Second Genesis

Grey could practically feel it buzzing through the air. The hairs on his arms stood tall, even what danced on his scalp felt far more rigid and charged now than ever before. It was like the air had become completely filled with static.

His clothes felt uncomfortable grazing against his skin and danger warnings filled his head.

Time slowed and it felt like any moment now, a bolt would smash down from the skies, cutting across everything in its path and ripping up any semblance of life he had remaining until there was nothing but dust and ash left of him.

That comprehension coursed through his very veins, a realization and understanding blooming in his mind as Prometheus flickered to life within him.

The echo of the Volthari’s clan name boomed across his mind.

The Ashen Arc Clan.

Grey’s grin spread cheek to cheek, nearly ear to ear. A digital crimson painting across the grates of the Helm Frame as though to project an image of what flickered in his heart and raged in his bones.

He could feel it. Viscerally.

If he killed this son of a bitch, they were going to be pissed.

And that was exactly what the fuck he was going to do.

BOOM.

A thick bolt of lightning fell from on high. It cut through the air in jagged, fragmented lines as though leaping from node of space to node of space.

It all happened in the blink of an eye, reaching Grey so fast it seemed to phase through his skull and fry his brains all at once.

Grey didn’t move, and for a moment all those still left alive in the wake of his battle with the Dormaji and Syrn stood just as frozen as he did.

And then Grey’s laughter pealed across the skies.

As though their own lagging memories were glitching just as much as the digital pixels that made up Grey’s grin, they snipped together a sight of what had happened just moments ago.

The lightning had just been about to arc through Grey’s body, only for it to follow a curve around him and slam against the ground instead, setting the earth ablaze and the grassy pastures on fire.

Grey knew then that Prometheus was correct. The moment he woke up, the first thing he had asked the Prometheus Spirit flame was about how to defeat the Volthari. He thought he hadn’t received a direct answer as it just came in pulsing lines. It could be said that it was the most complicated answer that he had ever received from Prometheus.

But then it clicked for him.

The reason why it was so complicated was because rather than trying to communicate in terms of what his mind could understand, Prometheus had been communicating in terms of what his Neural Frame could understand.

The secret to dealing with an elemental creature—specifically one of the Volthari whose strongest asset was their lightning—was the very same electrical impulses that controlled his Neural Frame.

The answer Prometheus gave him wasn’t universal to all elemental creatures.

But Grey didn’t need it to be.

He still stood with his blades pointed to the skies, their crimson edges so large they almost looked like a pair of fighter jet wings aiming for the sun blurred behind the mist of chaos itself.

"I said..." Grey spoke through his booming laughter. "... Come down here."

BOOM.

A spark of electricity passed over the dome of Grey’s Resonant Frame domain. His Neural Frame extended out from his body, his Vampire Frame vanishing as his Last Paladin Frame activated at full bore.

His blood roared through his veins, and his Stamina...

—

Stamina: 801/977

—

... Had completely morphed again.

This bastard had killed a person as innocent as Elowen for no reason other than she didn’t get out of the way fast enough.

Grey was going to make certain that he regretted that.

A blazing halo of white gold appeared above Grey’s head, arcs of Holy Energy pooling out from it until they formed a beautiful cascading light of the purest wings there were.

They spread out far and wide, their subtle flap causing a concentric circle of wind to flatten out and widen across the plains.

He bent his knees, and then...

BOOM.

He shot forward the instant the horns in his head reached their apex.

He burst through the clouds and instantly spotted the Volthari, the wild look in his eyes, the grit in his expression, the power coursing through his veins...

It all bloomed endlessly.

The Volthari didn’t have eyes in the realest of senses, and yet it felt like it was boring holes right through Grey at this moment.

At that moment, it sat on a cloud of its own making, so large it looked like a god looming in the skies. Despite it having no real face, no true expression, Grey could practically see the lazy indifference on its features twisting into what had become hints of disbelief and surprise.

And that was when Grey slashed down.

BOOM.

Grey went flying back faster than he had come, his body peeling across the air in a friction highway of sparking flames and roaring winds. His bomber jacket was ripped to shreds, his cargo pants nearly burning to ash.

"I AM NOT GOING COMMANDO!" Grey roared, forcing himself to flip through the air until his spiked heels could slam against the currents.

He coughed, his blood coming out in ash. He felt his body fragmenting and churning in a bubbling mass of heat.

He was so sure he could have blocked that, or at least forced it to circulate through his Resonant Sense Domain again. But it was much harder when the Volthari was that close. The bolt from before had to travel enough distance and charge up on top of that. He could read and react to it.

But the ability to prime his Resonant Frame to trigger that quickly...

It required an inhuman amount of intellect and reaction speed.

BOOM.

He crashed into the ground, his knees bucking and then snapping on impact, his femurs skewering through his muscle and skin.