Chapter 13: 『Rushing Thunder God!』

It was like the world had suddenly taken a breath, and Licht had become its centre.

His body turned into a bottomless black hole, and like a starving beast, it opened itself fully, greedily absorbing everything mana-related within the nearby vicinity

In that moment, everyone froze.

They could feel something being born inside of him.

Something ancient. Something terrifying.

Licht slowly rose to his feet, blood trickling down his face in thin crimson lines, but his attention was already focused on something else.

'…Is that… mana?'

All around him, faint lights flickered like dying stars, pulsing erratically in rhythm with his breath.

As Licht looked toward his status panel, he noticed something strange. One of his traits was flickering and glitching on the screen.

「Abysmal sword & magic Talent (-SS)」

◆ Your Body's talent for Swordsmanship and Magic is so bad that even the heavens are astonished. Pigs have a higher chance of flying than you do of succeeding in any of these fields

— Trait Evolution Detected —

Your Trait has evolved!

New Trait Unlocked: 「Divine Sword & Magic Talent (SS)」

◆ Through an unknown phenomenon—or perhaps divine irony—your hopeless talent has been inverted.

◆ Your body now processes swordsmanship and magic at rates previously deemed impossible.

◆ Techniques once requiring decades of training are now absorbed like second nature.

Licht pushed aside his bloodied hair and looked forward, a slow smile spreading across his face.

The original Licht—no, the entire Valtier family—had misunderstood his situation from the very beginning.

His body wasn't trash.

It had never been weak.

It only appeared that way…

That was because it was built to withstand and house something far beyond ordinary comprehension—The absurd power of the Infinite Eyes.

Now that they had awakened, every part of him began to fall into place. Like the final piece of a puzzle, clicking into a frame that had been waiting for years

His gaze locked onto Charlotte, and within his Infinite Eyes, the hidden sigil began to spin.

Your Infinite Eyes are observing the new technique:

『Valemont Sword — Rushing Thunder God! (A)』

Analyzing… Copying…

Progress: 

1%

5%

10%…

Charlotte looked at Licht, and her heart began to race so fast it felt like it might leap straight out of her chest.

Am I… scared?

Me? Of that piece of crap?

Impossible!

Crushing the uneasy feeling brewing inside her chest, Charlotte quickly drew her sword 

『Valemont Sword — Rushing Thunder God! (A)』

Her blade surged forward like a bolt of divine lightning, cutting through the air with devastating force. The ground cracked beneath her feet as mana howled around her.

But Licht…

He didn't flinch.

He just stepped forward, slowly walking toward her.

Before, everything moved too fast for him to react.

Now, it was different.

Charlotte's sword, once too fast to track, now moved like it was following a perfectly rehearsed dance—every arc, every twitch, already played out before him like a script.

As the blade closed in, the crowd watched with bated breath, but then, something strange happened.

The sword passed straight through him.

It wasn't that he blocked it.

It wasn't that he dodged it.

It was like—

'I… missed?'

Charlotte thought she was hallucinating.

Licht's stride remained completely uninterrupted, even as her blade struck at him, almost as if her attack hadn't even existed in the first place.

Licht had glanced at her and perfectly read her sword's trajectory before simply walking past it with such ease that it made him look like a ghost!

Gritting her teeth, Charlotte spun around with a snarl, bringing her blade around in a sharp, retaliatory arc.

But Licht moved again.

A simple twist of his body, just enough for the blade to whistle past him, carving through nothing but air.

Charlotte's eyes widened.

Damn it, it's almost as if he's predicting everything I do…

Charlotte was confuesed at Licht's ghost like performnace but still kept attacking. But just she was preparing for the next attack, Licht reached for his sword 

The second his hand touched the sword handle, blue electric lights flashed up across his feet causing Charlotte's eyes to shake as she realised what was coming next

Copying of technique has reached 100%.

A new technique has been permanently acquired.

With a smile on his face, Licht thrust forward and met Charlotte's sword

『Valemont Sword — Rushing Thunder God! (A)』

-boom!

For a second, there was a brief yet blinding explosion of thunder and lightning that caused even the reinforced training ground to tremble 

When the smoke cleared, Licht could be seen taking several steps back

Licht could feel his arms shaking from the recoil of their clash, and frowned 

Although he had managed to use his Infinite Eyes to perfectly copy Charlotte's techniques, the pure difference in stats made it so that he could never fight her head-on.

His physical stats were barely better than a regular person, so when facing a talented Slayer Cadet like Charlotte head-on, it was like a child squaring up to face a grown man 

Charlotte, on the other hand, was struggling with how to react.

Licht, a person she had always considered talentless trash, had not only completely read her moves but even copied her technique and used it perfectly against her 

Was Licht always this talented? If he was this talented all along then why did he torment her brother and her family?

Charlotte quickly took a breath to calm down.

She quickly realsied that Licht's sudden display of her own sword technique was beginning to get into her own head

How or why Licht showed this technqiue didn't matter.

How or why Licht had tomrented her family also didn't matter

The only thing that mattered was ending Licht right here and now! 

After this realisation, two pairs of eyes met once again —Charlotte's blazing with cold fury, Licht's calm and unreadable and then—

Boom!

Twin eruptions of dazzling lightning exploded across the arena—one a crackling violet, the other a blinding electric blue, causing the entire battlefield to light up as both fighters moved in perfect unison.

『Rushing Thunder God!』

With just a thought, their blades surged forward at impossible speeds, each one cloaked in furious thunder, cutting through the air like bolts of divine judgment.