The silver needle tore a path through space, vanishing from the naked eye. In fact, even with his pupils, Ryu almost lost track of it, its blazing speed beyond anything Ryu had ever experienced before.
The result, however, seemed completely anti-climactic. It tore into the face of a mountain's wall and completely vanished. For a moment, nothing at all happened. As though a drop into the middle of an ocean, there was hardly even the slightest rippled. But… That was only for a moment.
With a flick of Ryu's fingers, the needle came to a grinding halt and shot backward. In the blink of an eye, it hovered above his fingers buzzing with a slight hum. And then…
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The entire mountain range crumbled from the inside out. Pillars of sparking lightning shot into the skies and out in every which direction, piercing into the earth and eradicating everything for hundreds of miles.
Though Ryu sat on Nemesis' back thousands of miles away, the result was exaggerated to the point a wall of wind threatened to throw his partner off balance, early flinging himself away as well.
'… Huh… Not too bad.'
Ryu smiled, his white hair dancing in the wind.
The Lightning God Talent was like giving an engine fuel. Combined with the Storm Talent, the kind of strength it could exude was unlike what most could possibly imagine.
Lightning was an unruly element to begin with and could be considered to be one of the only Elements on the same level as Fire when it came to the power and Faith attached to it. Fire was the origin of the human race while Lightning was the punishment of the Heavens. The two had an opposing push and pull effect on one another and each stood on a plane above normal Elements.
Unsurprisingly, because of the power they wielded, controlling fire and lightning were two greatly difficult tasks. Ryu had always had a simple time with fire not only because of his talent, but because of the Origin Flame, the King of Flames. And now, he had suddenly gained the ability to do the same with Lightning.
The Lightning God Talent allowed free manipulation of the unruly lightning element. Restructuring its shape, size and density became entirely a matter of those.
The Storm Talent removed the burden of forming and controlling Lightning from the body. This allowed not only a much larger vessel, but it eliminated much of the potential harm that came with it. One only needs to look at how much Leonel had struggled with <Tribulation Nine Clouds> to know how dangerous it was to practice lightning type techniques. But, the Storm Talent took all of that trouble away.
Still, the Storm Talent had its downfalls. It was hard to control, it wasn't very precise, and in a one on one battle, its usage was greatly limited. In fact, even when facing numerous opponents, unless they crossed a certain threshold of numbers, it still wasn't worth it.
However, the Lightning God Talent changed all of that. Not only would Ryu be able to dodge the burden of cultivating lightning techniques himself, he would be able to use the Tribulation Lightning of the Heavens and, on top of all of that, he would now be able to manipulate and control it on a whim.
Streaks of lightning continuously fell from the skies as Ryu took control of them as he pleased. He formed numerous needles, fused them into a javelin, unfused them, manipulated their form into a sword, then a spear, then a Great Swordstaff…
The things he could do felt endless, but what was even more shocking was the strength of them alone. Each needle Ryu formed rivaled the strength of a Mystical Grade technique and could kill almost any Dao Pedestal Realm expert in a single stroke. And yet, the burden was next to nothing.
The lightning came from the skies and the manipulation was as easy as breathing. It quite literally felt as though there was no burden on Ryu at all to display such strength. And, this power would only grow as Ryu's Inheritance also grew in strength.
This was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to the Lightning God Talent as well. While manipulation of lightning was a core of its ability, it could be said that its strongest potential wasn't in this but was rather in nurturing your own special lightning!
There were Heavenly Winds, an Origin Grade Flame, special Water Qis, rare Earth Qis, so on and so forth… However, Lightning didn't have a special categorization like this. Though it had different sorts of qis, these could all only be considered low level.
As far as Ryu was concerned, there were only two divisions of lightning – regular lightning and Tribulation Lightning.
With the Storm Talent, Ryu was able to cross that barrier, manipulating Tribulation Lightning to his whims and doing what most humans could never hope or dream to do. However, that was ultimately the strength of the Heavens. If there came a place where Ryu's Storm Talent couldn't work or his connection with these Heavens was cut off, what would he do?
That seemed like a ridiculous thought to Ryu just a few years ago, but now, as he learned more and more about the calamity about to befall this world, he realized that this might not be so much of a dream as it was an inevitable reality.
Ultimately, Ryu knew that if he wasn't to bring his Dividing Heaven Dao to the pinnacle of Existence, he would have to learn a perfect balance of relying on himself and exploring the secrets of the Heavens. Regardless of whether this worry would come to pass or now, he knew he would have to take this road regardless.
The trouble was that forming your own special Lightning Source was difficult and very complex. Even if he succeeded, it could very well be far weaker than Tribulation Lightning and ultimately not worth using. It seemed he would have to take his time with this matter as well.
Yet another headache to consider.