137
Until one mastered the power to touch the essence of things, this was an iron law almost no flesh-and-blood body could overcome.
Otherwise, that tranquil stretch of sea separating the Four Blues would never have become forbidden territory-the lack of wind was a minor problem; there were always ways to propel a ship.
But the shadows lurking beneath that tranquility, often hundreds of meters long, were the real reason most sailors shrank back.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The dull impacts sounded like ancient war drums. Each time one rang out, a pillar of water exploded toward the gray sky, then fell back as torrential rain.
Circular swells spread outward, churning that stretch of sea into a boiling chaos of white foam.
And at the center of that chaos, locked in combat with the shadow, was a dazzling streak of blue-white lightning, constantly blinking from place to place.
The ability to command lightning granted him speed beyond what the eye could track.
The boy who always looked so casual possessed a beast's instincts in battle.
Rather than thinking, he relied on instinct, scattering tiny arcs of electricity through the air and seawater to weave an invisible net.
Using the natural attraction and repulsion between electrical charges, his figure flashed and veered through that domain along impossible paths, like a living thunderbolt weaving between the flailing giant tentacles.
Amid a piercing hum, his fist, wrapped in explosive lightning, slammed into skin as rough as rock.
The racing lightning trailed broken streaks as his electrically charged fists struck the colossal creature's body again and again.
Every impact brought a dull crash like shattering rock. Yet power capable of tearing steel left only shallow, charred marks and showers of sparks against that body covered in slimy skin.
A spectator's murmur cut through the trembling