Abyssal Awakening

Chapter 187: Thane's Training

"Oi oi oi! What happened to your confidence earlier huh? Brat?! Why aren't you dodging? You would've died by now!" Thane shouted out in sadistic joy while Alice was running as fast as she could.

Sweat poured from her head as a shadowy beast lunged from behind her.

Rolling forward, Alice was barely able to dodge when it circled back and slammed into her from the ground.

"GAH!!!!"

"Your recovery is too slow! There's no way a beast will let you recover in time!" He berated while flicking his wrist.

The shadow mimic of the Amphiptere started to twist in the air as it launched an array of fake metal shards towards Alice who widened her eyes in a panic and slashed out with her blade.

She managed to parry two when a third slammed into her back, launching her towards an array of metal shards.

*CRASH!!!!

Collapsing on the ground from the impact, Alice wanted to just hug her knees and cry.

'Demon!!!!' She shouted out in her mind while forcing herself to stand up.

She could feel the pain through her body as he clearly didn't hold back as much as Allura did.

While Allura's training was hard, she still adjusted it so it felt comfortable.

Thane on the other hand was completely merciless!

"Ohya? You can still stand? Let's continue then." He grinned. Snapping his fingers, the beast roared back to life once more as it slammed its wing into Alice's stomach and threw it into the air.

The world seemed to slow down as Alice had a single thought in her mind.

'Dearest Allura, my mentor and guardian. My one and only master, the star in my life. PLEASE TAKE ME BACK I DON'T WANT TO TRAIN WITH THANE ANYMOREEEEEEE!'

Before she could even crash onto the ground, the beast grabbed her with its tail and slammed her against the walls of a nearby cliff, creating a hole in the rock.

Alice lay motionlessly as she wanted to throw up all the mead she had drank before this.

After grabbing her shoulder, Thane took her out of the city and into the mountain range before surrounding them with a barrier of shadow, preventing her from escaping.

This was the same place that he was training Ria earlier and Alice could see several cavities and damages caused to the surroundings.

"Is that it? What happened to your plans? Everyone's got a plan until a beast hits them in the face. Now stand the f*ck back up and actually try!"

Gritting her teeth, Alice glared in anger as she felt wronged by what he said.

"F*cking dammit! Fine! You want me to try?! Let's f*cking go b*tch!" Alice cursed as her Sigil burned across her eye.

Violet flames erupted from her body as her blade immediately reacted, becoming a catalyst for her flames to manifest in greater power.

Seeing this, Thane raised an eyebrow in surprise and curiosity as the feeling he got from the flames was like nothing he had felt before.

He felt a deep rejection towards this power from deep within, a feeling he couldn't get rid of no matter what.

Rushing out of the cavity in the wall, Alice lunged towards the beast and slashed her blade down, causing a flaming dragon to rush out.

*BANG!!!!

Colliding with one another, the dragon bit down on the shadow beast's neck as the shadows started to flicker as though it was struggling to keep its shape.

'Hm? Are my powers… fading? What's going on…' Thane frowned as he could feel a slight disturbance to his connection with his summon. However, the connection held on in the end as his power was not something that could be easily cut off.

But the fact that Alice was able to cause this kind of reaction was now piquing his interest as he didn't think such a feat was possible.

'Let me see what else she can do.' He thought with a smile as he injected more power into the beast.

*ROAR!!!!

Overpowering the flames, the beast unfurled its wings as an array of metal shadows shot out, shredding the flames apart and flew into the air.

A storm of 'blood' detached from the beast as it swarmed towards Alice but she was prepared.

While the flaming dragon was keeping the beast busy, she had been charging a Nova Core shot!

'My last fight has already demonstrated that this is too slow in charging. I need to gather power faster. I don't need the full power of this attack, just enough to cancel out these flames.

'I've been focusing too much on copying Allura I haven't made the most out of my own powers.' Alice thought to herself as she made a cut on her arm.

Blood surged above her fingertips and condensed into an orb as flames erupted around it. As though pulled in by an invisible force, all of the violet flames that she had unleashed converged towards the orb and condensed into a blinding orb of light.

But she wasn't done yet.

'I did this before, I still remember the steps.'

