Dissonance 5 – No Giving In

The climb.

It was all that mattered. Though his frozen hands could only burn with pain, he kept on dragging himself upwards.

The climb.

Winds broke on his back, whipping him with particles of hail and raw cold. In his ears, rang the dissonant sound of two souls crashing into each other like an iceberg ramming into a mountainside.

The climb.

Joints snapped as they were forced to release the stone. Eldred’s arm jittered and spasmed as he forced it upwards. His muscles revolted. He willed them to move. He willed them to keep going. He willed them to grow strong.

The climb.

The climb was all that mattered. Up this endless cliff, towards nothing. What was at the top had no meaning, what was at the bottom he knew all too well. He would never know either again. Neither of them were of any importance.

“…Continue…” The ghostly voice was a beam of moonlight upon his burning mind. “…you excel…” Only scraps of the message made it through, carried on the same winds that peeled his skin off his back in chunks of frozen flesh. Every time he thought all of his nerves had been frost-burned to nothing, he found himself capable of feeling more.

The climb.

And yet still he moved, up and up and up, a radiant smile on his face. All of the sweat covering him did not matter. The cold hand of death did not matter. In his chest burned the sun. The guiding light shone from within. The winds that tortured him also pushed him on.

The climb.

The climb.

The climb was all that had ever mattered. There was nothing more important than the next step. Moving. He had to keep moving. He had to pour fire into his soul. The flaming Core shaping within him was–

Eldred suddenly snapped out of his vision of struggle. The pain was gone in an instant. The body he thought he had was replaced with reality. He sat cross-legged on a comfortable floor, sweat-soaked, tits on his back, and a crumbling rock in his hands.

The Tarnished Echo had been spent, leaving behind only dirt and Stardust, barely held together by the pressure that had once consolidated it into one unit. Eldred carefully put it to the side, not wanting to dust his sticky body with scattering soil. Without a second’s hesitation, he pulled out the card that held his Echo balance. As he got up to walk to the closest hatch, Nyx still pressing her nubile body against his back, he noticed how quiet everyone was.

The reason was obvious. Eldred was not above smirking at them. In fact, he was far below the line of humility that would have had him hold back a grin. What he did not have a need to do was boast. The smug smile on his face expressed everything he wanted to say anyway. Once a fresh chunk of Tarnished Echo surfaced from the distribution hatch, Eldred returned to his position.

“My beloved Eldred, my excellent contractor, show them once more the will of corded steel and the grit of radiant ambition,” Nyx whispered in his ear. “You are my darling. You will achieve the greatest of feats.”

“With encouragement like that, what choice do I have?” he whispered back, his voice hoarse and deep from the strain. He forced himself to relax, knowing full well what he was about to dive back into. The last sensation of the regular world he had was the kiss pressed on his cheek.

The climb…

___________________________________________________________________

“Ah! Fuck! Yes! Yes! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!” Avari screamed, a final orgasm rocking through her curves.

Before her cunt could carry him over the edge, Eldred pulled out of the spasming shortstack. He barely managed to take a fistful of Nyx’s white hair. Black lips wrapped around the tip of his cock. She laid next to him, having just been busy licking the gremlin’s clit while he pounded her. The position only allowed him to stuff about a third of his dick into her mouth on every thrust. It was more than enough. The banshee’s eager tongue did as much work as her twitching throat would have anyhow.

With a final roar, Eldred pumped his load into his comfort hole. Nyx’s eyelids fluttered with every received spurt. She was only becoming more of a cumslut with every repetition of their lewd acts, it felt like. That suited Eldred just fine, he was feeling like more of a ‘Master’ each time himself.

Nyx’s fingers danced in and out of her cunt, bringing herself to a closing climax while she sucked and stroked out every last drop he had to offer. Once she had accomplished that, his cock finally went soft.

In recent days, his virility had improved tremendously. It had been held back after he had been possessed by Nyx due to the energy she consumed. That happenstance had gradually decreased over time and was practically a thing of the past now.

