Tower of God: Sequence Strength

An eclipse of lightning exploded out of his body and spread out quickly, writhing, turning and twisting in an effervescence as if he was nothing short of a god of lightning descended upon the world to deliver heavenly retribution. The grass around him burned up into the air as the air began to vibrate through reaching temperatures not normally found in such environments.

Winston's eyes gleamed as he expressed his elation with an exaggerated smile. He had seen what the young man did. It was a baang of lightning shinsu, concentrated into a material sphere that could boost his power tremendously for a short period of time. And from what he could learn from his eyes, his power was still increasing, getting stronger and stronger; but there was just one flaw to all of it. The rapid influx of shinsu put strain on his muscles, tightening them beyond what he was normally built for. Not only that, all his bodily functions were dialed to the maximum and his brain had been forcefully turned into the state of 'zone,' all of which would render him incapable of fighting some time later; that is if the slowly spreading black colour through his body could be taken as an indication.

That's a useful little trick. If it can be improved, using it on an avatar might come in handy. Winston mused. But before he could have any more time to analyze, Ran opened his eyes. There was a minor change on his face. It was a small black mark on his cheek, just below his eye. A manifestation of the shinsu influx, no doubt.

There was no more delay. A sound rang in everyone's ears. The sound of impending thunder and a blue light flashed. And there he was. Ran had reached Winston in the blink of an eye, covering a distance of 100 meters instantaneously! With a leg laced in neon blue lightning that promised pain to whoever it touched, Ran performed a sweeping kick towards Winston's head.

bam!

A voice of an impact. Winston's head rolled clean off his body before he even knew how to react. The lightning burned away at his open neck, cauterizing the wound before a fountain of blood could spurt out to paint the grass red.

Ran's eyes widened, and so did everyone else's. Khun stopped in his tracks, holding a fist full of popcorn just before his mouth which was wide open. His eyes couldn't be seen but there was no doubt that they held an expression of shock. All the members of the team slowly turned their eyes from Winston's now dead body towards Khun.

What in the hell? Weren't you so confident about him?! How did he die from one attack!?

There was a pregnant silence in the area. A popcorn fell from his hand and back into the basket.

At that moment, someone chuckled. Everyone turned to look at the source, seeing Winston all good and well standing some distance from Ran. The curious thing was, his headless body was still standing beside the fisherman from the Khun family.

"Why are you all so surprised?" The Winston whose head was still intact said with a smile. "It's all good. No tragedy happened here."

Apple who was sitting beside Khun spoke with a mutter. "H-How in the-"

But before she could finish her sentence, the headless Winston waved to everyone and crumpled down into a burnt pile of paper. Every was silent again.

"Yep. That's Winston." Khun smile knowingly. Of course, he had no idea what the hell had just transpired. But he did know Winston was an irregular, as did everyone else in the original team save for Rachel. And irregulars come with all sorts of strange powers and Khun was not one to doubt them.

Of course, this was a usage of paper figurine substitution; and possibly mixed with a bit of illusion.

Ran who was standing in a dumbfounded surprise instantly regained his composure. Now, his anger seemed to only be enhanced.

Boom!

A sonic boom, and with it, Ran appeared high in the air with lightning at his fingertips.

"Mascheny style." He said, the lightning at his hands growing restless. Winston smiled at him and prepared to clash. Just then, a vision overlapped his senses and he turned around, just in time to block another attack from Novick.

"Crimson Soul Fist- Crimson Bell Shock Seal!" He yelled slamming his punch enveloped by a bellowing red flame right into Winston's crossed arms. Contrary to Winston's expectations however, it launched him right into the air instead of back, leaving his back open for an attack. At that moment, he heard Ran's chilling voice.

"Grand Electrica Perla!" Yelled the voice.

The lightning in Ran's hands expanded instantly, transforming into a giant spear that stretched dozens of meters long! And it dashed at Winston, who was in the air still with half the speed of light!

Boom!

Crash!

Shaaaaaa!

A giant dust cloud covered everyone's eyes, preventing them from seeing the battlefield and barring them from knowing the true state of the clash. Then, a gigantic gust of wind blew across the entire field and Novick appeared from inside it, holding a curved blade above him.

He swung the blade downwards, sending another gust of wind that cleared out the battlefield completely. And as he did, his eyes could not help but widen. There stood Ran on the ground, a flabbergasted look on his face and his eyes fixated on Winston's still standing figure. And in Winston's hands rested a spear of blue lightning, thrown comfortable above his shoulder as he looked towards Ran with a smile.

"It's quiet easy to catch lightning shinsu if it's concentrated like that. Simply encasing it in a veil of similarly charge shinsu is enough." He explained. Although here, the concept of electrons and like and unlike charges was technically invalid, any explanation he could give was ultimately true. Shinsu acted as he envisioned it.

