Rebirth of the Phoenix\_-Chapter 54: Beneath the Surface

The sky rushed past Luis.

The wind tore at Luis’s clothes, roaring in his ears but this time, unlike in the forest, there was no panic clawing at his chest.

No spinning.

No flailing limbs.

He was perfectly straight.

Feet pointed downward. Arms close to his sides.

Far below, the glowing lake shimmered like liquid crystal, its surface reflecting ribbons of blue, emerald, and silver light.

Luis exhaled once through his nose and began circulating aura through his body.

For reinforcement.

The current of energy flowed through his limbs in smooth, practiced channels, reinforcing muscle and bone. A thin, nearly invisible layer of aura coated his skin, tightening like a second membrane. Luis also activated his blessing Phantom Leather while ignoring the tingle of pain that manifested with the activation of the blessing.

For a brief second, a memory flashed across his mind.

The forest, the sudden drop. Helpless spinning, and the air refusing to stay in his lungs back then.

Luis had been truly afraid back then but this time the water waited beneath him. Knowing he would land in water calmed him down.

The lake rose to meet him.

Then

Impact

Splash

The surface exploded outward in a burst of color and spray as Luis pierced through it feet first. Cold enveloped him instantly, wrapping around his reinforced body as he plunged deep below the glowing surface.

The aura around him absorbed much of the shock.

Still.

The pressure was immense.

He sank.

Ten meters.

Twenty.

Light fractured above him in wavering ribbons. Darkness slowly consumed the light.

Then the downward momentum slowed.

Luis bent his knees slightly and kicked upward, aura assisting the motion. He rose through layers of shimmering light until he broke through the surface with a sharp inhale.

Air filled his lungs.

And something brushed his foot.

His breath paused mid-draw.

A sudden, immense downward force yanked him beneath the surface again.

Luis’s eyes snapped open underwater.

Shadow chains.

Dark, solid strands of condensed darkness wrapped around his ankles, coiling like serpents. They tightened and pulled, dragging him just below the surface, not deep, but enough that he couldn’t go up for air.

Luis did not thrash.

This time, when water rushed around him, he let his lungs fill calmly before being dragged underwater, submerging completely.

He held his breath.

And as the oxygen thinned.

His aura responded automatically.

He was Advanced tier now.

The aura circulating within his body subtly compensated for the lack of air. Not perfectly. Not indefinitely.

But enough.

The faint pressure in his lungs faded.

His heartbeat slowed.

Silence embraced him.

Luis closed his eyes.

He floated beneath the surface, suspended by shadow chains, the glowing lake casting shifting colors across his skin.

And he turned inward.

Luis saw his four cores, each distinct.

The first: brown, solid, steady the adolescent rock golem blessing. A faint reddish hue surrounded it, a reminder of Phoenix influence lingering like heat in cooled stone.

The second: colorless, yet crackling faintly with lightning arcs.

The third: pale, nearly transparent the autonomous clone blessing.

And the fourth Blue.

Luis focused deeper.

The surface of the fourth core was not smooth. It was layered with shifting currents, like waves folding into each other. And at its very center he saw it.

A vortex.

A spiraling whirlpool of condensed aura.

Azure in color.

The vortex rotated slowly, but the deeper he focused, the more detail emerged. Countless microscopic streams of aura fed into it from every direction. When they entered.

They changed.

Colorless aura entered.

Blue aura emerged.

Transmuted.

Elementally aligned.

Luis’s perception sharpened further. He narrowed his awareness to a single thread of aura approaching the vortex. Normally, he commanded aura in totality, the entire core’s output.

Now he tried something different.

He isolated one strand, just one. It was like trying to listen to a single drop of water in the middle of a waterfall. The strand slipped away. He tried again.

Failed.

Again.

Failed.

Time lost meaning beneath the water.

His lungs no longer burned. Aura compensated quietly, sustaining his body in suspended calm.

Luis focused harder.

He remembered something. Not his own memory.

The dream.

When the Phoenix had been a flower among countless others, it had not seen them as separate entities. It had felt them. Threads of subtle energy connecting root to root, petal to petal.

It had recognized similarity, affinity.

That same sensation stirred now. Luis stopped trying to grab the strand of aura.

Instead

He felt for it.

Felt the movement.

Felt the intention.

And there Luis found it, one thread approaching the vortex.

He followed it.

As it entered the spinning center, Luis followed its transformation.

The aura’s essence changed when it emerged to the other side, not metaphorically. It was water, it felt heavy, fluid. Luis called on that specific strand of aura.

Not the whole core.

Just that strand. For a moment, nothing happened and then it answered.

The strand detached from the rest of his aura and flowed out following his will.

Luis’s eyes snapped open underwater.

Luis could feel it now, not the aura but the water. It felt related to him now. The lake was no longer an external substance.

Luis focused on the strand of water released from his hand. Luis pushed it against the current. The water near his skin shifted slightly going against the lake’s flow.

Luis made a small stream of water spin around his wrist, it was slow at the start but Luis kept his focus until the speed increased.

Luis stopped the stream and instead focused on the surrounding water. Luis couldn’t command any of the water but he had noticed that some followed his own stream of water that was flowing around his wrist.

Luis focused outwards from his own detached aura in the shape of water. In his mind Luis commanded both his aura and the surrounding water to start flowing around his body. Only a small amount of water followed his own water but that was enough for Luis right now.