The Essence Flow-Chapter 127: Lightning Without A Storm

The Essence Flow-Chapter 127: Lightning Without A Storm

The crisp forest air carried the scent of damp earth as Towan adjusted his stance, leaves crunching beneath his boots. He turned toward Elliot, sunlight dappling his determined expression. "I'm going south," he called out, jerking his thumb toward the dense thicket behind him. The unspoken question hung between them -
We're not teaming up, right?
Elliot rolled his shoulders, a competitive grin spreading across his face as he bent to stretch his legs. The leather of his boots creaked with the movement. "Of course not," he replied, straightening up with a laugh that carried through the clearing. "That'd be boring." He nodded toward the opposite tree line where shadows stretched long between the pines. "I'll go north then."
With a final wave over his shoulder, Elliot disappeared into the forest's embrace, his form quickly swallowed by the undergrowth. "See you later," his voice echoed back, already fading with distance.
Towan shook his head with an amused huff, watching the spot where his brother had vanished. "All right then," he muttered to himself, turning on his heel. His own path south beckoned - a narrow game trail winding between ancient oaks. As he stepped forward, the forest seemed to lean in around him, branches whispering overhead as he began his solitary journey.
The forest held its breath in the heavy afternoon air. Thirty minutes of solitary wandering had left Elliot's boots damp with dew, each step releasing the earthy scent of crushed ferns beneath his weight. The towering pines formed a silent audience around him, their branches swaying in a slow, rhythmic dance.
Then - the explosion.
A thunderous crack split the stillness, sending a flock of startled birds bursting from the canopy in a flurry of wings. The sound rolled through the trees like a wave, vibrating through the ground beneath Elliot's feet.
"That must be the signal," Elliot murmured, his voice barely disturbing the settling quiet. He paused, rolling his shoulders as adrenaline began coursing through his veins. The game had begun.
His keen eyes scanned the dappled shadows between the trees, searching for movement. A slow grin spread across his face as he cracked his knuckles. "All right..." The words hung in the humid air, charged with anticipation. "Who'll be my first opponent?"
Somewhere in the green depths before him, a twig snapped. Elliot's head tilted slightly, like a predator catching a promising scent. The hunt was on.
A low buzz hummed through the underbrush—not the clean resonance of Essentia, but the jagged crackle of charged boots grinding against dry leaves. The scent of ozone prickled the air.
"Found you." The voice cut through the forest's murmur like a live wire.
Elliot turned with deliberate slowness. Before him stood a wiry boy, his silhouette framed by the dappled light filtering through the canopy. Twin rods sparked at his hips, casting erratic blue flashes across the bark of nearby trees. The boy's knuckles whitened around their grips.
"You're the copycat, huh?" His lip curled. "Jyn was right. You butchered our form."
Elliot's eyes narrowed, his relaxed posture coiling into something sharper. "...I'm sorry?" The words dripped with feigned innocence.
"Don't play dumb." The boy's boots hissed as he shifted stance, kicking up a swirl of pine needles. "My name is Kairos Velden." Static danced between his fingertips. "I've heard from Jyn there was someone who copied lightning without it."
Elliot's smirk widened, slow and dangerous. "...Copy, you say?" He rolled his wrists, the movement fluid as a predator testing its claws. "Wanna check that I'm just faster?"
"Tsk." Kairos's rods flared, casting jagged shadows across his furious expression. "Your arrogance will bring you down." The words came out tight, strained by barely-contained voltage. "Lightning is a sacred technique." His voice dropped to a venomous whisper. "Not for commoners like you."
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Between them, a single leaf caught in the charged air burst into sudden flame.
The forest erupted into blue-white fury as Kairos launched forward without hesitation. Lightning surged from his boots in jagged arcs, scorching the earth where Elliot had stood milliseconds before. The first strike came like a viper's tongue - a crackling jab aimed straight for Elliot's shoulder.
Elliot's body swayed with the precision of a wind-touched reed, the charged air singing against his skin as the attack missed by a hair's breadth.
(He's fast... but not faster.)
His counterpunch snapped forward like a whip, knuckles grazing Kairos' hastily raised forearm before the lightning-user disengaged in a shower of sparks.
A feint.
