Chapter 1029: Milestone (16)
Sharp bolts of Lightning Radiance pierced through dozens of skyscrapers simultaneously.
Amidst the exploding and collapsing building debris, two wizards, wreathed in lightning, accelerated.
One used Flicker, a spatial leap, while the other dashed, transforming his entire body into Lightning Radiance.
Each time their distorted thunders of different hues collided, eerie shockwaves spread, vaporizing terrain and structures.
[Divine Body Thunderclap]
[Spiral Thunderkill]
Crrraaaash!!!!
Twisted, tingling electricity collided with spiraling lightning, scattering in all directions.
Thousands of lightning fragments burst and dispersed, showering everywhere.
Koo-goo-goo-goo!!!!
Lennok and Thorben simultaneously sprinted up the collapsing, leaning wall of a skyscraper.
Lennok slid, stepping on the scattered lightning fragments, while Thorben’s form gleamed, wrapped entirely in electricity.
[Morning Starfall]
A bolt of lightning, falling from the sky, struck down between Lennok and the Tower Lord, vertically piercing the tilted building.
Shatter-crash-crash!!!
The impact caused the glass windows beneath their feet to shatter violently, emitting an ear-splitting noise.
Innumerable glass shards scattered in all directions, reflecting the lightning flashes here and there.
The moment the Tower Lord’s form, seen through the glass fragments, subtly swayed, he instantly closed the distance and began an incantation.
[Blunt Thunder]
Kwooaaang!!!
The Tower Lord’s wavering hand once again struck Lennok’s forearm with a heavy tremor.
“……!!”
This was it.
Among the lightning spells the Tower Lord used, this power uniquely exuded a heavy, ponderous sense of disharmony.
It was one of the secret arts of lightning-type unique magic that Lennok had not properly learned.
Realizing this, Lennok gritted his teeth, channeling his mana, and met the Tower Lord’s Blunt Thunder head-on.
[Lightning Void Eye]
[Step Thunder]
Pa-ji-ji-ji-jiiick!!!!
A surge of electricity, concentrated at Lennok’s fingertips, pulsed wildly, blocking the Tower Lord’s lightning.
The impact caused the building wall where the two stood to deeply warp, embedding both Lennok and the Tower Lord into the structure.
Kwang!!
Inside the tilting building, they pierced through countless office walls and doors.
Screens, monitors, and telephone fragments scattered everywhere. Hundreds of papers burned away.
At the intersection where the Tower Lord’s Blunt Thunder and Lennok’s Step Thunder collided, striking downwards.
Seeing Lennok observe his Blunt Thunder with a cold gaze, the Tower Lord slowly opened his mouth.
“One must stretch the speed of lightning, slowing it to its extreme.”
“What?”
“By forcefully delaying the speed of lightning that should pass quickly, its power is increased.”
Thorben began to explain the knack of the magic he used.
But Thorben, unconcerned by Lennok’s reaction, slowly extended his hand and continued.
“Going beyond merely slowing its speed, when it reaches a peak where lightning can be held in place, like this—!”
Zzzzz-jeo-jeo-jeo-jeok!!!
The lightning, distorted within Thorben’s hand, soon transformed into a colossal lightning hammer.
The Tower Lord, grasping the Blunt Thunder hammer with one hand, grinned and tilted his head back.
“You can imitate the molding of matter.”
“……!!!”
Woooooong!!!
The moment he slammed the Blunt Thunder hammer down, a colossal concentric circle spread out from the point of impact with Lennok.
An immense explosive force, as if lightning, compressed to its extreme and fixed in place, was suddenly released upon impact.
There was no time to even summon his Apostle’s Carapace Shield.
Lennok’s form, plummeting through the building’s floors, was vertically slammed down and embedded directly into the ground.
Kwooaaaang!!!
“Khhh……!!”
He utilized his floating and shield magic at full power. With Magic Scribes, he tethered his body, killing his speed just before hitting the ground.
He burst electricity beneath his feet, floating himself with the repulsive force, and manipulated nearby gravity to stabilize himself, at that moment.
“This is the basic qualification to stand at the threshold of Lightning Transformation.”
Kwooong!!
The Tower Lord, grasping the Blunt Thunder hammer falling from the sky with one hand, declared.
“You ‘fix’ the lightning, assimilate it with your body, and temporarily transform your body’s properties into electricity.”
