White and Black Lightning
Fermus’ attacks had grown to be much more intense, but our Sword Lord Arts and detection-related skills allowed us to prevent ourselves from getting done in. They made it so we could somehow manage to dodge everything that came at us as we focused on concentrating our mana.
There was no point in continuing with the strategy we’d been employing thus far; maintaining the status quo wouldn’t be to our benefit. The dragon hunter was more than capable of defending against any of our weaker attacks by simply deploying a barrier made of string.
Every single thread he had was worth mention, as most had good magical conductivity stats. He could bolster both their durability and power even further through the acts of twisting them together and forming larger, more compact masses of thread. It was a near universal tactic that allowed him to deal with every single one of the attacks we’d thrown at him and more with ease.
In other words, we had no choice but to attack him with something that would overcome his defenses with pure power, and pure power alone.
『Let’s do this!』
（Master, fully prepared?）
『Don’t worry about all the stuff on my end. You just do you.』
（Then, starting.）
『Go for it!』
I let loose all the magical energy I’d been compounding and poured it into a single spell.
『Haaaaaah! Kanna Kamui!』[1]
The attack I unleashed was one so difficult to control it rendered me unable to do anything else for its duration. It took me using Parallel Processing and concentrating as hard as I could just to keep myself from losing control of it.
I couldn’t help but think that the difficulty that came with using Kanna Kamui was in fact justified given that it was the strongest lightning spell, the one we’d learned when the Lightning Magic skill finally hit level 10.
It was a spell that the humans and individuals belonging to other, similar races could obtain should they train up their Lightning Magic skill. That said, I felt like it was something they would unlikely be able to put to practical use. Kanna Kamui simply ate too much mana and required too much processing power for that to be possible. Those that did manage to somehow gather enough magical energy to cast it would likely burn out their neurons the moment they tried.
A roar, a feral but majestic warcry, resounded through the battlefield as a dragon-shaped bolt of white lightning descended from the sky and crashed into the arena.
「Gaaah! Is that really…!?」
Fermus’ voice was tinged with a bit of panic. His prided barrier of threads was unable to hold against our attack and had started to char and give off an electrostatic discharge.
I was a bit surprised that the dragon hunter’s defenses were able to hold, even for just a moment.
「Black Lightning Advent!」
But in the end, it didn’t matter. Kanna Kamui had done its job; it’d torn its way through Fermus’ barrier and made him vulnerable. He no longer had any means to ward off it or the black lightning that Fran immediately assaulted him with afterwards.
「Ugraaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!」
The black and white lightning-based attacks melded together as they swallowed him whole. We were blown away by the resulting shockwave much in the same manner we had been back when we used the attack on Goldalfa. Fran ended up vomiting out blood because her back had smashed into the barrier set to protect the audience.
「Gaah!」
『Long Jump!』
I somehow managed to regain enough focus to teleport and relocate us up in the air above the arena.
「Ugh… Heal!」
『You alright?』
「Some…how…」
Black Lightning Advent wasn’t exactly what you could normally use in an area as small as the tourney’s arena, so we ended up damaging ourselves quite a bit.
We tried looking down as we let ourselves freefall, but we weren’t able to gather any sort of meaningful intel. The barrier’s insides were filled with flashes of white and black as the two types of lightning raged through it.
（Close call.）
『Yeah… We might’ve ended up killing ourselves before we killed Fermus if we ended up staying inside.』
We’d actually considered hitting Goldalfa with the combination we’d just subjected Fermus to, but ended up setting the idea aside after deducing that it was way too suicidal a tactic to consider. There simply wasn’t enough space in the barrier for us to get away from our own attacks unscathed.
Seeing Urushi retreat all the way out of the barrier when we fought Goldalfa had actually inspired me to do the same, so I checked the rules, and confirmed that we wouldn’t be disqualified for being out of bounds so long as our feet didn’t touch the ground outside the arena.
Escaping from the barrier actually allowed us to use it as a shield.
Or so I thought.
「Master, look!」
『Holy shit! You have to be kidding me, is it gunna blow…!?』
The barrier had started to swell up. Bolts of electrical energy had started leaking out from its interior. It looked like things were about to start going south.
（Master, any ideas?）
『Uhh… actually yeah! I think I got something! Dimension Gate!』
I opened a distortion in space time with one end in the barrier, and the other end out. The electrical energies within the barrier immediately began flowing through the newfound exit with an incredible force.
But not even that was enough to stop the barrier from swelling up even further. It kinda seemed like the rate at which it was swelling had decreased, but I wasn’t too sure because it was still growing larger, and at a similar pace to boot.
And then, it happened.
The sound of an explosion nearly ruptured our eardrums as the barrier burst.
A sudden windstorm assaulted the audience and pushed every single one of its members into their seats.
「Kyaaah!」
「Hiiiii!」
「O-Oh god, someone help me!」
It was a veritable pandemonium of screams and cries.
