Caen leaped to the left as an Earth practician caused the ground beneath him to become spongy.

The geas would not allow Caen to flee from a fight. He could resist the magical compulsion easily enough, but he did not want to lose any of the progress he’d made in strengthening the compatibility between him and the awakened sword. This was the last card he had up his sleeve. He couldn’t see himself winning without it.

“Stormsong, how are we looking on the synergy front?”

The awakened weapon merely rumbled in response.

Within the cloud of spores, he weaved through pillars, slender trees, and other obstacles as trajection spells peppered his vicinity. He darted towards a coughing Body-enhancer and dispatched her quickly. A creature that resembled the silhouettes from the third trial attacked him. Caen cut it in half.

Two nearby participants who seemed unaffected by the spores were handling a scaled bear. As soon as Caen reached them, the Kinesis practician bowed out, while the Body-enhancer ran away. Caen put down the creature.

Then he felt a strain on his spell constructs, and the next instant, the cloud of spores dispersed in a gust of strong winds. His Flora spells collapsed.

Two bullets punched through his helmet but did not penetrate Chasma. Caen darted around a stone monument as trajection spells pelted the position he’d been. His assailants were not very coordinated, and when Caen attempted to methodically capitalize on that, the geas stopped him. So he embraced the disorderliness of it, as the fighting became chaotic.

Stormsong seemed to revel in that chaos. “Yessss,” it drawled.

Ardor was a distant song. Faint and incoherent, but clearer than it’d been since the trials had begun.

Viciously, Caen hacked partway through a Liquid practician’s shoulder before the man vanished in a pillar of light. Spells chased him, some slamming futilely against Chasma.

As he weaved around a thick pillar to attack a Fire practician there, a bolt of lightning struck his left leg from behind. Some of it was pulled into Stormsong, and his unenchanted armor was not severely damaged, but Caen was hurled several feet to the side. Stormsong’s passive augmentations helped. Caen spasmed as he rolled on the floor—avoiding a fireball—and hopped to his feet, flickering Soul-sense at both the Lightning practician and the Fire practician.

A Body-enhancement spell helped him manage the spasms, while another allowed him to cover the distance in an instant.

Before he struck the Lightning practician, he felt a soul approaching from his left. He turned sharply to meet the Body-enhancer’s attack head-on as the remainder of his spores erupted out of his bag of holding. Rather than dodge a swing to the head, he stuck with his own attack and tore through the Body-enhancer’s helmet as the man’s sword reached him. Caen staggered to the side from the counter-blow.

Another Body-enhancer attacked from behind. Caen pivoted to the side, evading the thrust by less than an inch as another lightning bolt struck his shoulder. Flickering Soul-sense, he sent vines to enwrap the Lightning practician’s head.

The terrain wasn’t as great an advantage as he’d hoped, yet he exploited it shamelessly, never staying in the same spot for long. He wasn’t running away; he was seeding the chaos. The geas did not object, nor did Stormsong, whose rumbling was now louder than the approaching labyrinth.

Caen’s mind was split three ways and working overtime as he moved unpredictably, spun, and delivered savage attacks. A strange warmth flooded his being.

Few vanished in pillars of light. More souls approached. More spells empowered his strikes and movements, but it wasn't enough.

Caen needed more.

He was so keenly aware of his desire that he could hear it as clearly as a song in the dead of night. Ardor was give and take.

Caen had a burning need, and Stormsong could meet it.

Their connection grew stronger, and something changed in Stormsong’s soul structure.

The instant it happened, Caen assigned the greatest portion of his mind to a very vital task.

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The steady trickle of mana he’d been feeding to the sword became a strong stream. A turbulent wind picked up around them as low, pregnant clouds formed overhead and began to pelt the area with rain.

Lightning danced and crackled along the sword as its white blade shone brightly.

Something violently surged up Caen’s sword arm and through his entire body, rupturing blood vessels. Then a shock wave of pure energy exploded outwards from the awakened weapon with a deafening boom.

