Chapter 53: Broken Down
Lying in wait of her death, Ji Tianshan closed her eyes and took her final breath. The bright surge of skyforce penetrated her eyelids, allowing her to catch a glimpse of its splendor.
In her final moment, her mind produced various images of her short life. Her time with her aunt and brother, the earlier years spent with their mother and father, the short time she spent with Mother Guan, and, of course, her time with her fellow students and master.
Her master...
'Wait,' she thought, 'my master probably created this thundercloud giant when he farted a few years ago...'
She opened her eyes and, much to her surprise, the skyforce energy had already passed her by. It did not affect her in the slightest, but instead seemed to be sucked in by her spatial ring. Something inside of it was greedily sucking in ridiculous amounts of skyforce energy.
As if it noticed that its energy had no effect, the thundercloud giant bellowed from within the storm cloud.
Not even waiting for five seconds, it unleashed a far more powerful blast of skyforce energy, this time actually trying to destroy her. Ji Tianshan took on a more relaxed posture and waited for the shower. When it came, the skyforce washed over her and was, again, absorbed. This time, some of the skyforce energy returned from the spatial ring, calm and docile. After entering her body, it steadily healed the injuries she had caused herself earlier.
She was inwardly amazed, but found that this just made sense. She was Logean Wuji's student, and thus was unable to die in this circumstance thanks to the item he had given her. For now, in the early stages of their apprenticeship, Logean Wuji would ensure his students were able to grasp some of their Dao before allowing them to fend for themselves.
Ji Tianshan took out the rectangular battery and saw that it had brightened up a bit. The lifeless grey color was taking steps toward becoming white, but that seemed like it would require both time and a large amount of skyforce energy.
The onlooking crowd was speechless. They had never seen anything like it in their lives. No matter how much the giant raged, blasting her with skyforce energy, Ji Tianshan was not affected. Some of them noticed the stone in her hand, thinking it could be some invaluable nullification magic item.
Still laying carefreely on the floor, Ji Tianshan held up the battery stone. She noticed that, when she did this, all of the skyforce energy would rush toward it as if it were a magnet. This way, it would get even more energy and not just the amount that was coursing through her body.
The thundercloud giant halted its onslaught. It did not seem tired, but the flickering light of its eyes had dimmed substantially. As it stood there in the storm cloud, Ji Tianshan saw it glaring at her with all the hatred of a mortal enemy.
The giant quite literally 'stormed' off, causing thundering shockwaves and multiples flashes of destructive lightning. The onlooking creatures were speechless. Had the giant given up? Was it making a show of surrender by leaving Ji Tianshan alone?
Not at all. It had gone further into the storm cloud, aiming to take hold of the thunder-heart that fueled its storm cloud. It had to be known that, in all the Twilight Desert, that thundercloud giant's storm cloud was the one with the highest concentration of skyforce energy.
This insane level of saturation forced the thundercloud giant to become aligned with the will of skyforce, meaning that it had to enact that will. That was why the giant was compelled to continuously pour skyforce into the crater without end. That was the will of skyforce within the United Realm, something put in place long ago by the creator of the United Realm, Xuyue Zailiang.
As for the case of the thunder-heart, this was the core of the giant's thundercloud. Within the storm cloud, an amalgamation of raw skyforce could be seen. It was oblong, resembling a crystal tear, and filled with reverberating sound waves. Every few seconds, it released a pulse that caused thunder and white lightning, brightening the sky.
The thundercloud giant took its hand and grabbed up the thunder-heart, then shoved it into its chest. Instantly, the entire storm cloud vanished and a massive clearing was made in the sky just above the crater.
Those looking could see the stars of the night sky, a sight that amazed them and saddened them at the same time. The quartzfather and his children looked up and he sighed, "I can scarcely remember the last time I saw the starry sky... I must have been even younger than you two are now."
"It's so pretty! What are those things, father?"
"Those are stars, little one. No one in all the Twilight Desert knows what they are, not even the oldest of us."
"Wow. Not even Elder Wonder Stick knows?"
"That's right, pebble. Not even Elder Wonder Stick knows."
The thundercloud giant was sitting cross-legged in the air, channeling the chaotic energy that was exploding into life inside of it. Being a transparent creature of mist, it was possible to see the thunder-heart within the giant's chest. Tentacle-like limbs grew from the heart and touched the inner body of the giant, which then caused the giant to acquire a more physical form. On the surface of its body, streaming bolts of lightning flashed about.
The thunder-heart suddenly came to life, pulsating with all the might and power of thunder itself. Skyforce flowed like blood within the giant, brightening its body even further. By now, it was like a burning torch of white light, accompanied by occasional streaks of skyforce lightning.
Ji Tianshan was on her feet, holding the battery stone close to her chest.
