(Third POV)
The crashing sound of lightening was the next thing that widely sounded through the area.
The mantis monster was thrown back by the hit at the face from Rudeus, not blocked due to the unimaginable speed he has brought out.
Within the sight of the little girl was the latest, perhaps even strongest, technique Rudeus has developed in the three months in Rosenburg.
Light blue gauntlets and boots as if made from a projection, a sparkling and radiating aura of pure lightning, his hair having become spiky from the electricity, the scars on his face glowing purple, and his eyes turning dark purple.
Standing in the position of his punch against the monster, Rudeus breathed out.
As he moved his hind leg to position it next to his other, he lowered his arms and stood proudly.
This new technique of his has been given the name [Raijin-jū].
The core execution of this technique comes from an anime that Rudeus remembered when he was thinking about a way to make his Lightning Magic more useful.
In the anime he remembered, the character transformed his energy within himself into electricity to enhance his speed and strength.
A lot of trials and failures were made to finally produce a finished result.
He recreated that technique by letting his mana circulate precisely within his body before he ran through a [Columunimbus] cloud, making the mana in his body be the mana used to create [Lightning]. But he had to be careful not to accidentally stop his heart from beating.
The armament he wore from his Barrier Magic was able to not only contain his Magic, but was also empowered by the lightning it had coursing through it, as it seems to be able to hold this element within itself.
This technique has only elements a magician could fathom in it, as Rudeus has found out that [Lightning] actually ignores Touki.
There was one problem, however.
'DEAR GODDESS, IT HURTS MORE THAN LAST TIME!'
While keeping a stoic expression (because he can't exactly change it) he remembered the first realization he had after his first improvements he had made with this technique.
He forgot that the character he tried to copy was a freak of nature having experienced worse than being electrocuted or such. A character more monster than himself to be even best friends with a freak.
And now, Rudeus struggled to get the right flow of mana done to minimize the pain output, but failed continuously.
If it weren't for his numerous incidents of him getting hurt in ways no one had altogether in their whole life, he would have gone insane from it.
With the help of Gravity Magic and repetitive on and off turning of his thought acceleration technique that both paired well with this one, he was able to control his movements with clear perception.
As the mantis monster got ready for another attack with its sickles, Rudeus did the same for another punch, aimed at the head this time. In this state, he isn't able to use any normal Attack Magic besides lightning-based attacks and the help of [Specter Force] and Gravity Magic.
The limit didn't matter to his mana capacity as he infuses ambient mana naturally, or how well he has set the flow of mana within him.
The monster dashed forward only to give Rudeus a feint by stepping to the right before getting close to him.
That, however, was thwarted as Rudeus saw that move in his perception of slow motion.
With a right jab, the sound of thunder hitting the ground rumbled through the air.
The mantis monster immediately began going for another attack, but was stopped midway by another punch from Rudeus.
In his steps it seemed like multiple rows of thunder struck as he ran to the monster at the speed of light.
The insect creature, now sliding backwards on its back, felt something it never had.
It used to think that it was one of the fastest creatures in the world. But now a tiny creature is showing it how wrong these assumptions were.
With its pride being stomped on, the monster stood back up and tensing its entire body to go serious.
When Rudeus came for another punch with his left fist, the insect gripped the ground with its feet and bend backwards to surprise attack him on both sides with its sickles.
To its demise, Rudeus saw this feint coming with his thought acceleration and manipulated the gravity on his arm to strike the creature with his elbow to its pyramid shaped eye.
Like a proper lightning strike, it hit the ground and scattered the earth beneath it.
To avoid any new attacks from up close, Rudeus retrieved and waited for the dust to clear.
Unsurprisingly, the monster stood up again and readied for the next set of attacks. Its left eye was damaged to the point where it couldn't see with it anymore, thickened blue blood flowing out of it.
What made Rudeus boil from anger was that the creature aimed at the little girl this time.
The little girl shuddered from getting locked on by the eyes of the terrifying creature that had played with her by making her run from it.
She was about to run for her life a second time, but the monster was obviously faster than that.
Before it could have even gotten closer to her, he was intercepted by Rudeus who blocked its sickles with his gauntlets.
What followed was a barrage of attacks crashing against each other all over the area between two competitors for a contest of speed and wits.
The little girl was in an awe. She may be young, but even she understood just how powerful this white haired person must be to keep up with such a vicious monster.
For her, this young man has become a hero.
That hero, however, struggled to handle this monster. He may out speed this creature but what he lacks is proper training in bare hand combat.
This technique was originally meant to be used against people who used swords, but not something that had weapons for hands. Even if he were to wield his poison sword, the metal would experience excessive heat due to the electricity that would flow through it.
