The amount of Elyria in the surroundings had reduced significantly. The arrays on the ground were all dry and the damp atmosphere that usually accompanied this place seemed to have dissipated.
There was a sense of anticipation in the air and the statues on the ground lining up towards the stairs could almost be said to be expectant. One could see a statue with two halves placed on it and it was the first from the stairs.
One could see the ruined hall and the stairs that seemed to lead to it. Climbing the first step though changed everything as the hall started getting further and further away. By the time one reached the 70th step, the hall was so far away that one would give up on climbing towards it anymore.
But here at the 70th step came a sudden change. The Elyria here was so much denser than everywhere in the ruins to the extent it created a pressure of its own. This resulted in some sort of darkness that gave the 70th step an eerie feel.
And on this step was a person. They were seated in mediation position with their eyes closed. His bare upper body seemed to carry an outline of certain abs. His hair fell on his face covering his closed eyelids. He had a boyish look on his face and his body seemed to be under the pressure of Elyria and also something else.
He could not notice it at all because his face did not flinch even as his neck bent forward as though trying to detach from the back bone. And suddenly, there was movement. It started as a small whirlpool but it later turned into a vortex that threatened to swallow anything and everything.
And that it did. The Elyria in the surrounding as though it had been waiting for this moment all seemed to flood into the vortex and at the center of this vortex was a golden glow that seemed to come from the right palm of the boy's hand.
For the first time, his face flinched and his closed eyes twitched. Not from pain but from the pressure the vortex created drawing all that Elyria into his palm. He seemed to struggle so as not to open his eyes but the vortex seemed to get even faster. More dangerous. His hand which had been placed on his knee suddenly fell off to the floor going numb…
***
That was going on in the outside and what was going on in the inside was even worse. Lyren regretted everything. The voice that had told him to hold back his breakthrough to the next stage seemed to have disappeared.
When he heard that voice, he felt it was a good idea and he had held back his breakthrough for almost a month. All this time, all the Elyria in the surroundings had been drawn to him and today he was bearing the fruits of his 'hard work'.
When the pattern in his palm activated on its own and started drawing Elyria, Lyren suddenly felt his hand expand as though it was going to explode from inside out. He tried to maintain his composure but his hand went numb and he could no longer move it. But that was not the end of it though. The turmoil that was going on inside him was even worse that he felt he might die.
Inside his core was where all the chaos lay. His core which he had stopped from rotating few seconds before was the cause of everything. It had stopped getting smaller with each breakthrough but new changes had been happening to it.
First, it had turned to a dark orange and it appeared that it was also starting to change its color with some parts starting to shine slightly than others. The chaos started when he let go of control and the core had started spinning on its own.
It's speed had started the usual slow but the next second, it was already spinning. The world surrounding the core had been filled to the brink such that it had expanded on its own, stretching outwards threatening to break away.
When the core picked up pace and disappeared for real this time, the sanction created a vortex in the inside that seemed to want to draw in the organs that surrounded it. Lyren was so tense that he felt that he had done a very big mistake. Then, the channel tugged.
This tug made him feel as though the hand was sucked in with the Elyria and his nerves no longer felt connected to the hand. But it did not end there as the core started drawing huge volumes of Elyria using the single channel and it started filling the already filled world around the core.
In just seconds, Lyren felt a crack and suddenly, the world's border seemed to have been destroyed and increased even further. Lyren thought that the Elyria was going to leak to his internal organs but that did not happen at all as the border seemed to have increased further maintaining it position with his internal organs.
His world around the core became larger almost twice the size it had been before. This marked the entry to the next level. His core did not seem to slow down, instead, it appeared to continue destroying the world around it and then recreating the barrier again and again. His heart seemed to want to stop every time he witnessed the world get destroyed and his internal organs being visible from the core.
This was a mesmerizing ad traumatic experience as the world seemed to have gotten even larger. Lyren really felt the effect of having just one channel in his palm. It was a huge disadvantage because if he had more channels, the workload would shift to various channels.
But now, all he could do was to hold on as the core drew as much energy from the surroundings using the one channel as it could.
It took a long time before the vortex outside started to slow down and the Elyria in the surrounding began to lose weight. It was shocking that all that Elyria had been drawn into that feeble-looking body of his but he himself did not seem to be concerned at all. As long as he advanced…
When everything slowed down, Lyren was already tired. He could not wait for the core to stop sucking more Elyria so that he could take a rest. He also wanted to enjoy the feeling of being officially in the Late Stages of the Awakening realm. The world was no longer twice the size it had been but almost three times.
When Lyren's aura settled down, there was a sudden wind that blew upwards. His hair was blown backwards and it appeared that it was trying to detach from his head revealing his brown scar. He slowly opened his eyes and a familiar white light flashed through his eyes releasing a certain chill and sharpness that had not been there before.
He could feel a head ache coming along because how on earth was he expected to fill this world in the first place. He felt the final strands of Elyria make way into the core world. It was strange being in the seventh stage. He could not believe that all that Elyria had not been enough to fill the world at least quarter-way.
The Elyria he had seemed sparse in comparison to the one he needed in order to fill the world quarter way. He had broken to the sixth stage four months before and it had taken him a whole four month for him to finally break through to the seventh stage.
Obviously, he had been practicing his sword swings and lighting up the arrays but he had never been able to light up all the four faces at the same time.
His progression with the VANTAGELESS BLADE had improved but it had reached a stalling period where he could no longer advance because he had been lacking some form of insight.
He had visited the technique several times but he had failed to attain any form of enlightenment and he had chosen to only practice the sword swings instead.
Lyren stood up as the sole figure on the stairs. His body had some improvements and it seemed to have become even more toned. He was not that tall but when he looked down below, he carried a mature gaze and his hair had gotten longer. He let it fall on his back and the scar on his forehead seemed to strike out becoming the only outline of his near-death experience.
He took a step downwards a smile forming on his lips. He was finally in the late stages and he was qualified to light up the whole array…