Martial Era: Starting With The Strongest Talent-Chapter 193: Holy Light

The moment they started moving before him, the pressure doubled, and Adam felt it immediately as every path ahead narrowed. He pushed harder, trying to create distance, but the chalk men stuck to him relentlessly, closing every gap he made.

Each strike only made things worse.

A force-infused swing cut one cleanly in half, but before the pieces even hit the ground, they split again. Two became four, and the street filled faster than he could clear it.

Adam’s eyes narrowed as he shifted tactics mid-run, releasing a sharp burst of wind that tore through a cluster ahead. Bodies were shredded and thrown back, but within seconds, more white figures replaced them as if nothing had changed.

"...This is getting ridiculous."

He didn’t stop moving, but the pattern was clear now.

Cryogen froze them, but they cracked and reformed.

Bone constructs pierced them, but the pieces simply divided again.

No matter what he used, the result stayed the same.

Kill one and two replace it.

The street was no longer a path.

It was a wall.

Adam gritted his teeth as he forced his way forward, carving through anything directly in front of him, but every step cost more effort than the last. The chalk men were adjusting faster now, reacting to his attacks almost instantly.

A split-second delay.

That was all they needed.

A figure slipped past his guard and slammed into him from the side, followed by another from behind. The impact knocked him off balance, and before he could fully recover, more piled in, driving him down to the ground.

"Tch—!"

Adam hit the ground hard, but his response was immediate.

Bone erupted around him.

A dense barrier formed in an instant, expanding outward with force and blasting the chalk men away from his body. The impact created space, separating him from the swarm just long enough to breathe.

But the street was still full and completely packed.

Adam stayed low within the barrier, his eyes scanning through the gaps as the white figures rushed back in. He extended the construct downward as well, covering the ground beneath him without hesitation.

They could come from below.

He had already seen it.

Hands clawing out of the street, bodies rising from nowhere as long as they were still inside Remedy’s domain. If there was even a fragment of space, they would use it.

So he removed that option.

The bone barrier sealed him in completely, forming a closed structure that cut off every angle of entry. For a brief moment, everything outside blurred into muted impacts as the chalk men slammed against it from all sides.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The pressure didn’t stop.

They kept coming.

Adam exhaled slowly, steadying himself as he felt the constant collisions reverberate through the construct. The barrier held firm, his equipped talent sustaining it without draining him, but that didn’t solve the real problem.

He was stuck.

Trapped in place while they gathered outside.

The longer he stayed here, the worse it would get.

His grip tightened slightly as his mind raced, replaying every failed attempt, every reaction, every adaptation they had shown so far. There had to be something he was missing.

Some way around it.

"Come on..."

His voice was low, focused.

"Think."

****

"Think."

The word echoed in his head as the barrier shuddered again, another heavy impact rippling through the bone structure around him. Adam stayed still at the center, forcing himself to ignore the noise as his thoughts raced through everything he knew.

He wasn’t just in a battlefield.

He was inside something.

Rem’s soul...

The realization sharpened, cutting through the chaos as the idea began to take shape. Adam’s eyes narrowed slightly, his breathing slowing as he latched onto the thought and refused to let it slip away.

If this is her soul... then....

Another impact slammed into the barrier, harder this time, causing faint cracks to spread along the outer layer. Adam didn’t move, his focus turning inward as the scattered pieces in his mind started aligning.

Then—

It clicked.

"...Why don’t I just fit in?"

The words left his mouth quietly, but the meaning behind them hit hard. Adam’s gaze steadied as understanding followed, drawn from the connection he shared with Remedy’s soul and everything it had already shown him.

A soul wasn’t a single thing.

It had structure.

Two parts.

The soul flame, and the soul core.

Adam’s grip loosened slightly as he organized the information clearly, his thoughts becoming sharper with each passing second. The flame was what fueled life and mimicked thoughts, memories and identity of the mind. It was fluid, reactive, and constantly shifting.

The core was different.

It was stable.

It held everything together, anchoring the flame and storing deeper constructs like talents. But that wasn’t where he was. Adam could feel it clearly, the environment around him responding like a living memory.

He was inside the flame.

That was why everything felt so real.

Why the world mimicked events so precisely.

Why the "immune response" existed at all.

Adam exhaled slowly, his eyes glinting with a new clarity as the final piece slid into place.

Then I don’t need to fight it.

I need to become something it accepts.

Another heavy attack struck the barrier, and this time, a small fragment broke off from the outer layer but it was repaired immediately. The chalk men weren’t slowing down. If anything, they were getting closer to breaking through.

Adam didn’t react to the damage.

His focus had already shifted.

"...Something familiar to the flame."

His voice was low, steady, as he searched through his available affinities, filtering through what he had gained, what he had adapted, and what would actually work in this situation.

Then he found it.

One of the earliest.

"...Holy Light."

The name carried weight as he spoke it, and for the first time since being trapped, Adam didn’t feel pressure.

He felt direction.

Chaos stirred within him and the supreme affinity responded, ready to adapt and replicate what it had once absorbed. Holy Light was already part of him, it had been since the beginning.

He had just never needed to use it like this.