The Essence Flow-Chapter 38: Sever The Flow
A blink.
A breath.
Then pain.
Towan didn’t see the punch—only felt it.
Bone shattered
in his shoulder as he was launched across the room, crashing through stone and steel like a ragdoll.
Karn barely managed to raise his sword in time to block the follow-up—
A high kick that cracked the air like thunder.
The blade exploded.
Shards flew. Karn was thrown back, arm numb, eyes wide with something rare for him—
fear.
Elliot stood motionless.
But his senses flared.
He wasn’t watching the figure.
He was watching the
walls.
The corruption had changed.
It wasn’t just emanating from the Tallest anymore.
It was spreading.
Moving.
Flowing into the veins that ran through the room itself.
“(He’s connected to this place...),”
Elliot realized.
“(No—he’s becoming it.)”
The Tallest advanced—stronger now. Faster.
His every step cracked the ground beneath him.
Towan groaned as he pushed himself up, cradling his shoulder. "That hit was cheating."
Karn wiped blood from his mouth. "We can’t beat him like this."
“No,” Elliot said sharply. “But we’re not supposed to.”
His eyes scanned the walls. The ceiling. The floor.
Veins of corruption pulsed
—all converging at central junctions, like pressure points in a body.
That’s when it clicked.
He’s not drawing power from the corruption—he’s channeling it. Like a conduit. A core.
And this room?
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It’s the battery.
“Don’t aim for him,” Elliot called out. “Hit the walls. Floor. Wherever the corruption’s
thickest
—cut the flow!”
Towan’s eyes lit up. “On it.”
He dashed sideways, using broken pillars for cover, and slammed a punch into one of the pulsing veins along the wall. It burst in a hiss of black mist and red sparks.
The Tallest staggered.
For the first time.
Karn noticed.
“Heh,” he muttered. “Smart kid.”
He lunged forward again—this time not toward the figure, but toward a glowing fissure at the edge of the chamber. His greatsword crashed through the stone, carving a gash in the Essentia channel beneath.
The ground shuddered.
The Tallest screamed—his voice glitching, overlapping with dozens of
others
.
“You… will not…”
He blinked.
“…interrupt perfection.”
Another line ruptured—this time by Elliot, who’d gathered his Essentia into a precise pressure arc and cracked it along a junction in the floor.
More power drained.
The lights dimmed.
The Tallest stumbled, hand gripping his face like it was coming undone.
“Almost there!” Towan shouted. “One more hit!”
The final conduit burst—Essentia veins rupturing across the chamber like lightning across cracked glass.
The Tallest
screamed
.
But not in pain.
In fury.
Its body convulsed. Arms split down the middle. Veins bloated and pulsed like overfilled pipes. The molten gold turned sickly white, flashing violently under its skin.
“You…”
Its voice warped—layered, fractured,
wrong
.
“You
cut me off
—I am not finished!”
The chamber’s floor
split
beneath its feet as it dropped to all fours, its spine arcing like a beast’s. What was left of its human shape began to melt, twist, and stretch—
All control lost.
No thought. No coordination.
Only
rage
.
The
air
turned sharp.
The
walls
shook.
Then—
Towan felt it.
That familiar warmth, low in his chest. Flowing. Unrestricted.
He blinked, stunned. “Wait…”
Elliot’s hand pulsed with clean energy. His eyes widened. “The corruption was suppressing it. It’s gone.”
Towan grinned.
Karn grunted, hoisting his cracked sword. “
Finally.
”
The Tallest roared—its voice now a bubbling echo.
It charged—no technique, just corrupted mass barreling forward.
Towan moved first.
The moment his Essentia flared to life again—sharp, wild wind gathering around his legs—he
grinned like a man unchained
.
He surged forward, jumped high, twisted mid-air, and shouted:
“SKYBREAKER!”
His heel slammed into the beast’s jaw with a crack like thunder, launching the creature
upward
.
From the ground, Elliot blinked. “Since when do we have names for your kicks?”
Towan landed, smirking. “Since just now. Felt cool.”
Elliot rolled his eyes—but his own hands were already glowing faintly with Essentia. Not as dramatic, but
stable.
He focused and fired a clean blast at the creature mid-air, hitting its side and
redirecting
its fall straight into the floor.
It crashed down like a meteor, screeching in frustration.
Karn didn’t wait.
He dashed in, sword trailing Essentia sparks, and brought it down with a heavy swing.
CRACK.
One of the Tallest’s arms split off, slamming to the ground in a hiss of ichor and steam.
But it wasn’t done.
It dragged itself up, limbs trembling, body bubbling with unstable corruption. Its eyes, if they could still be called that, blazed.
“You… can’t stop the Circle…”
the Tallest hissed—
And then collapsed.
Its body cracked, warped, and began to dissolve, black ichor steaming off its frame as it melted into the stone. No scream. No explosion.
Just quiet disintegration.
Like it had never belonged in this world at all.
Chapter 38: Sever The Flow
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