Chapter 107: Embrace the Flow
The morning air crackled softly with tension and promise as Volundr stood outside the training ground, arms crossed, watching Caelum kneel at the center of the stone circle. Unlike before, there were no magic circles or summoned enemies today—just Caelum, his breath slow and measured, eyes closed.
Gone was the strained posture of a boy bracing against an inner storm. In its place: calm. Focus. Stillness.
Caelum had spent the last week meditating daily, learning to ride the waves of holy light rather than dam them. His sessions with Volundr had shifted from clashing swords to internal balance, energy flow, and understanding the rhythm of his own Sacred Gear.
Today, he was ready to test what he had learned.
Light began to pulse gently around his hands, not in the erratic flashes of before, but as a steady aura. Aether Frame responded, manifesting as semi-translucent gauntlets with golden veins running through the edges. Unlike before, the light did not fight against the constructs—it flowed through them.
"Good," Volundr murmured. "Now shape it. Don't force it—listen to it."
Caelum inhaled, then exhaled slowly. His thoughts were clear, his heart steady. The holy light within him didn't surge chaotically—it pulsed like a second heartbeat.
He raised his hand, focusing on an image in his mind.
First came the blade—a longsword of hardened light and compressed aether, its edges humming softly with sanctified power. But as he moved, something in the flow of his energy shifted. He didn't resist. He followed it.
The blade shimmered—and then unraveled into radiant strands that twisted into a whip of pure light.
"It changed?" Caelum whispered, blinking.
Volundr stepped forward, brows raised in curiosity. "You adapted the construct mid-flow. You didn't break it—you redirected it."
With a flick of his wrist, Caelum returned the weapon to its sword form. Another flick, and the whip coiled out again, dancing in the air like a serpent of holy fire.
"It's called... Lumen Edge," he said after a moment, almost shyly. "It feels like it wants to move... not just strike."
Volundr smiled. "Then move with it."
The rest of the session turned into a dance. Caelum moved across the stone floor in sweeping arcs, blade turning to whip and back again, striking training targets that burst into harmless light.
With each strike, his holy energy stabilized further, threading neatly into the form of Aether Frame.
For the first time since his Sacred Gear awakened, there was no flickering, no collapse, no backlash.
The constructs obeyed him—not because he forced them to, but because he had accepted the light as part of himself.
That night, as he stared at the starry sky, Caelum whispered to himself:
"It's not a curse... It's me."
His hands were no longer trembling. Aether Frame rested dormant but content, the light within him no longer screaming to escape—but singing.