Harem Sync: Divine Edition

Chapter 118: Vorath In Purple

"Feel the path. Don’t force it. Follow."

Haru stayed silent for a moment.

Then: "I feel something."

"What?"

"Like... pressure. Inside my navel. But it doesn’t hurt."

"It’s the central meridian. Don’t close it. Keep going."

Isabela stopped flipping through the book, watching from afar without seeming like she was watching.

Kira didn’t have that elegance. She was staring directly with her ears forward.

"Now..." Lilithine said softly, almost to herself. "Imagine the path continuing. Rising through the arm. Up to the fingers."

Haru’s right hand lifted, without him having planned it, it just lifted, like a reflex.

.

Spark.

Small, smaller than a candle flame, lasted less than a second.

But it came from his fingers and it wasn’t fire.

"It worked." Haru said, genuinely surprised.

Isabela closed the book.

Kira stood up.

Lilithine opened her eyes, still with her palms on his back, looking over his shoulder at Haru’s right hand.

"Do it again." She said.

Haru focused, on the path he had felt, the pressure in his chest, the meridian rising through the arm.

The hand lifted again.

The spark returned.

Bigger this time, three seconds, crackling between his fingers, smelling of ozone and something he couldn’t name.

"It’s lightning." Kira said, like scientific confirmation.

"It’s lightning." Isabela agreed.

Lilithine kept watching.

Something was wrong, not dangerous, not scary. Just wrong.

"The color."

"Haru."

"Hm."

"Look at your hand."

He looked.

The spark between his fingers wasn’t white, which was how lightning should be, clean, divine, the color Lilithine always used.

It wasn’t blue, which was how natural lightning behaved.

It was purple.

Not dark purple. Edge purple, as if white light had passed through something it shouldn’t and come out different on the other side.

Irregular sparks, small, burning with a heat that wasn’t exactly hot.

"This isn’t the lightning I taught you." Lilithine said softly.

Haru looked at his hand. Looked at her.

"It turned purple."

"I saw."

"Is it a problem?"

Lilithine stayed silent for a moment.

"It should be white... I guided it through the central meridian, the path I used was my path."

"So why did it come out purple."

He didn’t say any of that out loud.

"I don’t know." She said. "Not yet."

Haru looked at the purple between his fingers, crackling quietly, irregular, waiting.

He closed his hand, it disappeared.

"Let’s fight." Kira suggested, getting up with that beastskin energy that didn’t warn before appearing.

"Eh..." Isabela stretched. "The tests are coming up. We need to be in shape."

"Exactly. So let’s go."

"I don’t fight women." Haru retorted.

"WHAT!?"

"Liar." Kira said at the same time.

"I only fight women if it’s in bed." Haru started doing warm-up movements, wrist rotations, neck, shoulders, as if he had said something completely normal.

The three just stared at him.

Haru stretched forward, hands on the ground, spine lengthening.

"So it’ll be like this. You three against me."

"Arrogant."

Lilithine stayed quiet, looking at her own hand, then at him. "Fight."

"What is it?" Haru asked.

She raised her eyes.

"The Cathedral forbids it? Lame." Kira interrupted.

"It’s not that." Lilithine said.

"Then what is it?" Isabela asked, tying her hair in a high ponytail, already in mode.

"I don’t control my strength well."

Half-second silence.

Then Haru smiled, the smile of someone who had just received interesting information.

"It’s fine. Come with everything."

"Haru..."

"Trust me." He said. "Just about five minutes. I want to test the lightning on you guys."

"Test on us!?" Isabela pointed. "Like we’re training dummies..."

"You’re the only people who won’t die if I miss."

Pause.

"...was that a compliment?" Lilithine asked.

"It was."

Kira had already drawn her dual daggers, fitted in her palm with the naturalness of someone born holding them.

"For Gandloaf!"

"Kira, stop." Isabela said.

"I accept." Lilithine said.

Everyone looked at her.

Lilithine looked at Haru with that expression of someone who had made a small decision that would have big consequences.

Her right hand moved and a staff appeared. Not drawn from a pocket, not taken from inventory. It simply was there, as if it had always been, sacred material emanating faint white light.

"Alright." She said.

Haru looked at the staff. "Where was that this whole time."

"You can come." She said, drawing Vorath.

He gripped it. Closed his eyes for two seconds, felt the meridian, the path Lilithine had traced, the pressure in his navel rising through the arm.

Opened his eyes.

**TRIZZZZZZZ.**

Vorath ignited, not in Valtherion flames, but in lightning, purple lightning.

