Kanoru feels every cell in his body breaking apart and rebuilding. The process is violent. One moment, his flesh is dying—collapsing under the weight of change—and in the next, it reforms stronger, tighter, more refined. Every bone resettles. Every muscle twists with a new pulse.
His body devours chakra to fuel the transformation.
It isn't enough.
He needs more.
He draws back, widening the distance between himself and the Skeleton Bird. Spiritual energy floods the air, and Kanoru opens himself to it, not to cast with it, but to consume it. The world becomes his feeding ground. The flow enters his body like streams pouring into a dry riverbed.
But the price—he can't use grey energy while doing this.
He still hasn't fully mastered it. His control isn't complete. He can wield it in raw forms, in fire or wind, but spellwork with grey energy is beyond him for now. So, he falls back to the basics—his oldest spells. Wind. Fire. Water. Not enough to hurt the skeleton bird.
But that's not the point.
'The spell doesn't need to be powerful,' he thinks. 'It just needs to slow it down long enough for the transformation to continue.'
The Skeleton Bird roars across the sky, charging. Its vast wings stretch wide, flames dancing across its bones, hunger in its sockets. Kanoru lifts his hand, voice low.
Ten ice arrows form in the air him. Cold, sharp, glowing faintly.
They launch.
As they shoot forward, they drink in spiritual energy, their speed and power growing. But just before contact, the Skeleton Bird's pressure cracks them, snapping all ten in the air.
The arrows shatter.
But Kanoru's eyes remain calm.
The fragments of the arrows light up blue. Small runic circles bloom across the air like blooming frost. Blue chains laced with ancient runes lash out from every shard, wrapping around the Skeleton Bird's wings, talons, and ribs.
For a moment—just a heartbeat—the bird halts.
Its empty gaze flickers in confusion. The chains freeze midair, clamping tight.
Then it screams.
Black fire erupts across its bones, sweeping over the chains like a tidal wave.
The ice doesn't melt. It 'vanishes'. Disintegrated. The runes are the last to go, flashing once, and then gone.
The black flames retreat. Controlled. Patient. They only burn because the Skeleton Bird allowed it. Without its will, they would've stayed dormant.
Kanoru watches. Breathe even. Eyes sharp.
The delay is enough. His body continues to drink in spiritual energy, the transformation pressing deeper as he floats, distancing him from the skeleton bird, but his eyes remain on the skeleton bird.
He just needs more time.
The Skeleton Bird tears through the sky, black fire trailing like a storm. Its wings slice through clouds. Its roar ripples the air. It doesn't stop. Doesn't slow. It comes for Kanoru, flame and bone, pressure and death.
Kanoru murmurs again.
Another spell. Another breath of delay.
Spiritual energy stirs and condenses, shifting into fire—wild, red, seething. The air grows hot, shimmering, until two massive giants of flame rise beside Kanoru. They glow like molten iron, every step a blast of heat.
"Go," Kanoru says.
They charge.
They last no more than a heartbeat.
A single wisp of black fire streaks from the Skeleton Bird's body. It brushes against them, and they vanish, dispersed like smoke in the wind.
Kanoru doesn't stop. He floats backwards, his body pulsing, chakra twisting tighter, growing denser. His cells keep dying and reforming, stronger each time. He feels the shift within his bones, the edge of a new realm.
He keeps summoning fire elementals. They rush the Skeleton Bird, again and again, only to be burned or shattered before they touch it. But each time they fall, they leave behind traces—wisps of fire elemental energy, drifting like embers in the sky.
They don't vanish.
Kanoru watches. Feels them. Controls them.
He's a Spirit King now. Even if the energies leave his body, they are still his to command.
The wisps begin to shift.
They draw in wind elemental energy from the skies around. Fire merges with wind—heat merges with speed—until the flames turn blue.
Bright. Hungry. Silent.
Behind the Skeleton Bird, the blue wisps swirl and gather. Slowly at first, then faster, like a storm coalescing into a single point. They shape into an axe—massive, two-handed, burning with blue flame and raw elemental fury.
The Skeleton Bird senses it too late.
Its head turns. Eye sockets gleam with cold light.