Kairos reversed momentum mid-air, his boots screeching against the bark of a nearby oak as he rebounded into a second assault. Elliot's dodge was pure instinct - no Essentia flare, no battle chant. Just muscle memory and razor-sharp prediction honed from countless brawls.
The forest air split with a thunderclap as Kairos' next strike came faster - a cobalt blur of crackling rods carving through the humid air. Twin arcs of electricity spiderwebbed outward, the smell of burning ozone mixing with the earthy scent of scorched moss where the attack gouged a smoldering trench into the ground.
Elliot's body moved like water - not dodging so much as simply flowing beneath the lethal sweep. His center of gravity dropped effortlessly, boots skimming damp soil as he slid under the crackling rods with inches to spare.
Kairos' growl vibrated through his clenched teeth. With a snap-hiss of discharging energy, his boots erupted in blue-white sparks, propelling him into a soaring backflip. For a suspended moment, he hung silhouetted against the canopy - then came crashing down like an angry god, rods aimed earthward in a twin-fanged strike.
The impact sent a web of lightning fracturing through the grass where Elliot had stood. He barely cleared the radius, rolling to his feet as flames licked at his coat's hem. Without breaking eye contact, he tore the burning garment away, revealing sweat-slick arms corded with lean muscle. The discarded fabric curled into blackened lace on the scorched earth.
"You think this is a dance?" Kairos spat, each step leaving sizzling footprints in the dew.
Elliot rotated his shoulders, loose and easy. "Then why do you move as if it were?" His eyes tracked Kairos' textbook-perfect stance.
(Like Len. All discipline, no chaos. Lightning should be wild - he's missing the storm's heart.)
A razor-thin smile curved his lips. "Weren't you gonna defeat me?" The taunt hung in the charged air, weighted with deliberate provocation.
Kairos' rods flared like startled serpents.
That did it.
The forest erupted in a storm of blue-white fury as Kairos surged forward, rods blazing like captured lightning. Each strike tore through the air with a thunderclap's fury—jabs that split bark from trees, overhead swings that cratered the earth. Splinters rained down like wooden hail, the acrid scent of scorched oak thick in the humid air.
Yet Elliot moved through the tempest untouched.
His body wove between strikes with the precision of a needle threading chaos. Boots brushed the trampled ferns in silent half-steps, pivoting on dew-slick roots. No panic. No wasted energy. Just the quiet focus of a hunter watching his prey tire itself out.
Then—the opening.
Kairos' final overhead strike came too hard, too hungry. The rod buried itself wrist-deep into an ancient birch with a sickening crunch.
Elliot flowed forward like water finding a crack. His palm connected with Kairos' sternum—not with brute force, but with surgeon's precision. Just enough to stagger the lightning-wielder's balance.
The rod wrenched free with a shower of splinters.
For half a heartbeat, Kairos' rhythm shattered. His eyes widened—that fatal flicker of doubt.
Elliot was already a ghost behind him.
No battle cry. No Essentia flare. Just the whisper of fabric as two fingers hooked the flag cord across Kairos' shoulders. A single fluid pull, sharp as a guillotine's fall.
Two flags fluttered free.
Elliot stepped back, the torn banners dangling carelessly from his grip. "I suppose this is my win," he said, voice calm as the eye of the storm he'd just weathered.
Kairos' jaw muscles twitched. The rods at his hips spat dying sparks as his fingers clenched—once, twice—before going still. No words. No excuses. Just the stiff turn of a proud warrior conceding defeat, his boots crushing charred leaves as he disappeared into the smoke-tinged forest.
Elliot watched Kairos' retreating form disappear into the smoke-hazed trees, the lingering scent of ozone and scorched earth hanging heavy in the air. His fingers absently traced the edges of the captured flags tucked in his belt as he shook his head.
"Can't believe they let emotions carry them so much," he muttered to the empty forest. The back of his neck itched with drying sweat as he scratched it, his calloused fingers catching on stray pine needles stuck to his skin from the fight.
He kicked at a charred patch of moss where one of Kairos' strikes had landed. "Had he not telegraphed every attack like an angry bull..." The words hung in the quiet, punctuated by the distant crackle of dying electrical discharge. "Might've actually given me problems."
A breeze stirred the torn banners at his waist as he turned northward again, the adrenaline ebbing to reveal the first twinges of fatigue in his shoulders. Somewhere deeper in the forest, another explosion rumbled - the game was far from over.

Chapter 127: Lightning Without A Storm