CHAPTER 243: LAW OF LIGHTNING

This was not the moment for abstract contemplation of the future. The immediate task at hand mirrored the process he had undergone upon unlocking the first star, the crimson star of the Law of Fire. To truly command a newly unlocked Law, one must venture into its very heart to inherit its fundamental power and principles.

His astral projection turned from the galactic vista and moved toward the pulsating golden star. Without hesitation, he passed through its brilliant, crackling surface. The familiar void of his inner world vanished, replaced by an entire realm composed of lightning. Countless arcs of energy in a spectrum of colors—violet, white, brilliant gold, and cerulean blue—crisscrossed an infinite sky and lanced across a ground that was itself a solid plane of captured light. The air hummed with a profound, ozone-rich energy.

Upon entry, a unique sensation washed over his soul. It began as a pervasive, tingling vibration, a feeling of every spiritual particle being gently agitated. This sensation quickly transformed into a wave of pure euphoria, a clarity and lightness of being he had never before experienced. He recalled ancient texts and cultural beliefs that ascribed a purifying quality to lightning, the power to scourge evil and cleanse spiritual impurities. He understood this was precisely what was occurring; his very soul was being subjected to a divine and rigorous ablution.

Concurrent with this cleansing was a process of elevation. He could perceive the very fabric of his soul being refined and strengthened, its resonance ascending to a higher state of being. A profound insight accompanied this elevation: upon fully inheriting and mastering this Law, he would gain absolute immunity to all forms of illusory magic. No phantasm or mental trickery would ever be able to cloud his perception again.

Accepting this divine inheritance, Nero’s astral form remained perfectly still within the heart of the storm. He did not resist, but opened himself completely, allowing the baptism of lightning to wash over him, to purify his essence, and to elevate his soul to its new, exalted state.

A profound and immeasurable period of time elapsed within the golden star. Nero’s astral form remained in a state of perfect receptivity, a vessel being filled to its absolute brim. The cascading lightning did not merely cleanse; it fundamentally reconstructed his spiritual essence, weaving threads of pure electrical energy into the very core of his being. The process continued until a subtle, yet unmistakable, sense of saturation manifested. He had reached the absolute limit of his soul’s current capacity for elevation; any further infusion would risk spiritual rupture rather than refinement. The euphoric baptism ceased, leaving in its wake a soul that felt impossibly lucid, resilient, and attuned to the frequencies of reality itself.

With this new-found stability, his purpose reasserted itself. It was time to claim the core of this power. His consciousness, now sharpened to a preternatural keenness, propelled his astral form deeper into the heart of the lightning world. The environment grew increasingly violent and magnificent. What began as distinct arcs of energy now fused into great, roaring rivers of raw power. The very space around him crackled and warped, the sound a continuous, deafening roar that was both terrifying and sublime.

His destination was unmistakable. At the absolute center of this realm, all the converging rivers of lightning poured into a single, catastrophic phenomenon: a chaotic vortex of incandescent energy. It was a maelstrom of pure force, spinning at an unimaginable velocity, tearing at the fabric of the dimension itself. Passing through it was not a matter of flight, but of sheer, unyielding will. He pushed forward, his spiritual form buffeted by forces that threatened to unravel him. Each inch of progress was a monumental struggle against the primordial chaos of the storm, a test of his worthiness to proceed.

After a grueling exertion of spiritual fortitude, he breached the outer boundary of the vortex and passed into its unnervingly calm eye.

There, coiled in a majesty that defied mortal comprehension, was the source of it all. A beast of legend, a Western-type dragon, just as he had encountered within the crimson star of Fire. Yet, this entity was entirely different in nature. Its scales were formed of solidified, shimmering gold, each one a perfect plate that seemed to contain a captured lightning storm within. Its vast, serpentine body pulsed with a low, thrumming power that resonated in Nero’s very soul. Its horns were like fractalized bolts of lightning, and its eyes were twin suns of white-hot plasma. He felt an overwhelming sense of insignificance, a mere speck of dust in the presence of a celestial mountain. This was, without question, another Primordial Divine Beast, the absolute sovereign and progenitor of the Law of Lightning.

The Golden Dragon turned its colossal head, and its incandescent gaze fell upon him. In that moment, Nero was not merely seen; he was perceived. Every layer of his being, from his most recent memories to the deepest secrets of his dual-core system, felt laid bare before this ancient, omniscient consciousness. A paralyzing awe gripped him, rooting his astral form in place. He could not have moved even had the universe itself been collapsing around him.

The silent appraisal lasted for an eternity compressed into a single second. Then, without a sound, the magnificent beast dissolved into a wave of pure, golden light. It surged forward, not as an attack, but as a gentle, inevitable tide, and passed directly through Nero’s astral body.

The instant it made contact, his mind was annihilated.

Not in the sense of being destroyed, but in being utterly and completely overwhelmed. An insane, incomprehensible torrent of information flooded his consciousness, a data stream of cosmic scale. It was a transfer of legacy, a direct implantation of knowledge from a divine source. He received the primordial and true name of the Golden Dragon, a word of power that resonated with the creation of the first storm. He was granted the fundamental principles of the Law of Lightning—its affinities for speed, purification, devastating force, and mental clarity. Interwoven with this were fragments of higher truths, advanced applications, and cosmic secrets his current level of comprehension could not possibly process. These latter pieces of information were immediately sealed away by some failsafe within the transfer, shunted into the deepest, most inaccessible vaults of his mind, to remain dormant until he possessed the spiritual strength to unlock them.