Irregular, crackling along the blade, sparks flying from the edges, smell of ozone mixed with something that still had no name.

Isabela breathed in slowly, eyes fixed on the blade. "I wish I could explore all of Haru’s power."

"I’ll try to control myself" Lilithine thought while watching Haru.

Kira advanced in a dash, beastskin speed, without telegraphing, left dagger aiming for the flank.

Haru spun, Vorath blocking with the flat of the blade, lightning transferring on contact.

Kira felt the tingling in her arm, not pain, shock. She retreated two steps, shaking her hand.

"Ouch."

"I warned you." Haru said. "I said I was going to test the lightning on you guys."

Isabela came from the side, without a sword, magic in her fingers, red Valtherion flames charging.

"Fire Cannon!"

Haru dodged, Vorath tracing a purple arc in the air, already raised blocking the second attack Isabela sent before the first even landed.

**BOOM — CRRR.**

Red heat against purple lightning, for half a second the two canceled each other, then Haru was pushed back one step.

"Stronger than it looks."

"It always was."

Lilithine in the back, staff raised, energy accumulating at the tip.

She didn’t attack yet, she was watching.

"The lightning comes out irregular because he still doesn’t have control of his mana. If I attack now, he’ll dodge and waste energy."

"Wait."

Kira returned, this time from the right, low, aiming for the leg.

Isabela simultaneous from the left, another Fireball, smaller, faster.

Haru calculated half a second.

He jumped. Up.

The Fireball passed underneath almost hitting Kira. Kira’s dagger cut the air where the leg had been.

In the air, Vorath spun descending vertically.

"Got you..." Lilithine fired a huge beam of ether, white, thin, precise, aiming at Haru in the air.

Haru was hit, slammed into a tree, landing awkwardly, one knee on the ground, free hand on the ground, breathing. "What the fuck was that!"

Silence.

"You hit him." Kira said to Lilithine, impressed.

"You’re a box of surprises, saint." Isabela said, drawing her sword.

"This is..." Lilithine thought. "Liberator."

Haru got up, massaging his shoulder, smiling. "I didn’t feel anything, no change in the air, no heat... nothing, as pure as the environment... interesting."

"That was good." Haru said.

"Are you okay?" Lilithine asked before she could stop herself.

"I am." He looked at his shoulder. "That was the cleanest attack I’ve ever seen."

...

The dungeon was alive, not metaphorically.

The walls breathed. Not rhythmically, not like lungs. Like something that had existed long enough to develop a habit. Slow contraction, slow expansion, stone moving millimeters per minute.

Eugen walked, bloodied golden armor reflecting the green bioluminescence of the walls, sword in hand, breathing heavily.

"not much left... I just have to hold on a little longer" heavy breathing.

No lantern. He didn’t need one.

a creature came out of the ceiling, stone spider, six meters wingspan, mandibles carrying acid.

Eugen didn’t draw anything.

[Photon Step]

Images of him, each one occupying where he had been seconds before.

The spider attacked the central image.

Bit air.

The real Eugen was already on top of her, foot on her back, full weight of the sword in one specific point.

**CRACK.**

Creature collapsing. He continued without stopping.

The second and third floors were like that, systematic, without waste, without aesthetics.

Eugen didn’t fight to look impressive.

He fought to finish.

Granite golems: Photon Step to confuse, sword in the mana points.

Crystal serpents: total invisibility, let them pass, destroy the core from behind.

Swarm of magical scorpions: Light Compression, radiation zone, everything inside dying before getting close.

he was clearly tired and impatient, out of character.

fifth floor, the door was different from the others. It was made of solidified Light, golden, hot, pulsing with its own heartbeat.

Eugen stopped in front of it.

"Mana condensed into matter. Requires equivalent force to open."

He placed his palms flat.

Pressed. "ahhhhhh....."

The door resisted, two seconds, three, then gave way. Not like a normal door, but like a bursting bubble. The heat came out in a wave.

Eugen entered.

The room was enormous. Ceiling so high it was invisible, the darkness swallowing it before it could reach. Walls of translucent quartz, light pulsing inside them like golden blood.

And in the center:

The boss had no defined form.

It was a sphere, three meters in diameter, surface of condensed mist slowly rotating. Inside the mist, a shining core, small, dense, dark amber color.

Constant pulse. Like a heart... Eugen kept looking.

"Exposed core.... however I’ve already cleared this Dungeon several times in the game. But the mist around it is a force field, any direct attack will be absorbed and returned amplified."

The sphere pulsed, moved.