(IC) Chapter 339 - The Man Who Cut Lightning

“Wait—hold up, isn’t that…?”

“Yeah. Alonso, right? The Spanish guy? Damn, he looks cool in that fur coat.”

“Where even is this? Some kind of ancient city?”

“Looks like South American ruins. Aztec? Maya? Hard to tell.”

“Yeah, if the Mayas built pyramids out of black glass with floating stairs, sure.”

“…Wait. Are those people chained up? Holy shit—”

“Oh my god. That’s brutal…”

“At this point anything from The Tower gets tagged R18. Just keep your kids away from it.”

“And that’s a lot of… Xok’al, right? Wait—are all of those five-tailed?”

“Either we missed some massive update, or how the hell is he walking alone through that many?”

“They did kill that ice wyvern, remember?”

“That was the whole team though. Not sure how that helps here.”

“Something’s off… is he surrendering, or is this part of some deeper plan?”

“Better hope it’s the latter. If that guy’s giving up… then we’re all screwed.”

The world watched.

Some anxious. Some thrilled. Some pale with dread.

Millions of eyes fixed on the visuals as they unfolded across every screen, stream, and feed.

They gasped when he stopped. When his blades severed the chains on one of the captives hanging from the obsidian pillars. Only then realising—the prisoner was still alive.

“He killed two of them… just like that?”

“Why aren’t they fighting back?”

“Are they… afraid of him? That can’t be right, can it?”

“Maybe they’re commanded not to. Remember, they’re a swarm species.”

“…Let’s just watch and see.”

This broadcast was different. The pacing slower, almost deliberate. The camera lingered long enough for people to process, to talk, to speculate. It gave time for families to gather around TVs, for office workers to pause and stream, for friends to drop everything and pile onto group calls, screens shared, chats exploding.

And like that—hundreds of millions tuned in. The counter rolled past a billion.

All eyes fixed on a lone figure climbing the alien pyramid, his silhouette etched against the breaking dawn.

“Holy shit…”

“The Xok’al king?”

“More like the emperor. What the hell’s going on? Why is Alonso walking up there alone?”

“Maybe the others from Gen-1 died? Maybe he’s the last one standing?”

“Were you born yesterday? If they were dead, we’d know.”

“What if ASCENT’s covering it up—”

“Please. Just shut the fuck up.”

The voices faltered.

They watched as Alonso stood before the towering creature. Words were exchanged—at least, it looked that way—but the language was alien, unintelligible, the commentators confirming as much.

The fight began.

Silence deepened. Gasps tore through living rooms and bars. Drinks spilled. Phones slipped from hands. Jaws locked open.

The scale had changed. The pace had changed.

This wasn’t the Alonso they knew—the one they had watched less than two weeks ago.

The clash felt unreal, like exaggerated CGI, yet even in slow motion it looked impossible. Lightning and fissures lit every movement, a battle unfolding in microseconds according to real time analysis.

But as it went on, they saw Alonso driven back. Wounded.

They saw him stumble to the edge of the pyramid, the city yawning beneath his heels.

Gasps turned to prayers.

And then—

They saw it.

His image bent. Distorted. Reality itself seemed to warp around him. Reflections split and lingered, obscuring his form. He stepped among them as if untouchable, his blade carving through sparks like severed threads.

The voices died.

No one spoke after that.

No words came. Only silence.

They saw the tide turn. Even as the Xok’al emperor, six tails and staffs thrashing, hurled its spheres in a storm of force—it wasn’t enough.

They saw the young man, younger than most who watched him, drive forward. Bitterness in every wound, fire in his eyes, the relentless confidence of someone who would not accept defeat.

The emperor faltered. First its arm, then its leg—each blow carving deeper into inevitability.

The crowd saw it recoil, then burst upward in a cover of sparks and smoke, retreating into the skies.

The feed widened.

They saw Wang—his form a blur, soaring above, severing Wardens mid-flight. The commentators named him instantly. At home, his mother tried to shield her daughter’s eyes, but the girl had already seen. “Brother is flying!” she cried, and the woman’s sternness cracked into pride.

They saw Imani descend like a meteor, his weapon dragging foes as if the earth itself obeyed his will. Whole clusters fell with a single strike. In his village, his wife watched—worry etched faintly across her brow, but pride glowing brighter, until a quiet smile broke through.

And then—

The view snapped back to Alonso.

At the pyramid’s crown, he rose skyward.

Two blades in his hands. Nothing else.

The world saw it.

A moment that would one day be marked as the beginning. The moment everything changed. When the world’s idea of what a Climber was shattered—and reformed.

The sky cracked. His form seemed to multiply—dozens, hundreds of afterimages, each one a phantom blade carving into the heavens. Shards of light scattered across the firmament, as if the sky itself had been shattered like glass.

And when the storm finally broke, when the lightning bent and split, when silence swallowed the world—

The pieces of the sky fell back together.

And from above, the headless corpse of the Xok’al emperor plummeted, thunder trailing its fall.

Only one figure remained.

Alonso. Floating. Swords in hand. The rising sun at his back, as though the day itself had chosen to anoint him. Light spilled across the crown of the pyramid, and in that brilliance, one man stood against the heavens.

The reactions came like aftershocks as headlines blazed across every media in the moments that followed.

The Man Who Cut Lightning

From Student to God-Slayer

POV: You Just Parried the Sky

Can You Speedrun Divinity?

