Ascending With A Legendary Class Chapter 43: Precious Diamond

The Lightning General. That was Freya’s sister’s class — and with it ca a natural affinity for lightning that went well beyond casting spells.

The sky above the estate was responding to her like it already knew what she wanted.

Winston wasn’t planning to stand there and receive whatever was coming down from those clouds.

『Grey Charge』

He burned one soul into the spell and felt the power build but then he noticed it wasn’t quite hitting its usual peak.

That was expected. He’d used a partial draw from that soul to clear the paralysis earlier, leaving it at roughly ninety-five percent capacity.

Not enough difference to matter much, but noticeable. He swapped to a full soul without breaking stride and felt the output double properly.

The sky finished charging.

『Fuln’s Judgent』

The dark clouds ford a massive circular pattern directly overhead, the electrical charge visible even from the ground as it built toward a single point.

Then the bolt ca down fast and aid precisely where Winston was standing.

However he was already gone.

Grey Charge covered thirty ters in a blink and Winston closed the distance to Freya’s sister at full acceleration, the built-up kinetic force ready to discharge on contact.

But his senses spiked the next mont as ti slowed.

’Lightning doesn’t strike the sa place twice.’

That was the last thing Winston heard before she vanished in a spark.

The force from Grey Charge struck empty air. Behind him, the crater where the original bolt had landed began to spark — with the energy still stored in the ground. But before Winston could fully turn, lightning erupted from the crater in every direction simultaneously, multiple bolts tracking outward in a spread pattern, all of them aid at him.

One connected before he could fully clear the area. The impact hit him mid-step and pushed him airborne.

He used a partial life tithe while still in the air and the golden pulse cleared the damage before the remaining bolts arrived.

『Gaia’s Grasp』

Roots tore out of the ground in a dense network, rising between Winston and the incoming bolts.

Wood was an insulator so most of the lightning grounded through the roots instead of reaching him.

So still got through, and although they were enough to sting, they were not enough to stop him.

’I don’t have ti for this.’

He landed and imdiately pushed into another Grey Charge, putting distance between himself and the crater.

The roots struggled to keep up with the lightning as more bolts got through.

Freya’s sister was already repositioning — he could feel her moving through the electrical field she’d created across the compound, using the residual charges in the ground as her own sensor network.

More bolts ca. As Winston dodged the first two, took the third across the shoulder, and the explosion where he’d been standing blew a crater into the compound floor deep enough to see the layer beneath the stone.

The lightning wasn’t stopping. Rather, it was getting stronger.

Freya’s sister materialized at the edge of the smoke where Winston had taken the last hit, her expression reading the field with a calm focus.

"The spell scales,the longer it remains active" she said, mostly to herself. "The longer Fuln’s Judgent runs, the more powerful each subsequent strike becos."

She watched the smoke.

"So healing from the last one should have been considerably harder than the first."

The compound was a lightning death zone at this point — residual charges in the craters, active bolts still threading down from the clouds overhead, the electrical field she’d seeded through the ground tracking movent across the entire area.

Nothing was moving in the smoke. Nothing was coming out.

In the training ground doorway, Zelda had one arm around Freya, keeping her upright.

"Can you sense him?" Zelda’s voice had an edge she wasn’t fully hiding.

Freya’s nose was still working even if her eyes weren’t at full capacity. She focused. "He’s fine. I don’t sll blood, he must have hea—" She stopped.

Zelda looked at her.

"What?"

"I can’t sense him." Freya’s brow ca together. "He was there and then he just... Vanished."

On the roof of one of the estate buildings, Freya’s brother had been watching the whole exchange with his arms crossed and his sword still in hand.

His eyes narrowed at the sa mont Freya spoke.

’Where did he go?’

Back in the compound, Freya’s sister was already asking herself the sa question. Her lightning field gave her constant positional feedback — it had been tracking Winston reliably through every dodge and every crater.

Then, without transition, the signal had simply ceased. He had been there and then he wasn’t.

Her combat instincts — sharpened through years of high-level fights — fired all at once.

’He erased his presence.’

The ground cracked.

『Grey Charge』

A gust of wind erupted directly behind her. Her hair snapped backwards from the displaced air. Then everything went still.

The tip of the Black Dragonic Yari hovered between her eyes. Winston stood behind it, chest still bare, breathing sharp and controlled.

The dark vapor from the spearhead curled slowly in the space between the blade and her face.

He exhaled once.

"Satisfied?"

The compound held its silence for a long mont.

Freya’s brother hadn’t moved from his position on the rooftop. Freya was still upright only because Zelda was holding her.

The estate workers had collectively stopped breathing. Everyone was looking at the sa thing — a Paragon with a spear tip hovering between her eyes, held there by a fresh initiate who had just erased his presence from her own lightning field.

One of the workers couldn’t take the silence anymore.

"Did the young lady... lose?"

"That’s impossible." The worker beside him shook his head imdiately. "There’s no way she lost to soone half her—"

A cold glare ca from the direction of Freya’s sister. The worker who had spoken felt it land directly on him, went rigid, and swallowed audibly.

Freya’s sister held the look for exactly one second, then redirected her attention to Winston and pushed the spear tip down with two fingers.

"Yes. I’m satisfied."

Winston exhaled and lowered the Yari. "Good."

"You would make an excellent brother-in-law, by the way."

Winston opened his mouth to respond — then stopped.

"...Brother-in-law?"

"Of course." She tilted her head with complete sincerity.

"Isn’t that what the spar was for? So I could evaluate whether you’re a suitable match for my younger sister?"

Zelda looked at Freya. However Freya looked back with an expression of total bewildernt — she clearly had no idea this interpretation had been running in her sister’s head.

For reasons Zelda didn’t examine too closely, that was a significant relief.

Winston shook his head.

"No. I fought because you said you’d tell your na if I impressed you."

Elizabeth blinked.

"You could have just looked it up online."

"I—" Winston stopped himself.

That was completely true and he had no defense for it. He didn’t say that part out loud.

Elizabeth studied him for a mont. Then sothing new crossed her face.

"Or could it be that you prefer older won?"

On the rooftop, Freya’s brother slowly pressed his palm over his face.

Freya stared at her sister with the quiet exhaustion of soone who had been dealing with this their entire life.

"I don’t," Winston said flatly. "Unfortunately."

Elizabeth sighed.

"What a sha." She waved a hand and the lightning field across the compound dissolved instantly, the residual charges draining from the craters without fanfare as she turned and started walking away.

"The na is Elizabeth."

She glanced back once over her shoulder.

"I’ll be seeing more of you, my precious diamond."

Then she vanished in a spark of lightning, leaving a scorched outline where she’d been standing and Winston staring at empty air.

He stood there for a mont.

’What a strange woman.’