Chapter 24
Chapter 24
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Blossoming Thunder, Fading Embers
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Luxuriantly, yet vainly,
his skin and blood burned away.
Enoch could sense that he wouldn't be able to maintain the Thunder God's Myth for much longer.
[Oh dear, isn't this kid pushing himself too hard...]
Enoch spread his arms wide.
At his command, lightning obeyed.
Countless bolts etched a magic circle into the empty air,
[Rip... kill it...]
and triggered by the incantation, they fired all at once.
Rumble──────────!!!
The world crumbled.
It felt as if a tidal wave of lightning heralded the end of this era.
The fox sighed.
[No, surely that kid explained it...]
Simultaneously, its nine tails swayed gracefully.
Each tail claimed a direction, converging at the center to form the Nine Palaces.
Fwaaa────
The lightning tidal wave dissipated like mist upon touching the fox's domain.
Yet at the same moment, Enoch's form closed in right before the fox.
[Ho?]
A massive surge of energy gathered in Enoch's hand.
A lump of power condensed to an absurd degree.
Though his enlightenment still seemed lacking, it was unmistakably close to qi aura.
Kiiiiing────────!!!
The halo above his head spun wildly.
At the same time, within Enoch's middle dantian, Eri desperately tuned the energy.
[Kyaaah...!!]
With Eri's scream, faint starlight infused the qi aura.
Heavenly Slaughter Purple Thunder Claw
First Form: Brutal Slaughter
- One Origin
A single claw strike.
Its shockwave carved a massive wound into the forest.
Kugugugugu────────!!!
Gazing at the chunks of earth shattering and falling, the fox sighed.
[My forest...]
But it was still far from over.
The pulsing energy drew the fox's eyes skyward.
[Eh?]
Enoch's strike had reached the clouds; faint claw marks scarred the clouds faintly visible under the moonlight.
And those clouds,
now brimming with Enoch's lightning and glowing purple,
Kwarung─────────!!!
unleashed a single massive bolt straight at the fox.
[Oh dear.]
Even so, this was troublesome.
Its power dwarfed the previous technique—if this hit, the entire nearby forest would be obliterated.
The fox sighed and drew up its power.
Even a mere fragment of that power made its eyes flash green for an instant.
[Hasten, hasten, as the law commands.]
The verbal incantation, imprinting that intent onto the world, manifested as reality at once.
Crackle—
The falling thunderbolt vanished before it could even blink.
At the same time, the fox's gaze turned to Enoch.
[First... I need to calm you down.]
In an instant, the fox's body vanished.
It reappeared behind Enoch.
[Sleep now.]
One tail lightly tapped Enoch's body.
[......!!]
His mind grew hazy.
Enoch seized his scattering consciousness, reassembled it, and detonated lightning across his entire body.
Rumble────────!!!
Startled by the ferocity, the fox pulled back slightly from Enoch.
[No, seriously, why go this far...]
It couldn't understand the reason.
Was there really cause for such desperation?
No matter how it thought, there was no reason for him to burn even his own body like this.
[Die...!]
Enoch clearly thought otherwise.
Lightning around him took on solid form.
All of them swords.
Hundreds of thunder swords aimed at the fox.
[This is...]
Lione's—no, that kid's technique.
The fox forgot the urgency and admired it.
[Impressive!]
[Rip it to shreds──!]
[...though the incantation is a bit extreme.]
Kuguguung—! The hundreds of lightning swords reduced the area to ruins.
Enoch didn't relax.
As he adapted to the Thunder God's Myth, he grew accustomed to the upper dantian's function, now replaced by his circle.
The upper dantian was the brain.
Enoch's already exceptional intellect blazed brighter, fueled by self-immolation.
Lione's heart method, Heavenly Slaughter Purple Thunder Claw, Heavenly Slaughter Purple Thunder Step, and other techniques—fists, palms, even his makeshift lightness skill.
Bound by the frame of martial arts, there was no need to distinguish them.
Heavenly Slaughter Purple Thunder Art
Enoch's unified movements grew even faster and stronger.
The seamless flow felt as if the art had been one cohesive creation from the start.
Flash────────!!!
The forest shattered under the flurry of attacks.
The fox remained unscathed, but its expression seemed a touch sorrowful.
[Oh kid, just go to sleep already!]
A spell empowered by verbal incantation swept over Enoch's body.
Enoch's body staggered.
But that was all.
Grit—!
Clenching his teeth as if to shatter them, bleeding lightning like blood from his entire body, Enoch refused to lose consciousness.
[Come on!]
The fox was on the verge of madness.
Subduing this rampaging kid?
Honestly, not a huge challenge for the fox.
But there were lines to respect.
That kid hadn't even lived a full century.
Overdo it even slightly, and he might never wake again.
If that happened...
Shiver...
The fox's body trembled.
That lady elf cherished this child so much...
A berserk elf in rage would be quite the handful, even for a fox like her.
Yet dialing it back only let the energetic little one overcome it somehow.
Match his level, and he grows in a leap to cope; push a bit higher with a spell, and he surges even further.
Utterly insane talent!
At least, his talent for driving the fox insane had reached the heavens!
[Uwaaaaa...!]
Oblivious to the fox's plight, Enoch repeatedly shattered his limits.
His instincts, sensing the fox's overwhelming strength, rang alarms like mad.
If you want to live, if you want to see Lione again—smash every wall before you!
Enoch trusted his instincts.
Kiiiiing─────────!!!
The halo spun furiously, and lightning-born bloody tears poured from Enoch's eyes like a waterfall.
In slowed time, his overloaded brain spewed fragmented images.
Lione, martial arts, magic, spirits, forest, fox, Lione again.
Her elven face surfaced, sharpening Enoch's gaze further.