It had now been over a month since Eldred had decided to turn his life around and exactly three weeks since he had started Cultivation. These last three weeks had been a stream of glorious repetition. He woke up, had a morning quickie with his haremettes, then went to Cultivate. He would burn through one chunk of Tarnished Echo, then jog ten rounds around the building, followed by sit-ups, squats, and other workouts. After his body was exhausted, he was right back to meditating. Avari would try to keep his pace on these things and initially had been somewhat ahead of him. It hadn’t been long before that changed.

Nyx interrupted their training twice a day to remind them to eat. Avari stuffed him with the best diet her money could buy, loaded with protein and whatever else. Though she did constantly complain about the expenditure, she was clearly thankful for it every evening. Before bed, they had a rather long lovemaking session. Initially, they had needed to share a load between them. Later, he had managed to give them one each. This night, he had cum inside each of them once before this third round had ended up down Nyx’s greedy gullet.

Eldred had bulked up. The shoulders of his suit were now properly filled and his already lean physique was now properly toned. He had never felt better in his life. There was a quality difference between eating enough good food to subsist and eating enough excellent food to thrive. His life in this ruin of a corporation was that of a king.

These days, maintaining Nyx in her lightweight state was practically no draw on his vitality whatsoever. The workout was partially to thank for that. Cultivation was the bigger factor in all of these developments. The more of the Ki he integrated, the more his human body perfected itself. Issues in his metabolism were fixed. Tiny problems in his nervous system sorted themselves out. The person he was drifted closer and closer towards the person he wanted to be.

Changes were more apparent in recent days because he was rapidly approaching the Core Formation stage. The Ki was almost set in place now, the shell of the Core letting barely any of it escape in the breaks he took to eat, sleep and fornicate. It made his muscles burn with supernatural strength and his loins stir with the virility required to properly keep a harem of two.

The feeling of being superhuman was dangerously intoxicating. This was a craziness that Eldred attempted to keep at bay. Asserting his will over common expectations was a point of justified pride. Letting it get to his head that he was now stronger than 99% of Iridescia’s inhabitants would make him blind to the fact that he was only competing with the remaining 1%.

‘I can be reckless, yes, but let’s not get actually suicidal,’ he warned himself. ‘That would give Avari too much to make fun about.’ “I’ll go get us some water,” he said to the present women, who just groaned in agreement. The post-coital exhaustion was setting in.

Nyx remained on the mat. The distance they could be from each other had steadily increased. The roughly 20 metre distance between the office and the top of the staircase was just barely in the budget. Wearing only a pair of flip flops to protect his feet from the dust, he made his way down to the kitchen. New glasses were unceremoniously kept inside the carton they had been bought in, alongside all of the other pieces of kitchenware they had gathered over the last few weeks.

It was all improvised, from the protein shakers to the microwave. The items looked beyond odd in the derelict kitchen. That was just their life right now. Eldred filled two glasses most of the way up, then returned to his office/living quarters. Avari and Eldred toasted, then downed their waters in one go.

“Greed, gods and gold,” the gremlin groaned. “I can’t believe how quickly things have been happening.”

“Same,” Eldred agreed. “These last three weeks have been… interesting.”

“A blend of memories.” Nyx’s noble, melodic voice provided a more poetic spin on things. “Joy and pain intertwined, marching towards advancement.”

“You say that, but all you did was hug Eldred and whisper compliments in his ear!” Avari threw her hands in the air. “Why isn’t that my job?”

A light smile spread on Nyx’s ever forlorn expression. “Fate elected me because I am better at it.”

“She is right,” Eldred remarked. “She is much better at encouraging me.”

“Good, because someone has to keep your feet on the ground while your head is in between her thighs.”

“I believe the saying would suggest you mean ‘heaven’ there… though that is what you said.”

“Congratulations for explaining my joke. Want a cookie?” Avari drawled.

“Is there one?” Eldred asked and looked at their little snack corner. Upon his question, Nyx hovered over and took a quick rummage around. Apologetically, she looked back and shook her head. “Then I will do without,” he groaned and rolled his shoulders. “This is probably going to change tomorrow.”

“You think you’re that close to your Core Formation?” Avari asked.

Eldred just nodded. As far as he had been told, those few that managed to Cultivate with a Dissonant Soul typically took about 25% less time than those that did it regularly. A tremendous time saver, especially on higher levels of Cultivation where the amount of Echo consumed apparently could draw the process out over months, if not years, unless the truly pure stuff was available.