“…….”
Even after his heart was pierced by Lennok’s Partial Lightning, the Tower Lord was still moving perfectly fine.
This was beyond simply having excellent regenerative abilities or being incredibly resilient.
Lennok’s lightning, having reached the Transcendent Rank, was capable of tearing nerves and annihilating cells.
Even with Lightning Transformation, being struck directly in the heart should result in an irreversible, fatal injury.
If he could continue fighting normally with such an injury, perhaps the Tower Lord had never heavily relied on an organ like the heart to begin with.
‘Lack of information makes my guesses vague. It wasn’t even this difficult when facing the Conjunction Spell Master……’
Every time the fight grew longer and they exchanged lightning spells, Lennok realized how powerful a wizard the Tower Lord was.
Conversely, he couldn’t grasp what kind of being Akendrias El Thorben was.
All he knew was that this old man was a madman who would readily throw away his life just to impart his enlightenment.
The reason he attacked Lennok out of the blue, and the reason he took Lennok’s magic head-on, were one and the same.
Despite both mastering the same elemental magic, it was harder to pinpoint the root of his power than with the Conjunction Spell Master he had faced.
This might also be because he hadn’t spent even an hour with Thorben, unlike the Conjunction Spell Master—
“I heard you learned magic without belonging to a tower, so I expected someone with one extremely outstanding advantage, but your fundamentals are abnormally strong.”
“…….”
“In terms of refining the attribute and nature of lightning to its extreme and unleashing it, you are already perfect. In fact, when it comes to the sensation and knack for handling instantaneous output, this old man could even learn a thing or two from you.”
It was also because the old man before him understood the magic Lennok had mastered as deeply as Lennok himself.
“I intended to identify and correct your shortcomings, but aside from a few Property Transformations, this old man finds little to criticize about your achievements.”
The Tower Lord asked with a hint of satisfaction.
“You learned well. Who was your master?”
“None.”
“……What did you say?”
“I have no master who taught me lightning magic.”
He plunged his staff into the ground, pulled an ampoule from his pocket, and injected it into his wrist.
Chiii-ik!
The Tower Lord, watching Lennok inject the ampoule into his forearm, looked bewildered and said.
“That can’t be. Are you saying you learned the lightning magic you wield by digging it up from barren land all by yourself?”
“If I were to call the wizards I killed my masters, I suppose I could name one or two.”
“…….”
“I have no intention of taking anyone as a master now. Even less so when I don’t even know what Apex Thunder magic is.”
Thorben, despite risking his life to transmit Apex Thunder magic to Lennok, had not explained what Apex Thunder actually was.
He had merely plunged them into a chaotic battle, disregarding both their lives, constantly unleashing lightning spells.
Whoooosh……!!
The sky, drawing closer to midnight, darkened, chilling the air.
Lennok, pulling up his vestments and channeling mana, pressed a hand to the back of his other hand and said.
“Even if lightning is like a flash of enlightenment, I cannot agree with your method.”
“I told you, didn’t I? Intuition that cannot be conveyed through words is embedded in our Lightning Radiance.”
Thorben chuckled, nodding.
“Explaining is worse than not explaining, and useless words are unnecessary.”
“Worse than not explaining?”
“From the moment the causality of lightning is etched into one’s life, this Lightning Radiance takes precedence in our existence. The transmission of spellcraft is no different.”
Thump!!
The Tower Lord, plunging his gleaming Blunt Thunder hammer diagonally into the ground, said.
“Apex Thunder is an enlightenment that reverses the process of understanding. It refers to a pre-cognition that does not exist, yet must exist, that very concept itself.”
“……Pre-cognition, you say.”
Is he trying to explain the essence of its power without directly describing Apex Thunder?
But merely listening to the Tower Lord’s words, Lennok vaguely intuited how dangerous the enlightenment he was trying to convey was.
Thorben was not trying to impart a specific spellcraft or technique to Lennok.
Rather, a possibility that could be reached by mastering lightning magic to its extreme.
He was simply trying to directly imbue Lennok with the enlightenment itself, which already existed as a result.
“This old man has lived a long time and seen many Transcendent, but I’ve come to realize they are all equally untrustworthy.”
The Tower Lord said with a somewhat dismissive expression.
“Sacrificing oneself for Ascension only leads to senseless madness. In a world with a predetermined ending, where can one go by crossing the Outer Sea?”
