Strongest Among the Heavens
Chapter 456: Shippūga

Chapter 456: Shippūga

The world was fire. A blinding white-hot burst of raw destruction, a tidal wave of heat so intense it turned the very air into something thick and suffocating. Kazi gritted his teeth, throwing his arms forward in a desperate attempt to shield himself and everything behind. The Children of Athena, t-the people on the west coast, everything!

The prompted barrier shattered like delicate glass, and for a moment, he felt weightless, consumed by the force of the detonation.

Pain. Heat. Roaring flames licking at his skin, mana flaring desperately to keep him from incinerating where he stood.

But then—

A massive gust of wind, unnatural and forceful, swept through and kept him afloat. Kazi barely registered the sensation of being pushed from an opposite force and the ensuing steadiness. The explosion’s force diverted, the searing flames now racing away from him rather than swallowing him whole. He landed hard, his knee slamming on a platform of yellow mana right on top of the surface of the lake. The platform of pure mana was all that was stopping him from plunging into the boiling waters. He gasped, sweat pouring down his face as he looked back.

There, standing on the distant shoreline of the Lake Shinji West Bank Shoreline Park, was a blonde. The wind swirled around the blonde in a wild vortex. And on her face—

A mask. A terrifying, grinning green and black mask of Fujin, the god of wind and storms. In her right hand, she held a crimson fan, its edges glowing as though they had been dipped in molten gold.

The fire was still raging, curling into monstrous tendrils that threatened to reignite and spread again. Kazi could see it—the disaster wasn’t over. But the masked woman...

She raised the fan. Then she swung.

"Shippūga!"

A single, cutting arc of wind surged forward, roaring across the water with impossible speed. Kazi’s eyes widened. Despite the sheer distance—two whole kilometers—he could feel the force, see the way the lake’s surface twisted and danced in response. The fire twisted too, swirling like a serpent caught in a maelstrom.

And then she spoke.

"O raging heavens, howl with fury! Fujin’s breath, fierce and untamed! Let the storm rise, let the fire dance! Split the skies, tear the earth asunder!

Shippūga—unleash the crimson tempest!"

Another swing. This time, the wind did not merely cut through the fire—it devoured it. The inferno that had threatened to engulf everything twisted inwards upon itself, the roaring flames compacting, contorting, then vanishing into the wind’s embrace.

Kazi watched, his breath stolen from him, as the last remnants of the explosion dissipated, leaving only the eerie silence of the aftermath.

"Marta...you...!"

Marta... Marta actually did it.

He had no idea how. No idea what she had just done, or what power she had called upon. But she had saved them all. And in that moment, as he knelt upon the surface of the lake, panting and exhausted, he realized something.

Marta wasn’t just strong.

She was terrifying.

He smiled and ended up blasting toward her. The boat of every single group had also made it shore because of the explosion and the winds. Kazi ultimately reached her first.

"Marta!" He greeted, grinning. "You’re here! You did it!"

Marta’s feet were planted firmly on the grass. She wobbled and then fell to her knees. She ripped the mask from her face which was sweaty and she clawed at her throat. "Gnnnhhk! Kksssshh!"

"Marta? Marta, you okay?" Kazi kneeled down and a hand hovered over her back. "Divine Mira—unh!"

There was a snap and his spill bounced off of her. Did...did her body just reject his healing? What!? "You’re not breathing," he said hurriedly. Marta raised a hand to stop him from doing anything more. It seemed...

’She says it’s okay?’

It took a good thirty seconds until the gasping and wheezing stopped. By then, Kazi had done a quick analysis on the mask and the fan and figured out what happened.

"That’s the fan Sasaki Kojiro wielded. Red in colour, divine in nature..."

Marta nodded, gasping for air now. "Haah...haah...that damn Sasaki Kojiro...he wasn’t lying. Just one swing takes away your breath." She wasn’t gasping in a normal way. It was as though the air had literally been extracted from her lungs.

A fan gifted from Fujin and given to Sasaki Kojiro...and now Marta Kowalski.

"You did it! You saved everyone!"

Pauline’s head dipped and her cheeks reddened, until she saw him in full and her eyes widened. "W-what about you—look, your skin! It’s bur...ned...?"

She stopped when she saw he was healing. Flesh returned over the strip of black muscle that had been exposed. It was a slow, tortuous process. Ultra Divine Healing Circulation lived up to its reputation as the ultimate self-healing skill. What should have ruined his face, eyes, and brows for years to come was healed in mere seconds. Connected with the soul, powered by the trio of Kazi’s genius, soul, and Infinity Pool, it returned him to full strength at the same time as Marta.

