Chương 81: Chapter 68 – Birth of Desolation

Cade's breathing came in slow, measured pulls as he fought to maintain control. Inside him, the current of essence surged. It pressed against the boundaries of his channels, thick and heavy, threatening to slip free at any moment. The thin layer he had forced against the channel walls trembled under the strain, his will stretched taut as he held it in place. It wanted to disperse, to sink into him, to merge with his very being. Cade clamped his will down, forcing the current to keep moving.

Circulating without pause. The pressure built with every cycle. The burning didn't fade. If anything, it deepened—settling into his bones, into the marrow of him, as the essence churned through pathways that felt barely large enough to contain it.

"Desolation," Vorduun's voice rumbled, calm and steady beside him. Cade could barely turn his attention outward to listen to the old tortoise's words.

"The white flames of my kind are not merely fire," the Duke continued.

"They are the embodiment of desolation." Cade struggled to hold the flow together as the words washed over him.

"Life seeks to grow," Vorduun said.

"It spreads. It entangles. It multiplies without restraint. The frogs embody this truth. Without desolation, their creations would fill every corner of this realm, choking it with abundance." The current inside Cade wavered for a moment before he regained control.

"But desolation…" Vorduun continued, his tone deepening, "is the end of all life." Cade felt the words as much as he heard them.

"It is emptiness. Stillness. The absence that remains when all has been stripped away. Desolation does not nurture. It does not create. It does not preserve." The current within surged—"It reduces. It empties the vessel," Vorduun said.

"It destroys the attunement of essence until it cannot be broken further." As Vorduun spoke, an image formed in Cade's mind. Ash. Endless, drifting white ash.

"Our white flames carry this truth," Vorduun continued.

"What they touch does not simply burn. It is rendered down, stripped away of all that is unnecessary until only the most fundamental essence that makes up reality remains." Cade's focus strained. The current inside him bucked slightly, the boundary layer thinning as his attention split. No, focus. He forced it steady again.

"To wield such flames," Vorduun said, "your will, your intent, and your channels must align with this truth." Cade latched onto the words, attempting to understand what the Duke was saying while maintaining the flow.

"Your will and your intent are the easiest to shape," the Duke continued.

"You may choose them. You may direct them. But your channels are not yet aligned. That will change in time, through use and repetition, your channels will reshape themselves to match your intent." Cade's mind flickered back to the Stormsap Crucible. The carved pathways along the shaft and at its base. The way the sap had been transformed into lightning. This is the same thing. Different outcome but the same principle. He just didn't know how to shape it yet.

"For now," Vorduun continued, "you must rely on your will to overcome the essence." Another wave of pressure surged through him.

"You must do more than guide the essence," the Duke said.

"You must impose your intent upon it as it flows. Force it into the embodiment of desolation itself." The current within him trembled.

"Over time, your channels will learn. They will rearrange. What you struggle to force now will one day occur naturally. The beginning is always the most difficult."

"Now," the Duke said, "as the essence flows through you—picture the Ashen Wastes." Cade's mind was already there, envisioning the cracked earth, the endless horizons of gray and white. Nothing living had survived. Just heat and silence. The slow drift of ash carried on a dead wind. The land the Ashen Emperor left behind. Cade felt something shift as the heat inside of him sharpened. The burning current within was building, growing stronger.

"Good," Vorduun said, a hint of approval threading through his tone.

"You are on the path." Cade's focus wavered for half a heartbeat as the pressure inside him spiked again. The image. The flow. The boundary layer. All of it demanded his attention at once. The thin film of essence along his channels trembled as his control slipped— No. He forced it back into place but it wasn't easy. Maintaining the image of desolation. Forcing the current to cycle. Holding the boundary layer in place. It was becoming too much.

Cade's mind strained under the weight of it, every ounce of his will stretched thin as he fought to keep everything from collapsing at once.

"Focus." Vorduun's voice cut into Cade's mind.

"Do not try to grasp everything at once," the Duke continued.

"Narrow your attention. The essence that flows through your chest—follow it. Guide it upward. Through your throat. Into your mouth." Cade swallowed hard, his concentration stretched thin.

"The burning you feel," Vorduun said, "that is where the path begins. Do not resist it. Do not diffuse it. Seize it." Cade tried but the heat wasn't confined to a single place. It was everywhere—threaded through every channel, pooled in every limb, surging through him like a tide of fire. How am I supposed to isolate that?

"Focus on the sensation," Vorduun pressed.

"Take that heat and make it sharper. More violent. Let it become destruction." Cade's jaw tightened as he pushed his will inward, trying to gather the feeling, to condense it into something more defined, but his mind was already balancing too much. The flow. The boundary layer. The image of desolation. And now this. The strain built. His thoughts began to blur at the edges.

