The Power of Revelation: The Truth Shall Set You Free

Chapter 12: Never Ending, Never Changing

The lights briefly flickered back on, allowing the Vision Bearers to shuffle around and stretch their legs briefly, before settling back down.

Hu Tao was uncharacteristically quiet, her mind jumbled up in confusion. Part of her duty as a funeral director was to preserve the world's balance of yin and yang, performing any person's last rites, to calm their souls, to quell their anger, to allow them to leave the world of the living in peace.

But in the Abyss, there was no "passing on", there was no "afterlife", she couldn't tell what was alive and what was dead and what was just a pile of sludge animated by the pure hatred and corruption of the vile environment.

She wasn't a stranger to death... and yet, the Abyss was completely uncharted territory for her, because nothing was truly alive, and nothing was truly dead. They were all just shells of their former selves, twisted by the darkness into something unrecognizable.

Qiqi looked up at her in concern, but Hu Tao just slapped her annoying smirk back onto her face, "Aiya, don't worry about me, Qiqi! You should be more worried about yourself, after all, I'm going to bury you!"

She got a slap on the arm by the young jiangshi.

"You already know the basics." The Abyss Herald snarled, casually flicking another wave of Hydro at Ajax. Despite it being a relatively weak attack, from the hands of a seasoned warrior, it felt like a tidal wave was crashing into him as Ajax tried, and failed to infuse his blade with sufficient Hydro to counter the attack, "Feel for it, guide it, and Hydro will bend to your whims, but never attempt to control it."

Ajax gritted his teeth as he stood up, shaking off the water from the last attack. She was right, he knew what to do; instead of trying to infuse his entire blade, she had suggested starting small, just with the tip of his blade.

Once he had figured out how to infuse the tip of his shortsword with Hydro, he slowly extended his power, working to infuse the sharp end of his blade with energy, before moving on to the entire blade.

He knew what to do, and how to do it. He just needed to practice, to commit it to muscle memory, to make it so natural to him so that he could literally infuse his blade with Hydro in his sleep.

Make it such a permanent part of himself so it would be something he could never lose.

What if I lose my weapon? What if I don't even have a weapon in the first place? What if-

His brain started going into overdrive with scenario after scenario of "what if"s, and he didn't even notice the Abyss Herald charging up another Hydro attack.

He was met face-first with a tsunami of water.

"Concentrate." She berated, "You could be killed by a mere Hilichurl with how distracted you are."

Ajax shook himself out of his stupor.

One thing at a time, Ajax. Master one thing before moving onto the next. Being crappy at everything isn't going to save his life.

"Take it slow." Barbara nodded, "Rushing isn't going to help."

He had to be good, he had to be the best at everything. That was the only way to survive. And being the best at everything started by being the best at something.

"While I do understand his reasoning..." Chongyun winced, "Isn't that super strenuous?"

Venti shook his head, "Not really. If Ch... if Ajax wants to survive in the Abyss... that really is his only option. And even then, his chances of survival are... low..."