Thunderclad Savior

Chapter 2: Conductor of Pain

The world didn’t just turn white; it turned into a cacophony of agony. Raka felt his muscles seize, his nerves firing in a synchronized scream of overload. The scent of ozone and scorched ozone filled his lungs, and for a fleeting, terrifying second, he forgot how to breathe.

He slammed into the jagged rock, the impact jarring his teeth. Smoke curled from his tunic, and his skin felt like it had been flayed by a thousand needles.

“Is that it?” Raka choked out, his voice a pathetic rasp. He tried to push himself up, but his arms turned to jelly. “Is that… meant to kill me?”

The system didn't deign to reply. Above him, the vortex of purple-black clouds swirled with a hunger that felt sentient. The silence that followed the first strike was worse than the sound; it was an expectant, heavy pressure.

“You want me to endure?” Raka laughed, a jagged, blood-flecked sound. “Okay. Let’s see what you’ve got, you bastard god.”

CRACK.

The second bolt didn’t wait for his defiance to settle. It slammed into his shoulder, dragging him back into the dirt. He felt the mana inside him—that pathetic, trickle-sized reserve—panicking, trying to flee the surge of raw energy.

“No!” Raka gritted his teeth, clawing at the stone. “Stay! If you’re going to burn me, at least be useful!”

[SYSTEM ALERT: VOLTAGE THRESHOLD EXCEEDED.]

[WARNING: INTERNAL VITALITY DEPLETING.]

“Shut up,” Raka wheezed. His vision tunneled. “I know… I know the vitality is dropping. Just tell me… how to… keep the heart beating.”

“Channel the discharge,” the god’s voice echoed in his mind, distant and cold. “The lightning is not just pain, boy. It is energy. If you resist it, it will shatter you. If you become the conduit, you might just survive.”

Raka focused on the ache in his chest. He visualized the lightning as a river. Instead of building a dam—which was what his terrified mind wanted to do—he forced his mana to open a channel, a thread-thin pathway through his meridians.

“Fine,” he whispered to the sky. “Flow through. Just… don’t stop my heart.”

The third, fourth, and fifth strikes came in rapid succession. Raka wasn't even standing anymore. He was a writhing shadow on the peak, twitching as white light traced paths across his skin, leaving glowing, spiderweb-like burns that pulsed with fading static.

“Ten down…” he gasped, his jaw vibrating. “Is that… it?”

He felt like his soul was being rubbed raw by a file. Every time the electricity hit, he forced that tiny, agonizing scrap of mana to wrap around his heart and lungs, creating a flickering barrier of resistance. It felt like holding back a landslide with a piece of parchment.

“Only ninety to go,” he muttered, shivering as the cold mountain air hit his sweat-drenched clothes. “Why did I agree to this? I could’ve just been a farmer. I could’ve been digging potatoes.”

[PROGRESS: 12/100]

“You’re really counting, aren’t you?” Raka spat, though he didn't know who he was talking to. “Maybe you’re just a masochist machine.”

The next strike hit, and he didn't even have the breath to scream. He just groaned, his forehead thumping against the stone.

“You okay down there, kid?” a voice suddenly cut through the hum of the static.

Raka’s eyes snapped open, though he couldn't turn his head. A pair of worn, muddy leather boots stepped into his limited field of vision. The person was cloaked in heavy, nondescript rags, smelling of stale dungeon air and cheap ale.

“Who… who are you?” Raka managed to stutter, his tongue feeling like a lead weight in his mouth.

“Just a traveler who noticed the sky was throwing a tantrum,” the figure said, squatting down. A face emerged from the shadows of a deep hood—a man with a scarred lip and eyes that looked like they had seen too many graves. “That’s a lot of lightning for one man, even a mage. You trying to commit suicide, or are you just spectacularly unlucky?”

“Training,” Raka whispered, trying to push himself up again. His hand slipped on a slick patch of his own sweat. “Go away. It’s… not safe.”

