The sensation was strange. I had used Titan’s Marrow before, but always on individual limbs, and never on my whole body. However, once I fully activated this unique Broken-Celestial ability, it was almost as if I was returning to the state I was always meant to be.
I nearly gasped in a weird kind of relief, as the marrow in my bones responded to my will, and I felt myself stretch .
My robes, woven from the Loom, stretched with me. The threads adapted, as they expanded and contracted to cover my growing form, and it was at this moment that I missed my staff. It was always supposed to be behind me, but at the moment, I did not know where it was.
The fox scrambled to maintain her perch, her claws digging into my shoulder. "Elric! A little warning next time!"
I did not answer since I was focused on the feeling of my body expanding, and all the changes I was experiencing as my channels widened. It was then that I nearly slapped myself when I realised how much advantage I had thrown away when I acquired this ability.
I grew until my head nearly brushed the ceiling, and I was three times my normal size, a giant of flesh and lightning and ancient bone. However, all of these were not as important as the changes in my channels.
My expanding channels meant I could push Anima with far more intensity than normal. It was a shame that my Anima Depth did not expand with the rest of my body, but this part of me was equally spiritual as well as physical, and it seemed not even Titan’s Marrow at the Adept level could change my soul.
Still, it meant that when I was a giant, my spells were stronger, how much stronger, I couldn’t say, and the cost was my Anima burning three to four times faster, but in a pinch, I could multiply my powers.
I had been thinking of Titan’s Marrow as an ability that increased my defense and strength, but I was overlooking its most brilliant feature.
Although, to be fair to me, I did not have the time to use this ability before I was taken by the shadow of the Sovereign. Analysing the changes inside my body, I looked at the locked door, which had seemed so massive before, now looked merely large.
I could pour lightning into this door and melt it down, but that would be a waste of Anima before I understood what was happening. Of course, why should I waste my Anima when the strength I could feel inside my body was extremely ridiculous?
I raised my fist, lightning crackled around it, and I felt the channels in my arm hum with power. Even without actively pushing Anima into my hands, the act of me raising it drew power from my Anima Depth, flooding my fist, and this did not create much lightning, but the weight of my arm increased as it grew denser.
Recalling the posture that the Hollow Avatar had taken when it took my body, I made the same posture. With the increased potency of my soul, I was able to understand new intricacies in this posture.
I felt my legs almost become fused to the ground, and when I began to take the same breathing pattern the Avatar had used, my channels seemed to reach for something, and the changes that were still ongoing within them began to accelerate.
My eyes shone with a golden radiance as I had just discovered a way to accelerate the completion of my channels that was evolving in a direction that the Hollow Avatar did not even understand.
I felt a sort of peace fill my soul, my mind became quiet, and I closed my eyes. I felt I could remain like this for years, feeling my body becoming increasingly fused to the earth, but the feeling of coldness radiating over my heart and a sort of void below me that was preventing me from fully fusing to the earth made me not maintain this state.
A feeling of rage filled me, so much of my time had been stolen, and I did not know the state of my friends and the world. The Pale Matron had not risen, but I knew that the danger was not gone.
My eyes opened, and I punched the door.
"BOOM!"
The impact was like thunder in a closed room, and the shockwave rippled through the hall, causing the gold metal to shudder. Cracks spread from the point of impact, thin at first, then widening, as I slammed a second punch into the door.
"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"
I had a lot of rage in my heart, and for a long time, I had so many demons to kill where all the tension and fear could be poured into, but now there were no demons before me, just this damned door in front of me.
"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"
The door began to buckle inward, a massive dent forming in its surface from the relentless pounding from my fist. I was bleeding, but I did not feel any pain; besides, I could feel my skin reknitting itself as quickly as I was tearing it open.
The fact that I just discovered I could accelerate my healing in my expanded Titan’s form did not give me any joy; it only fed my rage that I had to discover all I could be after I had been broken.
As I kept punching, the cracks on the door deepened, and the Inscriptions seemed to be screaming as they flickered under the warping metal.
The thirty-fifth punch broke through, and the door’s centre crumpled inward, and I reached through the hole, gripping the edge of the metal with my enlarged fingers. I pulled, and the door began to slowly tear open, the metal screeching in protest.
The cold spot in my chest grew piercing, and I ducked, and in that same moment, a piercing beam of flame blasted through the hole I had made in the door for several seconds before it vanished.
A second passed, and I stood up before bringing my face to the hole that was now slowly widening from the heat of the blast, and I saw an old man in what looked like a lab coat.
He had hurriedly assembled a contraption from the scattered pieces of devices all around him that he had used to blast the door, and now he let go of the smoking remnants in pain, cursing furiously, and then he looked up and saw me looking at him, and his swearing increased.
"No, don’t come in here, you bastard... or... I will summon him."