"I’ll be fine." He grinned. "I’m glad you’re fine. If it wasn’t for you—"

"We’d be dead." Samantha approached, her boat docked nearby with her guild in the back recovering. Drinking potions, applying healing spells, that sort. Samantha smiled, her eye on Marta’s new fan. "How did you do that?"

"It’s complicated but..." Marta looked quite happy when she flexed the red fan. Its divine power did not rise. "...a good friend gave it to me."

Kazi’s senses tingled. Mana, huge amounts of it, building up, up, up and...up to erupt. He lifted his head. He saw it. Way off in the distance, ten kilometers away, he saw fire.

BOOOOOOM!

BOOOOOOM!

B-BOOOOOOM!

What he witnessed the phoenix exploding. Three explosions, three mighty dives, three great sacrificial strikes. He saw what must have been a certain victory.

The water calmed. The horizon and the main capital of Matsue could be seen, including the castle of the Lord.

On their side, the spectators to the terrifying explosions, there were cheers. The Children of Athena chanted victory.

"They did it, they did it!"

"We did it! Yes!"

"VICTORY!"

Hugs and affection were shared. Samantha couldn’t help but smile. She let out a big sigh and a big smile. "Looks like they’ve wrapped things up. That’s good."

"I do NOT want to fight another one of those things," Samantha was saying in her head. Kazi chuckled. She might have fooled her guild but not him. He knew her type. He knew the real relief behind that smile and that sigh.

Another ship docked, large and carrying the other half of the Children of Athena. There were two of them, after all, one large group to the west and another in the east. A flanking formation in order to maximize damage at all angles.

Among them, to Kazi’s relief, was Pauline. She was not apart of the Children of Athena. Her skill, however, brought her an invitation with them. She ran up to him on instinct, only to slow into a jog halfway through.

"Kazi...?" the French noble called out, uncertain and wide-eyed. "What’s with your mana? And your hair?"

The blonde hair, the black samurai garbs that had gone to match that new hair colour, and his electrifying mana. Even his eyes blinked with yellow pupils and eyelashes that crackled.

Something happened to Kazi and Kazi himself hardly understood what.

"It’s good to see you

All that he knew was that right now, he felt as though he had become lightning itself.

He clenched his fist and unclenched them. ’From the time I put the mother Bake-kujira in that seal, my powers...they’ve changed. I don’t think this is Odin’s Eye. Odin’s Eye is pretty strict on what it can do. Foresight, Future Sight, Infinity Pool, Knowledge...but this...’

His finger pinched the material of the samurai garbs. He felt it, a crackle of lightning shooting up. It...didn’t make sense. How was this possible? These clothes, although made of excellent material that would not tear even against monsters, was not built for conducting mana in mind.

"Hm..."

That wasn’t Kazi, that was Pauline who decided it was alright to grab his newly coloured samurai garbs too. Kazi was immediately uncomfortable. He had noticed her closenses but was trying to be nice, especially since he was trying to figure things out.

"This feels like you?"

Pauline stepped back and put her hands behind her. Phew.

"Your mana has seeped into the material," Pauline said. "It’s very strange. I’ve seen a lot of magical clothes but none like this. I don’t think I could wear—err, not that I want to, but just as an example."

His eyes blinked several times in a second. ’Wait...’ In an instant, he analyzed the battle. He remembered what did and didn’t work. He breathed in and out, feeling the mana and then recalling the memories of the fresh battle. Specifically, when the infants broke out of their mother’s womb and the Red Bake-kujira sent out missiles.

Kazi raised a finger, "Fire D—"

A terrible searing pain came down on him. His hair dimmed in colour, flickering between gold, blue, and red, and his very aura seemed to resist the idea of a fire attack. ’W-what the hell is going on with me—?’

He couldn’t use fire magic.

If he didn’t know any better...

’No wonder my healing feels slightly slower. It’s not just because of the intensity of the soul and the stress on my soul. Ultra Divine Healing Circulation is ultimately derived from a water skill. These changes, my hair colour—they are reflective of an element change.’

Right now, Kazi was in Lightning Mode. Yellow hair, yellow eyes, and thick crackles of electricity all over. All his lightning spells were supercharged in this form.

"Pho..."

Relax.

Relax.

Turn it off.

In a quick second, it did. Everything turned back to normal, the samurai garbs, his hair, and his eyes. Only a faint crackle remained.

"Woah..." Pauline applauded. "That was awesome! Can you do it again?"

"Heh, I—"

Kazi’s smile waned when his ears twitched. Across the lake, on the other side, was a great surge of mana.

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