“…….”
“The Outer Gods floating in that sky. The apocalypse that approaches without even causality. If one could become the lightning that precedes all of that…….”
For a moment, the Tower Lord’s eyes, as he looked at Lennok, seemed to sink endlessly deep.
“Wouldn’t it be worth challenging the impossible feat, even by making myself a tool?”
“……You see Ascension not as a goal, but as a means.”
A hidden, ardent desire that even the impetuous and proud old wizard himself was not confident in.
Lennok had certainly encountered the scale and danger of that desire somewhere before.
Realizing what Thorben was implying, Lennok asked.
“Surely, by your magic alone, you wouldn’t try to take on the Outer Gods—”
“Ah, this old man’s rambling has gone on too long.”
Flash!!
At that moment, a Lightning Dragon floating in the sky opened its maw wide and spewed a colossal lightning bolt.
The falling lightning rapidly compressed, shrinking in size, and once again plunged before Thorben’s eyes.
Paji-ji-ji-ji-jick!!!!
A glowing, rotating compressed form of Blunt Thunder. But its firepower and hardness were incomparably greater than before.
Had he been stalling for time this whole while to prepare this?
“Do not cling to such a pathetic, unspoken, unspeakable ardent desire.”
Pazzzik!!
The moment Thorben gripped the Blunt Thunder hammer, the concentrated current distorted and began to regain its form.
Thorben, lifting the Blunt Thunder hammer plunged into the ground, laughed, his pale blue eyes streaming with light.
“From here on, only sudden enlightenment can be the sole path to understanding each other’s ardent desires……!!!”
The moment Lightning Radiance flickered and accelerated, Lennok’s and the Tower Lord’s lightning split heaven and earth as they collided.
Crrraaaash!!!
Lightning distorted by the cold air.
Blazing blue thunder resonated with a colossal roar in Thorben’s hand.
With an immense recoil, the terrain where the two wizards stood collapsed.
Thorben, falling like a meteor before Lennok, swung the lightning he held in his hand with incredible speed.
[Heavenly Thunder Key]
Crrraaaash!!!
A cluster of lightning, blazing with an intensity too strong for the eye to behold.
A lightning strike, chilling to merely look at, twisted and slammed into Lennok’s chest.
The Tower Lord stepped forward, thrusting the lightning key into Lennok’s chest.
[Lightning Sense]
Lennok’s forearm, wreathed in thick electricity, met it head-on.
Hwaaaaaak!!!!
“……!!!”
An immense volume of Will-thought flowed through his mind.
The two wizards’ lightning mingled, overflowing with immeasurable, vast inspiration.
Like a key forcibly opening a closed door, even though he blocked it, he first perceived and understood it in the realm of his mind.
Enlightenment that precedes action or outcome. The Tower Lord’s words were not wrong.
Apex Thunder, in other words—
Crrraaaash!!!
At that moment, an enormous amount of electricity exploded before Lennok’s eyes, pushing his body violently backward.
Lennok’s form was flung tens of meters back, embedding itself amidst the ruins without even regaining balance.
For the first time, the Tower Lord’s expression, as he looked at Lennok, was rigidly frozen.
“To forcibly reject and push away the moment of sudden enlightenment, I cannot believe it.”
“Cough, cough……!!”
“Surely, you already possessed a causality that transcends pre-cognition……?”
Lennok, unable to even catch his breath, hung his head low.
But Lennok’s expression, streaming with cold sweat, was shaking incomparably more than before.
The lightning key that the Tower Lord had last molded, the Heavenly Thunder Key. The enlightenment of Apex Thunder contained within it.
It was only by directly encountering that phenomenon through Lightning Sense that Lennok could also understand it.
“Apex Thunder…… was a term referring to lightning that stood superior to all causality and compatibility?”
Everything the Tower Lord had told Lennok was true.
The power that takes precedence at the forefront of one’s life, from the moment the causality of lightning is etched into it.
Lennok also realized that the concept of Apex Thunder was magic that had refined and materialized such causality of lightning to its extreme.
“Precedence and pre-cognition. A power that precedes all kinds of phenomena and results, like the lightning that arrives first.”
Lennok, staggering to his feet, swept back his hair and looked at the Tower Lord.
“Indeed, with such power, I can even understand the goal you dream of, but…….”