The axe descends.
The Skeleton Bird roars in fury, and from between its bone plates, black flames erupt like a volcano. They coil and lash, forming a cocoon of destruction as the blue flame axe crashes into them.
Blue and black collide—an elemental struggle in the sky.
The black flame is stronger. It devours and erases. But the blue flame does not falter. It drinks in spiritual energy from the air, growing brighter, thicker, holding the line. It slows the black flames, keeps them from overwhelming the spell.
The blue flame burns lower in energy, but it's a spell. A construct tied to the rhythm of the world's spiritual current. Spell attacks are in tune with this world. They synchronise, dance with the flow of its invisible breath. That gives them form. Weight. Power.
Energy attacks are fast, explosive, but burn from the user's strength alone. Spells borrow power from the world.
And this world does not favour the Skeleton Bird.
It is not of this realm. It is foreign, invasive. The sky and earth push against it. The world denies its spiritual support, suppresses its strength. Its power comes only from within, with no help from outside.
That's why the blue flame axe holds—despite being weaker, it endures.
But the Skeleton Bird has had enough.
It howls, insulted by this resistance, and detonates the black flames around it. The explosion swallows the axe whole, rips the spell apart with violent force.
Blue disappears.
And when the smoke clears, the bird is gone—only to reappear an instant later, streaking through the sky, flames wrapping around its form like armour. Its speed doubles.
It's burning its own energy to accelerate.
Kanoru watches, unmoving.
He stops retreating. His body no longer floats—it anchors. His skin reddens, not with blood but with heat. Grey flames swirl around his fists, tighter than ever before, drawn in rather than released.
The Skeleton Bird closes in—blinding speed, claws forward.
Kanoru moves.
He throws a punch.
It connects. His fist slams into the bony skull of the charging monster.
And nothing moves.
No shockwave. No sound.
No shift.
They freeze, locked in that one instant—Kanoru's fist pressed against the beast's skull. Not even the wind dares to breathe.
Then the world catches up.
A thunderous shockwave erupts from the point of contact, splitting clouds and hurling waves across the distant sea. Trees break. Dust swirls into a storm. The air quakes. Sound follows like a delayed scream of the heavens. But neither Kanoru nor the Skeleton Bird move even an inch.
Kanoru's body has broken through the limits of the Spirit King Realm.
He feels it—every fiber of his being shifting, reforged under pressure. His chakra reserve surges, growing denser, sharper—thirty percent more now, but nearly doubled in power. Yet what truly changes is his body.
Strength triples.
He no longer needs a larger form to match the Skeleton Bird. In this smaller, more compact shape, he has reached equal strength. His body moves like a weapon forged and polished by war itself.
The real battle begins.
The Skeleton Bird, cloaked in roiling black flames, lashes out. Kanoru meets it—surrounded by grey fire that pulses with strange rhythm. He ducks a wing, twists around a sweeping claw, drives a punch into its ribcage. Bones groan.
He doesn't stop.
He kicks, elbows, spins—every part of his body becomes a weapon. Each strike carries a ripple of chakra. And then, just as the bird retaliates with a snap of its beak, Kanoru vanishes—shrinking down to the size of an insect. The jaws close on empty air.
Then he grows—a flash of chakra, and he's a giant. His leg slams down from above, striking the Skeleton Bird's wing and sending it crashing toward the earth.
It recovers, black fire flaring violently, but Kanoru closes in again. He twists midair, chakra rushing through his veins. His arm inflates—ten times larger than before—and the fist hammers into the creature's side. Bones crack. A screech echoes through the sky.
The Skeleton Bird strikes back with reckless speed, claws spinning like a vortex. Kanoru shrinks again, slipping through gaps of bone and fire. He appears on the other side, palm glowing, and sends a condensed grey flame spear into its back.
Even while fighting with everything, his thoughts flicker.
Pieces of grey energy swirl around him. With every dodge, every hit, every near-death graze—he studies them. The way the energy bends with movement. The subtle change when it strikes flame. The way it hums when compressed inside him.
Grey energy still resists him.
But he's closer.
He feels the next stage just beyond the edge of his reach.
