Chapter 103: Threads of Space
The training arena was darker than usual, its ambient lights dimmed to near pitch black. Caelum stood at the center, blindfolded with a strip of black silk woven with minor enchantments to nullify magical sight. He felt exposed, vulnerable—every breath echoing louder in the silence.
Volundr's voice came from somewhere unseen, calm and sharp.
"Your light is powerful, but it isn't infinite. If you rely on it too much, you'll burn out before your battle begins. So today, we sharpen a different sense—your perception."
Caelum flexed his fingers. The Aether Frame stirred around his arms, humming with faint energy as if reacting to the low-tension atmosphere. His heartbeat steadied. No weapons. No constructs. Just silence.
Then the attack came.
A low whoosh of air—faint, almost imperceptible. Caelum ducked. Instinctively. He hadn't heard it. He hadn't seen it. He had felt something pulling from the left.
A shimmer of violet rippled across his skin. In his mind, thin threads of energy began mapping the space around him—like strands of silk connecting him to the world. The threads weren't visible, but they existed—somewhere between magic and intuition.
A second projectile came. He side-stepped it before it fully entered his range of hearing. His footwork wasn't flawless, but the spatial sense had grown sharper, more defined.
"He's weaving with the world…" Volundr murmured from behind a veil of illusion. "Not using his eyes. Not using his light. The Gear's reacting to his restraint."
The training dummies activated—three illusions conjured around Caelum with weapons drawn. He felt their mass through the threads—a distortion of space, a subtle pressure like a ripple against water.
Caelum shifted. He pivoted low, swinging an arm outward, forming a half-complete buckler just in time to catch a blow. The impact stung, but the defense held. He rolled backward and summoned a short blade—not out of panic, but necessity.
Another ripple. A forward rush. He lunged preemptively, blade sinking into a target that hadn't even begun its attack.
The illusions faded.
Caelum yanked off the blindfold, sweat dripping from his brow, breath ragged.
"I felt them," he said, wide-eyed. "Like... pressure lines in the air, pulling at me."
Volundr stepped forward, a satisfied look in his eyes.
"Spatial threads. Aether Frame is drawing on your restraint—using the empty space around you to guide movement. The less you force your light, the more you let it flow, the more aware you become."
Caelum's hands trembled—not from fear, but exhilaration.
"So it's not just about raw power…"
"No," Volundr confirmed. "It's about equilibrium. This Gear was never meant to be a weapon of destruction alone. It's a stabilizer. A guide."
The training session continued into the night, each exercise honing not just Caelum's skill but his senses. By the end, he could map a full 360-degree radius without sight, reacting almost on instinct.
And as he left the arena that night, the world felt different—closer, more connected. The space between things wasn't empty anymore.
It was alive. And Caelum had begun to hear its whisper.