Chapter 87: The Second Discipline (2/2)

The Angel’s wings began to fade from sight. The dancing fires surrounding Lan Jue slowly started to extinguish. Both figures plummeted towards the ground in free fall.

They didn’t manage to gain some semblance of control until they were a hundred meters from the rapidly approaching ground. Lan jue stabilized, stopping the descent and casting free the golden fires that had surrounded him. Michael, too, recovered. Embraced by an orb of holy light, the electric tendrils that had sent him falling crackled in to nothingness.

Lan Jue looked silently at his enemy, his features cold and calm. Michael looked back, dark and imposing.

“The speed of light. So, it’s not just thunder you command, but also electricity. 1 It’s no wonder, then, that you were capable of achieving your supreme form. That you were such an illustrious figure in the mercenary world. In truth your power is no less than mine. Thunder and lightning. They complement each other – and that’s how you’ve reached ninth-level, ninth-rank.”

Lan Jue listened as Michael ruminated on the situation, and offered words of his own in a calm, quiet voice. “I was interested in finding out just how long you could hold the Adventus. Your form’s specialty isn’t speed, but overcoming fortifications and disadvantages.”

Michael’s face was hard and mean. “So this was all part of your plan. Right down to using your Ascension. All to get me to employ Adventus. I imagine it didn’t even drain you all that much, if you drew on both your Disciplines. All you had to do was endure… wait until my Adventus was spent. Then you’d have your victory, am I right?”

A smile finally crept on to Lan Jue’s face. “Life’s easier when you don’t have to explain everything.”

“Worthy of the name Zeus,” Michael stated. His face had once more adopted a calm mask. “As smart as you are powerful. Good… very good. A man can only use the supreme form once in a period. Now it looks like you have the upper hand. But our fight isn’t over.”

As he spoke the undulating rays of red and gold diminished until they were no more. His majestic wings were once again that pure, unblemished white of origin.

Lan Jue’s eyes flashed and, without hesitation, his vanished once again in a column of light.

Michael raised his right hand. Thereupon there rested a golden bracelet, bearing a golden angel charm.

The sky thundered, and lightning flashed. But this time no bolts of electricity assaulted Michael. His shield of light remained intact. The world behind the hovering angel grew dark as a black hole quietly rent reality asunder and opened. From within emerged a colossal figure, glimmering golden red. The white light that had warded him from harm shone bright, glowing from the center of the massive figure’s chest.

Lan Jue appeared once again, looking down upon Michael with a biting glare. “The Angel of War – a fine mecha. Very fine.” He responded by lifting his left hand, looking towards the ring on his little finger.

1. So here, my head exploded. All throughout the former chapters Lan Jue has been using lightning. His moniker – Zeus – was the gold of lightning. Thunder is simply the sound that accompanies it. Here, however, the author reveals to us that his Discipline was in fact thunder, which makes no sense, while his second discipline is in fact lightning/electricity. Sooo… yeah, dunno what to do with that there.