The lightning surrounding the metal fragment starts to wane as it's essentially cut off from the fragment, as my flesh is in the way.

  Unfortunately for the [Lightning Maiden], she was the lightning surrounding the metal fragment.

  The mind-blowing pain stretched over the perceived infinite time was most likely not suffered by me alone, because for a moment, her screams sounded the same as mine.

  But this perceived hell wasn't my life anymore.

  The energy inside the divine weapon fragment might have been rampaging along my nervous system, but my clenched fist was suffocating the maiden.

  The elemental either has the fragment as a power source/core, or the silhouette of lightning happens to be the manifestation of the energy.

  Regardless, the hail marry attempt from the elemental to blast me to death with her attacks failed.

  She attacked my eyes, burning them in my skull. The lightning from her final attack blew my tongue up in something resembling an over-microwaved hot dog.

  The weirdest thing was, it didn’t hurt more than the wind on my skin or the rubbing of my clothes.

  What little energy she had left was gone. It was trapped in my fist and coursing through me already.

  Her ‘hands’ pushed at my face and chest to try and make room between us, but it didn't help.

  At the same moment when my eyes regenerated enough for me to barely see again, the super sensitivity I endured stopped.

  The feeling of wriggling flesh in my mouth as my tongue regenerated kept me from saying anything, but that didn't stop my mind.

  ‘What the actual fuck.’

  The other maiden, who Flash Gordon ripped straight through, was nowhere to be seen. Duchess is also not on my shoulders anymore.

  Hell, I wasn't in the sky anymore.

  I couldn't focus on giving my boots the small amount of mana they needed to function, so I fell out of the sky, dragging the elemental with me.

  My blunt force resistance is so high that I didn't take damage from falling, even though I barely registered it.

  Now that I think about it, I recall a massive crushing sensation during my hyper-sensitive moment… but it wasn't a constant thing… so I guess that was the moment I hit the ground?

  The island I'm on is absolutely devastating. No vegetation that isn't on fire remains. Half of it is missing, and the other half is full of craters. The local fauna, which, to my understanding, is just elemental creatures, is no more.

  I look to the sky, and the same clouds are still there above me. Is Duchess still fighting? How will I get up there?

  Before I could worry anymore, her voice entered my mind.

  [Master, are you finished flaunting your health? Thisss one finished off the remaining Lightning Maiden. It could not dodge thisss one's spells while stunned.]

  I bite my tongue... it feels reformed enough for me to speak. I say, “Why the fuck did I decide to grab this?”

  The shard is still in my hand, but it slowly floats out of it as Duchess flies into my view and wraps herself around my shoulders. Next to her is the other shard.

  I whistle and summon Flash Gordon back, so I don't have to go diving into the ocean to find him.

  As soon as he appears, I give him a kiss to show my gratitude for clutching up at the final moment, even though I directed everything.

  A bloody lip print is left on his body.

  I tentatively touch my face and find blood, both fresh and cooked, covering my mouth and running down my face from my eyes.

  “Tell me the truth, Duchess. Do I look like a-”

  [Clown that gets electrocuted for fun? Yes, you do.]

  “I was going to say something else, but that answers that.”

  I know my system window is going to be absolutely full of updates, and I can't be bothered to sift through all that information right now.

  But I have to…

  First, I check the last notification from my resistance going up.

  [Resistance: Lightning 1999 (1999)]

  Huh.

  I already broke through one bottleneck in the fight, and here I am sitting at another one. Maybe I should've prolonged the fight.

  The other divine shard catches my eye. Before I could even consider touching it to break through the next bottleneck, Duchess moves it just out of my grasp with her telekinesis.

  [Tsk tsk.]

  “I wasn't going to. At least, I would've convinced myself not to.”

  [Thisss one has no comment.]

  Anyways… It sucks that [Iron Hide] doesn't surpass the capstone anyway. Whelp, once I do break through, it will jump up quite a bit.

  Khan is simply floating around, his many bodies swimming through the air around me. He seems full and content.

  I'm slightly worried that he might have stomach problems or indigestion if he ate a divine weapon fragment, but it was in the sand.

  It seems like he was smart enough to not touch the damn thing. I'm out here being one-upped by sharks…

  The next thing I check is his evolution requirements.

  [Evolution to Raging Tempest A

  Consume rank A or higher elementals alive (5/5). ?

  Defeat a shark-type creature, at least B rank or higher (300/300). ?

