- [Envoy of Lightning]

Of all the elements, Lightning has always been the most violent and destructive. It is also one of the hardest elements to control.

However, any elemental mage with the affinity to lightning mana has been regarded as a rare talent and most of them have achieved greatness in their lives.

Unfortunately, Arissef was not one of them.

Just like what the figure said before, he did not have any talent in magic, nor was he blessed with abundant mana or loved by any element in particular.

When Drago heard Arissef retell what he did at the end, his heart clenched. It explained all the bandages and casts he had while lying down on the hospital bed.

...

"I will need your help later on. Rest up first." Arissef said as he stretched his body.

"Be careful." Edge responded. He backed away and sat cross-legged trying to hasten his recovery process.

Arissef nodded and turned to look at the groggy Barazi who just walked out from a crevice he made as he crashed through the wall.

Barazi was unscathed by the lightning blast earlier. It was only because of the discharge force of the lightning and him being caught off guard that he was turned into a projectile.

It would not work on him twice.

Of course, Arissef knew this would happen. With Edge not being able to cut him with his blade, there was little chance his magic could do better.

Despite the violence of lightning magic, the overall power of any magic spell is proportional to the mana being infused in the spell, the tier or quality of the spell, the conduit or catalyst being used, and the magic formation.

He lacked mana the most and he could not cast highly complex spells nor did he own a powerful conduit. Therefore, he could only improve on magic formations.

In his case, he became one of the monster rookies with his advanced mastery of magic circles, runes, and chants.

To make it easier to understand, think of Magic as Mathematics.

The spell is the math equation to which everything must follow to arrive at an intended result. This equation is absolute and any deviation to its terms will arrive at a different one. For example, 1 + 1 is always 2.

Mana is the ink to which the Equation is written and maintained. The greater the quality and quantity of the ink used, the more pronounced and intense the effect.

The conduit is the tool used to write the equation. It aids the user by improving the ease, accuracy, and speed of the spell's construction.

Finally, the magic formations are the operations within the equation. In Math, there is Addition, Subtraction, Division, Multiplication, Squaring, Rooting, Factoring, etc. In Magic, the operations are Magic Circles, Runes, Sigils, Chants, Rituals, Symbols, Totems, etc.

The rationale is that the more operations being performed in a spell, the greater the effect will be despite being the same spell.

This is because with more operations being used, more mana can be infused.

For example, 1+1=2 can also be written as 1+1+0=2 or [1(1)+1(1)+1/1-2/2](1)=2.

Clearly, you will need more ink in writing the second and especially the third equation but still, the result will be '2' nonetheless. This is why a lot of high-tier spells have long chants or why all forbidden spells have backlashes to serve as part of the formation like a loan of mana to be paid after the casting of the spell.

Arissef wrote magic circles and runes all over his body and pumped lightning mana into them. In other words, he created battery cells, attached them to his body, and charged them for his use later on.

The difference with storing all these up rather than casting them instantly was that he could store more mana in them as he was downing mana potions and converting them to his own, resulting in more output for the spells while bypassing his low mana capacity.

Remember that the more the operations that are included in the spell, the greater the capacity for mana and the greater the output. In his case, he used multiple magic circles, runes, and symbols all over his body like he was cosplaying Ryze. [1] Not only that, but he included chants as well as a ritual.

The key here was time. With how fast-paced a battle could be, he could not do all of these, while worrying about the opponent. With this form he called [Envoy of Lightning], he could focus on fighting continuously for a time.

However, the downside to this was that spells are naturally supposed to be triggered as they are filled with enough mana unless the caster intentionally held off in pronouncing the last syllable of the chant or completing the spell itself. In such cases, the caster must know the principles of magic formations and how to just barely complete them until they need to cast them.

This puts a lot of strain on the caster's mental ability more than anything else. With Arissef doing this simultaneously across several spells, one mistake or loss of conscious thought would endanger him of imploding himself with the mana backflow.

Add that to the fact that he made his own body as the conduit and the canvas for all these spells at the same time. These were not stickers or tattoos that you can simply forget after they are planted on your body. These spells were filled with violent lightning mana.