The giant bellowed, raising its hand as numerous bolts of skyforce lightning sparked into being. Buzzing electricity was now the only sound anyone could hear, and Ji Tianshan suddenly felt a large amount of confidence leave her spirit.
Almost a dozen lightning bolts were hurled toward her without care, aiming to stab into her body and fry her inside and out. Ji Tianshan raised the battery stone, horrified when she saw that the bolts were not changing course. They were still heading directly for her, as if they had not even noticed the battery stone.
Surely Logean Wuji would not have made it that easy.
Ji Tianshan had no time for anything else. She called forth her innate lightning and powered herself up, dodging to the left just in time to have a few near misses with some lightning bolts. Even so, two of them struck her side and came out the other end, splattering the sand with her blood.
A mouthful of boiling blood arose from her throat and she coughed, wincing from two separate pains. The lightning bolts persisted, continuously pumping her full of raw skyforce. Every organ in her body was being charged with enough energy to power entire planets, which made them explode in the blink of an eye.
The thundercloud giant was, finally, able to deal some damage. It smirked, then summoned an additional attack to finish the job.
Ji Tianshan fell on her hands and knees, but was too weak to remain in that position. If it were not for her special constitution, her head would have already exploded into bloody mist. Fortunately, the amount of electricity in her brain was abnormally high, and it was much easier for it to adapt to the foreign energy.
Even so, the skyforce in those lightning bolts seemed to be limitless. They released more and more skyforce energy, yet they had only shrunk by less than a third. Pretty soon, the amount of rampaging skyforce energy in Ji Tianshan's body would prove to be too much for even her abnormal brain to handle.
In the giant's outstretched palm, a spearhead of light slowly formed. It sparked every now and then with white skyforce lightning, making it appear for more destructive than the lightning bolts. In reality, it was an object made from the condensation of skyforce, putting the total amount of energy at more than five times the amount that was in all of the bolts combined.
Ji Tianshan looked up, but her eyes were now being affected. Her vision blurred for a few seconds before fading to black, rendering her completely blind. The skyforce within her was constantly shredding apart her body's defences. The more she resisted, the more it destroyed her completely.
If it were not due to her consistently channeling her innate lightning, she would have already died. It was able to act as a lifeline for her in place of her organs, keeping her alive, but just barely.
With a squeeze, she felt the battery stone still in her hand. She was continually getting weaker, but she was still able to hold on to the stone that her master had given her. Her brain had long entered an overload, providing her with an unnatural amount of energy.
In that moment, racing with thoughts, her brain suggested multiple solutions in a self-healing attempt to eradicate the surplus energy. Sadly, no amount of thinking would be enough to use up all of that energy.
The thundercloud giant gave a final roar, which was the last thing Ji Tianshan heard before her hearing also shut off. She could only lay on the floor and wait, without any idea as to what was about to happen to her.
With all of her remaining energy, she squeezed the battery stone again. One of her solutions had been to try to draw out some of the energy that was absorbed by the battery to heal like she had done earlier.
She could scarcely concentrate, but with the trace amounts of focus available to her she was able to send her tiny scrap of divine will out to the battery stone.
To her dismay, nothing happened.
In that instant, the giant's spearhead struck and destroyed her body completely. All of her was destroyed, turned into specks of blood and meat. The only thing that remained in the space where she was were a number of glittering particles, like tiny lights in the air.
In something of a void, Ji Tianshan's mind was stunned awake. She could not see or hear, feel or smell or taste. She could not tell if she was upside down or not, nor could she discern where any part of her body was. All she knew was that she existed in this blackness.
It was in that blackness that her mind produced a thought.
'Just what is skyforce?'
This thought had a passive effect. The lingering skyforce in the crater was called forth by those particles of light, and the giant cried out in rage. It had been about to restore the heart of its storm cloud, but it suddenly sensed weak fluctuations of life coming from those particles.
It turned around and quickly produced six more lightning bolts, but this time they were far larger than those before. Even its body was not able to withstand too much of the raw skyforce energy, so it could only produce a smaller amount of bolts that were less concentrated.
Even so, the giant felt that this would be enough to eliminate all traces of Ji Tianshan, the pest.
Ji Tianshan's mind was still in that blackness, trying to ascertain what skyforce was, in essence. The tiny amount of skyforce it had pulled in from the crater was not enough, but luckily a large amount of raw skyforce was now on its way.
Without even striking, those bolts were deconstructed, releasing the skyforce energy within them. That energy was brought over to the particles of light, which were the remnant pieces of Ji Tianshan's mind.
After assessing this large amount of skyforce, Ji Tianshan had another thought.
'So this is skyforce? Haogui would be mad at me for being so stupid.'
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
-- Power
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