If only he envisioned it to behave as he deemed it to, it would behave as so. Of course, it wasn't so simple in practice. Simple envisioning could not achieve the effect, far from it; if it could, everyone would be a God. There was also the matter of two antagonistic envisioning clashing with each other. How would that be solved? Shinsu was far more complex than any explanation could have it. It was a matter of continuous experience, something Winston had done.

As Winston's words landed, both Ran and Novick began to move. Novick hauled his arm back and with a tremendous effort, he threw the curved blade in his arms, right towards the back of Winston's head!

The throw broke the sound barrier. Winston ducked at the last moment, making the projectile pass right over him. He narrowed his eyes at Novick. "That's dangerous."

Lightning dashed around him as Ran appeared, a needle made out of pure lightning in his hand. Winston and Ran began to exchange blows, rushing all over the battlefield in a rough contest of strength and speed; but above all skill. Since it was a spear in his hand and not a needle, Winston had some problems with adjusting at first, but he quickly adapted. At that moment, Novick also appeared to fortify their defenses and put pressure on him!

Whooooosh! Fwoooo!

Baaaam! Boom!

Hundreds of blows rained from both sides. At a point, Winston was even caught between their skimirish and almost hit. But considering beyonders at the mid sequence were able to dodge light beams quite regularly, it would truly be a work of wonder if he was hit.

His feet skid along the dirt, drawing a long trench as he skidded to a halt. Without any rest, Ran was over him again. The lightning in Winston's hand had waned, disappearing into the ether. As of now, he was fighting only with his fists. Lightning roared atop Ran, transforming into various electric baangs that coalesced before him.

"Mascheny Lightning Spear Style- Grand Espada de La Luz!" With a yell, a giant lightning beam descended from his hands and rushed towards his torso! Winston tilted his body at the last second, narrowly avoiding the bolt and letting it pass right through. Then, with a smile and extended his hand towards Ran. He flicked his wrist and a ball of light dashed out from Ran's body and merged into Winston's.

Whooosh!!

Novick appeared right beside him, his hand held in a stance and punched out without a word, a fiery red glow around his body!

Winston retaliated with twisting his body and simultaneously, 7 baangs appeared in the air around them!

"Shi-" Novick didn't even have the time to get a single word in before getting bombarded with baangs, throwing him far away and making him incapacitated for the rest of the battle.

As that was done, he held a warm and compassionate smile on his face and looked over towards Ran.

"You don't seem to have enough time here." He said, seeing clear through his body condition. The black had now spread through most of his muscles and was clouding over his organs. Normally, something like this would be considered quite fatal for an individual, however, Ran was quite alright because the leading cause of this was his own shinsu.

He raised an eyebrow and scowled.

"I have more than enough time to deal with you." He said and lightning began to blaze once again. He held out his hand beside him and spoke. "Mascheny style-" Then he paused.

He stared at his hand for a moment before his hair stood on end.

Rapidly, he backed off and looked towards Winston who only smiled with a baleful expression and held out his hand just like Ran did.

"Mascheny style- Lanza de Relampago." He spoke with a clear voice, the words resounding throughout the training field and beyond. Then, neon blue came to life and coiled like serpents on his arms. A bright light materialized and elongated along his hand, taking the shape of a giant sword.

Although the theft of thoughts and knowledge could only be done at the level of a Dream Stealer, which was a Sequence 5 of the Error Pathway, this was, in essence, neither a theft of knowledge nor a theft of ability. It lied somewhere in between. And who would be better to exploit such a loophole than him? It was a simple fix. Use 'Deception' on the shinsu and enhance his ability using it, now allowing him to steal the ability clean. Naturally, Decryption had already worked its magic and now, Winston had begun to emulate the spear throwing style with greater precision and power than Ran himself.

Smiling at Ran who had took a stance and prepared to defend himself, Winston could not help but be pleased at his adaptability. He had realized something was wrong. He had lost the ability to use Mascheny style and now Winston was the one using it. But he had neither the time nor the opportunity to think it over, so naturally, he improvised. It was better than how most people would do in his situation.

Seeing him be so attention, Winston simply snapped his fingers and appeared right behind him in a puff of flame. And now, seeing him still fixated on an illusion he had promptly left behind, he struck the regular right on the back, triggering a giant explosion of blue lightning and knocking him right out.

His illusion ability had also been upgraded, now being able to easily fool natural shinsu sensing, something that took a lot of concentration before.

After everything was done, Winston turned to the onlookers and gave them a bright smile.

~~~

A/N: Take the time to donate some stones please. Also, tell me your thoughts until now. How do you think the second volume is coming along?