The reduced time was not the only advantage. While Eldred Cultivated his own Core, he did the same for Nyx. She got an effectively free ride on the powerscaling front, though Eldred felt like she was repaying him plenty with her words of encouragement and by keeping his balls empty. Neither were strictly needed but both helped immensely. He was a simple man.

The drawback to it all, besides the tremendous pain, was that Eldred did not cultivate with less Echo than others. He was Cultivating for two at an accelerated pace, burning through their stockpile at a rapid rate. After he had achieved his first Core, he would leave Avari to continue the process on her own.

Commonly, new Cultivators managed their first Core after 1 to 2 months, it had been said. At 22 days, Eldred would be at the front-end of that distribution, when including the dissonance factor. It was incredibly fast, but not outlandish. The teacher had explained that, with the way they had been living, it was expected, really. There had been only Cultivation and workouts in recent weeks.

The singular impressive part of Eldred’s Cultivation remained his willpower. It was something he had been given ample credit for by several of his peers. It was also all he had.

“Once you have your Core, you should go on missions again,” Avari recommended.

“Without you?” Eldred asked.

“I’ll need another week minimum, probably two.” Avari gave him a boob-jiggling shrug. “Better for you to start earning money. These last three weeks have been… satisfying…” She half-sighed, half-sarcastically groaned the word. “…but I would like to know what it feels like to have sex on an actual bed at some point.”

“Fair enough.” Eldred laid down on the sports mats. They weren’t new anymore and the rather intense motions executed on them were taking their toll one night at a time. “Probably best to train my Elemental Mastery out in the field anyhow.”

Avari laid down next to him. She smelled of fresh sweat, as she did every night before they fell asleep. They would use the showers at the facility tomorrow. “Stop looking at me like that,” the gremlin’s voice was soft, completely neutralizing that demand.

“Like what?”

“Like you actually love me. It’s the worst!”

Eldred just snorted and put his hand on Nyx’s head. His banshee had quietly come to rest on his shoulder. There was a bit more weight to her than before, though she generally stayed very light. It made it easier for her to remain attached to his side.

“Have you decided yet?” Avari asked, two of her fingers ‘walking’ up from his abs to his collarbone.

“Decided what?” Eldred asked.

“How you want to fight.” A leap brought her fingers to his face. She booped him on the nose. “Mages and martial artists, remember? Manipulate the mortal realm all around us through the power in your core or imbue your Ki into your limbs and chosen weapon to devastating effect. Range or melee. Tricks or direct combat.” A hearty yawn interrupted her. “Well, when I put it like that, the answer seems pretty obvious.”

It was Nyx that chuckled in agreement. “It is quite obvious.”

“I’ll leave the tricks to my supporter,” Eldred remarked. “I like the honesty of the brawl.”

“Yeah… that fits you…” Avari wiggled a little closer, her bratty nature subsumed by her love in the final moments of her consciousness. Nyx joined her in the land of dreams moments later, leaving Eldred to lay there on his back for just a moment longer. Exhaustion pulled at him, but he wanted to enjoy the sound of their even breathing for a little bit.

‘Would I want this to continue forever?’ he asked himself. These 21 days had been the happiest in his life. It was simple, to wake up, to love, to train, to sleep. If he exchanged the training for a stable job, would that have been the same?

Of course not.

Though the flame of ambition within him had been satisfied with this current step, he wasn’t done. Day in and day out, he had visualised the climb. It wasn’t always the same shape. Sometimes it was a mountain cliff, sometimes it was a path that he walked with ever heavier weights on his shoulders, sometimes he was battling fantastical creatures. Whatever it was, the core fact remained: he was hungry. He wanted more. He wanted to use this power he had acquired and then he wanted to gain more of it.

Satisfying as this routine had been, it was a means to an end. All of this was the preamble to that next fight. The Cannibal Golem, that entity had shown him what life was all about. The edge of current ability and the honing of the new blade. The consumption of the old fuel and the adding of the new. Life was the flame of ambition.

The climb was all that mattered.