  Baptize in lightning... again (Completed).

  Rank [Man Eater] to A rank (D/A). ?

  Amid significant manufactured chaos and destruction, terrorizing the environment, violently consume yourself until one body remains (0/299).]

  Damn. Well, if we grinded out the skill beforehand, I assume we could have Khan evolve right now.

  The crashing of waves and the sea breeze sound clearer in my mind. The seven stirring energies inside me feel more vibrant.

  Hey, last time I fought these things, I got the [Baptized by Lightning] title.

  It's a D-rank title that gave me a total of 20 stat points, ten in both my perception and spirit.

  I scour through the system alerts until I see what I am looking for.

  [Baptized by Lightning D > Baptized by Divine Lightning A

  Lightning has coursed through you, purging impurities left and right. The Divine nature of the lightning has increased the effects.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  +25% Spirit

  +25% Perception

  +25% Attunement

  +25% Agility]

  Huh. I pull up my stats to see the changes.

  Spirit grew by 256 (-10) points, Perception grew by 75, Attunement grew by 25, and Agility grew by 250 (-10) points! Should I spend the 200 points to balance my Might and Agility? It doesn't matter too much as I could do it anytime, including in battle.

  So… A rank titles do indeed translate static stats into percentiles… but I imagine that if I had a B-rank title, it would unironically give me more points in Attunement and/or Perception.

  “Duchess. My title now has the word ‘Divine’ in it. Do I look more godly?”

  [...]

  “Ah, right. Electrocuted clown. My bad.”

  I skim the rest of the notifications. Things like the damage numbers are ignored. Although I could probably use this data to learn more about what works and what doesn’t, since nothing is labeled, I’d rather use my memory of the fight instead.

  [Resistance: Divine 0 > 1]

  "…"

  Does that mean I’m more likely to fall into damnation? Since I resist the divine? Duchess can use the Holy element… Is that the same thing? “Please use a spell on me with holy damage.”

  Instantly, she obliged. I’m suddenly shot with a beam attack I had no resistance to.

  [Resistance: Holy 0 > 1]

  Holy didn’t really do ‘damage’ to me. It felt warm and vibrant, as if it fed into my lifeforce. Not in a healing way necessarily, but in the exact opposite way, Necrotic would gnaw away at me. I guess if the spell wasn’t completely created to maximize damage, I would’ve gotten a heal or a buff.

  Still, a concentrated beam of it hitting my body did sting a little. After the initial feeling, I immediately felt nauseous. The feeling was reminiscent of having too much lifeforce for my body, something I’m well acquainted with.

  Then I realized the reason it didn’t feel like it damaged me was because of my high health pool, not because of some innate spiritual harmony with the attribute of positive energy. It still took my health away, but I’m so desensitized to pain that I mostly felt the subtle feeling of positivity.

  I mean, thinking about it retrospectively, Necrotic damage did hurt more than usual.

  Okay. Now I’m really concerned and curious about what Divine resistance is. And how do I grow it?

  It seems like Holy is affected by my [Iron Hide] martial skill, meaning that holy damage affects my body. That makes sense. Life force and body are closely related. Also, it’s not like my soul was exposed to the attack. My body is supposed to protect that thing, right?

  Hypothetically, if I were a banshee for some reason, I’d imagine my resistance to spiritual attacks would be the main thing I’d have to resist banishments or exorcisms, right?

  Or would the two resistances band together?

  Hmm… I don’t want my soul to be hurt, but I could experiment with some soul fire and see if the two resistances collaborate. It’s called [Spirit Fire] and both Prometheus and Rob should have access to it.

  Tangent aside, I should return to the capital before my enemies find out I snuck out and send an elite squad to kill me or something.

  I was willing to let Khan eat his way through the ocean until we reached the shore, but I don’t think the ecology can handle him. He is the ultimate invasive species, I mean, he came from a bubble in the place Gods traverse through.

  Well, I don’t know if more than one god walks through that inky black place, but I know at least one does.

  And… that specific goddess is probably going to be interested in these three fragments. I did get a mansion the last time I handed one over… but then again, these seem to be higher quality.

  Actually, didn’t she mention something about individuals hunting these fragments down? I toss the shards into my mansion along with Flash Gordon so he can watch over them before mounting one of my tamed beasts.

  Since Khan has a special skill to cut through wind resistance and his general “body stats” are higher, I let him take me back to my second home.