Chapter 456: Shippūga
The world was fire. A blinding white-hot burst of raw destruction, a tidal wave of heat so intense it turned the very air into something thick and suffocating. Kazi gritted his teeth, throwing his arms forward in a desperate attempt to shield himself and everything behind. The Children of Athena, t-the people on the west coast, everything!
The prompted barrier shattered like delicate glass, and for a moment, he felt weightless, consumed by the force of the detonation.
Pain. Heat. Roaring flames licking at his skin, mana flaring desperately to keep him from incinerating where he stood.
But then—
A massive gust of wind, unnatural and forceful, swept through and kept him afloat. Kazi barely registered the sensation of being pushed from an opposite force and the ensuing steadiness. The explosion’s force diverted, the searing flames now racing away from him rather than swallowing him whole. He landed hard, his knee slamming on a platform of yellow mana right on top of the surface of the lake. The platform of pure mana was all that was stopping him from plunging into the boiling waters. He gasped, sweat pouring down his face as he looked back.
There, standing on the distant shoreline of the Lake Shinji West Bank Shoreline Park, was a blonde. The wind swirled around the blonde in a wild vortex. And on her face—
A mask. A terrifying, grinning green and black mask of Fujin, the god of wind and storms. In her right hand, she held a crimson fan, its edges glowing as though they had been dipped in molten gold.
The fire was still raging, curling into monstrous tendrils that threatened to reignite and spread again. Kazi could see it—the disaster wasn’t over. But the masked woman...
She raised the fan. Then she swung.
"Shippūga!"
A single, cutting arc of wind surged forward, roaring across the water with impossible speed. Kazi’s eyes widened. Despite the sheer distance—two whole kilometers—he could feel the force, see the way the lake’s surface twisted and danced in response. The fire twisted too, swirling like a serpent caught in a maelstrom.