The Primeval Era-Chapter 29: The Ancestral Veil! I

The spars he had when he was young seemed so distant now, but he still remembered them somewhat.

The training grounds where stone pillars rose like ancient sentinels and the floor was worn smooth by generations of feet finding their stances. The weight of practice weapons in his small hands. His father watching from the elevated platform, nodding with approval when technique was executed properly, offering corrections when it was not.

Those memories felt like they belonged to someone else. A different boy in a different life.

But now, when he looked at Uncle Adam who had a spear ready, he felt something of that boy stirring within him.

Uncle Adam stood with the stillness of a predator about to strike. The tendrils of Mana coursing over his body had intensified, coiling around his arms and shoulders like serpents preparing to lunge. His grip on the spear was loose but certain, the kind of grip that came only from decades of repetition.

He looked like a brutal beast who could cut Damian down at any second.

But also...

DUM!

The beat of his heart rang so loudly that Damian felt a sense of confidence he could not explain. It was not arrogance. It was not false bravado born of ignorance. It was something that came from feeling his body respond to him in ways it had not responded in eight years.

He was alive.

Truly, completely, magnificently alive.

"Come on, old man!"

He shouted to the Warrior before him, his voice carrying through the Mana-thick air of the clearing.

In the next second, Uncle Adam moved.

And...

And...!

...!

Damian was astonished.

He saw the crackling tendrils of Mana coursing over Uncle Adam’s muscles as the old warrior launched himself forward. He saw these flickers of power dancing along the shaft of the spear, concentrated at the stone tip where they would add devastating force to the strike.

And everything seemed to be going in slow motion.

As if Uncle Adam was moving, yes, but Damian was watching him move unfathomably slow. He could not truly explain it. The rational part of his mind knew that Uncle Adam was attacking with the speed of a peak Flesh Awakening Warrior, a speed that should have been impossible to track clearly.

But his eyes flickered with Mana of their own.

He saw the way the muscles in Uncle Adam’s arms twisted, fibers contracting in precise sequence. He saw how the Mana supported these contractions, flooding into each muscle group a fraction of a heartbeat before it was needed, enhancing strength and speed beyond what mere flesh could achieve.

He saw exactly where the spear was going.

The trajectory was clear to him, a line drawn in the air that his enhanced perception could read like words on stone.

And his body responded.

DUM!

He felt that beat again, and every part of him seemed so alive. So connected. So unified in purpose!

His flesh tingled with Mana that had not been there this morning. His bones hummed with stored power. His blood carried energy through vessels that burned with new vitality. His marrow stirred with the beginnings of generation. His organs pulsed in harmony, each one contributing to a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts.

To the extent that he did not even use the axe in his hands.

He simply moved.

Blue pulses of Mana released from his flesh, from his bones, from his blood, from his marrow, from his organs, all in synchronization with that heavy heartbeat. The light was faint compared to Uncle Adam’s established cultivation, barely visible in the Mana-rich air of the mountainside.

But it was there.

And it was enough.

Damian shifted his weight lightly, his foot sliding across the moss-covered stone with perfect placement. His torso rotated just enough, his head tilted at precisely the right angle. The movement was minimal. Efficient. Beautiful in its economy!

The spear that should have struck him passed an inch from his face.

He watched it go by with eyes that could perceive details they had never perceived before. He saw the grooves on the spear tip where it had been knapped from flint, each small imperfection telling the story of its creation.

He saw the grain of the wooden shaft, the places where hands had worn it smooth over years of use. He saw the sinew bindings that held stone to wood, slightly frayed from today’s battle but still holding strong.

And he saw the faint flickers of Mana on the fingers of Uncle Adam, power that had been channeled through the grip and into the weapon, now dissipating into the air as the strike found nothing but empty space.

WHOOSH!

The spear hit nothing.

Uncle Adam stopped, his body frozen in the follow-through of a strike that should have landed.

...!

Damian did not know what Uncle Adam saw when he looked at him.

But the eyes of this old warrior were trembling, wide with an expression that Damian recognized from this morning. From when the Tribesmen had watched him rise from mortal wounds wreathed in blue-gold flame.

He...better not start calling him a Tokoloshe too.

"You... are faster than me, Young Lugal?"

Uncle Adam said such words while in a stupor. His voice was barely above a whisper, as if speaking louder might shatter whatever impossible thing he was witnessing.

Then his shock transformed.

It melted into a smile of happiness that split his weathered face, that made his eyes shine with...

Hope.

Pure, undiluted hope!

"You are faster than me, Young Lugal!"

BOOM!

With such words, Uncle Adam erupted like a beast let loose from chains that had bound it for far too long.

Woah!

The old man looked like he was going in for the kill!

Damian wanted to tell him not to let his excitement accidentally murder his Young Lugal. Wanted to remind him that whatever impossible speed he had displayed, he was still new to this. Still learning! Still fragile compared to a warrior who had spent decades perfecting his craft.

But there was no time for words.

Uncle Adam shot his spear out with ferocity and technique that showed why he had once been trusted to guard a Young Lugal. The weapon became a blur of motion, striking high, striking low, sweeping and thrusting and cutting in patterns that flowed from one to the next without pause.

But whenever Damian felt the threat of an attack, his entire body blazed with attention and might.

DUM!

DUM!

DUM!

The few tendrils of Mana coursing through various systems of his body responded to each heartbeat, flooding his senses with information that should have been impossible to process. It made Uncle Adam seem like he was moving through water while Damian moved through air!