“…….”
“Even if it is enlightenment, do you truly believe such a thing can actually be manifested in reality?”
“Well. Doesn’t your very existence serve as an answer to that?”
Thorben’s eyes, looking at Lennok, gleamed sharply.
“Your achievements were never at a level attainable without learning. There must undoubtedly be a very powerful causality within you that made you strong.”
“…….”
At the Tower Lord’s confident declaration, Lennok was about to say something but closed his mouth.
A grand, ardent desire that sought to transcend Ascension itself, considering it merely a means to a greater end.
A mad will that aimed to achieve its purpose by making even oneself and magic into a single bolt of lightning.
Even the arrogance of treating the apocalypses of the Outer Sea not with reverence, but as objects of will.
There was an intense inevitability there, one that didn’t follow from cause to effect, but fixed the effect and pieced together the causes.
Lennok vaguely realized that Thorben’s way of thinking, of acting according to his own desires, shared a certain resemblance to the Director’s.
If what the Tower Lord was trying to impart to Lennok right now was literally a power that preceded all causality and compatibility.
If he intended to convey, as enlightenment, a lightning that preceded all things as a result.
Then Lennok also had words to offer the Tower Lord in return.
“If only the achievements of others are not the answer, then the answer exists within myself.”
“What?”
“Knowing that I can always reach the end of any path, I seek my own standard.”
Lennok, quietly raising his head, murmured.
“Even failures and mistakes are paths to the answer, so I can always…… not lose my way.”
“…….”
The Kaleidoscope’s Mind Imprint, which took the possibilities of the future, not the past or present, as its branching point.
The moment he gained the ability, Lennok’s Mind Imprint already existed in a form that looked back at the present from the future.
Lennok’s most transcendent power, which forcibly pulled forth the future branching point he would one day reach.
That is why Lennok could always advance correctly without losing his way, no matter what magic he learned, what spellcraft he mastered.
From the moment he first awakened the Kaleidoscope and opened the Domain of the Eightfold Lightning Catholicon.
Lennok already knew the extent of what he could achieve with lightning magic.
The important thing was not the result, but the process.
It lay in Lennok’s own journey toward the scene he had glimpsed one day.
“One direction for the answer, I try to prevent the possibilities of my magic from being fixed.”
Lennok looked directly at the Tower Lord and said.
“Even if I could contain the Apex Thunder you impart within me, I couldn’t ‘choose’ that way.”
“You…….”
Did he understand the meaning of Lennok’s words?
Thorben’s expression, which had remained unperturbed all along, suddenly sank deeply, as if lost in thought.
The nonchalance and levity that had been present were nowhere to be found, replaced by a gloomy and heavy magical power.
The true nature of a war wizard, which he had never once shown against Lennok until now.
Looking at Lennok in the suffocatingly heavy air, the Tower Lord said.
“You are not standing here facing this old man, it seems.”
“…….”
“Has your lightning already transcended time and arrived at that far side?”
He intuited that Lennok’s answer was not mere empty words, but an explanation that hinted at a part of his own essence.
He also understood that it was an answer given with due formality for this moment.
“If your answer holds an ideal that cannot be reached, then there is nothing I can do.”
The Tower Lord raised one hand and tilted his head.
“Very well. If the enlightenment you have gained is already too vast to accept it…….”
Kwooaaang!!!
From the Tower Lord’s entire body, as he formed a hand seal with one hand, immense magical power erupted explosively.
A surging backflow of mana. Amidst it, a grand Will-thought and its peak form mingled without reservation.
“I will forcibly widen your vessel so that even that can be contained.”
“……What?”
Paaaaa-aaaaaht!!!!
There was no time to hear the answer.
An achromatic ripple, erupting explosively from beneath the Tower Lord’s feet, instantly consumed the surrounding space and began to rotate.
A Level 8 Archwizard. And one whose power rivaled the Second Apostle, unfolding his Root Mindscape of his own will.
Recognizing this, Lennok’s face hardened as he channeled his mana, at that very moment.
“If I make your body a Celestial Lightning Body, such problems will also be solved.”
The Tower Lord smiled, pressing his hands together.
“Don’t worry, this old man will take care of it.”
“Wait……!!”
“Domain, deploy.”
Kiiiiiing……!!!
The Tower Lord smiled and said.
“Thunder God’s Flowering Court.”