Fortunately, the barrier’s top was what had broken first, so all the lightning had ended up getting discharged towards the sky as opposed to crashing into the audience and wounding its members. Likewise, most of the swirling winds had also shot themselves directly upwards, so the audience had only been hit by the residual energy that followed. That said, it still contained enough force to send a child soaring through the skies.
I later learned that the lightning had ended up taking the form of a tree made out of light as it was ejected from the arena, one that reached all the way up to the heavens themselves.
The barrier repaired itself after a few seconds passed.
Fortunately, it didn’t look like the rubble that’d been ejected together with the lightning had done any major damage.
『Whew, that coulda turned out pretty poorly.』
「Nn. Reflecting.」
She and I were both aware we kinda forgot the circumstances and went a bit overboard.
『How about we focus on how we’re going to land for now?』
「Master, thoughts?」
『I’m almost out of mana. Though, I still do have enough to soften our landing with telekinesis.』
「Good enough.」
By almost out, I meant that I didn’t have anything more than just a sliver remaining. I didn’t have enough to to allow us a slow landing. It simply wasn’t an option. The same went for Fran as well. She’d already dispelled her awakened status because she didn’t have the mana to maintain it any longer.
I scrounged up everything I had and managed to dampen the force of the impact just enough for Fran to land atop the newly reformed barrier that enshrouded the arena.
「Whew.」
『I wonder how Fermus is doing.』
He can’t be alive after all that, can he?
The stage had been completely obliterated. Not a trace of it remained. Most of the dirt that filled the place had been outright deleted.
All we had beneath us was a single, massive crater with its deepest part 20 meters below what used to be ground level.
The arena looked much like the arena in Dr*gon Ball had after Tien blew it up with his Tri-Beam.
「Oh my god ladies and gentlemen, would you look at that! How the hell do I even begin to describe what just happened!? Folks, what we just saw was something that I’m not even sure could’ve possibly been done by human hands. I’ve been doing this for a long time, but, never before have I ever seen the barrier get destroyed by the combatants fighting inside of it!」[2]
The audience was stunned, but the caster managed to calm its members down by doing her job and describing the situation.
「What a grueling sight to behold! Can you believe that its perpetrator is only a mere 12 years of age!?」
We’d given the audience a bit of a shock. Some people were crying. Others were completely spaced out. There was even a group that’d started attempting to escape the colosseum. Regardless of exactly what it was they were doing, it was clear that most people were panicking.
Hearing the caster describe the situation in the same manner she always would caused them to regain their bearings.
「And if you look at the crater’s center, you’ll see Fermus being revived by the Cradle of Time! That lightning strike was so powerful that not even the dragon hunter could withstand it! The scramble for third place is now officially over, with the victor being the Black Lightning Princess!」
A huge cheer emerged from the crowd as the caster declared Fran’s victory.
I couldn’t help but question how the spectators were as calm and willing to cheer for us as they were considering that a fair number of them had seemed to have thought that Fran had just brought them to death’s door — not that I was complaining. If anything, I was glad they didn’t end up being terrified of us. It seemed most of them had even ended up enjoying what we’d done as they would have a thrilling roller coaster.
『Let’s head back down, I guess.』
「Nn. Urushi.」
「Woof!」
Urushi responded to Fran’s summon almost immediately. He hadn’t really had any chances to help out or even join in during the match, so he was totally pumped and motivated to at least be of use as a means of transport. Fran got on top of him and had him carry her off the barrier.
Seeing Fran straddle and ride the giant flying wolf made the crowd’s cheers grow even louder. The support bolstered Urushi’s mood and caused him to decide to do a full circle around the arena, which in turn prompted the audience to cheer with even more vigour.
I had to admit, the scene of him parading around with everyone cheering did have a bit of a picturesque feel to it.
『You know, Fran, it might actually be a good idea for you to wave to the audience and whatnot.』
「Nn? Like this?」
Her actions caused the crowd to once again let loose an incredibly loud cheer. Her departure from the stage almost seemed to resemble an idol’s.
「Woo! Fran!」
「Damn! That’s the Black Lightning Princess for you!」
「Please be my little sister!」
The reception she got really was quite similar to the type idols would get. If I had to pinpoint a reason, I’d say it was probably because of how cute she was. That said, I wasn’t about to let her become anyone’s little sister.
Wait a second. How the hell are we supposed to get off the stage if there… isn’t a stage? I mean, I knew we were kinda the people responsible for blowing it up in the first place, but like, still, what do?
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[1] No, not the girl from Maidragon. It’s a reference to Ainu mythology. Kanna Kamui is the God of Lightning, and I believe the #1 god. I’m not too well versed in Ainu mythology myself, so this is literally me reading Japanese wikipedia and giving you a tl;dr.
[2] Caster was revealed to (probably) be a girl based on how she talks at this point point in time.