WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 372

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Thief!

Since time immemorial, people believed lightning flashed first and thunder followed after. But that was only a misunderstanding born from the difference in speed between light and sound. In truth, thunder and lightning are twins, both children of the bolt. The light simply travels faster than the sound, so people assumed it arrived first.

Now, though, having experienced a thunderbolt up close, I could feel firsthand and against my will that the two were truly inseparable.

One side of my vision flooded white with lightning. Vivid yellow light painted my retinas a single flat color. For a brief moment, nothing reached my eyes except the Sky God's punishment.

At the same time, a crack of thunder loud enough to tear the world apart swirled through my cochlea. Sound that enormous became pain itself, rattling my skull to its roots.

If I hadn't had mind reading, if I didn't have the power to steal other people's perspectives, I would have been helpless for those few seconds.

"Of all the timing!"

The children were staring up toward the top of the Cloud Waterfall, trembling with fear. I'd barely recovered my vision, and I was already staggering as I looked up toward the top of the falls.

And there I saw the Sky God.

A massive shadow rippled at the crest of the Cloud Waterfall. A giant that looked as though it had been condensed from lightning and storm was looking down at us from above the falls. Lightning blazed in the giant's eyes where its upper body rose above the clouds, and its lips were pressed shut like a thunderhead packed even denser.

Rain and wind whipped at us. The Cloud Waterfall, which had been falling peacefully toward the earth, was now crashing in violent waves, as though welcoming the Sky God's arrival. Raindrops stung my face and the gusting wind shook our bodies.

The Golden Mirror, and now the Sky God? Was I cursed? Why did every place I visited have to be like this?

Even Tyr, who was always perfectly at ease, sensed something extraordinary and spoke.

"Is that the Sky God?"

"It's my first time seeing it too, so I can't say for certain, but I think so! If that's not the Sky God, then who is?"

"I have passed through the Cloud Waterfall several times and never seen anything like that..."

"When was the last time you came through?"

"I cannot quite remember.... About three hundred years ago, perhaps."

"That was ages ago! I suppose if the landscape changes thirty times over, the Sky God comes to visit too!"

Wait. Even Tyr had never seen it? Tyr, who had passed through Cloudville in the distant past and built her duchy?

Gods exist. The great principles of nature stand apart from humanity, wholly themselves, waiting quietly in their place until someone thinks to find them.

But... that was the Sky God?

While I was lost in thought, the child who had called herself the thunder guardian cried out in a shrill voice.

"Everyone, bow your heads!"

I bowed on pure instinct, sensing danger ,

[---!]

The Sky God opened its mouth, and instead of a voice, thunder poured out. Even its roar, unleashed from a height that rivaled the clouds, seemed capable of shaking the entire world. It raised its arm, aiming at the Thunder Wheel. In its hand, blazing with light, it held a spear of lightning wrenched straight from the sky. What it intended to do with that was... obvious without even looking.

[---!!!]

Thunder rolled, and the lightning fell again.

"Hah!"

A moment before it hit, the girl moved first. Dozens of lightning rod needles extended from the Lightning Rod Tower. She placed her hand on the central cluster and used alchemy. The needles that had been spread open like an umbrella folded inward, converging into a single point. The sharpened tower looked like a spear aimed straight at the Sky God.

Flash.

The lightning struck dead center on the rod.

Fortunately, Cloudville's anti-Sky God weapon, forged through a lifetime of battling lightning, performed exactly as intended. The enormous torrent of force, rather than burning a human being alive, ran down the Lightning Rod Tower and seeped into the earth. The tower shook violently as it absorbed the Sky God's power.

"Aaaah!"

But lightning is terrifying even in its aftermath. The girl, who had been controlling the tower and took that force at point-blank range, went thud and flew backward. She rolled across the ground like a ball, and Azzy sprinted over and caught her.

"Woof!"

Her clothes and skin were scorched, but the girl was surprisingly unhurt. The name Thunder practitioner was no empty title. She grabbed Azzy to steady herself and muttered.

"Oh no! The rod...!"

Rumble, rumble.

The Thunder Wheel, powered by the bolt it had absorbed, spun faster and harder. Whether because the girl had stepped back or because the lightning had struck it once already, the tip of the rod was slightly twisted. If it took another hit, the Lightning Rod Tower might stop functioning entirely.

[***---!!!]

Whether the Sky God knew that, or simply meant to keep attacking, it let out another roar and thrust its arm into the clouds, as if reaching for another bolt.

"How does one hunt something that far up? Hyu. Is there any way to climb through the clouds?"

"No! Clouds aren't something you can climb to begin with! A master of energy could step on individual water droplets, but that's only good for a few steps!"

"But did not Shei say she could kill the Sky God?"

"That person is just wrong in the head!"

The Thunder Lord beats it off, and the regressor can kill it? Just how were they supposed to manage that? Was everyone around me some kind of monster?

"Help! If we don't straighten the rod..."

The girl reached out toward the lightning rod and cried out. Tch. Everyone else had been blown back by the bolt earlier, so the only one close by was me. No choice.

