Chapter 95: Flight! II
The bundle hovered before Damian’s face, pulsing with invitation.
"And be graceful, if you’re going to move next to ."
The Behemoth’s eyes narrowed slightly.
"If I am bringing you to the other Beast Lords, you can’t be seen as a scrawny little monkey just jumping around from the Lands of Stone. It would reflect poorly on ."
...!
The Inkanyamba actually said such words!
Damian was surprised and intrigued.
A Beast Lord was giving him a technique!
He reached out and caught the bundle of Mana, bringing it toward his forehead as the Inkanyamba had instructed. The energy touched his skin and began to sink in imdiately, passing through flesh and bone to reach whatever part of him was capable of receiving such things.
A wave of coolness washed over him.
He felt information and understanding infused in Mana perate into his body, flooding his mind with knowledge that he had never possessed before.
As he fell, the voice of the Inkanyamba continued.
"It can take the most talented beasts so ti to get a hold of it, so do your best before we arrive."
Damian’s mind took the flood of information as it flowed in naturally.
And he learned.
The technique was ancient.
Older than the tribes that currently sat around the Lands of Stone. Older than the tribes that revered the Sacred Mountains. Perhaps older than even a Neolithic Empire itself, passed down through Beast Lineages since the dawn of ti.
It taught one how to use the Mana in their body to support flight.
The principle was elegant in its simplicity. Mana, when pure and dense enough, could be released from the body and manipulated externally. It could be shaped. Ford. Given purpose beyond simply enhancing flesh and bone.
To be capable of manipulating pure Mana to form into other ans or authorities, the purity and connection of Mana in the body had to be extrely dense. Only beings above Organ Sanctification could really do this, because only at that level did one’s cultivation reach the threshold where true external manipulation beca possible.
This was where one t Warriors who could conjure flas from nothing.
This was where one t Warriors who could call lightning from clear skies.
This was where one t Warriors who could control the wind with a thought.
The technique Damian received taught one how to focus that externally manipulated Mana on specific points. To create constant bursts of air beneath one’s feet. To form a cloud of condensed power that could support weight and provide thrust.
In this way, flight beca possible.
Not the innate flight of those with Sky Physiques.
But earned flight. Technique-based flight. The result of mastery over one’s own cultivation rather than gifts of blood and birth.
This technique...could best be understood to be called...The Wind of Solomon. Or, Upepo Wa Zishwezi. The latter was the more common beast translation!
It required expertise in controlling Mana.
It required precision that most cultivators spent years developing.
It required a connection between body and power that could only be forged through dedicated practice.
So it should have been hard for Damian, who was grasping it for the first ti.
He was falling toward the Lands of Stone, the ground rushing up to et him with the promise of another crater, another impact, another jump in the endless cycle that had been carrying him across the territories.
But...
"Persevere."
He spoke the word calmly.
HUUUM!
Waves of concentrated blue flas and Mana erupted around his form, responding to the letter of the Primordial Tongue with intensity that had only grown stronger through repeated use. The sacred fire wrapped around him like a cocoon, sinking into his flesh and his bones and reaching for the understanding that had just been implanted in his mind.
The technique wanted him to focus Mana on his feet.
So he did.
But he did it through the lens of the Primordial Tongue, through power that enhanced and elevated and transford everything it touched.
Blue flas gathered beneath his soles.
They condensed.
They swirled.
They ford.
And an instant later...
A flaming blue cloud appeared beneath his feet!
It roared with glory, a platform of sacred fire that crackled with lightning-like tendrils of Mana. It was not the simple cloud of condensed power that the technique described. It was sothing more!
Sothing grander. Sothing that burned with the sa blue radiance that had healed mortal wounds and raised mountains from nothing.
His entire body also beca wreathed in blue flas.
The fire danced across his skin and his clothes and his hair, lifting him upward with force that exceeded anything the basic technique should have provided. He didn’t just stop falling.
He rose rapidly.
His figure shot upward like a teor in reverse, carried by flas that seed eager to demonstrate what they could do. The wind that had been tearing at him during his falls now parted before him like water before a blade.
He never fully touched the Lands of Stone again.
He ca to float beside the Inkanyamba, his body hovering at the sa altitude as the massive Behemoth, his flaming cloud pulsing with power that matched the storm-clouds around the serpent’s mane.
The Inkanyamba looked at him and blinked in astonishnt.
Its jaws hung open.
Those ancient storm-filled eyes, which had witnessed the rise and fall of many tribes, which had seen countless Warriors and beasts across years of existence, stared at Damian with an expression of pure disbelief.
It sensed the rare and sacred blue flas on his body.
It could not quite pinpoint their origins.
The power was familiar in so ways. But it was also utterly foreign, unlike anything the Inkanyamba had encountered in its long existence.
"Are you..."
The Behemoth’s astonished voice ca out slowly, as if it was struggling to form the question.
"Actually a beast in human form?"
Its massive head leaned closer, those storm-filled eyes studying Damian with new intensity.
"You can tell . I won’t reveal your secret to that girl or the tribe back there."
Its voice dropped to sothing approaching a conspiratorial whisper, which was still loud enough to shake the air.
"I’ve heard the stories of so Beast Lineages with unique tastes taking on human form to satisfy their preferences in human tribes."
The Inkanyamba’s eyes glead with curiosity that bordered on gossip-hungry.
"Are you like that? Hey?"
Its massive form floated closer.
"Are you like that?"
...!
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