Imagine covering your body with electrical wires and the electricity passing through them is just barely below their maximum capacity. One mistake or one freak surge could spell death by electrocution.

To put it simply, Arissef is walking on a tightrope while facing Barazi.

Currently, the two were battling it out with Barazi trying to claw Arissef's guts out while the latter kept throwing lightning spells on the former.

To make it up for the difference in speed, Arissef also included spells that used lightning to enhance his reaction speed and mobility just like when Killua used Godspeed [2].

Barazi was already at his peak performance as he became more and more aggressive as time went by.

However, he did not notice the changes in his body as the battle progressed.

Arissef was sweating buckets after a significant amount of exchanges. The number of spells remaining on his body was dangerously low. His movements turned sluggish as fatigue set in.

When Barazi noticed this, he pounced at Arissef at full power seeking to deal a deadly blow.

However, just as he swung his claws towards Arissef's chest, he was confused as he did not feel any impact despite completing his attack and Arissef being locked in place.

It was only after he heard a thud on the ground that he realized that Edge was beside him and that he just lost one of his forearms.

"Did you forget about me?" Edge said softly despite being filled to the brim with killing intent.

At this, Barazi instinctively jumped back as the forearm he just lost was slowly being reformed.

Edge and Arissef wore serious looks as they saw this.

The forearm on the floor was sizzling and started to disintegrate.

"Can you still fight?" Edge asked Arissef to which the latter nodded in response.

They charged together and fought against Barazi, overwhelming him with combat experience and positioning.

Arissef, with less load on his shoulders due to Edge joining the battle as well as the lesser number of spells on his body he needed to maintain, matched his rhythm with Edge and even shot some of his lightning spells towards Edge's weapons emulating a brief lightning enchantment upon contact with Barazi's body.

Barazi was confused as to why they were able to injure him but he then realized some discolored areas on his skin as they crackled with traces of electricity.

Then he noticed that both Arissef and Edge's attacks were concentrated on those areas.

"WHAT'S GOING ON???" Barazi shouted with rage as the two continued to cover him with wounds.

The next instant, he lost a leg and then an arm.

Edge proceeded to cut off his other two limbs.

Finally, Arissef used all his remaining lightning spells to cauterize Barazi's stumps, damaging his tissues to drastically reduce his regeneration speed.

What happened during the battle was that Arissef targeted Barazi's joints to both dampen his combat ability and slowly destroy the cells repeatedly forcefully whittling down their integrity every time they regenerated.

Edge noticed this as he was observing the battle. In his eyes, Arissef was marking the areas where he should attack when he returned to the battle.

The coordination between the two was flawless despite their condition.

Now, Barazi was wailing with his face to the floor after experiencing what he did.

Then, Edge approached Barazi.

"We should take him to the king!" Arissef said as he panted heavily and fell to his knees.

An uneasy feeling suddenly pervaded his heart as he saw Edge accumulating death energy and plunged a dagger down the screaming Barazi's heart slowly as if he wanted the demon to feel every excruciating second of his death.

At this, Arissef was silent. He knew it was almost impossible for Edge to spare the man who did those cruel things to his wife... However, he also knew that Barazi turning into a monster was the only proof they had that Edge was innocent in all of this.

However, his body was now crumbling to dust.

When the final remnants of Barazi were no more, Edge rose and walked past Arissef towards Amber's corpse.

"Don't worry about me." Edge solemnly said.

Edge dropped to his knees beside his wife and grabbed her cold hand as tears gushed from his eyes like waterfalls.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't protect you or Dhana."

[1] Ryze, The Runemage, is a champion in League of Legends who has etched magic runes all over his body and has avast knowledge of the arcane, being able to cast a variety of spells.

[2] Godspeed is a nen or aura ability that Killua uses in Hunter X Hunter. With his aura developed to have the same properties as electricity, he came up with the ability by using his aura to enhance his reaction speed and mobility, as well as provide his attacks with an added electrocution effect.