Cursed Technique: Storm Deity (嵐神 – Ranshin)

Storm Deity (嵐神 – Ranshin)

An apex special grade cursed technique that invokes the almighty and unrelenting power of the planet's mightiest storms. Storm Deity’s neutral aspect governs the manipulation of two complementary elemental aspects, Wind and Thunder, as well as divides their total output between the user and two direwolf shikigami, while its amplification synthesizes the two aspects and channels them on a greater scale through an innately linked cursed tool.

The Storm Deity technique belongs to a mysterious curse user known as Rangetsu Gendō (嵐月 玄道; らんげつ げんどう), about whom little is known aside from that he bears the appearance of a late-40's man of athletic build wearing a black and brown duster, medium-length slicked-back white hair, standing approximately 6' tall with a golden-yellow left eye and a jagged scar running vertically over his closed right eye; additionally, it is known that he is the bearer of a mysterious cursed object known as the Well of Mímir, a stone amulet crudely engraved with the image of a well underneath a great tree root, which is rumored to grant its wearer primordial wisdom and divinatory insight. Whether the totality of Rangetsu’s extraordinary combat intellect and profound understanding of the natural world and its history originate from the amulet, as well as the true nature and scope of its power, remains unknown.

Neutral: Surge (奔流 – Honryū)

Storm Deity’s cursed energy is blue and yellow and possesses two complementary elemental expressions: Wind and Thunder. Wind governs atmospheric pressure, propulsion, repulsion, and aerial mobility, while Thunder governs electrical discharge, explosive impact, sensory disruption, and sudden acceleration. Through Surge, the user may summon two large, snow-white direwolf shikigami named Freki and Geri. Each direwolf serves as an external conduit for one of Storm Deity’s elemental aspects and may independently channel selected extensions belonging to that respective aspect.

While both shikigami are summoned, Freki receives 50% of Wind’s maximum output and Geri receives 50% of Thunder’s maximum output while the user retains the remaining 50% of each aspect; thus, Storm Deity’s total elemental output does not increase when the wolves are summoned, it is instead divided among three coordinated combatants. If only one wolf is dismissed, the output entrusted to that wolf returns to the user, restoring the corresponding elemental aspect to full capacity while the other remains divided. If both wolves are dismissed, the user regains 100% access to Wind and Thunder.

Storm Deity also allows the user to manifest an innately linked cursed tool known as Gungnir, a broad-bladed spectral swordspear approximately equal to the user’s height. In its base state, the spectral weapon betrays an opaque golden radiance which conceals its true appearance and may be freely materialized and dematerialized according to the user’s will, but may remain manifested for no more than ten consecutive seconds. Once dematerialized, Gungnir cannot be manifested again for approximately thirty seconds.

Extension: Gale-Force Flux (烈風流転 – Reppū Ruten)

The user channels Surge's Wind aspect in order to perform one of three alternate tactical variants:

• Resounding Cyclone (轟旋風 – Gōsenpū): Wind is focused within the palm of their hand to gather and form a small, torrential sphere of compressed air before unleashing it as an explosive blast of gale-force wind which violently repulses everything caught in its path.
• Storm-Wind Veil (嵐風幕 – Ranfūmaku): Wind is channeled around the user's body to gather and expand a pulse of gale-force wind in order to repulse opponents and incoming attacks and projectiles
• Deft Squall (巧疾風 – Kōshippū): Wind is channeled throughout the user's body to generate controlled lift and directional thrust, allowing them to leap, dash, and change direction across great distances while reducing the force of falls.

When Gale-Force Flux is channeled by Freki, who serves as the external conduit for Storm Deity's Wind aspect, his agility is dramatically enhanced through Deft Squall while Resounding Cyclone is expressed through a charged, bellowing howl and bears the same characteristics as the version channeled by the user. Freki is unable to channel Storm-Wind Veil

Extension: Fulminating Current (雷電奔流 – Raiden Honryū)

The user focuses Surge's Thunder aspect in order to perform one of three alternate tactical variants:

• Descending Wrath (降天怒 – Kōtennu): Thunder is focused and unleashed through a melee strike in order to reinforce it with lightning damage as well as emit an explosive kinetic shockwave on impact which greatly magnifies the strike's impact force.
• Roaring Thunderclap (轟雷鳴 – Gōraimei): Thunder is concentrated around the user's body to emit a very bright flash of light and thunderous sound in order to disorient the senses of opponents
• Thunderbolt Blitz (迅雷突撃 – Jinrai Totsugeki): Thunder is channeled throughout the user's body to grant short bursts of high-speed directional movement

When Fulminating Current is channeled by Geri, who serves as the external conduit for Storm Deity's Thunder aspect, his directional movement speed becomes dramatically enhanced through Thunderbolt Blitz while Descending Wrath is expressed through a full-power, charging shoulder bash. Geri is unable to channel Roaring Thunderclap.

