Chapter 202: Throne Of The Open Sky

Kalon and Thea stood in the quiet of the top-floor apartment after the return.

Then the system opened on its own.

[Quest Complete: Offworld Claim]

[Reward Granted]

Kalon focused at once.

「Affinity Awakened: Lightning」

「Physical Trait Gained: Stormvein Body」

「(SSS+) Passive Skill Acquired: Throne of the Open Sky」

He read the descriptions carefully.

Stormvein Body altered the conductive pathways through his flesh and nerves.

Lightning would no longer treat him as ordinary matter. Charge could gather under his skin, answer his will faster, and leave his body tougher against electrical backlash.

Throne of the Open Sky was an even stranger change.

It was passive, but not quiet. As long as Kalon stood beneath open sky and released even a fraction of his lightning, the atmosphere above him would respond.

Clouds would gather. Pressure would drop. Charge would climb through the air in a widening crown until the sky itself looked organised around his position. The stronger his output, the more complete the effect became. At full expression, the passive would mark the heavens so clearly that anyone watching would struggle to see him as just as a human.

Thea noticed the change in his face.

"What is it?"

"Lightning," Kalon said. "New affinity. And a passive that works best under open sky."

Her blue eyes sharpened immediately.

"Then we should test it."

They took the private stair to the building’s rooftop access.

The high-rise cut cleanly above the surrounding blocks, leaving a broad open platform of pale stone and glass barriers.

Above them, the evening sky was mostly clear, stained orange at the far edge and deepening to blue-black overhead.

From this height, the city spread in every direction. It looked beautiful.

Thea walked to the railing and looked down.

"My mother used to say the sky over the capital remembers strong people," she said. "Old fighter superstition. Before the big organisations finished dividing everything up, people claimed that if a man’s power was large enough, the weather itself got unsettled around him." She glanced back at Kalon. "Most modern instructors call it nonsense."

"Most modern instructors have never left this planet," Kalon said.

He stepped into the centre of the rooftop and let Stormvein Body wake fully.

Charge crawled under his skin at once. It was different from fire, earth, ice, dark, or light. Those had weight or direction. Lightning felt eager. It wanted channel, height, and release.

The air near his hands dried out and faintly prickled. Thea’s hair shifted in the changing pressure before any visible spark appeared.

Kalon raised one hand and fed power upward.

Throne of the Open Sky answered.

The effect did not stay small. Clouds pulled in from the far edges of the district as if dragged by invisible threads. They stacked above them in a thickening disc, grey-white at the rim and denser toward the centre.

The evening colour drained out of the air directly overhead. Street noise from below seemed to become quieter under the sudden change in pressure.

In the nearest towers, a few windows lit up as people noticed the sky changing, despite the weather forecast promising sun.

Thea backed one step toward the rail. She looked frightened.

"Kalon..."

He pushed more power around himself.

A pillar of pale charge shot from his body into the forming cloud mass. It did not look like a normal lightning strike. This seemed like something much more powerful.

Sparks ran sideways through the clouds and stitched them tighter together. The centre of the mass began to turn, slow and heavy.

From the streets below, the high-rise would no longer have looked like just another expensive building. It would have looked like the point under a forming throne of storm.

Kalon felt the passive skill acknowledging him.

This was not a discreet skill. Everyone would know that something unnatural was happening to the world right now. Anyone with sense.

Throne of the Open Sky made a statement whether he wanted one or not. If he used it in a sanctioned match, commentators would not need enhanced lenses to notice. If he used it in public, ordinary people would talk about it in the same breath as old legends.

Thea’s voice cut through the wind.

"It looks like the sky is answering you."

"I know... I feel like god."

He lowered the output before the charge could climb into a full country-wide event.

The clouds shuddered, held, then began to loosen by degrees. The pillar of pale light thinned and sank back into his frame.

Pressure eased. The worst of the artificial storm above the rooftop faded away into ordinary evening again.

Even then, residual static clung to the platform rails.

Thea walked back over to him, eyes bright, cheeks flushed from wind and awe.

"Kalon... This is something else. Out of all your skills, this seems the most powerful! And you said it’s only a passive?"

Kalon flexed his fingers once. Tiny threads of charge still jumped between them before vanishing.

"You’re right, this is definitely one of the most powerful. However, all of my different skills are unbelievable in different ways. This one is just the most flashy... I think."

Thea was quiet for a second. Then she smiled, small and fierce.

"Haha, look at you. With so many skills to choose from, it’s hard to even figure out which one is the greatest."

Around them, the upper city continued as if nothing had happened, but a few distant news reporters had already started speaking about the mysterious event.

Somewhere below, people would be asking whether a pro exhibition had been scheduled without notice.

But for those who were a big fan of Kalon and had been following his journey, they made have been able to make a wild guess that this ferocious power might have belonged to him.

Kalon looked up at the last of the artificial cloud breaking apart overhead.

Lightning now lived in him with the rest. And under open sky, the world would not let anyone miss it.