The silvery light of the Other Side's sun began to filter into the cave, casting dancing reflections through the waterfall's veil. Less than thirty hours. The thought echoed in Indra's mind like a funeral bell. Fifty-six points. It was a pittance compared to the monsters dominating the rankings, but it was his starting point. The shame of returning with less than a hundred was a fuel as potent as fear.
But before he could throw himself into the hunt, he needed to be whole. And more: he needed an edge. The memory of the failed, yet revealing, fusion burned in his mind. He wouldn't try to replicate that chaos again. Instead, he would focus on what had worked, on that brief flash of unity.
He sat in the center of the cave, the damp surface of the stone familiar under his feet. The Jian rested on his legs, his hands placed on the cold blade. He closed his eyes.
This was no common meditation. It was a summoning.
First, the breath. He drew air deep, not into his lungs, but into the center of his being, to the point where his Qi pulsed embryonically. He exhaled slowly, imagining the phosphorescent pollen outside reacting to his rhythm. It was Alexia's lesson: impose your will on the environment, don't be its victim. The air inside the cave seemed to grow heavier, more aware.
Next, posture. His body adjusted subtly, his muscles finding the precise alignment of the first Sword Dance movement he'd mastered—"Dew Step." It wasn't a full movement, just the seed of it, the intention of rootedness and fluidity. His spine straightened, his shoulders relaxed, his feet seemed to fuse with the rock.
Finally, the techniques. But not like before. He didn't unleash them like hungry, uncontrolled hounds. He offered them to the structure of the Dance.
"Harmonious Spiritual Flow" was first, weaving itself into the serenity of "Dew Step," becoming the tranquil current beneath the calm surface. "Rhythm of the Tranquil Core" came next, establishing a steady pulse, an internal metronome dictating the tempo of his breath and his Qi. "Breath of the Latent Soul" infused itself into the moment of transition, the instant between inhalation and exhalation, bringing lightness and potential. "Pulse of the Inner Essence" he reserved for the silent peak of each respiratory cycle, a reinforcement of contained power. And the "Serpentine Core Current" he intertwined with the very sword in his lap, a channel ready to be released.
For a sublime moment, it worked.
The air around Indra began to shimmer. The pollen that had entered the cave didn't just dance; it organized itself, forming concentric, geometric spirals reminiscent of the Elven glyphs on the walls. His magic veins, once a battlefield, sang in unison. His Qi didn't flow; it danced, each technique performing its part in a perfectly orchestrated symphony. It was pure, harmonious power, and it was his.
But the harmony was fragile, a glass bridge over an abyss.
The "Serpentine Current," the most aggressive and volatile technique, anchored in the blade, pulled harder. It was a minuscule error, a tremor in the conductor's hand. The balance shattered.
The symphony became a dissonant scream.
A sharp, cutting pain shot through his magic veins, as if ground glass were coursing through them. His Qi, moments ago ordered, became a chaotic, rebellious torrent, battering against the walls of his body with brutal force. A muffled cry escaped his lips as he was thrown backward, his back hitting the damp cave wall with a dull thud. The Jian clattered to the floor. The pollen exploded into a disordered cloud and then dissipated, as if fleeing the chaos.
Indra stayed there, leaning against the stone, panting. His vision was blurred, each beat of his heart a painful hammer blow in his ears. His body was exhausted, his veins burned. He had failed. Again.
But through the fog of pain and frustration, a clear, crystalline perception emerged.
In that brief moment of union, he hadn't just used the Sword Dance. He had felt it. Each posture, each step, each turn wasn't just a combat movement. It was a channel, a predetermined structure to guide energy. It was the musical score upon which the notes of the techniques could be organized. Trying to overlay the techniques on top of each other was like playing five different instruments at once, without a score. The Dance was the score.
A name surfaced in his mind, not as a whisper, but as a self-evident truth: Sword Harmony. This would be the path. Not a brutal fusion, but an orchestration. A mastery he was far from possessing, but whose seed was now planted in his soul.
As he struggled to catch his breath, an unexpected consequence of his failure manifested.
The Elven inscriptions on the cave walls, until then merely luminous, began to react. The disordered, violent energy he had released seemed to have acted as a catalyst. The glyphs shimmered intensely, and then projected beams of silvery light into the cave's air.
