Chapter 322 Interlude: The Magenta Lightning Storm (III)

"Not a bad move!" Sirius called out.

It was a violent whirlwind of steel; Butcher relentlessly spun the lengthy chain around, smacking it in every direction, in hope of hitting the slippery lightning adventurer by sheer quantity of attacks.

The dried-out soil of the land was repeatedly carved up by the passing chain; it smacked into the mountainous walls, though still failed to connect with the wielder of magenta lightning.

Momentarily landing on a branch jutting out from the neighboring cliff of the canyon, Sirius readied himself as electricity coiled around his body, hissing and sparking with a rising energy.

Alright, enough playing around, Sirius thought.

Just as Butcher noticed his position, the smoke-formed chain whipped around to strike the branch, but Sirius took off just before it hit, launching downward towards the figure with a thunderous sonic boom releasing in his wake.

A monstrous kick embedded itself in Butcher's stomach, backed by the supremacy of the Stormheart's lightning as strands of the erratic energy caressed the nearby land before the kick was ended with a bolt shooting against Butcher's body.

In an instant, the inhuman criminal was launched back dozens of meters, crashing into a pile of boulders in the distance.

"Sorry, but I did come here to do a job, after all," Sirius said with a smile as he readied himself.

Whilst Butcher was still groggy and left laying in the shattered boulders after suffering the body-breaking kick, the supreme adventurer's mana signature amplified tremendously. The entirety of the canyon lit up with a magenta glow as the vibrant electricity manifested itself without restraint.

Sirius' eyes that matched the shade of his lightning took to a glow themselves as he raised a single hand, condensing his erratic mana into a grandiose spell of its own.

The imbalance between Heaven and Earth; this is the chaos I wield at my fingertips, Sirius embodied thoughts of lightning, erratic; unstable; destructive; I wield this chaos with a perfect refinement. It is the supreme element; the spark of annihilation, the fulmination of the end.

It was a wordless incantation, forged through the deep embodiment of his own element that Sirius Stormheart wielded.

In his hand, he held a masterfully condensed and refined gathering of magenta lightning, forming a spiral in front of his fingertips like that of a cannon's barrel.

Through this preparation, Butcher only just then picked himself up as his shattered bones mended themselves with grotesque cracks as the joints of his arms popped back into place.

However, the magnificent magecraft was already complete.

Sirius pointed his hand towards the distant foe of his, causing the wind to swirl into a storm around himself as a spiral of lightning formed in front of him.

"Principal Spear of Heaven and Earth: Fire."

It swept through the canyon like a javelin thrown by the arm of a herculean warrior; the spiraling mass of lightning howled with the roar of thousands of beasts.

Butcher could do nothing in that moment but stand there as the colossal zone of magenta lightning closed in on him. It was like a natural disaster born of mana; an impossible daunting attack to face.

The nature of the grand magecraft left it impossible to evade, unless one had the capabilities to move faster than light itself; this was the raw essence of the unique lightning possessed by Sirius Stormheart: unequivocal in all regards.

[0.0000234 second(s)]

–That is the time elapsed since the spell launched from Sirius' command and once it made contact with Butcher.

There was no "collision"; the mystical drill of lightning simply bore through the canyon, sweeping through Butcher with endless voltage and force in its path, leaving not even a scrap of flesh or bone left.

As the spell finished its path of destruction, a clean path was left carved by its short lifespan, having drilled a perfect circle through the hide of one of the tall cliffs.

"--Looks like you can't recover from being erased on a subatomic level, can you? I've fought a lot of "unkillable" creatures like you–they always tend to die like the rest of us when obliterated," Sirius noted with a confident smile, speaking to himself.

Walking over to the spot which Butcher had been annihilated by the grand spell, Sirius looked down to find the accursed cleaver sitting on the ground, somewhat surprising to him.

"Oh?"

As he bent over, he picked it up by the handle, letting the blade dangle as he held it as if it were some containamanted object.

It's unbreakable, too? Interesting, he thought.

While he wasn't particularly fond of the idea of carrying such a weapon around on him, it was certainly something that the Council wanted a hold of; at the very least, it needed to be contained so as not to fall into the wrong hands again.

Stuffing the cleaver under his coat, he clapped his hands together before shooting upward as a bolt of lightning, overlooking the shattered Valley of Parmesus.

"Alright, with that settled...I think it's about time I finish this," He said.

Now that he had personally certified the termination of the S-rank criminal, he could freely enact the destruction of the secretive valley. He held his hands together before slightly parting them, leaving only a focused gap for him to peer down through as he encompassed the area below like a scope to gaze through.

The mountains that surrounded the valley were like walls meant to act as a secondary seal; they were as tall as the clouds, unable to be scaled by anything less than monstrous skill or flight itself.

While staying afloat amidst the clouds, he was able to see the unorthodox Valley of Parmesus below; the sectioned-off areas within it such as the jungle, red forest, and even the charred landscape.

The preparation lied in verifying the size of Parmesus itself; normally, calculating the rough size of an entire valley just by looking at it would be an improbable task, however, the youthful man's brain functioned differently.

It was the magenta sparks he had mastery over; the fantastical lightning also inhabited the neurons of his brain, able to process information magnitudes higher with the magical electricity flowing through his mind.

Keeping one eye shut so that he could reinforce his vision solely on his right eye, he gathered the information required.

…One-hundred-and-fifty-four kilometers long, seventy-two kilometers wide, he processed.

After concluding the exact size of the Valley of Parmesus, not neglecting a single meter in the forethought of his mind, he clasped his hands together before slowly inhaling a breath between his lips.

What was born from his unrestrained mana was anything but the pressure of a human; the unleashed state of the man brought upon a storm that manifested instantaneously. The clouds around him darkened, gathering in the azure skies and dimming the bright noon with the shadows of clouds.

Magenta thunder roared in the solemn clouds, flashing with purple lights as a singular opening amidst the storm laid in the center of the spiraling clouds, taking the form of a massive, bright light of divine grace.

"Something capable of erasing the entirety of the valley,"--that's what he was summoning into existence; a feat that would be looked at as an act of godliness.

As the momentous gathering of a thunderstorm reached its peak, Sirius stayed in the air as if standing on solid winds, holding a single hand forward as no playful smile rested on his lips, only a serious look etched into those purple irises–

"Judgment of The Divine."

With the utterance of the heavenly magecraft's true name, it was invoked all at once: the sky itself hummed and vibrated with an echoing thunder unlike any other, commanding the colossal gathering of lightning to shoot down from the center of the storm.

It wasn't a bolt of lightning, but a pillar of divine chaos itself; the erratic, magenta energy was expanded and refined into an impossibly large beam that descended from the heavens, crashing down atop the Valley of Parmesus with impunity.

As it touched down upon the world's crust, a tremor rippled through the region as the surrounding mountains shook and flashes blinded anything that wasn't instantly obliterated in a one-hundred kilometer radius.

All it took was a few moments of the sublime light's descendance; the massive, far-spanning pillar of condensed lightning faded away, leaving nothing left of the Valley of Parmesus but a new canyon in the ground.

"Ah, I might have overdone it a bit. Oh well," Sirius remarked when gazing down at the aftermath.

Brushing his gloves off, he finished a job well done as every square inch of the secretive valley had been wiped out.

I'll treat myself to a nice cup of booze when I get back, I think, he thought.

Like a bolt of lightning traversing the sky, he kicked off of the wind before taking his leave from the area. A single man was all it took to wrap up the ordeal that would normally be a country-wide emergency; that's only because of the man in question--one that surpassed the concept of a "one-man army" entirely.