This Discipline at fifty was at the upper Acolyte threshold, and the threshold had teeth. I don’t know about Rex, but I was the Acolyte with the highest Surge in the camp.

Surge folded itself into the Lightning Cascade discharge, and the cast doubled in brightness. The branches that had been splitting three times now split four. The reach that had been ten meters extended to fifteen, as the amplification was not additive, but was multiplicative.

It had taken me a while and a leap of faith to first cast Surge and Spark eleven loops ago to stun one demon, and pouring Surge into a spell a hundred times more powerful than Spark was relatively easier with all the growth I had made during the loops.

Surge did not stack with Cascade; it supercharged Cascade. The two Disciplines together produced a cast that was not the sum of their separate capabilities but the product.

A minor shockwave erupted from the head of my staff as the air in front of it was superheated to three thousand degrees in an instant, and this sent a resounding clap that was almost deafening.

The supercharged cast killed forty-one demons in an instant. The ones that were closer to the center of the cast were almost vaporized, and those that were hit by the branches of lightning were torn to pieces, as the grass beneath them charred in long lines.

I could feel dozens warm streams emerging from the fallen demon pouring into my body with such intensity, that it was almost like a river of warmth flowing into me.

The smell hit me a half-second after the cast. Burned chitin had a specific smell, sharp, as if I was cooking a large pot of vinegar... I inhaled deeply; that was the smell of victory.

The second cast left the staff before the first had finished dissipating, as another larger shockwave shook the basin, and the blue light from Lightning Cascade shone outside the bowl.

The second cast killed fifty-two demons, and all my body felt warm, as if I was now truly awake. There was still seventy percent of my Anima Depth left inside me, and I no longer held back.

I felt my body slightly heating up, and my staff creaking with protest as I released the third cast of Lightning Cascade, and I was now channeling it, instead of the short casting.

The first two castings were just for me to confirm if I was able to fuse Surge and Lightning Cascade. Now that I was sure that I would not blow up both of my arms, I released the spell the way it was meant to be released.

Maybe I was screaming or silent, to tell you the truth, I don’t know, all I know was that I held the discipline open as a sustained discharge with Surge sustained alongside it, and in the first second, I killed sixty-eight demons.

The channel held for ten seconds.

My body was like an engine filled with lightning as power poured from my soul, and my entire body was the channel for this power to express itself.

My short hair was rising in the air as the entirety of my body glowed blue. At this moment, I did not seem like a man, but a lightning in the shape of one.

Staff Resonance held for longer than I thought, and under the strain of channeling so much power, I believed I crossed the threshold for Staff Resonance, reaching the Acolyte level, because the Staff in my hand began to change.

Every second that I had been channeling lightning, this sustained casing was accelerating the transformation of the staff, and the pathways inside of it were becoming brighter and more conductive.

Like me, my staff was beginning to glow blue, as if I were holding a piece of lightning in my hands.

A small, clear thought crossed the back of my mind during the ninth second.

This is what Lightning is for. This is what the discipline has been waiting to do.

I could not properly control the channel of the lightning, and when I eradicated the entirety of the demon inside the bowl with me, the lightning kept shooting into the ground until I allowed the channel to close, and I was alone for a moment with nothing but ash.

Then the second wave came over the ridge.

∞

The demons hardly paused before they poured into the bowl. Any other Acolyte would have turned to ash with the power that I just channeled through my body in the last twelve seconds, but I still had fifty percent Anima in my reservoir, and I was just getting started.

Two hundred came at me in a single coordinated rush, and I smiled like a wolf as I cast again.

Surge folded into my lightning again, and this time it was even more harmonious, and the Cascade emerged from my staff with more authority.

The trunk of lightning struck the leading demon. The branches split four times instead of three. The arcs found demons across a fan that now reached eighteen meters of the bowl’s eastern half.

The cast killed ninety-four, as the force behind the spell sent body parts and the ash of the demons flying into the air for dozens of meters, and they rained on the demons coming from behind.

[Stored Essence: 240]

The third wave came, covered by the ash of their dead, and they should be more than three hundred of them rushing towards me in silence.

"Damn pests, I am no longer the same as I was."

I let the deep currents of Lightning Resonance rise to the surface of my skin. The discipline had been growing like it was possessed, as my powerful body held by the bindings of Mortal Shell was the perfect soil for its growth... my only fear was my staff failing me at this point.

I cast Cascade through the staff again and then supercharged it with Surge.

The branches split five times and the cast killed one hundred and forty-eight. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

[Stored Essence: 388] [Demon Slayer — First Earth Gate evolving...]

The notification flickered. The pending evolution from the long-frozen kill count was now executing. I felt it in my soul — the system’s quiet recognition that the threshold had been crossed.

I had no time to acknowledge this change as the fourth wave came over the ridge.