Atticus didn’t even have time to be shocked as the surrounding area around it’s hand suddenly became humid and water molecules materialized in the next instant, swirling.
A gust of air appeared next, followed by blocks of ice and then crackling lightning, intense radiating light, and then the eerie, glum darkness.
And as though trying to spite Atticus, the air above his hand suddenly distorted.
‘Space! Those are all my elements, what the hell is going on?’
A sudden passing thought struck Atticus. This unfolding scene, he had seen it a thousand times back on Earth.
It seemed like what usually happened in movies where a character would fight against a creature who was trying to take control of him or her.
Said creature would also assume the same appearance as the character and would have identical powers.
The creature suddenly turned upwards to face Atticus, and in the next instant, each of the elements in its palm surged upwards, their shapes intertwining and coalescing into a colossal vortex of varied elements. With an abrupt movement, the vortex pierced the air, shooting towards Atticus’s form with supersonic speed.
Atticus’s gaze narrowed, his expression becoming ice-cold.
The attack reached him in under a second, and just as it seemed that it would hit him, Atticus suddenly muttered under his breath, ‘fire mimicry.’
It was as though a surge of fire passed through Atticus, changing his composition at the deepest level.
It started from his hair, cascading down to engulf his head and whole body, his entire being seemed to shimmer and flicker like dancing flames.
Atticus became fire.
His form erupted upward in a blaze akin to a mushroom explosion, easily evading the devastating attack that whizzed through where he had been before.
Atticus’s figure, with his clothes still intact, materialized in the air, and just as he was about to retaliate, he suddenly heard a voice. It was as calm as it was frightening.
His voice.
But as he heard it, Atticus’s heart couldn’t help but skip a beat.
“Transcendent Slash: Godspeed Grace.”
Atticus’s gaze was able to get a glimpse of the creature’s form, its figure perfectly mirroring the form of the life weapon’s first art, before the creature suddenly vanished, a gleaming razor sharp katana instantaneously appearing inches away from his throat.
Atticus’s head went completely blank.
He had been far too shocked about what had just happened that his head had unknowingly gotten filled with thoughts about just how this was possible.
It was using the life weapon’s art? How?
The millisecond Atticus’s eyes regained his focus, the creature’s katana had already drawn blood from his neck, a devilish grin on its face.
Its elation was well-deserved because there was no mistaking it, Atticus was done for, and this was the same exact thought that passed through his head.
It was the katana’s art in its entirety. He knew firsthand how powerful they were, how swift and quick.
There was no time to do anything, no time to call upon any power.
Just as the gleaming katana blade was about to cut through Atticus’s neck, his resigned gaze suddenly landed on the red hue of the space they were currently in, and then a thought struck him.
This space they were currently in, it was his will.
Atticus had felt a profound level of peace standing inside this space, why was that?
It felt comfortable and safe, as though it understood who he was on the deepest level.
That word had been wrong.
There was no ‘it’, what he was seeing wasn’t a separate entity.
He felt peaceful and at home here because of one reason; it was a representation of who he was on the deepest level.
The realization struck him like a thunderbolt; ‘It’ was him.
Atticus’s piercing blue eyes suddenly erupted in an intense crimson glow as his once initially pure white hair turned ethereal, its form radiating a dark red luminous light that hung in the air as though it were weightless.
It occurred all at once and from every conceivable angle.
The once docile and calm red space suddenly shook, erupting from every angle like a raging inferno that enveloped the creature’s form in the next instant.
A painful screech, primal in its entirety, suddenly rocked the space.
Atticus’s crimson eyes gazed coldly at the figure of the creature which seemed to be melting inside the raging red wave that was his will.
It lost its once humanoid shape and started morphing into its earlier form.
After a few seconds, the raging red wave resided and Atticus focused his gaze on the completely docile blob a few meters away from him.
Seeing that it remained completely still, Atticus decided to examine himself firstly.
‘What is this transformation?’
From the corner of his eyes, he could see his ethereal hair flowing behind him. It felt more like a weightless wave than air.
Aside from that, Atticus didn’t seem to feel anything different.
‘Hmm,’ a thought suddenly popped into his head, and he immediately decided to try it out. With a thought, the red ground stirred and enveloped him, and simultaneously, a surge of power coursed through his form, increasing every single one of his powers.
He felt his stats increasing, his bloodline growing stronger, his arts peaking. He felt invincible.
‘This was exactly how I felt back then,’ Atticus recalled when he had been fighting the life weapon’s avatar and had somehow called out to his will.
Atticus decided to think about it later and immediately turned his gaze towards the blob on the floor.
He walked towards its still docile form, staring down at it. ‘What next?’ Atticus pondered.
As Atticus stared down at it, he felt something calling out to him. It was instinctual, begging him to touch it.
Atticus was initially skeptical, but seeing as he had no choice, he focused his attention on his will, making sure he was ready to react to anything.
Then, Atticus touched the creature.
As his hand made contact with it, it suddenly surged upwards, its form expanding all around Atticus’s figure, encompassing him.
Atticus had initially wanted to fight, thinking it was an attack, but he calmed down when he realized that there was no threat.
In the next instant, Atticus’s form was completely enveloped in a cocoon-like mass.
Inside the cocoon, Atticus experienced a sensation akin to delicate threads weaving through his body, inch by inch, from the surface of his skin to the depths within.
Each thread seemed to intertwine seamlessly with his form, merging and integrating itself with Atticus’s very being.
It didn’t take long, as after a few minutes, Atticus’s form burst out of the cocoon, landing on one knee, his entire form including his head enveloped in a pitch-black suit that clung to him like a second skin.
Atticus’s lowered head suddenly snapped upwards, his gaze erupting into an intense crimson glow.
