Chapter 87: The Second Discipline (1/2)
Chapter 87: The Second Discipline
Boom!
Blinding flashes of electric light preceded Michael’s inelegant tumble forward as the disembodied hand found it’s mark. But as the strike landed a plume of golden fire issued forth from the splayed wings to fall over Lan Jue.
As the fierce flames consumed him, a flash overtook Lan Jue’s body and he vanished. He reappeared in the air a short distance away, covered in golden flame. Little by little they died away as lightning crackled around him.
Michael had already recovered by the time Lan Jue reappeared, and the snaking bolts of lightning that had been coiling around him were burned away by the holy fires. Shock and confusion were behind those flaming eyes.
“That speed…”
No ordinary Discipline had produced that speed, or else he wouldn’t have lost the Adventus hold. It was as though Lan Jue simply tore apart space to appear elsewhere, folded reality. Whatever it was, it didn’t fall under the domain of Thunder Discipline.
Lan Jue glared icicles at Michael, as his arms raised slowly on either side of his body. Slowly the violet bolts of lightning around him vanished, but with each passing second his body grew more and more luminous. He shown with a glaring, white-hot splendor.
In all of the Three Alliances there existed ten Great Paragons, absolute masters of their Talent. They were possessed of a power so great, so terrible, that they were known to be capable of facing down warships by themselves. Both Lan Jue’s Ascension and Michael’s Adventus temporarily pushed them to the boundaries of a Paragon. Others of the Archengels weren’t capable of reaching such a level.
But Michael, at the cusp of Paragon himself, was stunned as he watched Lan Jue. He had underestimated him, this man who he knew not to be greater than a seventh-rank. It was a mistake that lost him his edge. And he wasn’t even employing his supreme form!
Michael beat his twelve marvelous wings, launching him forward. His holy blade stretched forth towards Lan Jue as the air around the angel shimmered with ghostly shadows. As he drew closer, the shadows became great whirling tornadoes of holy light that filled the skies, threatening to devour Lan Jue.
A mocking sneer turned the Jewelry Master’s lips. The white light encapsulating him pulsed, expanding tremendously as the tornadoes of holy energy fell upon him. He melted in to a pillar of light, shooting up in to the air. Despite the number and ferocity of Michael’s blasts of energy, none could compete with Lan Jue’s speed and he escaped unscathed.
The skies above were washed in white light. A single peal of thunder washed over them as a streak of lightning plunged from above.
CRACK! Michael’s body flashed white, and lightning coiled around him like a hungry serpent thrusting him backward.
He toppled back with another figure, awash in rose-gold light. Lan Jue. None but Michael had been able to see where the attack had come from.