Chapter 1772: Shattering The Center "Sixth sword form, Unbreaking Stone, Unmoving Heart... how interesting," Rowan thought. He could see the potential in this move, and it meant that Telmus might still hold some surprises. It would seem that his following action might be a bit different. With the Arena as a massive chessboard, Rowan made his next move. ® This was the first time in his life that Telmus had ever allowed his instincts to take control of his abilities. He might appear carefree when he battled or intensely focused, but every move he made was carefully controlled to bring about his precise needs. Telmus had a firm belief that he was invincible, yet, before the might of the first seven bloodlines of Trion, corrupted by the power of Primordial Demon, he found himself wanting. His Will and Destiny, as powerful as they might be, still needed to be developed to the point where he could battle Primordials; although he was rapidly growing, it was clearly not enough. Something had to change, and perhaps, instead of holding everything in his hand, he needed to learn to let go... this was his path. Telmus did not try to rise. He did not try to block the meteor fist. He accepted its descent. He accepted the ocean. And he became the sea-floor. As the fist of granite and magma plunged toward him, Telmus thrust his will-blade upward, not to meet the fist, but to point at the heart of the titan itself. He poured not just his will, but his memory, his love, his grief, his defiance—all the things that gave his will its weight—into the blade. It was as if he was giving up his defenses, but the truth was that it was the opposite; he had just found a new way to fight. The sword of pure intention did not grow in size. It grew in density. It became a point of infinite spiritual mass, a singularity of purpose. His purpose. He was unbreakable; he could not be shaken! The titan’s fist slammed down. And it stopped. It stopped a foot above Telmus’s body, arrested not by a block, but by the sheer, immovable weight of Telmus’s will focused into that single, upward point. The granite of the titan’s fist around the point of contact shattered. The magma exploded outward, showering the area. The titan’s arm, all the way to the shoulder, vibrated with the shock of the arrested blow. The corrupted creature roared in confusion and fury. It pushed down with all its immense and warped power. The fist did not move. Telmus, lying beneath it, held it at bay. Not with muscle, but with meaning. The ocean had met the unbreaking stone of the sea-floor. A web of cracks erupted from the Arena’s floor around Telmus for a hundred light-years as he held back a force that could not possibly be withstood by a being who was not a Primordial, because even a Primordial may lose a portion of its Origin from this blow. Still, Telmus held, and he was not just holding, he was evolving and countering the attack. "HOW?" Xylos’s voice was a thunderclap of pure, uncomprehending rage. Telmus, blood trickling from his lips, his side a ruin of blackened flesh, looked up at the beast, and for the first time, he smiled. "You are power without context. You have always stolen strengths that were never your own. How could you ever understand, demon?" he rasped, his voice steady despite his wounds. I am will with purpose. You have the ocean. I have the shore. And you will break upon me. This is my response to you, demon: You shall taste my blade on your neck!" With a scream of effort that tore from his very soul, Telmus shoved with his spirit. The impossibly dense point of his will-blade exerted a force that was not physical, but existential. The titan’s fist was thrown back, and it began to unravel. ® The titan’s roar of fury became a cacophony of seven distinct, agonized screams. Telmus’s ultimate defense, the Unbreaking Stone, Unmoving Heart, had done more than arrest the cataclysmic blow. By focusing his will into a singularity of purpose, a point of existential density that rejected the very concept of forced fusion, he had not merely stopped the fist; he had struck at the metaphysical seams holding the abomination together. He should not have been able to do this, but when he struck, it was as if his sword had been given a bit of guidance, and he was able to find the chink inside the binding force holding these bloodlines together. The corruption of the demon inside the body of the titan shuddered violently as a pained scream of disbelief erupted from Xylos. The veins of captured lightning flared, then snapped like overtuned strings. The mottled bark skin split along fault lines that glowed with conflicting energies. The arm of ice and the arm of stone tore away from each other with the sound of a continent breaking apart. The fusion, Xylos’s "final argument," unraveled in a catastrophic explosion of dissonant power. His move had been broken, but Primordial Demon would not allow its Will to be destroyed so easily. Instead of allowing it to dissipate, the Primordial tore its Will into seven