He slams a kick into the bird's jaw, its head snapping back, and he follows through—arm expanding again as he rides momentum into a spinning elbow. Grey fire swirls tighter, responding to his will.
The Skeleton Bird roars in frustration, but Kanoru smiles, blood dripping from his lip.
He might win.
In the middle of their brutal dance—flames colliding with flames, bones against flesh—Kanoru halts mid-air for a moment, eyes widening with a sudden flash of understanding.
Water.
The last piece.
The final elemental form to complete the grey energy's true nature.
Even as the Skeleton Bird charges again, wings outstretched, Kanoru raises his palms—and from each hand, two long grey water whips burst forth, swirling like serpents made of mist and tide. The liquid lashes shimmer faintly, their flow smooth, yet humming with potential destruction.
He hasn't fully mastered the grey energy—not yet. It still resists direct conversion from his chakra. He cannot simply will it to appear. Instead, as before, he must form it from the fusion of elemental energies. But now, he can do so faster, more instinctively.
Wind. Fire. Water.
He calls them.
Even in the chaos of battle, with only fragments of his thoughts free, Kanoru reaches into the spiritual energy around him. With minimal effort, he draws it in and splits it—coaxing it into the three forms he needs. He doesn't need full focus now, only intent and rhythm. That's enough.
Grey begins to form around him.
The Skeleton Bird dives.
Kanoru whips forward.
The grey water lashes arc high and strike low, wrapping around one of the creature's legs. Its black flames flare, burning hot—but the whips hold. Grey energy, even unstable, resists more than normal elements. It anchors.
Kanoru yanks.
The colossal bird jerks off-balance mid-charge. Its beak veers past him, missing his skull by inches.
He vanishes—shrinking again to dodge a retaliating claw—and appears beneath its ribcage. The whips tighten. He releases one, letting it snake higher to loop around the beast's wing. With the other, he swings upward, the motion fluid like a crashing wave, and it strikes the sternum of the monster with the crack of splitting stone.
The bird screeches.
Its wing erupts in black fire—but the grey water lash does not melt.
It hisses, burns slowly, but does not die.
Kanoru slams his hand against its side again, pouring wind into the fire still lingering around him. The energies fuse, and his palm ignites into a grey flame. He digs it into the creature's bones, burning upward, carving a glowing line of seared bone into its chest.
The bird retaliates—tail sweeping like a guillotine—but Kanoru grows. Ten times his size in a blink, his palm stops the blow mid-air. Cracks run up his arm from the force, but he grits his teeth, endures, and whips his other hand in an arc.
The grey water lash binds the tail.
Kanoru snarls and spins, throwing the entire creature through the air.
It crashes into a distant mountain wall—shaking the ridge, a shockwave flattening the hills around.
Kanoru breathes hard, blood running down his nose, but his chakra stabilizes. He floats higher, water and flame and wind spiraling around him, fusing into grey with each rotation. His thoughts still remain partially free—focused on drawing more spiritual energy and refining the rhythm. Not just understanding now, but control.
The Skeleton Bird rises again, slower, a flicker of confusion in its eyes.
Kanoru wipes the blood from his mouth.
He's not just buying time anymore.
He's beginning to dominate. Kanoru gathers his strength, preparing to strike once more, to end it here—but a voice booms inside his spiritual space.
"Everybody move to the Sacred Continent."
Kanoru pauses mid-motion, fist still glowing. His brows knit, the surge of power in his body trembling with indecision. The order is absolute, but so is the opportunity before him.
Kill the Skeleton Bird—or obey and retreat?
Before he can choose, his senses sharpen. Elemental fluctuations—rushing through the air, cutting across the sky—everywhere, allies are fleeing toward the Sacred Continent. Streaks of light from every direction follow the same path. Behind them, he senses chaos—members of the Greyrose Circus in full pursuit, their auras chaotic and bloodthirsty.
His fists loosen.
If he remains, he'll be the only one left behind. The Skeleton Bird might fall eventually, but it won't be instant. And with him alone on this battlefield, he'll become a beacon to every Greyrose Circus pursuer in the sky. His death wouldn't serve anyone.