CHAPTER 244: TESTING THE LAW OF LIGHTNING

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.

Nero’s astral form shuddered violently, struggling to contain the cataclysmic influx of divine inheritance. The process of true mastery had begun.

Nero Adams was about to shock the entire world as the first dual laws wielder and yet this wasn’t all. The primordial heir, ruler of the nine stars was slowly walking, awakening his destiny, this time it would be different.

’’Time to go back.’’ mumbled the excited Nero, he couldn’t wait to test his newly awakened Law. Time to go on rampage.

•••

Consciousness slammed back into his physical form with the force of a thunderclap.

Zi~ Zi~

Nero’s eyes snapped open, no longer just ominous red, but now flickering with faint, golden afterimages of the storm he had just inhabited. The air around him, once still and heavy with the scent of ozone and ash, now crackled with palpable energy. Spontaneous arcs of lightning, fine as spider silk and brilliant white, leaped from his body to the scorched earth, grounding themselves with sharp hisses. A slow, predatory curve lifted the corners of his lips. Theoretical inheritance was complete; now was the moment for practical application.

He willed himself to move, but not through the means of his first Law. The familiar surge of flame at his back did not manifest. Instead, he turned his focus inward, to the second core nestled within his heart—the newly awakened golden star. He drew upon its refined, terrifyingly dense prana, a power that felt fundamentally different: sharp, swift, and violently pure. He focused this energy not for an external projection, but for an internal reaction, channeling it directly into the muscles and nerves of his legs.

The world dissolved into a blur.

There was no sense of motion, no wind against his face. One moment he was standing amidst the remains of the High Orc chieftain; the next, he was fifty paces away, his boots having left shallow, smoldering impressions in the soil. The transition was instantaneous. He had not run; he had been translated. He named the skill as it manifested in his mind: Flash Step.

The sensation was intoxicating. It was a feeling of absolute dominion over space itself, if only for a few meters at a time. He practiced, flickering across the mountain ledge like a stray bolt of lightning—here, then there, then elsewhere. Each Flash Step was accompanied by a subdued crack of displaced air.

Satisfied with the foundational movement, he drew the sword Adam had gifted him. The polished steel blade, once a conduit solely for flame, now danced with a new energy. He willed it, and the Law of Lightning answered. Snaking arcs of golden electricity enveloped the blade, crawling along its length with a menacing, eager buzz. It did not radiate heat like his fire, but a sharp, biting aura that made the very air tremble.

His enhanced prana sense, now tinged with the sharp acuity of lightning, detected a new cluster of signatures approaching—a warband of Red Orcs, drawn by the commotion. They emerged from the treeline at the base of the mountain, eight strong, their crude weapons raised, their roars echoing up the slope.

A cold, analytical calm settled over Nero. They were not opponents; they were test subjects.

He Flash Stepped.

From the ledge to the midst of their formation, the distance was erased in the space between heartbeats. He materialized within their ranks. The orcs had no time to register his arrival before his lightning-wreathed sword began its work.

His swordsmanship, previously a dance of aggressive, fiery arcs, was now something else entirely: a series of precise, impossibly fast, and brutally efficient executions. He did not swing with broad, sweeping motions. He thrust and flickered.

The first orc died as Nero Flash Stepped past it, his blade, moving faster than the eye could follow, simply appearing through its throat. The smell was not of seared flesh, but of ozone and cooked meat.

He did not pause. He vanished again. Crack. He reappeared beside a second orc, his sword performing a minimal upward slice. The lightning-charged edge sheared through armor, bone, and body with equal ease, cleaving the creature in two before the sections had even begun to fall.

Chaos erupted, but it was a slow, sluggish chaos to Nero’s lightning-enhanced perceptions. An axe swung towards where he had been, but he was already behind the attacker. A simple, forward thrust pierced the orc’s spine, the electrical discharge causing its body to convulse violently before it collapsed.

He moved through them like the wrath of a storm god.

Flash Step. Crack. A head tumbled from its shoulders.

Flash Step.

Crack. A torso was bifurcated. He began combining movements, Flash Stepping into a horizontal slash that cut three orcs down with a single, crackling wave of energy, their bodies charred and smoking.

The rampage was not one of wild fury, but of chilling, hyper-accelerated precision. The Law of Lightning granted him not just speed, but a transcendent clarity. He saw every opening, every delayed reaction, every futile attempt to block. His sword became a conductor’s baton, orchestrating a symphony of instantaneous death.

Within ten seconds, the roaring warband was silent. Eight corpses lay scattered around the clearing, each killed by a single, perfect strike, their wounds cauterized and blackened by devastating electrical current. Nero stood at the center, the golden energy around his blade subsiding, the faint arcs of lightning finally fading from his body.

He breathed deeply, the cool mountain air a sharp contrast to the electric heat still humming in his veins. The fusion of his flawless swordsmanship with the transcendent speed and piercing power of the Law of Lightning had proven to be a combination of devastating efficacy. The road to mastering its deeper mysteries was long, but the foundation had been laid in a baptism of blood and lightning. He was no longer just a wielder of flame. He was now the storm.