Breaking News: Heaven Loses

The Tower: a Path to the Divine

One thing would be agreed upon in the years that followed, when they looked back upon that day: it was then that humanity began to truly grasp what The Tower entailed—and what it meant… to be a Climber.

Alonso hovered in the sky, chest heaving, lungs burning. The storm was gone—only silence remained, the silence after survival, after victory.

Relief cut through him, sharp and raw, tangled with a pride he finally allowed himself to feel. His lips curved, a small, weary smile rising as dawn broke across the horizon.

He had done it.

Against such a powerful existence, he had stood. And he had won.

The path to this moment had been carved step by step, wound by wound. Months of hell—tearing himself apart only to rise again, again, and again. Every wound, every drop of blood, every battle survived had carried him here.

Not long ago he had been just a student, fumbling through lectures and research. And now—he floated above a shattered pyramid, dawn blazing at his back, his blades still thrumming with the storm he had severed.

But even in victory, the weight in his chest whispered the truth. The road stretched further. Every triumph only opened the door to a harsher trial. The climb had no end but the one he would carve with his own hands.

And he will keep going. Always forward. Always higher.

He steadied his breath as he began his descent, eyes locked on the severed skull tumbling below. But as he reached for it, the air shifted—the head crumbled to dust, scattered on the wind. The corpse followed, breaking apart piece by piece. The staffs, the spheres, the tails—everything dissolved, vanishing as though it had never been.

In their place, a single red orb emerged. It flickered in the air, pulsing like a heartbeat against the morning light.

Alonso barely had time to react before it moved.

The orb shot forward—and sank into his chest, smooth and seamless, as if it belonged there.

Stage 1 – 24.445% ➤ 26.445%

But the surge of Stage Progress was only the beginning. Two wisps of light unfurled, binding themselves to his flesh.

The first curled around his left wrist, liquid shadow flowing like ink in water. It solidified into a wristguard—smooth, black, elegant, its surface shifting with faint ripples of darkness. Six tails etched across it, glimmering faintly as if woven from the very storms the Overseer had commanded.

The second flared at his right shoulder, searing across skin where the Wyvern’s mark still lingered faint and cold in its pale-blue glow. It formed into a singular shoulder guard, dark gold and burnished, spreading in a serpentine curve. An emblem emerged—the rising sun entwined with a feathered serpent, echo of the Empress’ staff itself.

Tempest Vow

• Physical aptitude +2%

• Pillar aptitude +2%

Serpent’s Gift

• Physical aptitude +2%

• Pillar aptitude +2%

Alonso felt renewed force and clarity course through his body. The world brightened a shade, his senses breaking free, stretching further, feeling beyond old limits—like shackles snapping he hadn’t known were there.

More boost-granting items? Yet these felt different from the Wyvern’s Mark. Not mere ornaments. He could sense the high conductive response in both, attuned solely to him—as if tied directly to the Pillar itself. Their durability, too, surpassed even his current Warden-grade blades.

The equipment bore an eerie resemblance to the staffs, making him wonder if only one truly came from the Overseer while the other had belonged to the Ajnal Empress herself. Perhaps all Emperor-tier beings in this stage granted such items?

He studied the three pieces now bound to him. He looked—if he was honest—pretty cool. More than that, the combined effect granted a +6% aptitude boost in both Pillar and Body. A sharp, undeniable enhancement, stacking with everything else in a multiplicative surge of power.

And then there was the red orb. The first time a creature had given one instead of seven. Was it because he’d faced it alone—or because there were seven Overseers in total? Likely the latter. Less reward for more effort didn’t fit The Tower’s design so far.

He let the thoughts fade with a slow exhale.

Below, Imani and the others had finished the last of the Xok’al. And now, hundreds of thousands of Ajnal stared up at him—deep reverence burning in their eyes.

Alonso sighed inwardly.

What to do with them?

Old plans—discussions with Lukas about rallying the Ajnal, forging them into an army to drive the Xok’al out—now felt… pointless.

This fight had made the difference painfully clear, and the rewards had only widened it.

He alone could bring down an Overseer, now almost without strain, while the lesser Xok’al had become little more than obstacles beneath his blades.

The Fusion State had granted more than he ever expected, and both his skills had finally broken through the stubborn 14% barrier that had plagued No-Strike.

Path of Shards – 17.224%

No-Strike – 14.751%

Stacked on top of everything else—and honed by a style that seemed built to tear through their kind—he had become something the Xok’al simply couldn’t answer. For them, put plainly… he was a nightmare matchup.

So what worth did the Ajnal have? Was cannon fodder even necessary anymore?

Even General Noh… could hardly bring down a single Warden, a creature that now posed no threat to him at all.

After a heavy exhale he slowly let gravity carry him toward the fractured crown of the Sun Pyramid. He stepped onto the broken edge, every eye fixed on him, every breath stilled as silence spread like fire through the city.

Then, all at once, a reaction swept the crowd.

Elders and children, warriors and mothers, scarred veterans and trembling recruits—every single one of them fell to their knees, foreheads pressed to stone. One phrase rolled from countless lips, rising as if the wind itself spoke with them.

“K’in Ajnaal.”

The sight twisted his gut. Well…

Hell with it, we’d be leaving soon anyway. Best to cut it short.

“Noh. I’m leaving to fight the rest of the Xok’al. Help settle the Ajnal. From this moment onwards, you are their Emperor.”

He offered no more. Leaving Noh dumbfounded and the Ajnal still kneeling, Alonso gave a knowing nod to Imani and Wang—then together, they vanished from Ka’tumal.