"I need more…" Cade muttered under his breath.

"Just—just a little more…" He felt as if he were on an edge. A precipice of something greater. Like something just beyond his grasp—something he almost understood. Just a little further. Something shifted inside of him. A subtle, almost imperceptible pop. And with that pop came sudden clarity. The strain didn't vanish, but it changed. It smoothed and settled into something he could finally work with.

He felt the thin layer of essence along his channels hold steady without his direct control, as though his body had begun sustaining it on its own. It was as if he switched from breathing manually to letting his subconscious take over. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. A ding in his head tried to pull at his attention. A System notification that he dismissed immediately.

Even with the boundary layer maintaining itself, he didn't have the mental capacity to read it right now.

"Good," Vorduun said, his tone shifting with quiet approval.

"You have taken your second step." Cade barely heard him. His attention locked inward, riding that clarity, afraid it might vanish if he let it slip for even a moment.

"Now," Vorduun continued, "draw the essence into your chest." Cade followed the instruction, moved by a set of instincts that felt new and unfamiliar. As the current cycled through him, he reached out with his will and caught a portion of it, holding it back from the rest of the flow instead of letting it continue on through his channels. The moment he did, heat flared. He sucked in a breath as the essence pooled within his chest, pressing against his lungs.

"Do not allow it to stagnate," Vorduun said.

"Force it to move, to rotate." Cade followed the tortoise's words. The trapped essence began to spin, swirling within his chest cavity like a forming vortex.

"Compress it," Vorduun instructed.

"Condense it. Do not allow it to remain diffuse." Cade hesitated for the briefest instant. How could he compress something that already felt like a liquid? Liquids were incompressible, everyone knew that. But this wasn't exactly a normal fluid. Cade focused and pushed. The swirling mass resisted at first—slippery, formless, and unwilling to collapse inward. But with each cycle, Cade fed more essence into it. The pressure built. The rotation tightened. Faster. Denser. Until finally it gave.

The swirling pool of hot essence shrank, collapsing inward into something smaller and far more concentrated. He kept feeding it. Cycle after cycle, more essence was siphoned from the circulating flow and forced into the growing whirlpool within his chest. The small bead of compressed essence at the base of the whirlpool pulsed, unstable under the force he was imposing on it. Cade's focus narrowed further.

It now took more effort to keep that bead contained than it did to maintain the flow through the rest of his channels. If his concentration slipped—even for a moment—it felt like the thing might rupture inside him.

"Good," Vorduun said again, his voice steady.

"Stick to the path." Cade clenched even harder, every ounce of his will locked onto that unstable core.

"Now," Vorduun continued, "you must give it purpose." The bead pulsed again.

"Imbue it with your will. Impart it with the command of desolation," Vorduun said.

"With the purpose of destruction." The words settled heavily in his mind and Cade reached again for the image of the Ashen Wastes. The seemingly endless empty expanse where nothing could grow. Nothing could survive. Only the aftermath of a land that had been stripped down to nothing. Using his will he imparted that image into the compressed sphere of volatile essence. The swirling mass resisted.

"Do not hesitate," Vorduun said quietly.

"Force it to obey your will, your command. Force it to embody destruction and spread desolation." Cade drew in a slow breath and locked down his thoughts. This wasn't like the Stormsap Crucible. Back then, he had guided the lightning that the crucible had produced. He had learned its rhythm and worked with it. This— This was different. He couldn't guide this. He had to command and dominate it just like he had with the violet lightning. Cade focused inward and clamped down with his will.

The sphere of condensed essence in his chest spun violently, heat building with every rotation. It actively resisted him. It pushed back, like something alive, like something that refused to be shaped and molded by an external will. Submit. It was not a request. He needed it to obey him. He needed it to listen to his command. He drove his will in even further, overpowering the swirling sphere of essence. In his mind, the image of the Ashen Wastes sharpened into a universal truth. All things ended.

All growth, no matter how rampant, no matter how overwhelming, would one day be stripped away. Life surged, expanded, consumed—but desolation was inevitable. The final state. The silence after everything had been reduced. The heat death of the universe itself. The breaking down of any and all molecular interactions. Cade seized that concept and pressed it into the sphere. A law of nature that could not be disobeyed. Everything had to come to an end. And in order for it to end, it had to first break apart.

The swirling essence bucked violently and for a moment, it felt like it might rupture under the pressure of his will. Then the nature of the essence sphere shifted. The heat deepened past a fire burning, transforming into flames that would break all bonds. The sphere grew denser, tighter, more volatile. The temperature spiked. The pressure climbed. It felt like he was holding a star in his chest.