Targeting weak spots like joints or, whenever the chance arrives, the other eye, he hit them with his fist as much as he could.
The barrage of attacks stopped, and both sides needed to take a break, keeping their eyes locked on each other.
Under normal circumstances these intense movements would have severe muscle pain, but the electro-stimulation does better than Rudeus would have thought.
'Hehehe….. Uh oh.'
As he was so fixated on fighting, he forgot the major side effect [Raijin-jū] will cause after an undetermined amount of time.
"Hehehe… hahaha…"
Giggling out of nowhere, Rudeus started to grab his stomach and bender forward, making himself vulnerable to the monster.
Taking no risk at this opportunity, it went for an upper slash at the young Magician.
"FUWAHAHAHA~"
Throwing his head back, Rudeus let out a mighty yet boisterous laugh, his hands clutching his stomach from the intensity.
Thunder erupted from that laughter and pushed everything, including the ground beneath him, away. Hysterical laughter paired with bursts of lightning filled the area with lots of terror.
The little girl was surprised instead of scared and confused. Having someone come to save her in the first place was something she didn't even think was possible before Rudeus came.
The one who was confused about this kind of behavior was the mantis monster. It made it feel mocked.
Soon, the laughter subsided, and Rudeus looked at the monster with a big confident smirk on his face.
In this state of mind he is currently in, he can unleash more of his [Raijin-jū] power than before.
After an uncertain time, the lightning accumulated in his body reaches a part of his brain that puts him in a mental state different from ever before. A state of euphoria.
He still goes through intense pain but can't notice it in this state.
"Man, I feel soooooo much better. Wait a second, I need to fix something."
Having lost most of his observant self, he made some adjustments to his appearance with Barrier Magic.
The three scars on his forehead started to grow horns, the middle one the tip of a katana, and the outer ones reversed goat horns that pointed backwards.
His ponytail started glow light blue like his arms and legs and form a line like a single lightning bolt.
He added claws to his hands and feet, and gave himself a waving waistcoat with lightning covers on it that reached down to his ankles, and on the buckle he added his Great World Power symbol.
His lightning aura formed together into a floating blue shawl that went around his head, past his shoulders and down to his waist.
"There we go." Rudeus said with a satisfied smile over his new design. "Why didn't sane-Rudeus add this? This is much cooler."
The reason was that none of this had any practicality to it, only authentic purposes.
The claws are the only exception, but those require better control over Barrier Magic, which he doesn't have in the initial state of [Raijin-jū].
Looking over to the mantis monster, he watched as the monster froze confused. With the amount of power that surged through this person, it actually anticipated some sort of attack.
A cackle slipped from Rudeus as he imagined how much he can let his creativity flow.
"Hehehe… fwuhahahaha *inhale*... you're gonna die."
A level of confidence never evident on his face before became more frightening, as the second pass for the mantis monster.
Seeing this as a fluke, the mantis monster went for another attack, going for a cross slash with both of us sickles.
This time, however, Rudeus was even faster than before now that his pain perception was completely gone.
A punch in the belly of the monster and it dragged backwards while holding on to the ground with its feet.
For the first time, it got its attack intercepted before it saw a glimpse of it coming.
Angered by how the young Magician still managed to go beyond what it thought was his limit, it went for another barrage of attack.
With great laughter, Rudeus dodged the attacks and exchanged some of his own.
He managed to land more punches on the monster than it could follow.
Throughout the following strikes, Rudeus kept on having an irritating smile. Compared to the previous stoic expression, this one was more infuriating.
In the middle of the barrage, Rudeus came up with a thrilling idea of what to scream out with his next round of punches.
"ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA~"
Several strikes that practically broke the sound barrier were executed as if many swordsmen were using the [Longsword of Silence] in a row.
As bizarre as this way of exclamation was, it helped Rudeus get more pumped up for his punches until he basically gave the insect creature a bombardment of pulverizing punches.
But this came with a cost of Rudeus dislocating his arms over and over again. Luckily, his control over his gauntlets allowed him relocate them instantly for the next punch.
This attack made the creature fall back yet again, but with a greater distance to the little girl.
Rudeus saw this as an opportunity to use one of the deadly attacks [Raijin-jū] has to offer.
By firmly grasping his left arm close to the elbow with his right hand, he fuelled his barrier-gauntlet with a sufficient amount of lightning turned mana as it could handle.
The gauntlet itself started to let out the sound of thousands of sparks as it got charged up.
Once there was enough mana charged, he ran straight to the creature, moving fast enough to give it a perfect [Longsword of Light] with his hand alone.