Amplification: Tempest (嵐 – Arashi)

The Storm Deity technique's amplification requires the user to first dismiss the direwolf shikigami Freki and Geri in order to be activated. Upon activation, Tempest restores the user's maximum accessible output of both the Wind and Thunder aspects of Storm Deity to 100% and causes the cursed tool Gungnir to fully awaken, allowing it to not only be manifested indefinitely but also serve as an external conduit of the Storm Deity technique and channel both elemental aspects simultaneously. Tempest also grants the ability for the wielder to levitate and maneuver freely a short distance above the ground.

While Tempest is active, Gungnir assumes its true corporeal form with its typical opaque golden glow fading to reveal its true appearance: a broad, tarnished silver blade engraved with strange runes along its central axis with twin howling wolf motifs engraved on both sides of the blade's base mounted at the end of a worn, black leather-wrapped, metal studded haft.

Extension: Northern Tempest, Torrential Sky

(北嵐・滔天 – Hokuran: Tōten)

The user releases enormous blade-shaped projectiles of compressed, electrified storm wind from Gungnir. At maximum output, these projectiles possess an effective range of approximately 200 meters and inflict both violent cutting damage and tremendous repulsive force.

Extension: Southern Tempest, Shattered Heaven (南嵐・砕天 – Nanran: Saiten)

The user hurls Gungnir as a spear at velocities of up to approximately 150 meters per second. Wind guides the thrown spear's trajectory while Thunder infuses it with explosive, thunderous energy trajectory, with both being released as an omnidirectional gale of electrified storm wind upon impact and violently repulsing everything within the affected area. Immediately following the technique's impact, Gungnir dematerializes and reforms back into the user’s hand.

Extension: Eastern Tempest, World-Serpent Divergence (東嵐・世界蛇斬 – Tōran: Sekaija Zan)

The user may energetically extend the length of Gungnir's blade through a crude manifestation of electrified cursed energy, reaching approximately 50 meters in length at maximum output.

Additionally, if the physical blade makes direct impact onto a target while active, Eastern Tempest, Diverging World-Serpent causes Gungnir to generate an immensely powerful kinetic shockwave which serves to dramatically augment the attack's impact force as well as violently repulse back other nearby foes and objects.

Extension: Western Tempest, Ruinous Divine Wind (西嵐・破滅神風 – Seiran: Hametsu Shinpū)

The user spins Gungnir overhead to generate a towering, raging cyclone of electrified storm air. Once stabilized, the cyclone is discharged along a chosen path and advances across the battlefield, drawing unsecured objects into its rotating winds and continuously electrocuting targets caught within it.

At maximum output, the cyclone may reach approximately thirty meters in height and persist for up to 33 seconds. The user may gradually influence its trajectory after release, but cannot stop or redirect it abruptly. Up to three cyclones can be active at a time

Maximum: Ragnarok (神々の黄昏 – Kamigami no Tasogare)

At its maximum level of expression, the Storm Deity technique renders the user the living personification of storm itself. While active, Ragnarok allows the user to re-summon the direwolf shikigami Freki and Geri while also maintaining their original output and the maximum output of Tempest, as well as the indefinite manifestation of the innately linked cursed tool Gungnir.

Ragnarok additionally provides the user with the following abilities and effects:

• Grants levitation and flight at speeds of up to 100 km/h.
• Permits rapid and drastic changes in mid-air directional velocity while minimizing the inertial stress experienced by the user.
• Allows Fulminating Current: Thunderbolt Blitz to increase the user’s flight speed to approximately 300 km/h for brief intervals.
• Allows Gale-Force Flux: Storm-Wind Veil to remain continuously active, repelling objects and attacks entering a three-meter radius when its output is sufficient to overcome them.
• Allows Freki and Geri to channel both the Wind and Thunder aspects through Ragnarok’s shared elemental circuit.
• Increases the maximum output of Tempest and all its extensions to 120% of their ordinary limits.

Ragnarok consumes cursed energy at an extraordinary rate and places severe strain upon the user’s body, temporarily reducing their effective output to 50% upon the technique's dismissal; additionally, Gungnir returns to its base spectral form and Freki and Geri are dismissed and unable to be re-summoned again for a time.

Domain Expansion: Eye of the World-Storm (世界嵐眼 – Sekai Rangan)

The user thrusts Gungnir into the ground before them to expand Eye of the World-Storm, an extraordinarily refined open Domain possessing an immense effective area and extraordinarily lengthy duration. Through a Binding Vow, the Domain relinquishes its sure-hit effect entirely, and in exchange manifests a vast supernatural storm across a diameter of approximately 1,000 meters around a fixed center for up to a staggering 31 minutes.

Violent bellowing winds and tornados perpetually circulate throughout the Domain, tearing loose debris from the environment and hurling it unpredictably throughout the battlefield, while lightning repeatedly descends from the storm system overhead to strike the ground below indiscriminately. As these phenomena are not sure-hit attacks, opponents may evade, intercept, withstand, or otherwise defend against them through ordinary means.

While the user is not automatically immune to the Domain’s environmental hazards, the Storm Deity technique grants a sort of natural awareness necessary to navigate the storm far more effectively than other individuals. Because the Domain is open, opponents may escape by leaving its effective radius, although its violent headwinds, airborne debris, and repeated lightning strikes make doing so extremely difficult.