Caen’s eardrums gave out instantly. He staggered backwards, feeling as though he was being fried from the inside out. His heart was beating so vigorously in his chest that he thought it might explode. Behind his mask, blood streamed from his eyes and ears. He was currently Mimicking the sword’s Lightning affinity, yet his limbs twitched and spasmed as a constant and far more potent surge of electricity assaulted him. Then its potency dropped sharply to manageable levels.

Chasma sent him impressions of ‘safety’. The fragment had focused resilience and absorption around his sword hand.

Caen sent impressions of ‘gratitude’ to it through their bond. Another portion of his mind had already begun working on healing his body.

The shock wave had blown back everyone nearby. A few of his assailants vanished in pillars of light, and some were fleeing.

Caen could feel fear from the rest of them as he stood there panting.

“Must I prompt you at every step?” Stormsong thundered. Yet Caen could only sense eagerness from the sword.

He grit his teeth in pain and darted towards a shield-wielder, intending to swing the blade at the man’s unshielded side. But Stormsong had other intentions.

The sword moved of its own accord, thrusting forward with much more power and speed than Caen could bring to bear. Caen was all but yanked along, his mana being drained at an abominable rate.

The sword punched through the shield and buried itself partway into the Body-enhancer's stomach before he vanished in a pillar of light.

The impact of the attack sent another shock wave through Caen’s body and outwards, shoving several people back. It was far less devastating than the first, but still hurt a great deal. Caen coughed up blood. He hadn’t even finished handling the wounds sustained from the first shock wave. He sped up his mental processing to the very limit of his ability.

This gave him enough leeway to cast a Body-enhancement spell to better adapt his movements to Stormsong's chaotic ones. That same moment, the sword yanked him towards a retreating Earth practician. With utter terror on her face, she raised a thick wall of earth from the ground to stall Caen.

The sword punctured through it like wet paper, sending another shock wave through Caen’s body. The woman pillared out.

“Hahahahahaha!” Stormsong’s exhilaration was terrifying.

Bullets slammed into Caen, especially the lower half of his body, which was not protected by Chasma. Caen and Stormsong reached one of the gunmen in an instant, swiping through where the participant's neck would have been if he’d remained in the trial. Most of the assailants there scattered, but not before Stormsong cut down one of the retreating gunmen and sent another shockwave through Caen’s body.

Every successful wielder of Stormsong was essentially a tool in the sword’s hand. It moved them according to a fighting style that no reasonable person could learn on the fly. Some believed this to have been how Ro-Hexur fought. Ferocious was the best way to describe it.

Caen could no longer feel his sword arm. It was numb. And he was in so much pain.

Stormsong’s jagged edge slammed into a Body-enhancer with enough force to tear through her enchanted armor and cut into her neck before she bowed out. Caen endured another shock wave as the sword yanked him in another direction. Caen couldn’t heal himself fast enough.

He tried to let go of the sword, but his hand seemed soldered to the hilt.

“Stormsong, how do I deactivate the primary enchantments?”

“You can’t! And why would you even want to?” the sword cackled in his mind with glee as they attacked someone else.

“I can’t keep this up without breaks.”

“You sought worthiness. Now endure!!!”

Caen tried to Mimic resilience. The geas stopped him cold. It was stronger, much stronger than it had been moments ago.

But Caen was its creator.

He gathered his will and broke past the magical compulsion. He Mimicked resilience, pairing it with Body-enhancement and undoing most of his synergy with the sword. Stormsong immediately lost its bright glow and slammed into its scabbard with enough force to cause another shockwave.

Caen let out a shaky breath. Resilience was helping him endure much of the pain.

Not a single one of his assailants had hung back. They’d all fled or were in the process of doing so.

“What are you doing? You’re fluctuating! The enemies are getting away!” Stormsong scolded.

The labyrinth was growing towards him at a startling pace.

“We’ll face even stronger foes than these, I promise,” Caen said as he dashed for the dome with preternatural speed. This was only the first half of the trial.

“Hmph! Well, you won’t have access to my primary enchantments until you stop fluctuating.”

Caen had already gotten what he needed. But that could wait till he reached the center. “Thank you, Stormsong. A blade will suffice for now.”