places, burying them in the bodies of the separated Titans. Where one titan had once stood, seven figures were thrown back, landing in a wide, unstable circle around the kneeling Telmus. They were the vessels once more, but damaged, reeling from the violent divorce. Their forms flickered as the mad Will of Primordial Demon erupted from their bodies and was bleeding into the arena, raw and unstable. The Truiplop Vessel’s petrified wood was splintered, its fungal blooms pulsing erratically, a new Will was arising inside of Truilop, one that fought against the corruption of Primordial Demon. This was also happening with the vessel of Hekaton as it crackled with uncontrolled, spastic energy, its glassy shell webbed with fractures. Metagei and Maimak Golem’s form was split nearly in two, magma bleeding freely from a deep fissure in its granite chest. Yet they were the ones who were most successful in fighting against the Primordial’s influence. The vessel of Pyanop was a maelstrom of confused leaves, struggling to coalesce, and Yuleti Vessel’s perfect ice was spiderwebbed with cracks, a constant, faint screech of straining material emanating from it. Telmus’ gaze looked to the last vessel of Anthesterion, whose cycle of bloom and rot had accelerated into a nauseating blur, and a smile touched the edge of his lips as he felt the battle ongoing in the consciousness of these Titans. "Yes, fight him, that bastard may have taken your bodies, but not your soul." "Hahahaha... foolish child, they cannot fight my influence. Their maker chose to pick another choice." Telmus smiled, "That is because he has me. I will kill your Will in their bodies and allow them to experience the glory of our bloodline, free from the taints of parasites like you." "Foolish child, you think you understand the Wills of the Primordials!" "I understand enough." Telmus stood up straight and pointed his blade forward. Now, come to me all at once, my ancestors. Allow me to face you all and share my greatest joy. Battle!" Xylos’s consciousness, stripped of its unified form, was a scattered rage, a furious whisper from each of the seven mouths. Telmus’s Will was growing, and it needed to be crushed. The strategy was clear: overwhelm through sheer, discordant multiplicity. Where one fused titan could be met with a singular, unbreaking defense, seven individual attacks from all directions could not. Under the fading control of Primordial Demon, all seven Titans, the true ancestors of Trion, attacked as one. The Arena shook as greater cracks spread throughout its open field of battle, as a lash of thorned vines from Truiplop surged towards Telmus. A blinding, erratic lance of lightning from Hekaton. A hail of magma-shrapnel from the bleeding Golems of Metagei and Maimak. A whirlwind of razor-leaves from Pyanop. A cone of soul-numbing cold from Yuleti. A cloud of mind-fogging, flesh-dissolving spores from Anthesterion. It was a symphony of annihilation, each instrument playing a different song of death, all aimed at the center. Telmus readied his sword. The agony in his side was a distant fire, banked by the cold focus of combat. He could not use the Unbreaking Stone sword form against this. A fortress cannot hold against seven simultaneous sieges from all directions. To survive, he must become not a wall, but a whirlwind. Not a sea-floor, but the tide itself. He breathed in, and the memory of his mother’s hands on the wooden sword was not a comfort; it was a blueprint for motion. His will-blade, still humming with the residual density of his last technique, seemed to grow lighter, sharper, an extension of his very nervous system. Once again, he unveiled the first sword form he had created, Unfolding Lotus. But he did not use it as a static defense. He became a moving lotus. Telmus exploded into motion, his body a spinning axis as his sword carved a perfect, expanding sphere of negation around him. It was a flawless application of the form, but pushed to its absolute limit. He wasn’t just deflecting; he was erasing the incoming attacks in a sphere of annihilating will. Thorns vanished into the edge of his spin. Lightning bolts were severed, their energy dissipating harmlessly. Magma droplets ceased to exist. Leaves turned to nothingness. The cone of cold met the rotating negation and was sliced into harmless fragments. The spore-cloud billowed against the whirling defense and was unmade. For three full seconds, Telmus was the center of a silent, devastating bloom of nothingness, a sphere of perfect defense that consumed all that touched it. Three seconds may not be much in the eyes of an immortal, but Telmus had withstood enough power to end all life inside Reality ten times over. Yet, the cost for his survival was astronomical. The mental focus required to maintain such a defense against seven disparate attacks was like trying to solve seven complex equations simultaneously while running a sprint. His breath came in ragged gasps. He could not sustain it. He had to break the circle.