Born in apocalypse

Aurora’s instincts flared up as her eyes widened sensing the amount of mana her master was manipulating. She wanted to be awed by his work but she knew this wasn’t the time.

Realizing the danger and with what little time she had, Aurora tried to summon a barrier of Ice Crystal, but the flame was too fast... too powerful.

Boooooooommmmmm!

Before Aurora could manipulate enough mana it had reached and engulfed her in an instant. Her clothes, having some resistance, tried to block the flame but couldn’t do so... it didn’t take even a second and they were burned to ashes.

Despite her constantly providing ice mana, her skin continued to burn, the heat searing through her defenses and sending her sprawling to the ground. The pure flame had no intention of dissipating anytime soon.

Hearing the sound of the explosion, Dhruv finally managed to get out of his trance. Looking around, he straightens himself.

’What happened...’

’Fuck!.. I lost it...’ Panic set in as he realized what had happened. He wasn’t planning to unleash such a powerful attack. He was not supposed to do it. Before he could think further his gaze landed onto something.

’WHAT...’ Dhruv’s heart pounded as his eyes widened watching the flame reaching for heaven. His eyes changed color as he found someone engulfed by the flame.

"Aurora!" Dhruv shouted, flying towards her.

Reaching Aurora’s side in an instant, he looked at her condition. Flames were trying to consume her alive as she flailed on the ground, trying to extinguish them.

With trembling hands, he summoned water. The flames resisted for a moment, but recognizing the mana, they gave up. The flame disappeared as Dhruv looked at her condition.

Aurora lay on the ground, her body covered in burns as her breathing got shallower and shallower. She looked at Dhruv for a moment before closing her eyes.

Dhruv felt a wave of guilt wash over him as he kneeled on the ground. Manipulating his mana, he summoned golden flame. The flame, which was hurting her moments ago, began to heal her slowly.

The healing flame was still not strong enough, as the wounds only managed to be covered up, but luckily it was enough to stabilize the condition. She was still hurt and unconscious.

Dhruv grits his teeth as the realization comes one after another. He had let his power get the best of him, and now Aurora was paying the price.

Kneeling beside her, he looked at her with eyes filled with regret, "I’m sorry, Aurora,"

Dhruv whispered, his voice breaking. "I didn’t mean to..."

The more he looked at her, the more he realized how powerful he had become... and how sudden. He was supposed to be strong, but not this much, not this quickly.

Dhruv currently stored a power that he had no control over. No matter how much he tried to deny it, he hadn’t adapted to his power correctly. He had to use it very carefully... until he gained full control over it.

[Authority Resistance has leveled up.]

Breaking this thought, the cosmos whispered something in his ear. He stared at the notification trying to understand the meaning of it.

"Authority... it’s not simple." closing the notification he couldn’t help but whisper.

The more he thought about this affinity the more he was getting confused. For some reason, the method of its spell-casting is weird. Its resistance is getting up even when he wasn’t doing anything for it.

As the seconds passed, something clicked inside Dhruv’s mind. He began to grasp something. He understood that the higher the elements ranked, the stranger they were becoming.

Even before Authority, the illusion wasn’t acting with as simplicity as earth, metal, or fire. These elements... these elements behaved differently.

It was as if they exerted their power upon the user as well.

Like how one controls their affinity, the affinity was trying to control them as well. It wasn’t at the level of being sentient, but there was an effect. An obvious effect.

Dhruv wanted to think about it more and more but he had to do it later. Looking at Aurora lying on the floor he waved his hands. Clothes appeared over her as illusion covered her body.

Picking her up, he began flying toward the castle. During his flight, he noticed something.

’Huh! When did I become able to control my wings this perfectly, and how am I even able to do partial mosterification?’ Dhruv couldn’t help but wonder as he found himself doing things he wasn’t able to do before.

After some thinking, he noticed that his control wasn’t perfect as the wings were consuming mana at a much greater speed than they should be.

’And again... why even I knew how much they should take...’ Dhruv couldn’t understand it but he knew that... he just knew.

And all the extra mana they were taking was used by the wings to make themselves more magnificent. Flames were covering his crystal wings. Occasionally, blue and golden flames appeared on them.

The wings were consuming so much mana and were using it for what he didn’t even need at the moment. As he focused his senses on the mana, he began understanding the reason behind the massive consumption as well.

Dhruv understood it quickly, as there wasn’t much to understand... it was as simple as it gets.

The reason was that nothing was blocking the wings from greedily sucking the mana from his core. And the solution was simple as well.

To stop this, he just had to maintain some sort of command over the organ and not let it consume more mana than it should. Knowing the reason, Dhruv could try to stop it, but he didn’t.

With how big his core was, combined with his mana regeneration, he could sustain one or two organs indefinitely.

Stopping his thoughts, Dhruv entered the bedroom. Placing Aurora on the bed, he cast the healing flame once again. The flame seeped into her body as it began to mend it together.

It took him five minutes of continuous healing flame to bring her back to normal shape. Now he just had to hope there were no permanent internal injuries. To know that, he would have to wait until she awoke.