I commanded, and more and more Essence flooded into the translucent barrier. As I expanded it, the radius grew from three feet to five.
My control remained steady as the barrier took shape.
As the Essence churned and revolved around me, the dust and debris followed forming a rotating storm of dust and debris surrounding me.
The swirling Essence around me pulsed, shifting in response to my will.
The storm outside raged, wind blades slicing through the air at random, debris twisting in chaotic spirals. But inside my barrier, inside this five-foot shell of Essence, I held control.
[Essence Shift] activated.
The translucent barrier around me flickered, the formless mass of Essence bending to my command. I grasped hold of the violent wind currents inside the Essence and converted the Essence into the wind element.
The flow changed instantly.
The wind no longer howled randomly, it followed me.
I shaped it, molding the currents like wet clay.
Inside my sphere, the chaotic storm outside became organized, controlled.
My own wind. My own domain.
The bat dove toward me, wings tucked in, cutting through the air like a thrown dagger.
I acted.
With a single thought, I sharpened the air.
[Essence Shaping]
Three wind blades formed inside my barrier, thin and razor-sharp. Unlike the wild blades outside, these weren't random, they followed my will.
The bat burst into my barrier.
The first blade slashed forward.
It twisted mid-air, barely dodging.
The second followed immediately.
Its wing flared wide, narrowly evading the attack.
But the third—
The final blade struck solid.
A clean hit.
The wind blade sliced across its chest. Not deep enough to kill, but strong enough to send it spiraling off course. The bat shrieked, its flight path breaking as it tumbled past me, wings flapping wildly to regain control.
My eyes remain closed, control fully extended on the wind barrier around me.
I commanded the air within my barrier to move, not as an attack, but as a filter.
The chaotic wind outside still carried dust and debris, filling the air with swirling dirt and blinding grit. But inside my space? That would change.
I shifted the wind flow, forcing every speck of dust, every stray particle, outward.
The space around me became clean.
A five-foot circle of absolute clarity. The air here moved in a perfect current, controlled and unobstructed. The storm outside remained wild, but inside my domain, I stood untouched.
I opened my eyes.
The battlefield had changed.
I exhaled slowly, my chest rising and falling as the tension in my lungs eased. With my immediate surroundings now free of dust and debris, the air finally felt clean again.
My gaze locked onto the bat struggling against the storm outside my barrier. It flapped its wings, trying to slip into the natural rhythm of the chaotic currents, searching for a path through.
I wasn't about to let that happen.
Raising my palm, I directed the wind inside my barrier to obey.
It responded instantly.
A blade of wind formed at my command, sharp and condensed. Without hesitation, I let it slip through the translucent shell of wind barrier around me. As soon as it left my controlled space, I allowed it to merge with the raging wind outside.
Like threading a needle through a violent storm, I kept my will connected to the blade as it twisted through the unpredictable air currents.
The further it traveled, the harder it became to control. The chaotic wind battered against my grip, making it difficult to keep the attack on course.
I quickly adjusted.
If I couldn't land a direct hit, I would force the bat into a vulnerable position.
Locking onto a dense pressure pocket in the storm, I shifted my target.
With a flick of my will, the wind blade veered off course, cutting across the raging currents and slamming into the concentrated air pocket.
Boom.
A sharp explosion erupted in the sky, sending dust and debris scattering like a detonation. The entire wind flow shifted, throwing off everything caught in its path.
The bat, which had just regained its balance, tumbled wildly. It flailed, wings folding in for a moment as it spiraled downward, crashing hard into the ground with a heavy thud.
Before I could press my advantage, a piercing screech rang out behind me.
I twisted around.
The strongest bat in the group hovered in the air, its wings spread wide. Its mouth opened, and it screeched.
A sound attack.
The next second, it fired.
A concentrated beam of vibrating energy tore through the chaotic wind, distorting the air as it surged toward me. The amplified hum sent a sharp ringing sensation through my ears.
I acted immediately.
Raising my hand, I gathered the newly generated Essence, quickly assessing how much I had left.
"It is enough."
I commanded, and the Essence surged. It channeled through my palm, condensing into a deep purple light.
My will stretched it, shaping it into a square, translucent shield just large enough to cover my torso. The construct hummed softly, a pure extension of my control.
Then, I activated [Essence Shift].
The shield changed.
The dense purple Essence thinned and shifted, adopting the light green of wind.
I willed it into motion.
The small shield began rotating around me, starting slow before rapidly gaining speed. Within seconds, it blurred into motion, a thin ring of wind circling me.
At the same time, I turned my focus to the larger wind barrier outside and increased its rotation speed as well.
Now, the two layers moved in opposite directions, the outer barrier spinning clockwise, while the smaller shield spun counterclockwise.
Both blurred into motion, following my will.
Now, all that remained was timing.
The sound beam surged forward, its vibrations distorting the air as it tore toward me. My eyes remained locked onto it, tracking its movement through the storm.
First, it struck my outer wind barrier.
A sharp hum rang out as the beam entered the swirling currents, its energy scattering. But it wasn't enough to stop it. The beam pushed forward, losing majority of its force but still heading straight for me.
Then, it reached the wind flowing inside the barrier.
This was where the real defense happened.
Unlike the chaotic outer barrier, this one moved in a controlled motion, spinning against the direction of the attack. As the sound beam entered, the rotating currents disrupted its vibrations, twisting and breaking apart the concentrated wave of energy.
The distortion weakened it further.
Finally, what little remained of the attack slammed into my torso-sized wind shield, the last line of defense.
The impact sent a heavy tremor through the air. The shield flickered, wavering for a brief moment. But my control held. The remaining energy of the sound beam scattered, its force diffused completely.
I exhaled.
My body remained steady, unharmed.
'It worked.'
A smirk tugged at the corner of my lips.
The logic was simple, sound traveled through air, carried by vibrations. By twisting the wind currents around me in opposing directions, I forced the sound waves to collide and cancel each other out.
But there was no time to celebrate.
The bat that fired the beam let out another piercing screech, clearly irritated. Its wings flared wide, adjusting its position in the storm as it prepared another attack.
And I had no intention of letting it fire again.
I raised my hand, Essence flooding into my palm once more.
This time, I wasn't just going to defend.
This time, I would strike first.
But I didn't channel the Essence I had generated.
Instead, I commanded the Essence outside my barrier to respond.
At my will, the energy in the air surged toward me, flooding into my outstretched hand. The moment it made contact with my palm, I did something I had practiced countless times before.
I set it into motion.
The Essence spun rapidly, coiling and twisting as if caught in an invisible current.
A soft hum filled the air as it gathered into a condensed, rotating sphere, glowing with a faint green light. The more it spun, the tighter it compressed until it was a perfect sphere, a foot in diameter, floating just in front of my palm.
Then, I shifted it.
The green glow flickered, wavered, then changed.
The deep, raw green of pure Essence faded as the lighter, sharper hue of wind took its place. The shift was instant. The wind roared as the sphere became a dense, turbulent mass of cutting gales, spinning with a force strong enough to distort the air around it.
A grin stretched across my face.
"Chaos?" My voice was barely a whisper over the howling winds.
A sharp gleam flickered in my eyes.
"I can cause much more chaos than this."