited in their wake, creating a cage of flame that cut off all escape routes.

Kal's brush moved, drawing not on the air this time but directly on his own body. Blue characters bloomed across his exposed skin, spreading beneath his vestments in intricate patterns.

As the first sphere reached him, his entire form seemed to dissolve into a swarm of glowing butterflies that scattered in all directions.

The fire spheres passed harmlessly through the space where he had been, colliding with each other in a cataclysmic explosion that shook the floating citadel to its foundations.

When the light and heat faded, the butterflies reformed, coalescing back into Kal's human shape.

"A transformation technique?" Avery's eyes narrowed in analysis. "No, a spatial displacement coupled with a sensory illusion. You're manipulating perception itself."

"Close," Kal admitted, the characters on his skin fading slowly. "It's actually—"

He was interrupted by a surge of power from above.

Headmaster Hiron, who had been observing the exchanges with calculated patience, finally entered the fray. The space around him distorted as reality itself struggled to contain the energy he was gathering.

Blood runes ignited across his skin, each one a masterpiece of precision and power.

Unlike the elders, whose runes were visible primarily when activated, Hiron's markings seemed to exist in a state between visibility and concealment, appearing as shadows beneath his skin one moment, then blazing with crimson light the next.

"Enough," he commanded, and the single word carried such authority that even the ongoing battle seemed to pause in response. "This has gone on long enough."

With a gesture so subtle it was barely perceptible, he directed a thread of power toward Kal. It moved faster than thought, bypassing all conventional defenses to strike directly at the core of the Lightweaver's being.

Kal's eyes widened in genuine surprise. Blood erupted from his mouth as he doubled over in midair, his brush and scroll nearly slipping from his grasp.

"Spiritual attack," he gasped, admiration mixing with pain in his voice. "Directly targeting the soul. Very few at Rank 8 can execute that technique without extensive preparation."

Hiron remained expressionless. "Surrender now. You've proven your point about the vulnerability of our defenses, but this path leads only to your destruction."

Kal straightened slowly, wiping blood from his lips with the back of his hand. "I wish it were that simple, Headmaster. I truly do." He glanced meaningfully at Elder Molric. "But some knowledge is worth any price."