"You have reached critical mass," Vorduun rumbled. Cade barely heard him.

"Now," the Duke continued, "release your hold on the cycle. Let the essence in your channels do as it will. Focus only on what you have created." Cade hesitated. Let go? Every instinct screamed at him not to. But he had come this far following Vorduun's advice. There was no point in backing down now. Slowly, cautiously, he released control of the circulating flow. The current continued on its own and his entire focus collapsed inward onto the sphere. He compressed it further. Forced it tighter. Spun it faster.

The pressure skyrocketed and the heat became nearly unbearable. And still—he pushed.

"Now," Vorduun said, voice steady, "push it upward. From your chest. Through your throat. Into your mouth." Cade obeyed but the moment he pushed against the sphere, it resisted again. It felt immovable. Like trying to lift something impossibly dense. Like trying to push a mountain with his bare hands. Move, he thought The sphere trembled under the weight of his command then shifted. Cade seized the moment and drove it upward.

The sphere dragged through his channels, inch by inch, scraping against a pathway that felt far too small to contain it. The burning followed and intensified. It felt like he had swallowed a ball of fire and was now forcing it back up through his own throat. He held his breath as it reached his neck. Pain flared but he ignored it and pushed the sphere higher until it emerged into his mouth. Cade's entire body tensed. The heat exploded outward across his tongue, his cheeks, the roof of his mouth.

It was worse than anything he'd ever felt. Worse than the lightning reforging his body. Worse than being stripped bare by the Ashen Baptism. His flesh felt like it was being scorched from the inside out, torn apart by the heat and violent desolation from the sphere now lodged in his mouth.

"Hold it," Vorduun instructed. Cade's eyes squeezed shut even harder than before. Hold it?! Every instinct screamed at him to release it. To get it out. But he didn't. He held it in place. Locking it down with the sheer force of his will, enduring the torment.

"Feel your channels," Vorduun continued.

"Observe them." Through the pain, Cade forced his awareness to his channels. He felt the subtle but undeniable movement of the channels in his throat and mouth. They were shifting ever so slightly as they adjusted, reorienting themselves to accommodate the new sensation. He could sense his pathways were being carved wider, smoother, better suited to what they were now carrying. Cade's body shook from the exertion.

"Now," Vorduun said, his voice carrying a final weight of command, "impose your will one last time. Impart one final act of desolation into the essence." Cade focused everything he had left. The command of destruction, the concept of leaving only desolation in its wake. He didn't just visualize the Ashen Wastes. He felt them. Felt what it meant to be stripped away. To be broken down so completely that nothing recognizable was left. Only the most fundamental remnants of existence would remain.

He forced that into the sphere. Commanded it to become that truth. The sphere pulsed but quickly stabilized under the weight of Cade's will.

"Now," Vorduun said.

"Open your mouth and breathe desolation out into the world." Cade's eyes snapped open as he opened his mouth and exhaled. His vision exploded as blinding white fire tore from his mouth in a roaring torrent. It was not a wavering flame or a sputtering burst, but a relentless stream of white hot destruction that surged forward with absolute purpose. At some point, a tree had been placed in front of him. Cade had no idea when or how but at the moment, he didn't care.

The flames struck the trunk—and where they touched, the tree began to disappear. It did not burn or char. It disappeared as if it were being erased from existence itself. The trunk collapsed inward, unraveling as if the very idea of "tree" was being stripped from it. Structure failed all at once. The outer layers easily gave way to the white flames until the whole thing seemed to come apart. Cade's eyes widened as he watched.

His flames claimed the tree's structure, its life, its very essence, and broke it down into something more fundamental. The white fire enveloped the trunk in a single breath, sank into it, and tore through it from within. Wood disintegrated. Fibers came apart. Form dissolved into ruin. Another System notification chimed in the back of his mind but he ignored it for now. Instead, he held onto the feeling. The Power. The Control. The terrible finality of what he had just birthed into the world.

The stream of white fire poured from him without pause. He felt it leaving his body—felt the channels in his throat and mouth working in tandem with his will, shaping and sustaining the output as if they had always been meant for this. This was his doing. He had killed the beetle, taken its essence, and forced it to submit to his will. He had turned it into desolation and the tree in front of him never stood a chance. Within seconds, it was gone.

All that remained was a drifting cloud of soft white ash hanging in the air where it had once stood. As the flames finally died from his lips, his breath came back ragged. The only sound left was his own harsh breathing and the pounding of blood in his ears. Cade stared at the cloud of ash, chest heaving, heart hammering as the last traces of heat faded from his mouth. He had done it.

Weeks into the Tutorial, or however long it has been, after everything the System and this corrupted dungeon had thrown at him, he had finally cast real magic.