The Path ability he had in mind for his plan was just as impressive as the Tools themselves.

...

[Path Ability: {Ashen Anchor}

•>Grade: Gold {Peak}

•>Mastery~Growth: Bronze {Peak}

>Details: Ash is volatile, yet it is not dust. It holds weight, and doesn’t budge; it holds fumes of a distant dawn. Dust heralds the end, or rather the beginning, or perhaps what could have been. But Ash speaks of what once was.

>And what was will always be. And what is must always be balanced, anchored in the laws of almighty heaven.

>An Anchor of Ash is an Anchor of what is.

•This ability allows you to form an anchor using the fabric of space. The anchor treats space as flesh, and void flames as fuel to form a singularity of void matter. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

•This singularity, the anchor of ash, grants one control over the void flames, but also the entire fabric of space within the scope of your aether pool.

•The Anchor is a versatile and ever-shifting ability with more secrets than truths.

...

’Let’s do it.’

The plan formed in his mind and immediately, he got to work.

Samael looked at Korynth, who had fallen silent, simply staring at him as he thought.

"Is there any way you can share your aether pool with me? Or perhaps help me replenish my own faster than I expend it?"

Korynth raised a brow in curious surprise. "I can do both, but the efficiency of either depends on the task you want to carry out."

"I found a solution to get to the gate." He hesitated for a bit. "Well, I’m hoping I did. I’m not sure it’ll work."

"But to even attempt it, I need to push a bunch of my abilities and artefacts to their limits, and I’m not sure I have enough energy for that."

"I can usually barely use them for a minute before I’m dry, and that’s when I use them at my own limited scale. So, I was hoping you could at least do this much."

Korynth didn’t react to the poisoned dagger laced within his words that shot toward her. "I see."

She was totally unbothered, so much so that Samael felt a tinge of embarrassment color his mind, inwardly chiding himself for his immaturity.

’Focus, damn it!’

"I can do that. Since it’s one of your abilities, it’s better if they run off your own natal energy. So, what I’ll do is replenish your core, but I’ll also—"

She lifted a palm, and swaths of atmospheric aether gathered atop it as a gaseous mass of radiant ivory, only to shift and turn to flowing liquid, then harden into sparkling and rough marble crystal.

She blinked, and runes erupted across the surface of the crystal just as it shook and transformed into a smooth crystal bead of ivory and golden-emerald runes.

"—hand you this. If you link it to your core, it’ll have an extended pool as large as an S-Ranker’s. I’ll be constantly refilling your core, and at the same time, you’ll have a larger pool in general."

She smiled dangerously. "This much should be fine, yes? Or does His Royal Highness demand more of this humble and chained-down loyal servant?"

Samael sneered, taking the core she had formed as his cheeks reddened. "Yes, that’s fine. Thanks."

He shook his head and turned away from her, facing the gate in the distance. But then he paused, and awkwardly turned back.

"Um... how do I link this to my core?"

Korynth’s smile, which hadn’t left her lips, widened as she stepped toward him. She tapped his solar plexus, right over his core.

"Extend a sliver of your natal aether, and I’ll do the rest."

Samael’s expression tightened. "How do I do that?"

This time, Korynth’s smile faltered. How did an ascendant not know how to control aether?

Granted, most ascendants couldn’t do it at a high level and, in fact, essentially never used it outside of fuel for their abilities. But for someone linked to Uriel, she expected more.

Beyond that, she didn’t understand how Samael managed to use Veiling if he couldn’t control his aether.

’Is he using a passive ability of sorts? But no... he had that veil on even before he awakened. Maybe a bloodline ability?’

’Or is he lying and messing with me?’

She ignored the thought for now. "How do you control your aether as of now? What method do you use?"

"I-I... just will it. If I want to activate an ability, I just ’ask’ my core to fuel it. Then, if I want the ability to be stronger, I ask it but... harder?"

She nodded. "I see. So you do not have any control over your aether. That is terrible news, both for your future and mine, but I digress."

He wanted to protest, but aware she was partially right—and mostly vindicated due to his previous dagger—he allowed it and remained silent.

He could use the excuse that he had awakened a mere month ago and had no guidance, but that would only make his situation worse.

Without counting the month he had passed dormant, Samael knew that Uriel had been an Ascendant for only two months, and he doubted he had had guidance during that time, let alone quiet and relatively peaceful time dedicated to training like Samael had.