In return, the monster tried to give Rudeus another strike, but inevitably got its entire right arm destroyed from his charged gauntlet.
With a part of its body missing, the mantis monster cautiously backed off, rubbing its mandibles together like a human would be scrunching their teeth.
Meanwhile, Rudeus cackled over the hopeless state the monster was in right now.
"Awww, is little maggot getting scared?" Rudeus tauntingly told the monster.
The mantis monster, not intelligent enough to understand Rudeus's words, could still fathom the meaning of them with the tone of voice he's been using. It was a mockery.
Doing something it never had to think of as an option before, the creature decided to run away from the maniac Magician.
But as it was only a few meters away, Rudeus threw one of his lightning induced kunai at its legs, severing the left one.
Having lost its powerful limb, it stumbled in a rather embarrassing manor.
"Awesome~. I didn't know I could induce elements into them. Anime power rules!" He said with one of his fists up in triumphant over this new unpredicted discovery.
Despite losing one of its strongest body parts, the creature tried to get as far away as possible from these madmen by using its remaining sickle as a hook to drag itself forward.
"What? Still wanting to live? Well, too bad. That's what you get for harassing a little girl. I should know, I've been where you are. Just needs a little more death."
He then held his fist before his chest, his thumb outstretched and pointing up.
"I'm sorry to be the bringer of this instead of the god of death, but this path you keep going for is a-" he said before slowly turning his hand to point his thumb down.
"Dead End."
To his attempt to look somewhat tough, there wasn't a response from the monster, and instead it scurried further away.
"Hmmm, tough crowd. Oh, well."
With everything said, he started to charge for his next attack.
Swinging his right arm like a wheel, the lightning sparking from the barrier gauntlet charged up from catching and gathering ambient mana.
After ten seconds, he stopped swinging his arm, but the lightning around his gauntlet still spun like a spiral.
With his left palm pointing at the monster, he held his other hand back.
"I'm calling this, [Terabolt]!"
Right after screaming out the name he chose, he pulled his left hand back while swinging his right forward, releasing the spiraling lightning.
A wide electrical cyclone of thunderstorms exuded from his charged fist, destroying the terrain, twisting everything around, and advancing towards the monster.
As soon as the torrent caught up to the mantis monster, it got spun around while simultaneously getting shredded apart.
As the last bit of it disappeared into dust, the thunderstorm exploded in a big bang, shaking the earth and vibrating the air from its lightning-like explosion.
And this ended the fight, which finished with an attack in which overkill was a clear understatement.
But that was not all. It also ended Rudeus's usage of [Raijin-jū].
Still in the position at which he threw his blast at, his aura and gauntlets vanished, and his appearance was back to normal, except for smoking from inducing himself in lightning.
Falling on his back, he luckily fell with his right palm touching his chest. That allowed him to manipulate his mana for some Healing Magic.
***
(Rudeus POV)
Okay, what was that about?!
Last time I was in that state, I was fighting against Soldat and the others, but I only vaguely recall me being that cocky.
The speed I was using surpassed even Ghislaine's and Ruijerd's. Though, I was more coordinated than ever before as I had better footing with the claws on my feet.
Just imagining what I could do once I found a proper practitioner of weaponless combat makes me shudder.
As I healed myself, I sensed that the little girl ran over to me, stumbling a few times because of the length of my robe.
Once I managed to sit up, I tried massaging my shoulders.
The speed in I swung my arms with was probably on the level of a [Longsword of Light].
'Does that make me a Sword Saint, or am I more of a faux Sword Saint? Is there someone apart from Orsted and me who can do that? Questions for later.'
Ruffling myself up on my feet, I turned to look at how the little girl was doing.
To my surprise, there was nothing particularly wrong with her, but something I almost let out laughter for.
The thunderstorm I've caused has made the area a bit statically charged up. To point out the problem in simple words, her hair was standing up.
She had a bit of voluminous shoulder long hair already, so she looked like a mannequin with an orange hairdo put on it.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't come closer." I said holding out both of my hands.
She is currently electrically charged, so she might zap herself on me if she gets too close.
This world is still unknown to the power source known as electricity, so she may think I attacked her once she gets scared by it.
But I was surprised to see her laughing the moment she looked at me.
'Wait, I didn't do any funny faces… did I?'
I started to scratch the back of my head in confusion. Is this some sort of natural behavior you do towards your savior?
However, I came to the cause of her laughter. Or rather, I touched it.
My hair, it was still standing. I'm still electrically charged. Perhaps even the whole area is.
This was the first time I used this technique in such quantities of mana, so even I don't know how long this could last.
At the very least, the little girl wasn't scared anymore and me and her had something to laugh about for now.
///