These beams weren't static. They moved, flowed, transformed into ethereal, graceful figures. Tall, slender elves, wearing armor of light, were dancing. And it wasn't just any dance. They executed, with a heart-stopping perfection, the movements Indra had barely begun to decipher. The "Scarring Thrust," the "Stinger's Return," and others he didn't know—all woven into a fluid and lethally beautiful sequence.
It was an echo of the past, a record of light and energy stored in the stone. And for an instant, the figures seemed to turn their luminous, featureless faces toward him. There was no hostility. There was... approval. As if the cave itself, witness to his ambition and his failure, was now offering him a glimpse of the path forward. He wasn't entirely alone.
The vision lasted only a few seconds before the inscriptions returned to their usual glow. But the message was engraved. He had a guide.
The sound of water hitting the stone outside seemed to return, louder. The morning light was stronger. Reality imposed its urgency.
Less than thirty hours.
The choice was raw and immediate. He could stay there, in the relative safety of the cave, risking increasingly dangerous attempts to master Sword Harmony. One failed attempt could incapacitate him completely, making him easy prey and condemning him to certain elimination.
Or he could go out. Hunt. Use what he had—the basic movements of the Dance, controlled breathing, and the flash of insight about harmonization—to accumulate the points he so desperately needed. It was the safer, but limited, path.
Indra stood up, his muscles protesting. His hand closed around the hilt of the Jian. The decision was made not out of cowardice, but pragmatism. Sword Harmony was a seed that needed time to germinate. He wouldn't master it in hours. But he could start watering it.
He left the cave, plunging into the damp, green world of the Outer Layer. The forest seemed different. The dangers were the same, but his senses were sharper, tuned to the flow of pollen and the very energy of the place.
It didn't take long to find his first prey: an Imp tearing at the bark of a tree with its claws. Instead of charging with brute force, Indra moved.
He didn't attempt the full fusion. He merely applied a fragment. He harmonized "Dew Step" with his tuned breathing, creating a silent, rooted approach. He channeled "Pulse of the Inner Essence" not as an explosion, but as a precise reinforcement at the exact moment of the strike.
His lunge was lightning. The Jian cut the air not with fury, but with terrifying efficiency. The Imp barely had time to turn before the blade found its core. Its death was instant, clean.
Indra stood over the dissolving body, surprised. The energy expenditure had been less. The movement, more fluid. There was still instability—a residual tremor in his hand, a slight disorder in his Qi flow after the impact. The Harmony was far from perfect.
But it worked. In combat, even in its crude, unstable form, it worked.
A determined smile crossed his face. He collected the core. Sixty-one points.
The plan was clear. He would hunt. Relentlessly. And every creature slain would be not just a score, but a practical testing ground for Sword Harmony. Every movement, every breath, would be a step closer to mastering the symphony of power he now knew was possible.
He turned toward the deeper forest, his eyes seeking the next prey. He was no longer just a survivor. He was an apprentice, a composer of his own strength, carrying within him the promise of a melody that could, one day, challenge the gods themselves.
---
The silvery sun of the Other Side began to tilt in the violet sky, casting long, distorted shadows through the dense forest. Indra moved like a ghost among the trunks, his breath a conscious whisper, his body an instrument tuned for the hunt. The Jian in his hands was no longer a strange weight, but an extension of his will, a conductor for the incipient melody he was learning to compose.
The first group appeared suddenly: three Lesser Creatures, their forms distorted and empty eyes fixed on him with primal hunger. Before, panic would have frozen his blood. Now, a strange calm descended upon him. It was time to practice the basics.
He didn't attack. He let the Harmony happen. His feet found the "Dew Step," rooting him gently in the moss. His breath, synchronized with the forest's rhythm, dictated the tempo. The "Harmonious Spiritual Flow" became the tranquil river carrying his energy. And when the first creature leaped, his blade responded not with an isolated strike, but with a movement that was the logical conclusion of the entire sequence—a clean, efficient cut that silenced it before its screech could echo.
The other two charged. Indra spun, and the "Serpentine Current" he had intertwined with the blade allowed it to change direction with a snaking fluidity, parrying a claw and counter-attacking in the same flow. The "Breath of the Latent Soul" infused lightness into his step, making him slide out of reach of the second attack while his Jian was already finishing the movement at the creature's neck.
Three bodies fell. Three points. The action was so smooth, so automatic, it barely seemed like a fight. It was like pruning dead branches. The Harmony, at its most basic level, worked. A chill ran down his spine, not of fear, but of newly discovered power.