With her other hand, she stabbed her blade into the ground as blood formed a circle around her.

'Is she… Doing a ritual? But she doesn't know any of the required symbols. Unless she's wanting to make something of her own?' Thane wondered as he flicked his finger, allowing the beast to slow down a little bit just so Alice could have more time to try this ritual out.

Taking a deep breath, Alice remembered the steps of the Ritual she had done when fighting the Jester's Regret when the beasts attacked Zadash.

It was instinctual at the time but she was now doing it with a purpose.

'Establish the environment.'

The blood circle around her manifested fully as they burst into flames, feeding power towards the orb above her finger.

'Focus on intent.'

The ground around her started to crack as the power condensed into the orb was too much for the surroundings to handle.

'Offer a sacrifice.'

More blood flowed out of her body as it evaporated in an instant.

*CRACK!!!

Widening her eyes in shock, Alice didn't expect to see a crack manifest on the orb in front of her as the Ritual had failed!

'Sh*t!'

Without hesitation, she threw the orb towards the beast and jumped back to seek some cover.

Even though her ritual failed, she still created an orb of condensed power on the level of her Nova Core!

Gliding through the air, more cracks appeared on the orb as tendrils of flames clawed their way out of the condensed orb, shattering its outer shell. A surge of flames danced out in a display of destruction as countless arcs tore away at the shadow beast, shredding it into countless pieces.

The fire engulfed the entire area as Thane flickered next to Alice wrapping the two of them in a protective layer of shadow.

Unable to see anything, Alice could only wonder what was going on as they didn't even feel the impact.

However, there were more pressing matters at hand.

She could feel Thane's stare boring a hole into her as she meekly looked away as though she wasn't responsible.

"Did you seriously just try to invent your own ritual?"

"Ehehe~ Perhaps?"

Knocking her on the head, Thane sighed as he had allowed her to do what she wanted since it looked like she knew what she was doing. Looking back at it... She did not, in fact, know what she was doing.

Massaging his eyes for a moment, he took a deep breath.

"Do you even know the steps to a ritual? It seems like you had the initial parts completed but failed at the end."

"Erm… I succeeded once before so I thought I could do it again. I just need to establish an environment, lock in the intent and offer a sacrifice right? Isn't that how all rituals work?" Alice replied, recalling her fight against the Jester.

"Let me explain how stupid you are. What you did was essentially find a beast, prepare a trap, lure the beast then decide to dive head first into the trap yourself to test if it worked or not. The most important step in a Ritual is establishing a connection before giving a sacrifice. How do you plan on sacrificing something if there's nothing to sacrifice to?

And what power are you planning to even connect with?" Thane lectured as Alice could only sit there and listen with no retort.

But this served as a good lesson for her the next time she wanted to try such a thing.

Seeing that she wasn't reflecting upon herself but rather thinking of how to do it again but better, Thane had a headache as she was no different from Allura!

"Fine whatever. Just a heads up, be careful who you connect to for the Ritual. Depending on the target and the situation you are in, you may bite off more than you can chew. I've known a few who have established a ritual only for the God to ask for their life in return. Obviously, they were unable to reject since it was past the point of no return." Thane sighed deeply.

He could remember a priest belonging to the Church of the Moon asking for enlightenment so many years ago. In response, the Goddess of the Moon accepted his ritual. The only issue was the sacrifice she demanded was for him to shed his mortal body and if his desire was pure, she would bless him with enlightenment.

However, his desire was not 'pure' enough for the Goddess and he died for nothing.

He didn't want the same situation to happen to Alice.

"Always remember, never establish a point of no return before the sacrifice. If you do, you give the target full control of what they want to do to you. That is an advantage you never want to give up." Thane warned as he flicked his finger.

The barrier of shadow around them started to disappear as they were greeted by the destruction caused by Alice's attack.

All of the obstacles around the location had been destroyed while the surface of the ground was melted into a bubbling obsidian.

But if it wasn't for him, Alice may have perished in her own attack just now.

Yet all he could see was curiosity in Alice's eyes as she was trying to think of ways to succeed in a ritual.

'Seems like Allura influenced her in all the bad ways.' Thane sighed, moving them to a new location so they could continue their training. He wasn't going to stop because of a small mishap.