At the same moment, something burst.
Martial arts, magic, spirit arts—all mere phenomena he manifested himself.
No need for fine distinctions.
Close range, ranged, support.
No—even boxing them into three frames changed little.
He discarded the notion of dividing roles.
Again.
Martial arts primary, magic auxiliary, spirit arts as glue.
Discarded.
Again.
Fuse them all into one.
Good concept.
But lacking ability.
Discarded.
Again.
The middle dantian held spirits.
His mainstay was martial arts.
Magic for targeted application.
Infuse magic into techniques.
No—turn magic into techniques.
A path emerged.
All divided thoughts merged, forging a single road.
Magic circles became mana flows in the body; incantations became physical motions.
Spirits sustained the Thunder God's Myth, aiding everything.
Martial arts as foundation, with magic and spirit arts melted in beneath.
Roughly pieced together and unstable, but sufficient.
The rest filled by talent and instinct.
Heavenly Slaughter Purple Thunder Divine Art
An arrogant name.
Yet something worthy of it was complete.
Kiiiiing—!
The halo spun violently.
Simultaneously, rampaging lightning bolts within his body battered Enoch's barriers.
Ren and Du meridians.
Places that should have opened before the middle dantian.
Gateways to mastery.
Enlightenment sublimated into starlight, carried by lightning that smashed the barriers effortlessly.
Kwaaang—!
The blockages shattered.
Purple flashes leaked from Enoch's eyes in streams.
[Under a single bond, as a single star, I shall rend and slay all before me.]
The enlightenment forming the foundation of his elevated realm spilled from his lips.
It engraved itself at the forefront of the self-forged heart method, advancing the Heavenly Slaughter Purple Thunder Divine Art another step.
Wooong─────────
Thunder surging from Enoch gathered at his back, taking form.
Three flowers.
The thunder flowers bloomed luxuriantly for a moment, then withered.
[Three Flowers Gather at the Crown...!?!!?]
The fox was genuinely shocked.
What kind of century-undeveloped kid achieves Three Flowers Gather at the Crown!?
Three Flowers Gather at the Crown occurs when the three dantians unify, mana flowing in sync with will.
A realm typically reached around grandmaster level.
But no matter how you looked, that kid was at best newly minted master.
Strong for his realm, sure—but nowhere near grandmaster.
Then the fox realized.
Ah, he's about to ascend soon.
Either burning himself to rise into the heavens as a star, or crumbling to ash first.
For reference, "soon" meant within hours.
And likely his breath would give out before then?
[Oh no...!]
This was serious.
Leave him like this, and he'd really end up in a deathmatch with the elf—no joke.
The fox urgently drew full power.
Old injuries caused mana backlash, but that wasn't the priority now.
[Please stop, you brat!]
The fox's full-powered verbal incantation seized Enoch.
Enoch's eyes flashed, straining to shatter the bind, but it wasn't enough against the fox's full might.
[Peaceful daze in a dream, a maze without exit: metal births water, fire overcomes water.]
The grand spell began seeping into Enoch's body.
Yet he endured.
Truly, no idea how to handle this now.
Was enduring this through sheer mental fortitude even possible?
Sweating coldly, the fox shouted.
[You damn brat! Stop already! At this rate, Lione will kill me!]
Halt.
Enoch's eyes widened slightly.
[L-Lione?]
[Yes! Lione! That elf who cherishes you!]
"Ah."
Did tension snap all at once?
The Thunder God's Myth Enoch maintained unraveled.
At the same moment, the grand spell pierced his mind, lulling him to sleep.
[Haa.... finally....]
The fox exhaled in relief.
But it wasn't time to relax yet.
The Thunder God's Myth was a miracle born of burning one's own body.
Its aftermath began dispersing Enoch's form.
[Hiiik...!?]
The horrified fox mobilized every means to halt Enoch's death.
Bolstering wood and water energies to heal wounds, extracting fire energy to cool the heat.
Simultaneously, spells maintained soul-body links and sealed rents from his body overwhelmed by its own power.
[Eh...?]
But one thing defied the fox's will.
A presence approached at breakneck speed.
Fur-clad and unseen, but the fox's face had already gone deathly pale.
[W-Wait a sec....]
Some things worked, some didn't.
The fox lacked power to stop time, and thus faced an unwanted calamity.
"...Enoch?"
The elf in nightclothes.
Her eyes shook, lost, as if she'd rushed here in haste.
The Thunder God's Myth's basis was converting mana and blood to thunder.
With it ended, they reverted—meaning Enoch's body was drenched in blood.
Moreover, the wounds.
His body burst open in horrific gashes that would fell the faint-hearted; the surrounding forest's devastation attested to the battle's ferocity.
Witnessing this, the elf could muster only one thought.
"...E-Enok?"
She refused to accept it, couldn't accept it, yet cruel reality pressed in.
...Enoch was dead.
No human could survive that state.
[Aaaaaaah──────!!]
The elf despaired.
She cursed her own carelessness and incompetence.
Tears streamed endlessly, wetting her cheeks.
She averted her eyes from the unwelcome reality, but what happened wouldn't change.
Even if rewriting the past were possible, Lione couldn't do it.
She was powerless.
All she could do was regret.
Shouldn't have let him go, should have at least asked where, he looked off lately, should have comforted him, asked if he was okay.
Old as she was, shouldn't have let him sulk like a child, should have just hugged him one more time....
[...I'll kill it.]
Enoch, my Enoch.
My gentle, adorable child.
The happiest times became mere memories buried in the past,
and the endless future that might have been dissolved into delusions haunting her regrets.
Even if fate decreed blooming luxuriantly only to fade vainly, what justified such a swift end?
[I'll kill it......!!]
Her swamp-green eyes, darkened, spat hatred.