The Primeval Era-Chapter 94: Flight! I

Damian was currently taking long leaps across the Lands of Stone.

He crossed regions filled with massive Ancestral Pillars, those impossibly tall trees that rose up endlessly toward skies they never quite reached. Their trunks were wider than the huts of entire tribes, their canopies so high that they seemed to merge with the clouds themselves. Between them, smaller vegetation flourished in the Mana-rich soil, creating patches of green amid the endless gray of stone.

And there were animals everywhere.

Intricate creatures scattering here and there as the horde of Primal Beasts passed through their territories. These ones hadn’t drawn in enough Mana in their bodies to become Primal Beasts themselves. They were still ordinary creatures, still bound by the limitations of flesh that had not been transformed by power.

But they were fascinating nonetheless.

Damian saw birds with feathers that shimmered like captured lightning, their calls echoing through the Ancestral Pillars as they fled from the approaching tide.

Impundulu, some tribes called them. Storm-singers. Their wings left trails of static in the air as they scattered.

He saw massive gray cats slinking through the underbrush, creatures larger than any normal predator had a right to be, their eyes gleaming with intelligence that seemed almost human.

The Mngwa. Silent hunters that even Warriors spoke of in hushed tones.

He saw serpents with heads that resembled elephants, their trunks coiled around branches as they watched the procession pass with ancient, unblinking eyes. Grootslang, the old stories called them. Beasts that had existed since before humans learned to walk upright.

And scattering beneath the canopy, smaller creatures fled in every direction. Antelope with spiraling horns that glowed faintly with absorbed Mana. Rodents with fur that changed color as they moved. Insects that buzzed with lights that pulsed in patterns too complex to be random.

As he was currently following the horde of Primal Beasts across these regions, many of these smaller animals were scattering away or freezing in fear. They knew what it meant when Behemoths moved. They knew to stay out of the way.

Through all of this, Damian was keeping pace with the Inkanyamba.

It should have been impossible.

The Behemoth Primal Beast flew through the air with speed that covered miles in moments, its massive serpentine body cutting through the atmosphere like a blade through water. Its wings beat with force that generated winds strong enough to bend the Ancestral Pillars, and the storm-clouds around its mane crackled with lightning that illuminated its path.

And yet Damian kept up.

Not by flying.

He couldn’t fly.

But he could jump!

His body would arc through the sky, Mana-enhanced muscles propelling him with force that left craters in the stone wherever he landed. He would touch down for barely a heartbeat, his knees flexing as the impact shook the Lands, and then he would launch himself again with even greater force.

Each jump carried him hundreds of meters.

Each landing lasted less than a second.

His body crossed the air and floated momentarily in the very same sky that the Inkanyamba was flying across. For those brief moments of apex, he glided through the atmosphere with something approaching grace, the wind tearing at his clothes and his hair as momentum carried him forward.

Then he would begin falling again.

And the cycle would repeat.

Jump. Glide. Fall. Land. Jump.

Over and over.

Crossing the Lands of Stone in bounds that would have seemed impossible to anyone watching.

Eventually, the Behemoth Primal Beast turned its massive head toward him.

Those storm-filled eyes regarded Damian with an expression that could only be described as looking at a fool.

"Why don’t you just use your Mana to support your body?"

The Inkanyamba’s voice carried on waves of power, cutting through the wind that howled around them.

"Anyone above Organ Sanctification has enough purity and density of their Mana to do this. Basic flight. Elementary manipulation. The foundation of all aerial combat."

Its horse-like head tilted with what might have been curiosity or contempt.

"Or do you humans hate each other so much that your elders don’t teach you common techniques?"

...!

Damian was currently gliding through the air, his body at the apex of his latest jump as he began the slow descent toward the stones below.

His eyes became cloudy.

He looked toward this massive creature with an expression that held old pain carefully controlled.

"My elders are not here to teach me the common techniques."

His voice was cold.

"They were killed years ago."

...!

He said these heavy words with eyes that held memories he usually kept buried.

Who could have possibly taught him how to use Mana to float in the air or fly?

His father was dead.

His mother was dead.

The masters who should have guided his cultivation were corpses rotting in the ruins of the Vakochev Empire.

Unless he had an innate Land and Sky Physique like the Holy Daughter, there was no one to teach him the techniques that other cultivators took for granted. He had been forced to figure out everything on his own, to innovate and experiment and discover through trial and error what others learned at their teachers’ knees.

He could also innovate for himself how to fly, but he never really got the time as it had only been two days since he learned this letter of The Primordial Tongue.

The Inkanyamba blinked at his words.

For a moment, something flickered in those ancient storm-filled eyes. Not sympathy exactly. Beasts did not think in terms of sympathy. But perhaps recognition. Perhaps understanding of loss that transcended the boundaries between species.

Then it shook its massive head.

Its eyes blazed with brilliance as Mana gathered around its form, swirling and condensing into something that Damian had never seen before. A bundle of energy that pulsed with patterns and meaning, with information encoded in ways that went beyond simple power.

The bundle of unique Mana floated over to Damian, who had begun to slide down toward the earth once more.

"This is the technique for flight that Beast Lineages give to their young."

The Inkanyamba’s voice carried across the distance.

"Place it in your head to learn it."

...!