"Come on, Azzy!"

"Woof!"

Whether by choice or circumstance, Azzy's fur was puffed up completely. She left the girl behind and bolted. She leaped to the tip of the Lightning Rod Tower, grabbed the twisted rod in her teeth, and pulled. The massive needle groaned and straightened back into place.

I caught up a moment later and used alchemy. True to Lesser States fashion, this too was alchemic steel, a reactive metal suited to alchemy, and the moment I touched it, it changed shape almost instantly.

...Though that wasn't the only reason. Maybe it was because I had seen the Demon God. Right now, alchemy felt far easier than it ever had before.

Regardless. Once I had the rod straightened, I immediately pulled my hand away. Unlike the Thunder practitioners, my body was completely ordinary. Taking a lightning strike at close range wouldn't just knock me flying, it would be the end of me. I needed to get clear fast.

[---!!!]

Wait, was I too late? Nothing to be done about it now.

I pulled out a card. Spade 10. The idol of Mother Earth, who holds all things up from below. It couldn't compare to Jizan, but I had some hope it could at least channel the current. Just before the lightning fell, I gripped the card in both hands and offered a quiet prayer.

"Thank you. Looks like I got some help whether I wanted it or not."

But my efforts turned out to be unnecessary.

Thud. The Thunder Lord dropped onto the top of the Lightning Rod Tower. Wrapped in thunder, walking with unhurried strides, she fixed the Sky God with an indifferent gaze.

"You chose a convenient moment to barge in.... Or perhaps you timed it deliberately. Either way, leave this to me."

"The Thunder Lord!"

"It's the Thunder Lord!"

The children cheered. The Thunder Lord gave them a small, reassuring nod.

Then her hair rose. Lightning nested in each individual strand, her whole body flashed, and she finished readying herself to stand against the Sky God.

The gaze of the colossal figure looking down from the edge of the sky and the giant looking up from the earth met. Thunder and storm filled the space between sky and ground, and the Sky God, having pulled another bolt from the clouds, struck down divine punishment once more. The lightning fell.

"Thundercatch."

At that moment, the Thunder Lord grabbed the lightning rod.

Lightning has a nature: it spreads. It never pools, always flows, always searching for something to lean against. The same goes for the human body, which lightning will use even as a pathway, flowing through that moist and intricate structure.

Just as a flood overruns a riverbank, any human body the lightning flows through is torn apart horribly. But the Thunder Lord, born of the Lesser States, was different.

The lightning split the world open, then found its way into the Thunder Lord's body as well. Because her feet weren't touching the ground, instead of passing through her, it swirled and kept building into a continuous current.

It should have shaken her apart from the inside. Instead, she used it as fuel.

"Sky God. I cannot say how many times you need us to return it before you are satisfied."

The Thunder Lord in that moment was nothing less than the Sky God descended to earth.

An intense force radiated from her entire body, filled with lightning. Every step she took was accompanied by a peal of thunder. Her vivid yellow hair, blazing and whipping around her, looked like lightning itself given a human shape. Those flashing eyes now held even a lightning bolt within them without flinching.

"If that is what you wish, then once more."

She seized the spinning Thunder Wheel with both hands and drew out the full force that had spread through her body, and cried out.

"I'll return it!"

The Thunder Wheel, which had been spinning rapidly, slowed to a stop. Halted by the force of a single human being.

The Thunder Wheel runs on lightning that flows down from the Cloud Waterfall to the earth. Instead of water, a current of lightning is what turns the wheel.

Put another way, if the Thunder Wheel were turned in reverse, it could gather the scattered lightning force spread across all of Claudia and send it back upward.

That was what "returning the lightning" meant.

A low rumble. The Thunder Lord drew on every last reserve she had and resonated with the Thunder Wheel. Using her own power and the lightning's force in reverse, she turned a steel wheel more than a hundred meters across the other way.

A feat possible only for the Thunder Lord, who could hold lightning within her body. And the reason the Thunder Lord was the strongest force within Claudia, in Claudia alone.

From the Thunder Wheel spinning in reverse, thunderclouds and lightning surged upward. From the earth, toward the sky. Against the natural order, humanity's offering ran back up the Cloud Waterfall and returned to the Sky God. Whether it was an attack or a gift, it was hard to say. The lightning was going home.

What the first Thunder Lord had done in the distant past was being recreated on a far grander scale....

"Ah, hold on."

At that, the regressor stepped out and planted both feet in the middle of the Cloud Waterfall, riding Skywarbler.

Skywarbler and Jizan were sky and earth. Lightning was the will of the Celestial God, passing back and forth between them.

Which meant that with both swords, the regressor could take lightning into herself as well.

Part of the rising lightning veered away from the sky and toward Skywarbler instead. The regressor stole a portion of the lightning meant to be returned to the Sky God and stored it between the two heirlooms.

The brazenness of the theft left the world in stunned silence. I pointed at the regressor and shouted.

"Lightning thief! No, armed robber!"

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