melonie

“It's okay, baby,” she said. “I'm sure we'll end up taking turns. But for tonight, I just really want to remember what it was like when you were little, and you used to come sleep with us when you were scared. That means you get the middle.”

Abner drew his sword, and the blade glowed with searing intensity as a sheath of lightning enveloped it. Applying elemental energy to one’s weapon was basic magic, akin to dousing a blade in oil and lighting it on fire, but this was the next stage, the true combination of warrior and elemental magic, more like a white-hot sword pulled out of a forge. It reminded Noah of plasma weapons he had used in the past, capable of cutting through steel like butter, and Aithorn’s spear techniques.

Noah had already made progress in slowing the flow of his mana and his bodily functions, and the headband was helping. His heart dropped to one beat a minute, and he all but stopped breathing. Typically, such a state would be fatal, but the more he slowed down his mana, the more he could forestall damage. Without mana flowing, his cells would stop processing nourishment and oxygen, but they wouldn’t wither and die, for the molecular processes of cell death were also halted. Caught in a near-perfect state of suspended animation, his physical senses operated at the lowest possible level, and he became more attuned to the flow of mana around him, sharpening his spirit senses.