The man laughed, a dry, rasping sound. “Safe? Nothing is safe in the Sinks, friend. Especially not for a mage who looks like he’s been through a lightning rod’s worst day. How many have you taken?”

“Twenty,” Raka lied, his voice trembling. He had actually taken twenty-two, but he didn't want to admit he was counting.

“Twenty, huh?” The stranger reached out, his hand hovering over Raka’s scorched shoulder. “You’ve got a massive mana-draw, kid. I can see the residue leaking off your skin. It’s messy. You’re not grounding it correctly. You’re trying to block it.”

Raka froze. “What? You… you can see it?”

“I’ve seen a thing or two in my time,” the man said, leaning in closer. “If you keep blocking, the next strike is going to stop your heart for good. You need to let it ground through your extremities. Give the energy a path to leave the body, or it’ll just cook you from the inside out.”

“I’m… I’m trying,” Raka groaned as another bolt flickered in the distance, illuminating the stranger’s face with stark, violet light.

“Don’t try. Command,” the stranger whispered, his eyes flashing with a strange, intense light of their own. “Treat your own body like a circuit. If you don't lead the flow, the flow will lead you to the afterlife.”

Raka felt a sudden, sharp clarity pierce through the agony. He focused on his feet, on the contact points between his boots and the rock. He imagined the lightning as a guest, a violent, unwelcome guest he needed to escort out the door as quickly as possible.

“Like this?” Raka asked, his voice tighter, more controlled.

“Maybe,” the stranger said, standing up. “Keep at it. You’ve got a long way to go, and I have a feeling the sky isn’t done with you yet.”

Raka closed his eyes, ignoring the stranger, ignoring the pain, and focusing entirely on the buildup of static in the clouds. He waited for the next strike. He didn't build a shield this time. He built a road.

CRACK.

The lightning hit him—the thirty-first strike—but instead of seizing, Raka felt the energy tear through his chest, bypass his heart with a frantic, desperate effort of will, and slam directly into the rock beneath his feet. The stone cracked under the discharge, spiderwebbing outward.

Raka gasped, air rushing into his lungs for the first time in an hour. He didn't collapse. He stayed on his knees, panting, his skin smoking, but his mind strangely, terrifyingly clear.

“Better,” the stranger remarked, his voice fading as he walked away. “But you’re still amateur, kid. A lot better than dead, though.”

Raka didn't look up. He didn't care who the man was. He just kept counting.

Thirty-two. Thirty-three.

Each strike was a lesson in physics, a brutal education in power. By the forty-fifth strike, his mana reserves were completely bottomed out, but the system didn't stop. It began to drain his stamina, his very life force, to keep the process going.

Forty-eight. Forty-nine.

“One more,” Raka muttered, his voice barely a breath. His limbs were numb, his vision a blur of darkness and flickers of violet. “Just one… more…”

The fiftieth bolt descended. It wasn't just a strike; it was a hammer of heaven, a blinding, all-consuming spear of pure voltage. Raka didn't even have the strength to guide it. He braced himself, opening every pore of his spirit, welcoming the annihilation.

The impact hit with the force of a falling star. Raka felt his consciousness splinter. The sound of his own scream was drowned out by the roar of the atmosphere.

He didn't just hit the ground; he seemed to melt into it. The world flickered, the system notifications scrolling in his peripheral vision in a rapid, unintelligible blur.

[THRESHOLD REACHED: 50/100]

[CRITICAL DAMAGE DETECTED.]

[EMERGENCY HIBERNATION INITIATED.]

The darkness took him. But just before he lost the last shred of awareness, he felt the heavy thud of boots on the stone beside him, and a shadow loomed over his broken, twitching form.

“Fifty,” the stranger’s voice murmured, sounding closer now, dangerous and sharp. “He actually made it to fifty.”

Raka tried to open his eyes, to see who was watching him, but the void was too deep, and the silence of the plateau was absolute. He was a piece of meat

on a mountain, and for the first time in his life, he didn't know if he would wake up to see the sunrise.