While none penetrated the Shredder’s Prana Armor outright, they steadily chipped away at it. When that was gone, they drove into its skull, ending it.
Haste activated, slowing the world around him to a third of normal.
Vir danced around the beast, eviscerating it with an endless rain of slashes and darts. It didn’t last long.
And I don’t even need weapons to kill it!
Vir laughed, reveling in the absurdity of this new power.
Cirayus had been right. There was no substitute. What Ash Beast could hurt him now?
Prana Current’s effects were manifold. Everything benefited.
And Katar Launch?
“Ashani? How about something a little harder? How about a Yaksha?”
“Are you certain?” Ashani asked. “Your new strength is quite impressive, but I’m unsure you understand the true power of a Yaksha.”
Vir scratched his cheek. “How many times stronger than that Shredder do you think a Yaksha is?”
“At least twenty times the strength.”
So, about Balar 8000…
“I… suppose that figures,” Vir said, thinking of the insane Yaksha’s duel against the Wyrm. “Alright, what if you restricted it to only its melee weapons?”
“Hmm,” Ashani said, thinking deeply. “Eight times as strong as that Shredder you defeated.”
“Okay,” Vir said, understanding just how outmatched he’d been against the Yaksha. “Remove its godlike speed.”
“Three times the strength.”
“Balar 1200 to 1600, huh?” Vir muttered. “Alright. Let’s see how this goes.”
Vir turned on every combat passive he had—Current, Prana Armor, Toughen, and Haste.
The Six-armed Yaksha guardian appeared in front of him, though this one had a rotating golden sphere in place of its legs.
Vir fired Blade Launch, knowing that without its speed, the Yaksha would be forced to take the attack.
The blade of prana erupted from his katar like a surge of black fire, tearing a gash into the grass, before smashing into the guardian.
It shirked away, but couldn’t avoid the attack. The blade severed its three right arms, but Vir didn’t have time to rejoice. Darkness encroached at the edge of his vision and he collapsed.
Vir came to immediately. He was standing again. As if the darkness had been an illusion.
“I simulated what would happen had you actually used that attack using only the prana in your body,” Ashani said. “You would very nearly have died.”
“Uh, thanks,” Vir said, understanding just how bad that could have been if he’d tested it in the middle of a fight.
It also boggled him that despite the recent doubling of his blood capacity, when Current was active, the ability now sucked all the prana out of him. It left him a dry husk.
“This simulated world of yours is really handy,” he admitted.
Vir could picture himself training here, fighting all sorts of enemies. It’d be such a decisive advantage.
The Yaksha stood inert, with all its limbs restored.
“You’re telling me it regenerates that fast?” he asked.
“Of course! As can I. Don’t you remember?”
Oh, right. He had seen her rebuild her arm before his very eyes. Really shouldn’t be shocked by the astounding things the Imperium could do anymore…
Despite the outcome of the mock battle, he was more than pleased. Katar Launch had actually harmed an Imperium creation! Granted, it was a simulated, crippled version of an Imperium creation that had already reconstituted itself, but still…
“Alright, can you just have it stand there this time?” Vir asked. “I want to test out my other abilities.”
“The Yaksha is all yours,” Ashani replied, moving out of the way.
Vir activated Katar Launch again, but this time, allowed prana to flow into him. He still shuddered from the surge.
The blade ripped forth, so thick it was visible, tearing up the grass.
Chakram Launch, however, was no different from before. For prana to stick to the circular disk, it had to be spun at a very particular rate before leaving Vir’s body. Increasing that rate only caused the prana to detach from the chakram, making the ability fail.
Still, Vir was hardly fazed. He felt like he’d only just broached the surface of what Current could do, and it had already multiplied his power.
Its ability to pull prana made his abilities unfairly powerful within the Ash, but just as important, it meant he’d be able to pull in more prana from the ground once in the Demon Realm. He’d need that edge against the more abundant affinities there.
Both Toughen and Empower benefited from cycling Prana Current while activating those abilities. For Toughen, Vir dumped prana into the area of his body he wanted to strengthen against blows. The current simply amplified the effect.
It made Vir wonder what all he could achieve by flowing prana across the chakra points in his body. He guessed that Parai’s pattern was so complex because the demon was working with the constraints of both blood and chakras. Vir had eschewed those complex patterns in favor of simple loops for now, yet he wondered if there were gains to be had by linking chakras together in a simpler pattern than what Parai did.
Of course, to do so, he’d need to become aware of those chakra points’ locations, and he’d likely have to open the chakras as well. It was a long way off.
For now, he stuck to the loops. They were plenty powerful as they were.
Dance of the Shadow Demon was the only other ability that didn’t see a boon from the current, though Vir supposed it made sense. Its activation was more a matter of gathering prana in his legs and willing himself to sink into the ground. Current helped little with that.
Interestingly, Ashani’s simulation failed to properly model the Shadow Realm. Instead of choosing exits, Vir simply popped back up in his own shadow.
Ashani shrugged. “It can’t simulate everything.”
“What about buildings?” Vir asked. Mahādi’s spires sprung up all around them, piercing into the clouds.
Perfect.
Vir High Jumped, soaring nearly three hundred paces into the air. As with the other powers, it, too, had benefited from his Current.
Vir kicked off of the spire’s wall, Leaping with Current active. Where his max range had once been two hundred paces, now it was over three hundred.
He bounded from one tower to the next, high in the sky. It wasn’t quite flying, but it was close. Vir laughed in glee as he somersaulted, coming to land right in front of Ashani.
“You seem to be enjoying yourself,” Ashani said with bemusement.
“Ashani?”
“Yes?”
Vir closed his eyes, took a deep, long breath, then exhaled slowly.
“For the first time in my life, I no longer feel outclassed. I feel strong. And you know what? It feels good.”
48OATH
Vir spent the next days charging Ashani’s other core and meditating. While he wanted to spend every free moment he had in her simulated world, the action drained her energy at an alarming rate.
So instead, Vir contented himself with conversing with the goddess and improving his blood’s prana capacity.
He had mixed feelings about his newfound strength. On the one hand, he was positive his Balar Rank easily exceeded five hundred, given the range of area-damaging abilities he now had. Furthermore, he easily dispatched three Shredders, each of which was around Balar 400.