Chapter 838: Avatar
With each cycle, faint spirals of energy began to form, dancing in tune with his breath. The pain in his meridians eased, no longer screeching in protest. Instead, they began to hum, working together like gears in a powerful, living machine.
The shards’ raw essence compressed into a swirling sphere. It was still unstable.
Quinlan visualized the old man’s words: "Foundations outlast tempests."
He willed the twelve meridians to tighten, threading around the sphere like bands of tempered steel.
One by one, they locked, all twelve clamped shut.
Pressure built and then peaked...
Until it imploded.
A blinding pulse rocked the treasury. Cases shattered in a ring around him. Feng shielded her eyes as debris skittered across the floor.
Silence followed; a silence so dense it seemed to swallow the alarm ringing with deafening volume.
Hovering in Quinlan’s dantian was no longer a lone ember. It had become a miniature cosmic gyroscope: four distinct layers turning in flawless sync.
An inner crimson furnace
A coiling sapphire ring
A steadfast umbral shell
A razor-thin argent cyclone
Together they spun, generating a gentle, steady heartbeat of elemental power, each pulse equal parts flame, tide, stone, and storm.
Quinlan’s ruined skin knitted in seconds, leaving only faint scars that glimmered for but a moment more before fading. He inhaled; the incoming air tasted of hot embers, cold mist, loamy soil, and mountain gust all at once.
He opened his eyes.
His irises, bright golden before, now swirled with motes of every element in equal measure.
His voice, when it came, was a quiet furnace-whisper that somehow carried over the pounding at the vault door.
"Balance has been achieved... at long last."
Feng stared, half-terrified, half-in awe. On the other side of the vault doors, clan elders shouted orders. "Force the seal! Bring the Diamond-Breaker talisman!" But Quinlan merely smiled, rolling his shoulders as power coursed through his body smoothly for the first time.
Even back in Thalorind, with his Avatar of the Elements class at his disposal, he didn’t feel such a tranquil balance in his body. It felt as if he’d been reborn anew.
Quinlan instinctively knew that he would become a real monster once he was done with this Primordial Rank-Up Mission. A bigger monster than what he became after the previous trials combined.
He rose to his feet.
The power circulating through him no longer roared but sang, each element weaving harmoniously with the others. His body no longer felt like it was about to split apart at the seams. Instead, it thrummed like a perfectly tuned instrument, just waiting to be played.
He clenched and unclenched his fists, feeling the warmth of fire, the chill of water, the weight of earth, and the speed of wind—all balanced within his frame.
"Let’s see how far I can take this..."
He began with a single fire punch of the Blazing Tyrant Fist’s Third Form. The one meant to overcome defenses by overwhelming offense. Muscle memory took over. His stance widened, shoulders squared, fists raised.
*CRACK!*
He punched forward, making fire burst from his knuckles in a spiraling column, scorching the air. Classic. Controlled. Predictable.
Now came the real test.
He inhaled deeply, letting wind rush into his lungs, then let it flood his limbs instead of fire.
He adapted the Third Form to match the characteristics of wind.
The punch snapped forward, and this time, the air shrieked. A sonic boom cracked through the treasury as a razor-thin gust shot from his fist, bladed wind tearing a shallow gouge through the marble floor and across the vault wall. The force wasn’t explosive like fire, but it was sharp. Swift. Surgical.
He switched again. Water this time.
He bent his knees lower, breathing in, but now letting the exhale pull energy instead of push it. Flow instead of flare.
He shifted his posture, creating a sweeping roundhouse strike. Except now, instead of flames, a fluid, coiling stream of water followed the arc of his leg. It curved like a serpent, dancing with his movement, smooth yet laced with crushing force.
Where it struck the ground, the impact didn’t explode but compressed. The tile didn’t shatter. It folded in, cracked from pressure instead of heat. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
His grin widened.
Last was earth.
He took a stance that braced his core and dropped a falling hammer fist aimed for sheer, brute dominance.
*BOOM!*
The ground beneath his fist didn’t just crack, it sank. The floor dented inward, the tremor knocking shelves off-balance and sending Feng sprawling across the treasury. Dust rained from above.
But Quinlan didn’t stop there.
He layered it.
He breathed again. Wind first, fast and light. Then fire, surging with aggression. Water flowed next, cooling and shaping. Earth last, grounding and anchoring.
Four breaths. Four pulses.
He moved.
His limbs blurred, and his Blazing Tyrant Form twisted into something new. Something greater.
The Avatar Style.
His palm thrust forward—wind sheared ahead, clearing a path.
His foot followed—fire blazed behind, denying retreat.
Then came his elbow—water surged from the motion, coiling toward impact.
And at the last instant, he dropped low and punched upward—earth exploded from the floor, reinforcing the uppercut like a battering ram from below.
A four-element combo in one seamless, flowing martial sequence.
The pillar that took the hit... crumpled.
Not cracked. Not dented. Crumpled.
Its protective enchantments shimmered, buckled, then gave way entirely.
Feng gawked, her hands gripping a halberd, forgotten mid-swing.
"You... combined them..."
Quinlan’s chest rose and fell steadily. He wasn’t even out of breath.
"One element burns. Another cuts. One crushes. One flows."
He flexed his fingers, rotating his wrists, as golden sparks of fire danced between knuckles, threads of wind curled up his arms, tiny beads of water condensed along his back, and motes of earth floated lazily around his legs like drifting dust.
"But together... they become choice. Strategy. Possibility."
His eyes turned toward the vault door, where the runes were finally beginning to spark again under the pounding of the Diamond-Breaker talisman.
The enemies were almost through.