There was something about Uriel that just stank of death and grit, of blood, tears, and cries of agony and victory. Though it was hidden by his soft and easygoing nature, it was still there.

It was something Samael didn’t have yet.

"Give me your hand and..." Korynth began to explain to him how to bind the core.

Because he couldn’t control his aether yet, the method was long and tedious, and as the seconds passed and the process carried on, Samael only grew more and more impatient.

But there was nothing he could do.

...

Eventually, though, he managed to bind the core and instantly—and finally—began his work.

He stared at the gate and took a deep breath in. He exhaled quickly, then rapidly crouched down, slapping his palms against the bronze ground.

PAH!

His aether churned, and he activated [Ashen Anchor], the filaments and waves of his sparks singing in his ears as he spread his senses and formed the anchor at the dead center of the hall.

He felt the vastness and simplicity of the fabric of space, contrasted by the sheer complexity and minuteness of the flows of time.

The two were polar opposites, yet perfectly slotted into one another to form the foundation of all worlds that stood upon the void.

He instantly realized that through [Ashen Anchor], with enough time and dedication, he could study space and time to their depths and rapidly advance his sparks’ grades.

But he refocused just as quickly.

WHOOOSH!

Harsh winds exploded around him as he burned more and more aether, and rapidly, in the center of the hall, a large and gigantic floating orb of grey energy began to form.

Eventually, it stopped growing and instead began to shrink and compress. As that happened, the fabric of space bent and twisted like wet tissue beneath its growing weight.

Space didn’t collapse, and yet void flames gently sparked into being across the hall, rapidly sucked into the small singularity that formed in the center of the hall of gold and bronze.

Samael continued to burn aether until his [Ashen Anchor] took control of the space of the entire hall. Only then did he move on.

He was sweaty and nearly out of breath, feeling the strain of his core’s overuse for the first time, but he didn’t dare complain.

’Step one is done.’

A dark gourd covered in runes suddenly appeared at his waist, held by a thick cloth tied to him.

The gourd was shaped akin to two stacked and mushed-up bubbles of darkness, made solidified and polished to look like gems of pure darkness. The runic lines drawn across it only added to the allure.

The sealing cork of the gourd lifted on its own, and suddenly, all the aether in the hall shook, devoured by the gourd.

Korynth’s eyes widened, and her heart skipped a beat.

"NO—!"

What Samael had done would not only kill them both, but maybe cause a chain reaction that would destroy the entirety of Kael.

But just as she expected death, her eyes widened even more.

WHOOOSH!

Before the world could react to its loss of energy, the gourd shook and spat out what must have been easily a thousand times the originally devoured energy.

But it wasn’t so simple.

The flood of energy was elemental in nature, coming out in seas of bright gold ash and crystal dust that shimmered with dark azure light.

The flows of elemental energies melded across the fabric of the hall, which was under Samael’s control through [Ashen Anchor], and in a blink terraformed it into a new world.

The bronze flooring collapsed into a thick expanse of stretching gold and azure sands, the rising pillars of gold turning into behemoths of azure crystals.

The ceilings overhead changed the least, going from ivory crystal to bright gold, and its azure stalactites turning to clear glass, reflecting all light.

"...!"

Samael heaved for air, his body shuddering and shaking, threatening collapse just as his skull pounded in pain, pushed to its limits by the sheer amount of aether he was wielding.

Uriel never had such an issue by virtue of his moons and the abnormal nature of his mind, allowing him to control oceanic levels of energy, just like he had done in the forest against Lucianna’s servant.

But most ascendants didn’t have that luxury, and Samael surely didn’t have it yet.

Just as he was about to pass out, Samael felt a rush of warmth explode from deep within him, rising to shatter his fatigue and supercharge him with energy and focus.

In a beat, he was back to full focus and health.

His eyes widened, and he recognized the feeling. It was the same feeling he had gotten when Uriel healed him after lifting him off the pike.

’Did he leave this inside my body in case I got injured?’

Samael’s jaw tightened, and his eyes darkened. Motivation rose in his heart alongside bubbling worry.

It had been much more than five minutes since they had gotten here, let alone since they left Uriel, and yet he still wasn’t here.

"..."

’Step two is done,’ he thought with sharpened focus.

Now, there came the last and most dangerous step.