Chapter 511: The Race

I kept flying upwards for a few seconds; if I was going to go all out, then I did not want the side effect from my powers to devastate the world any further.

In a few seconds, the blue of the sky began to slowly turn dark, and although I knew it was cold, I was able to easily ignore it. The ground below soon became patterns on a map, and if I looked in the distance, I began to see the curvature of the world.

This was a good place to go all out.

I reached for Lightning Form, and I stopped being a man.

It was a trippy sensation. One moment, I was a body of flesh and I became lightning.

My body dissolved into current, and channels became conduits of pure, living electricity. A small laugh came from my mouth that sounded weird, and when I looked at my hands, they were white at the core and blue at the edges, and they flickered.

When I used Lightning Incarnate, I could not maintain it for an extended period without harming myself, but I hardly felt any strain in this form.

There was no weight in me; I could not feel the pull of gravity, and I had never felt so free in my life. It was at this moment that I knew that I belonged in the heavens, and taking a form of flesh was something that I could do without.

Lightning Form: 109 → 112

I acknowledged this growth and felt the control over this form subtly deepen. I was already approaching the peak of Arcanist with this power, and now when I reached the peak, there would be no barrier holding this ability from reaching Sovereign.

Now, I could not help but wonder how far I could push this ability before reaching my target.

I sucked in a deep breath even though I did not need to, and then I moved... flickered.

I stopped existing where I was, and I began existing somewhere else, and between those two things there was... nothing.

Distantly, I could hear the air detonate miles behind me, and as I arrived, the air seemed to scream as the particles of the atmosphere were torn apart by my presence, split into plasma, and a corona of blue-white fire surrounded me for a single instant that lit the sky for miles.

I wondered what anyone looking high up into the heavens at that moment would see.

I hadn’t given everything, but I saw that I had easily crossed twenty miles. I stretched myself a bit, and I crossed forty miles, then fifty.

Even though I may be heading towards the toughest battle of my life, I could not help but laugh. With the map of Aelmar in my head, I picked a river bend I had never once visited, and I was standing over it. Hmm, so Cartography had such a use... how interesting.

Lightning Form: 112 → 115

Cartography: 79 → 85

Feeling the subtle changes in my body, I stopped thinking and went all out, pairing my teleportation with the map of the continent in my head; I vanished and reappeared a hundred miles away, and I continued moving.

∞

As I crossed the world, I did not do it quietly. The trail of my passage carved through the sky like a wound. Where I flickered, the atmosphere itself seemed to tear.

A storm followed in my wake. A trail of lightning stretched for hundreds of miles, leaving scars in the sky that glinted like stars. I was drawing attention, but I was moving too fast for anything to stop me.

While moving, I thought about my Titles, as they would play a pivotal role in the battle ahead.

I have two slots, but as far as I could tell, everyone else only had one. I would not be changing Abyssal Executioner, that would be one of my greatest weapons against the Pale Matron. The four hundred percent gain on demonic essence was crucial to my growth.

And when I added the fact that it uncapped the growth of any of my Celestial skills and gave me enhanced resistance against demonic powers, then I would be a fool not to wear this Title.

So. One slot.

I was going to kill a Transcendental Demon, and a great Title to have at this time would be Death Consort. The many passives she gave me would make this battle more manageable, but I had made a promise to myself with my sister’s ash on my hand, which was that I would not wear that Title again until my Death Resonance reached at least the Arcanist Tier.

Death was not an ally, and she was an even more dangerous enemy. Only with resonance that would give me immunity against her control would I be satisfied using her abilities... The Death Stone was a trap, I knew it, but this was a trap I felt I could manage. Using the Death Stone and Death Consort at the same time would be a grave mistake.

So I took the one that made me better at the only thing I was ever actually good at.

[ The Unbroken Titan — unequipped. ]

[ Lightning Arcanist (Legendary) — equipped. ]

Unbroken Titan made me more durable and resistant to damage, and even gave me an extra life that could aid me in battle, but from the moment I began fighting the demon at the beginning of the loop, my goal was to push my soul to Sovereign.

During my battle with the lesser demons, I had begun to touch the rest of my lightning law shards, and I felt I was so close to mastering them. Lightning Arcanist gave me the ability to easily touch these law shards, and for a battle like I was about to head into, I might find the key that would open the last locks in front of me.

I was powerful now as an Arcanist, but what would I become when I reached Sovereign... I could not wait to find out.

∞

I was two hundred miles from the second Caelith when a domain pressed against me as if a sun was burning in front of me.

This domain was not unfamiliar to me. I did not slow down, I simply turned my perception toward the source. As expected, it was Sovereign Caldus Thorne.

He was standing in the sky, arms crossed, and he was peering at the trail of lightning that I was leaving in the sky. I could see his Grimoire hovering beside him like a small sun, and I knew that he must have felt that I was enough of a threat for him to bring out his most powerful weapon even before facing me.

In a different loop, this man wanted to make me his disciple, and something told me that now he saw me as a threat.

"Whoever you are, your madness stops now," he called out.

His voice carried across the miles, backed by three thousand years of authority. The sky around him burned gold, and I felt a domain begin to spread. It took the shape of a massive flaming hand miles across, and the hand closed around me.

I flickered through his attack, leaving his domain behind me. He was fast for something that had to cross the space between us, and I did not cross anything at all. I was not meant to walk this world when I was in this form.

The flaming hand closed on empty air, and I was already gone.